By the end of 2021, 80-81 local films will have been released in the Philippines, either in cinemas (like the mysterious and enticing Ilocano Defenders: War on Rape), on streaming platforms (any one of Vivamax's 69 offerings), or in alternate forms (I'm counting Erik Matti's On The Job: The Missing 8 since it debuted in film form somewhere in the world.)
As of writing, I've watched 52 of these 81 films. Certain films are no longer available (even illegally), or have suffered the first day last day curse in cinemas, which started opening up early last month. Sorry Ilocano Defenders, I can't watch your film anymore pero ano ba ang tunay na layunin ng Ilocano Defenders ano ba ang Ilocano Defenders nasaan na ang Ilocano Defenders why is Ilocano Defenders.
I intend to complete as much as I can before the end of the year; luckily I've watched a few films before they disappeared completely, including Lemuel Fangonon's faith-based indigenous-ish romance-ish film Deeply in Love, whose Youtube channel suddenly disappered a few days ago.
Here are some reviews (originally on Letterboxd, expanded here) of my journey towards 79/81. Enjoy watching my mental state unravel.
Joven Tan kinda disappeared during 2020, his last film being the biopic Suarez the Healing Priest, apparently made before the pandemic started. He returns to the movie scene doing arguably what he does best - lowbrow, cheap comedies.
One of the biggest casualties of the COVID pandemic is the comedy bar scene, and I guess I don't mind that Joven Tan gave our local comedians something to do. And by something, I mean nothing: in this cheaply produced film which consists of several comedy skits stitched together to create a rough narrative, nothing of consequence really happens. There are some dramatic arcs (or should I say one or two) that are okay, but overall disjointed from the rest of the film.
Like most of Tan's other films, the meaning is relatively hard to parse, but basically there's something in there about how government officials should take responsibility and properly care for their constituents. The thing is, it's hard to take seriously sometimes considering what happens during the rest of the film. In one scene, the Barrio Captain (Gardo Versoza) lectures a bunch of quarantine violators about the importance of health and safety protocols... while not properly wearing a mask. It's done for filmmaking purposes (to see his face properly, Versoza NEVER wears his mask properly during the entire film) but it comes off as a bit inconsistent.
That all said, there were some funny parts, and I'm stealing some of those jokes, so while it's amateurish at best, it isn't unentertaining if you're okay with slipshod filmmaking.
So it's like fucking 4am and I'm just gonna ramble here and I'm going to tie this with my review of Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Memoria. Yes, I'm not kidding.
Like I said in that review, in the nineties, my cousins and I played around with a tape recorder, where we recorded various things and used the recorder to do a number of activities. One such activity was to create our own radio drama. This untitled drama series was about Sugar Jones, an ordinary person whose family would invariably get brutally gunned down and killed by a man named McBane (whose only line of dialogue was "McBane!") in every episode. During the death and mourning scene, we'd use the music of the 1991 Sharon Cuneta Album, Sharon Sings Valera as the background music in the most overwrought, dramatic fashion. We would repeat this exact formula several times, with Sugar Jones managing to find love again, and raise a family again, only to lose it all to a gun toting maniac.
No one has known loss more than Sugar Jones.
Listening to Sugar wail in despair over their lost loved ones to the tune of songs like Sharon's Sorry Na, Puede Ba, whose lyrics have nothing to do with what is happening, is unintentionally hilarious looking back. It is silly, tripey schlock that only a couple of fourth graders would think of. Or at least that's what I thought.
This Mel Magno film is exactly like that. Magno, himself dabbling in both the film and music industries as a director and composer, fills this movie with an album's worth of songs, often playing in the weirdest times (and sometimes back to back!) as characters get, you know, like reaaaaallly sad huhu. There are so many songs that sometimes the whole affair feels like a musical (I'd even bet that it has more songs than your typical hollywood musical adaptation). It's okay for a scene or two, but it gets pretty repetitive after two hours. Other than that, it's a stupendous film of unintentional hilarity. The mind boggles at the fact. I've never been so jubilant watching a film this year.
Gene is... running away from his homophobic soldier dad. He manages to run very far, which is quite impressive tbh. He comes across Mark, a pedicab driver who he bonds with almost immediately. A tragic romance begins.
"Para akong naglalakad na tae!" says one person in this film. Poop seems to be a sort of hidden cinematic motif, as the two lovers (JR Versales and Keann Johnson, both of whom have starred in far better films) meet each other and bond through farts and a rather painful looking bowel movement, as if JR Versales was trying to shit out a bowling ball from his ass. But why should I complain, one of the characters in the film muses, "bakit, mabango ba ang tae mo?" No, in fact the poop poop in my butt butt is stinkiest when I eat the new and delicious Jollibee Chick'nwich!!! available solo at 130 pesos and at 175 with fries and drink. It's a fucking steal.
The two bond (really quickly, it seems - like after five minutes you'd swear the two were married) and are assailed with a number of problems, including an obsessive (?) girlfriend with a dying son whose heart disease subplot disappears after one mention. Despite the lapses in continuity, there are some moments where the film is particularly anal (no pun intended) about it: during a scene where the two leads are bathing, they both relate their life stories to each other and try to resolve every dangling plot point, including an unpaid debt to an eatery.
Eventually, our protagonist's homophobic dad catches up to the couple and reveals why he's so angry, and although the dude is categorically a horrible person, he does have a point that you shouldn't record yourself doing the horizontal mambo 'cause that shit gets out and people are horny as heck.
Anyway this review is getting more unhinged by the minute but it's fun! It's cringe! In terms of tone it's exactly like the radio dramas my cousins and I made in like 1992, and if that's appealing to you, then ride that horse to the prairie then! or whatever you people say these days
Despite what you think about him as a person, Darryl Yap is the most prolific Filipino director of the year, releasing ten films in 2021, all released in Vivamax's streaming service. It's arguable how many of those films are actually any good (in my opinion, that number is one, though that is a minority opinion, as the consensus is zero) but hey, props for trying and these movies have their audience.
One film in particular is a sequel to a film also released this year: Pornstar 2, Pangalawang Putok, the sequel to Paglaki Ko, Gusto Kong Maging Pornstar. Let that sink in. For this sequel, Darryl Yap seems to have doubled down on the idea that Filipino sexy films are porn, even though arguably only the pene films of the eighties technically qualify, and everything else (even this film) is softcore.
This film continues shortly after the first film, after the failure of our four legendary sexy actresses to launch the career of a new sexy starlet. This time (set to a lateral panning shot of boobs and with the help of sexy actress Lara Morena), we get not one, not two, but FOUR new starlets to launch, maybe even as a new Viva Hot Babes.
Unfortunately, this sequel has the same share of weaknesses as the first film: it's not a very substantial film. Even though this is meant as a showcase of new talent, none of the four "katipuneras" are interesting (except maybe Cara Gonzales, who at least has some degree of screen presence) and the four are mainly used as decorations or filler whenever Viva needs to uphold their sexy scene quota for the day.
The main conflict, which happens during the final third, comes off as more than a bit shoehorned in and even hypocritical considering the pasts of some of the women involved, and it also seems like the protagonists didn't learn from the lessons of the first film.
In the end, this is more a film for Alma, Maui, Ara and Rosanna, and the best parts of the film involve the four of them candidly sharing anecdotes from their sexy film past. In fact, one such scene was so interesting it drew in the S.O. to watch along, even though she usually hates Yap's films. If Yap were ever to make a part 3, I'd be all for it as long as it consists purely of these conversations.
For better or worse, Sigrid Bernardo's 2017 film Kita Kita started a new subgenre of local cinema - one where the pretty lead falls in love with a plain yet charming man. Ikaw is a familiar riff on that, featuring Dee (Janine Gutierrez), a Manila-based real estate agent who returns to her hometown and reconnects with her former classmate (Pepe Herrera, who at least isn't as stalkery as Empoy Marquez's character in that other film.)
What follows is an unassuming, quiet, cute little romance drama that's perfect for a lonely Christmas watch. It would have been interesting to explore the relationship and dynamics, both social and financial between Dee's family and her classmate's, both being land owners in the province. However (and rather disappointingly) I don't feel the film's equipped to address that.
Ultimately the film opts for dramatic moments that I'm not completely on board with, but otherwise I think Ikaw is an okay watch.
Whenever I think about the conception of My Husband, My Lover, I imagine a dark Viva conference room. The head honcho asks the director: how much cheating is going to go on in this film? Perhaps he's excited for something cheaty and sexy for Vivamax. The director, with full confidence, answers: YES.
Alice (Kylie Versoza) lives in luxury with her husband Noel (Marco Gumabao.) However, she's either afraid of the sun or the prospect of osteomalacia, so she cheats on Noel with a mango farmer (Adrian Alandy) to get that extra dose of Vitamin D. Not from the mangoes, but from his one eyed python. That's just the beginning.
A highly entertaining, trashy clusterfuck of a film, Don't be fooled by the (admittedly pretty arbitrary) score of 1.5/5 (in Letterboxd) for Mac Alejandre's My Husband, My Lover: it's a pretty fun film as long as you aren't taking it seriously. It manages to take the idea of cheating and minmaxes it to absurd levels, to the point where a woman cheats on her paramour with... her husband!?
Other than the meme-worthy "P**i mo swapang" line (which, in the context of the movie is 100% accurate) there's another line in this film that's memorable: When asked by the husband why she cheated on him, cheating wife Alice tells him that having sex with her paramour is like dancing. By that point, I was more surprised someone didn't get suplexed into the coffee table after that line.
While there are several scenes to fulfill Vivamax's sexy scene quota (there's one every 10-15 minutes, which is not an uncommon frequency in, say, pinku eiga) the sex isn't very sexy, and I keep on getting distracted by Adrian Alandy's hideous back tattoo. Is that supposed to be an angel? Why's an angel strapped to your back? You think you can fly with those wings? I kid.
I guess my primary frustration with the film has to be Kylie Versoza's character, who instigates the whole affair (that is a pun lol) and gets away with little to no repercussions other than wearing a hideous wig during the film's epilogue.
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