Netflix and Chill

Time for some Netflix and Chill.

Far removed from the days of cute characters for cuteness' sake, Sanrio has tried to create cute characters that hit home with consumers in more ways than one. For example, one of their latest creations, Gudetama, is basically a lazy walking egg yolk with a butt, the poster child of contemporary social attitudes (and believe me with this one, I procrastinated several times trying to write this).

In this case, one of their latest characters is Aggressive Retsuko, or Aggretsuko, a red panda that embodies the modern working woman. Retsuko is a red panda who works as an Office Lady or OL. Her job entails mostly thankless, low level clerical work, and the position offers little chance for promotion; the workers are expected to leave and become housewives once someone decides to marry them, a sort of limbo with sexist overtones. Retsuko has to deal with all this, along with asshole colleagues, a (literal) sexist pig for a boss, and other work and social pressures. Retsuko lets off steam by singing death metal at karaoke every night after work. (Her name is even a play on words; the Retsu, or 烈  kanji in her name means "violent" or "extreme".)

It's the kind of social rage that is immediately relateable for anyone who has ever held a shitty job, especially millennial women in today's society. Far from being a show that merely exists to promote cute things,  there's actually a level of social commentary going on in here, and it's amazing. The show acts as a criticism of social work attitudes and unreasonable expectations towards women and it highlights various other issues like office politics, everyday microaggressions between coworkers, workplace relationships and workplace ennui.

At 10 episodes of 15 minutes each, it's a breeze to binge in one go. It won me over easily, and it's a show I'd wholeheartedly recommend. Now excuse me while I sing some Cannibal Corpse.

Out of curiosity I watched Brillante Mendoza's Amo. There's a level of technical accomplishment behind it, and the film is generally better produced than any other local TV production out there.

But that's where the praise ends. There's much in Amo that doesn't pan out, and it has nothing to do with its skewed worldview.

The series is divided into two stories - the first deals with a high school kid who works as a drug runner, while the second is about a botched police operation involving a Japanese drug lord. Anyone with half a brain cell can see that the two stories are fictionalized versions of true events - the first story arc draws comparisons to Kian delos Santos, while the second is inspired by the kidnapping and killing of Jee Ick-joo. Let's not forget that the real people behind these stories have not been proven to have been connected with the drug trade at all - and here, their fictional counterparts are depicted as being fully entrenched in the drug trade. Artistic licence and all, perhaps, but it still feels quite off at best, insensitive at worst, an awful perversion of 'found story'.

The characters of Amo serve as little more than cardboard cutouts: their motivations don't go further than "drugs are everywhere, so I might as well do this." The dirty cops involved in the second arc are motivated by greed, so at least there's a little bit more nuance there, but it's a far cry from the depictions of gray morality in Mendoza's previous films. There's nothing in the series that is the least bit compelling, and halfway through the series, it was obvious to me that getting through it was becoming something of a chore. 

For someone who prides himself as a storyteller, Mendoza's storytelling in Amo can get horribly inconsistent at times. A character is seemingly killed by gunshot in one episode, only to miraculously show up in the season finale, with no indication as to how they survived. Another character is shown to be dismembered during one scene (an unintentional callback to Mendoza's Kinatay, perhaps?) and during the next scene said character's intact body is being placed inside a body bag.

Speaking of Kinatay, comparing that movie to Amo only highlights how much Mendoza's depiction of reality has transformed: in his previous films, the protagonists possess their share of good and bad traits, and some of these movies showed how evil can be brought out from the best of people if the wrong stars align. In Amo, this is hardly the case - there are good guys (no matter how bad some of their actions might seem) and there are bad guys, i.e. guys involved in drugs. Most deaths in the series are due to drug syndicates executing their own, or people who fight back during police operations. Depictions of activities that highlight the drug war - operation Tokhang, drug lists and other police operations - are mostly done in a positive light, because obviously there is no such thing as a wrongful arrest, or errors in a foolproof drug list, or something like that. In the world of Amo, those things cannot possibly exist.

But in a free society, artists can release whatever they want. They can release whatever depiction of subjective reality they so choose. And that's where the appeal of Amo will probably come from to many people, especially those in favor of the current drug war. In a way, through this series I've come to understand them, that they are fueled by a sense of idealism, foolish as some may think. It's an idealism that's admirable in its own way, because I've come to be too cynical with the world at large. Just when Amo premiered, Mendoza tweeted this image:

In my opinion, Amo may not be as "truthful to the issues that surround us" as Mendoza thinks, but it presents a comfortable illusion. Because if the world is clearly defined by black and white, if the world is clearly divided into good guys who can do no wrong and bad guys who are always 100% guilty, then it becomes easier to live with it - because the alternative is perhaps too hard to fathom.

Ang Panahon ng Halimaw (Season of the Devil)

There is a moment in Lav Diaz's latest film, Ang Panahon ng Halimaw, where one of the characters, frustrated and angry, laments through song: where are you, child of the motherland? Wake up, child of the motherland. He repeats this line a couple of times, but during the final repetition, he breaks the fourth wall and asks this question directly to the audience, and it becomes clear that any ambiguities are gone. This is a film that wears its heart on its sleeve.

These songs constitute only one aspect of the film's identity as political cinema; and even then, the film defies simple categorization. It is musical, yet anti-musical - aside from the end credits, everything is sung in acapella, and not always by accomplished singers. The songs give the film a strange character, both Brechtian in the sense that it creates a space of unrealism where the audience can reflect on the film's messages, but at the same time not Brechtian, since the emotional weight of its material cause an emotional investment nevertheless. 

Although the film takes place during the late seventies, it's obvious that Ang Panahon ng Halimaw uses the past to talk about the present. Like a good chunk of Diaz's oeuvre, the film is about the past threatening to repeat itself, but in this case, the worst case scenario has already happened: the town of Ginto is now under the spell of Chairman Narciso, a demagogue who has used his rule to spread lies and control the populace through violence and oppression. In many ways it's like his 2002 film Hesus Rebolusyonaryo, which used the future to talk about the present. Narciso's will is enforced by his own private militia, members of the Civil Home Defense Forces (the predecessor to the CAFGU, formed during the Cory Aquino administration,) historically known for their human rights abuses. Hugo (Piolo Pascual), a talented poet, goes to Ginto to search for his missing wife Lorena (Shaina Magdayao.) Something has happened to Lorena, who had come to Ginto to become a village doctor, but we do not know what exactly that is. In the course of his investigation, Hugo discovers the systematic abuses perpetrated by Narciso and his men on the local populace.

If the nature of the abusers sounds familiar to the typical Filipino viewer, it's not much of a surprise: one of the characters talks about the country being led by a boxer, a comedian and an actor. Narciso is a hideous man with two faces, and the face at the back of his head looks a little like a certain former dictator. His speeches are gibberish, loud and offensive to the ears, yet his underlings applaud him. One of the characters, a victim of oppression under Narciso's regime, is demonized and feared by the community thanks to fake news. When Diaz dedicates the film to the victims of Martial Law at the end of the film, there's a feeling that this might also include the victims of the current political situation, which is Martial Law in all but name.

This leads into one of the conundrums the film tries to reconcile: Ang Panahon ng Halimaw is definitely a film with a message, but it's still made with an arthouse sensibility that mainstream audiences may not readily embrace. Diaz's reflexiveness shines through: as Hugo descends deeper into the madness of Ginto, he looks more and more like an author-surrogate. Later on Hugo is chided by his torturers, telling him that no matter how thoughtful his art may become, his efforts will be futile in a nation of fools. Cognizant of the fact that in itself, it is not the answer, but the means to an answer, the film continually questions its own ability to effect change.

And in the grand scheme of things, Ang Panahon ng Halimaw is the latest in a series of experiments where Diaz tries to reach the masses. For one, it's shorter and far more briskly edited compared to Diaz's other films; the songs' repetitive nature almost reminds one of jingles - one song in particular has stayed with me days after having seen the film. And its plot, if one takes away all of the various sideplots garnishing the film, is exceedingly simple. It might not cater exactly to the tastes of fans or critics or cinephiles in airconditioned theaters, and that may be the point.

As a protest song and a piece of political cinema, Ang Panahon ng Halimaw does its job. But it needs to have a destiny outside the cinema, in town squares and barrios and among the poor and disenfranchised - otherwise it will serve as nothing more than preaching to the choir.

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Ang Panahon ng Halimaw will premiere in select Ayala Cinemas starting May 23.

Almost a Love Story lives up to its name

Baneng (Barbie Forteza) and Iggy (Derrick Monasterio) have a very unique friendship: they are childhood friends but they have spent most of their time apart: Baneng's mom works as Iggy's family's househelp-slash-yaya and she's spent most of her life overseas. When Iggy's family offers to bring Baneng to scenic Italy for some holiday downtime, the couple finally gets a chance to meet for the very first time.

The title "Almost a Love Story" is apt, because there isn't much of a love story in this film. Most of the first two thirds of the film consists of cute conversations between Baneng and Iggy through video chat. Everything we need to know about Baneng and Iggy's relationship is implied through dialogue. We don't really see the moment they fall in love, and there isn't a meet cute for these two to get together, because of the circumstances of the story.

To be fair, films about romances involving people who have barely met (if at all) do exist, and some are quite excellent. However, one of the most important things that those films have  in common is a moment or series of moments where the characters gain a deep understanding of each other regardless of the space between them. In this movie, that doesn't really happen. The conversations are mostly surface-level, and there isn't much of an opportunity to see the romance grow. What we get instead is the promise of a romance that doesn't really flesh itself out - with the peak of said romance being an extended sequence during the last third that can be accurately described as "cute couple doing cute things in an exotic location." 

The payoff thus ends up forced and unearned. Baneng goes to Italy and ends up barely knowing Iggy anyway, thanks to a third act contrivance foreshadowed in the first ten or so minutes of the film. It's affecting for all of ten seconds, the emotional impact ending when one realizes that it's all fluff.

The romance ultimately serves as a distraction from something in the movie that I legitimately felt interested in - the peculiar social setup between Baneng, Iggy and their parents. In Filipino society househelpers are at times considered members of the family. In this case, Baneng's mom serves as a second parent to Iggy. Over the years Baneng's mom, and by extension, Baneng herself, has become part of a larger extended family. Yet the film doesn't forget to reiterate the master-servant dynamic, which still plays itself out even to the very end - the turning point of the relationship is orchestrated by Iggy, who has the most power over the situation, and ultimately, the relationship. It's a good thing that the feelings were mutual - imagine a situation where Baneng wasn't in love with Iggy, her mother's amo? Would he have forced the situation? It would have made for some interesting dramatic setups.

But, alas, the film decides to focus on the non-romance that's unfolding in front of us, and instead of tears or an impulse to root for this almost-love-story, all I could really muster was a shrug.

Never Not Love You

Tattoos are a distinct motif in Antoinette Jadaone's latest film Never Not Love You - they reinforce the theme of a love that starts with youthful exuberance but then matures into something completely different. Getting a tattoo is a choice and a commitment, much like getting into a relationship. Getting rid of them isn't as easy, so the initial choice must take that into consideration - at least in theory, anyway - cue the millions of tattoos with the name of an ex displayed for all to see.

When Joanna (Nadine Lustre) falls in love with artist Gio (James Reid), the sparks are there, but it's all pretty low key. Yet sooner or later the two of them dive headstrong into their romance, depicted with a level of authenticity that one rarely sees in local cinema.

When their relationship runs into a number of problems, it's here where the film makes its case: when confronted with the possibility of sacrificing work for love, Gio and Joanna react differently. The former, having lived a relatively privileged, carefree life, initially chooses love, trying to reconcile a change in lifestyle with remaining comfortably in the status quo. Joanna, on the other hand, having come from a lower socioeconomic background, considers her family's economic situation in addition to her own happiness. Thus begins a perpetual seesaw of compromise, conflict, and resolution, one that is handled expertly. But that's what love is, once we get past idealistic fairytale notions on the subject: it's a neverending compromise, a commitment that requires considerable effort and sacrifice.

It's all done without the usual histrionics we're used to when watching mainstream romantic films, and for once this is a film that the JaDine love team deserves, as it pushes their talents to the limit. Nadine Lustre in particular shines, especially in the last few moments of the film where emotions are communicated through silence rather than words.

The film's visual style is also quite lovely, showing us both the cityscape of Makati rendered in neon lights, as well as lush sunlit views of Zambales. It's far removed from the candy colored visual styles of what we've been accustomed to, and it's a trend that we've been starting to see in the past five or so years. In many ways, just like how the romance in Never Not Love You matures, the genre itself matures alongside it, portraying more complex, nuanced depictions of romance in contemporary society.

The film ends in ambiguity, in a marvelous silent sequence that communicates all manners of things -  a reaffirmation of feelings now vastly different, perhaps reminiscence of a love that has irreversibly changed, perhaps even the slightest twang of regret, or the existential fear of an eventual doomed outcome. Never Not Love You is fascinating stuff, and it ranks among one of the year's best local films so far.

Dispatches from HKIFF (++) 2018, Part 5

It seems like I am fated to catch at least one Hong Sang-soo film every time I visit HK. His latest, Grass, is the latest of more than a dozen films in the last ten years. And wouldn't you know it, Hong's back to familiar rhythms: the film is a series of extended conversations between two or three people, mostly over drinks, sometimes alcoholic.

The structure is a bit looser, the conversations winding yet somehow interesting. The film inserts a character-as-surrogate into the picture in one of his conversations just like before, though there may be more than just one: Areum (Kim Min-hee), perhaps a callback to a character in one of Hong's earlier films, Claire's Camera, overhears much of the conversations while typing on her computer. It is unclear if the conversations playing out are a product of Areum's (and consequently, Hong's) mind or if they are really playing out in real life. it's a case of the creator beholding his or her own creation and reflecting upon it.

Perhaps the work is a demonstration of cinematic reflexivity where one's own thoughts and beliefs influence the work, which then influences the creator. Areum is played by Kim Min-hee, who recently split with the director last month shortly after the film was made following a very public extramarital affair. Areum's views are very much the most cynical in the entire film. In the last few minutes she only joins in conversation with the other characters (or figments of her imagination) upon the departure of the other Hong-surrogate. A separation of artist and muse? Perhaps the film was made as a portent of things to come?

Even at a lean 66 minutes, Grass is comfort food Hong. It may come across as a little abstract, but it's the director baring his soul at its most intimate level, in the only way an artist can.

Based on the one-woman play by Kearen Pang, 29+1 chronicles the struggles of women in contemporary Hong Kong as they reach the cusp of their twenties and thirties, where expectations regarding work, marriage and a stable future are made more evident. 

It reminds one of Sylvia Chang's 20 30 40, a film from neighboring Taiwan made around the same time as the play, tackling similar concerns. In a fast-paced, rapidly changing society, both films ask the question: what role can women play?

The film explores two different perspectives that delve into this question: Christy Lam (Chrissy Chau) is a career-minded working woman with a stable career and a boyfriend. But a series of events casts a shadow on that life, revealing a deep well of unhappiness. Through a series of circumstances leading to her getting evicted off her apartment, she spends her time in the apartment of Wong Tin-lok (Joyce Cheng) who has left for Paris. Wong is the same age as Christy, but their respective outlooks on life are drastically different: Wong is cheerful and content to stay where she is, living life at her own pace.

The film works best when it lets its characters shine, and falters when its messages become heavy handed. Both actresses (especially Cheng) shine in their roles, giving life and character to their character's struggles, making them relateable. Once the film makes several emotional turns near the end, it's hard not to get affected. As a thirtysomething myself, the uncertainty of life after the last vestiges of youth have gone away is a notion that is all too real.

While the film suffers from a number imperfections, the film overcomes them by sheer force of charm and by the stellar performances of both its leads.

Winner of last year's Short Film Palme D'Or, A Gentle Night begins in a police station. A girl has disappeared, and a policeman is interviewing the girl's father about the situation. As the conversation goes on, it's clear that the authorities don't exactly have a sense of urgency about the whole thing. Then the shot changes, revealing that the girl's mother was there too all along. The film then follows the mother as she traverses the night in search for her daughter.

The film may be short in length but not in emotional intensity; the mother's journey is colored by maternal fear, love and guilt. Not a single shot is wasted, and the movie finds depth despite its brevity, highlighting systems of apathy within bureaucracy, of women and children without men (or the other way around.)

It's a powerful demonstration of the medium of short film, and a treat to watch.

Thomas Stuber's In the Aisles is a quiet film, one that lies unassuming and is content to stay in the background, much like the workers it depicts. Christian (Franz Rogowski) is a newly hired worker at an East German supermarket. It's evident that he hasn't had the cleanest of past lives, as he hides his tattoos when he dresses up every day. But he gets along well with his colleagues, and is mentored by former trucker Bruno (Peter Kurth) who instructs him in the surprisingly delicate job of Forklift operation. He soon meets and falls in love with co-worker Marion (Sandra Huller), who has issues of her own.

While it can be argued that the romance is the central plot of In the Aisles, the movie doesn't touch on it too heavily; there are no impassioned declarations of love or wacky rom-com elements. The movie instead focuses on the small microcosm formed by the blue collar workers of the supermarket, with its own geography and culture. Christian even refers to it as "home", a preferable alternative to the drabness of his non-supermarket life.

It's also a film about how loneliness and isolation spurs people to make connections in the unlikeliest of places, and it treats its subjects with warmth and a bit of humanity. The film is mostly grounded in reality, but it takes whimsical comfort in the oceanlike sounds of forklift hydraulics, or the promise of a workplace relationship. And that's how people roll - finding happiness within and with each other.

***

That ends this year's coverage of the HKIFF, stay tuned for a bunch of movies that premiered over the Easter weekend. Till next time ~

Dispatches from HKIFF (++) 2018, Part 4

Most screenings today were sold out, so this is a relatively light entry (and RP1 isn't part of the HKIFF obvs).

Other than the basic premise, where a team of unlikely individuals race to find the greatest video game easter egg within a nostalgic virtual playground, Steven Spielberg's Ready Player One completely reworks Ernest Cline's original novel, truncating several elements and completely changing several scenarios, mostly for the better.

The adaptation manages to humanize James Halliday (Mark Rylance), the creator of the sprawling virtual world/MMORPG OASIS, making him into a character haunted by his faiilures and regrets in life. Rylance's speech at the end, while taken from the book, is made even more poignant here. It also removes some awkward and creepy moments between protagonist Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan) and his rival/partner Art3mis (Olivia Cooke), though some of the conflict between them is ultimately removed.

Despite being a film that perpetually bathes in nostalgia, the nature of the film's (and the book's) message epouses a rejection of escapism, where, despite our propensity for playthings and mindless entertainment, only 'reality is real.'

On the other hand, the film is unabashedly popcorn entertainment; it is wild, raucous fun and solidly made given Spielberg's filmmaking prowess. The film falls into the trap of being the exact kind of entertainment it stands against.

And the main thing that hampered the book also affects the film: without the rose tinted lenses of nostalgia, the film doesn't hold together as well. Only history will tell us how well the film will age ten or twenty years down the line. But in the here and now, Ready Player One is a pretty great ride.

Halley (Bria Vinaite) and her daughter Moonee (Brooklynn Prince) live in a motel at the very fringes of Disney World. Halley struggles to make ends meet through the help of friends and neighbors, but her rebellious attitude makes inding a legitimate job very hard. Meanwhile, insulated from her mother's troubles, Moonee spends her days, carefree, with her friends, getting into troubles of her own.

The characters of The Florida Project are people who live in the margins of society, a sentiment that is reflected in the film in more ways than one. Despite the film taking place right next to Disney World, we only see glimpses of it: fireworks in the distance, the ever present whirring of tour helicopters, a rogue tourist here and there. 

Baker, at least in his past two films, likes to juxtapose dreamlike fantasy worlds like Disney World and Hollywood and the concerns of Americans in the margins of society, contrasting them. 

And this is a film about children and their perspective; even if the characters of the Florida Project spend their lives (almost) never setting foot inside the "Happiest Place on Earth," they find their own happiness, as children do.  It's even reflected in both the beginning and end of the film with renditions of Kool & The Gang's Celebration, both prefacing very different chapters in these children's lives. It may seem absurd, finding something to celebrate about in such abject poverty, but that's a special power that chiildren just have.

It's also a film about parents: surrogate parents, fathers, mothers, and the extremities of their love: though one cannot say these people are the best parents for their children, they try their best and love their children, blood related or not, with all the love they can muster.

And despite how brash and incorrigible some of the characters may be, they are driven by something positive. That notion, finding something good in a wretched world, is indeed something worth celebrating.

(The preceding review is a reworking of a review for the Florida Project, previously not published here in this blog.)

Dispatches from HKIFF (++) 2018, Part 3

We begin today's slew of reviews with Young Girls Vanish, a short film that tries to connect a series of grisly murders from the 1600's and contemporary violence towards women. In the 1600's, these murders, often violent mutilations, were attributed to the activity of a giant wolf, but it soon becomes clear that some of these murders might be due to something closer to reality (i.e. the actions of depraved men). However, the film doesn't quite succeed in pulling off its thesis; it comes off as too subtle for its own good.

Amiko is a somewhat rebellious young teenager with a very distinct view in life. When she falls in love with a schoolmate Aomi, she does what many teens would do in this situation: sit on her feelings and let it simmer into wild fantasies and idealizations. But when Aomi stops going to class, Amiko takes action.

Amiko is an amalgamation of slice-of-life, wacky absurd comedy and teenage angst. It's a bit rough overall giiven its independent nature, but the product does have a certain level of charm to it that's undeniable. At a lean 66 minutes, the film doesn't overstay its welcome and at least it has that going or it.

Ryuichi Sakamoto has accumuated an impressive body of work eer since he started working in the eighties as part of the Yellow Magic Orchestra. In Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda, a documentary by Stephen Nomura Schible, we see Sakamoto delve into his influences and what goes on when he creates music.

The documentary des not pretend to be a comprehensive historical document of Sakamoto's life, though there are still glimpses of that in this film. We see his early days at the YMO, his forays into acting and composing film music (including a fantastic anecdote where he rewrote and performed the intro for Bernardo Bertolucci's The Sheltering Sky in thirty minutes) and his recent struggles with throat cancer and the creation of async, one of his best albums to date.

Sakamoto's image and style has shifted over the years: from his early electronica days, he has gone into a musical style that can be described as a mix of electronica, minimaliist and ambient soundscapes, as well as a bit of orchestration. Still, in the middle of all that is the piano, which he considers the heart of all his music.

Sakamoto's influences are also laid bare - Bach organ solos, Tarkovskian film scoring, ambient sounds in nature, politics and environmental activism. Fascinating is the part where Sakamoto wants to create a film score for a non-existent movie, eventually creating such a track in his latest album.

Perhaps one of the most uplifting statements of the film is where Sakamoto finds beauty in the things we often take for granted: the ntion of his own impending death, or a line from Tarkovsky's Solaris, or the sounds of nature, or a decrepit piano, the "corpse of a piano that drowned" during the Fukushima nuclear disaster. A documentary or fans and music lovers alike, Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda is fascinating stuff.

Samuel Maoz's Foxtrot begins with a distressing emotional scene when Michael Feldman is told that his son jonathan, a soldier in the Israeli Defense Forces has died in the line of duty. But Foxtrot is far more than a simple examination of grief and mourning, it confronts a far bigger picture - the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine - and it does so while being a pitch black comedy.

The film is divided into three segments, each covering a different point in time. The second part focuses on Jonathan himself, working a mostly boring job manning a remote outpost on the Israeli border. The monotony actually helps depict how much  animosity and predjudice has normalized between the Israelis and the Palestinians to the point where it becomes routine, including one scene where a Palestinian couple, perhaps having come straight from a party, is made to stand in the pouring rain. Even though the order is absurd and meaningless, the couple does so, and the man looks at his wife with nothing more than a look of resignation.

And absurdity becomes Foxtrot's main weapon, so to say: it illuminates how senseless and pointless the war has become. Perhaps subliminally, Jonathan's family feels that as well, their comfortable middle-class lives detached from what is happening.

And in the third part, where it all comes together, the Foxtrot metaphor rings true: everything has changed but everything also goes back to where it came from. There's a story within a story where a priceless family heirloom is replaced by a porno magazine, where something noble has been replaced with something vulgar being passed from father to son, much like how the scars of a neverending conflict are now inherited through generations. 

Rendered in beautifully stylized rotoscoped animation, Tehran Taboo plays out ike a greatest-hits version of Iranian social cinema: it critiques multiple facets of Iran's very strict, patriarchal society through the intersecting lives of several characters. There's Pari driven into prostitution because of a drug-addicted husband who is locked in prison; there's Sara, who wants to work but is restricted by her banker husband, and Babak, who gets into a bind after a drug fueled night of sex.

The film doesn't try to be subtle about it: this is a film of protest, and it doesn't shy away from showing the many double standards and hypocrisies that exist in such a society. Perhaps comparisons can be made with this film and Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis, also animated and also made by an Iranian expat. It's been said that it isn't as bad anymore in real contemporary Iranian society, but if the foundations of abuse are still there, scenarios like the ones depicted in the film can still happen.

The film also skillfully avoids making its characters into caricatures, giving them complex stories and personalities that are relatable, all made even more devastating given the film's conclusion.

Tehran Taboo is a film that will make a lot of people indignant and angry. At the very least I hope it helps start a conversation towards real and just change.

Dispatches from HKIFF (++) 2018, Part 2

It might seem a little absurd to make a movie out of an (admittedly popular) app about colllecting cats, but the world's been guilty of far more. Neko Atsume no Ie (Neko Atsume's House) is the story of Masaru Sakumoto (Atsushi ito), a once-popular novelist who has gotten into a slump. On a whim, he decides to move to a house to the countryside, where the power of cats help him get his groove back.

That's the plot of the film, and while it does spread pretty thin for a movie this long, the cats almost make up for it. Almost. Ito (and co-star Shiori Kutsuna) are both excellent despite this, and the cinematography works best when covering our feline friends (and not humans), where the camerawork revolves around a handheld treatment and too-close-for-comfort closeups.

Surprisingly, the film does follow the mechanics of the original game (buy cat toys and cushions and food, wait for cats to arrive, take pictures, rinse and repeat) so it technically is a faithful adaptation of its source material. But for those looking for more than just cats, viewers may find nothing more of substance here.

A young teenager, Eunchan, dies while saving his friend Ki-hyun during a swimming trip. Devatated, Eunchan's parents try to reconcile their grief and the death of their son. Eunchan's father, through a set of circumstances, then takes in Ki-hyun as an apprentice, where the young man begins to learn the trade of wallpapering and craftsmanship.

It sounds like everything is set to fall into place in Shin Dong-seok's Last Child: the parents without a child coming together with a child desperately in need of parental figures. But the truth and the eventual outcome of the film ends up being far more complicated. Last Child is an examination of guilt, societal hypocrisy, forgiveness and grief, much like the works of Shin's countryman, Lee Chang-dong - in particular, one of his more recent films, Poetry. 

Last Child is boosted in particular by several performances, most notably the central three characters, who all deal with Eunchan's death in varied and interesting ways. The film avoids shifting into frank melodrama and treats its characters with a touch of sincerity. The film builds up rather well, culminating in an emotionally charged finale reminiscent of last year's Harmonium (2016/7) but with a different, almost cathartic, outcome.

Tina is a loving mother to her daughter Vittoria, both spending a rather idyllic life in the Sardinian countryside. But the truth is, Vittoria is adopted, and one day she meets her true mother, Angelica, who is the complete opposite of what Tina embodies: irresponsible, drunk, rebellious. Vittoria becomes captivated by this mother she never knew, and this eventually puts the three in conflict with each other as Vittoria tries to reconcile the fact that she has two mothers.

Daughter of Mine is a fascinating character study from director Laura Bispuri. It soon becomes clear that both Tina and Angelica have their own dysfunctions and positive traits. Tina looks like a responsible, doting mother, but she has a hidden petty, vengeful side, and her possessiveness of Vittoria drives the child away. Angelica looks irresponsible, brash and incorriginble, but there is a genuine desire to reconnect with her daughter - at one point, she tries to pay off a long standing debt that would help alleviate her situation, but she decides to spend it on a gift for her daughter instead.

The treatment can get a little rough in parts, and certain stretches of the film feel a bit overlong for a simple story, But at the heart of it, Daughter of Mine is relateable story worth teling.

Yoshika (Mayu Matsuoka) is still smitten by her high school crush, Ichi. She spends her time fantasizing about him and reminiscing the very few times they actually spoke to each other. In the mean time, she puts up with Ni, an awkward and obnoxious, but ultimately well meaning, coworker who wishes to be her boyfriend.

Observant and funny, Akiko Ooku's Tremble All You Want has all the tropes of a conventional chick-lit romance, but it has a diferent conception of love, one that is far removed from the shoujo manga-esque notions of falling in love and ending up with your dream guy. It presents love as something rooted in a mutual understanding rather than a one sided fantasy, a relationship where both parties actively work together to understand each other, a relationship where love grows gradually and naturally, moving from "I like you" to "I love you".

Mayu Matsuoka's performance is fantastic; she keeps up with the wacky demands of the script and shows off her versatile range, laughing and crying and singing with considerable amounts of charm (yes, there's an extended musical segment in this film). 

Yoshika's story ultimately boils down to her getting out of her shell, where she realizes that the people around her are not just props for her own fantasies, but flesh and blood people with their own dreams and aspirations, their own story to tell, and her personal growth is reflected when she genuinely begins to setp out into the world and get to know people and talk to them sincerely.

It's a journey that takes a couple of detours, especially in the last third where a bunch of contrivances extend the running time far more for my taste. But in the end, Tremble All You Want is a crowd pleaser whose view on love is atypical compared to the slew of contemporary Japanese rom-coms out there.

this is (not) a review of Kamandag ng Droga THE MOVIE

Last year's best film was obviously Carlo J. Caparas' Kamandag ng Droga, and I felt it needed a much more... dedicated tribute. Although the original is better than the adaptation in most cases, I think this can communicate the thoughts of the original (non) review in a different way.

I also noticed a few things from the original piece that are actually slightly inaccurate. Probably because I was too busy laug... admiring the film at the time.

BASTA DONT DO DRUGS DAW

Since Youtube is content ID-ing an obvious work of criticism, you can DM me on twitter for a link to the video (non) review and the password.  You can take a look at the video here. Facebook friends get them automatically. I think~

This statement is not an April Fools joke obvs

Dispatches from HKIFF (++) 2018, part 1

It's time for some international cinema with this year's edition of the Hong Kong International Film Festival. One of the last (or the earliest, depending on your point of view) festivals in the festival cycle, this year's lineup consists of some of the best movies of last year and a number of new films from around the world. I'm a bit late to the party, unfortunately, but that doesn't mean there still aren't a few gems left lying around.

Ever since I saw it last night, Sweet Country has ben steadily growing on me. It's the kind of film that sticks with you because of its bleak and uncompromising world view. There's something in the Western aesthetic of the film that lends Sweet Country a deep darkness that fails to relent even up to its very last moments.

But the context and setting of Sweet Country, 1920's Australia, provides additional layers to the story. The characters of Sweet Country have just survived a devastating war - The Great War - serving the interests of England, and there's a feeling from the townsfolk that the crown is meddling in their affairs. The greatest shadow cast upon the film is the relationship between the White Australian "whitefellas" and the Aboriginal "blackfellas", with the former treating the latter much like slaves, in a manner not unlike (maybe even exceeding) that of the antebellum south. 

The movie makes it clear that the Aborigines have more knowledge of the lay of the land compared to their white counterparts, especially during a futile manhunt for Sam. Ironically, despite this, the 'whitefellas' have taken the land for themselves, the dark legacy of colonialism. One Aboriginal  character laments this, saying that this place is no longer their country. 

The film transforms in its last third, morphing into a sort of courtroom drama. A makeshift courtroom is built in front of the local pub, perhaps the film trying to create a space of civility within a hellish wasteland, finding justice in an unjust land. And in its final frames, it juxtaposes the image of ropes hanging from a wooden frame in two instances, both with different yet related meanings. The first - a makeshift gallows, symbolic of day to day injustice from colonizers to colonized, and the second, symbolizing something far more systemic: institutions of hegemony and oppression that normalize these day to day injustices.

And now, for something that isn't part of the festival. If the poster for The Night is Short, Walk On Girl reminds you of the excellent anime series The Tatami Galaxy, it shouldn't come  as a surprise: both are made by the same animation studio and director, and both are based on novels written by the same author (they even share characters, though their stories are mostly unrelated). But even without knowledge of the Tatami Galaxxy, The Night is Short, Walk on Girl is a strange, lovely film.

It's hard to describe what the film is exactly about: it's part comedy, part musical, part stream-of-consciousness philosophical rumination. It takes place on a night that never seems to end, and it's filled with a ton of colorful characters. It's tinged with surreal and mystical elements, and the film frequently flits between realism and magical realism.

It's all whimsical and meandering, but it's the fun kind of whimsy, not unlike a pub crawl with friends. It's better to just give in to the sheer insanity of the film and let it take you on a ride.

And, occasionally, when one looks between the lines, the film talks about pretty profound stuff: the relative whimsy of faling in love, the futility (or benefit) of grand gestures of love, and the illusion (or reality) of fate. It's fascinating stuff, and one that's worth a watch in my opinion.

Simplicity is a movie. I think.

Maria (Mary Joy Apostol) is an aspiring singer who "works" in her dad's burger place. Now I put work in quotation marks because she and her friend Beth slack around with their friends more than anything else, and the place doesn't get a single customer who is not a friend or family member. That business must be hemorrhaging money. When opportunity knocks in the form of a singing and dancing contest, Maria and Beth round up their friends to join the competition as a girl group (unsurprisingly called Team Simplicity) and achieve their dreams.

It's evident from the very start of Simplicity that it was made to showcase the talents of Primeline talent agency, et. al. To be fair, the girls who make up the main cast are relatively talented (one look at Apostol's work in Birdshot ought to do it, and some of the other cast are pretty good dancers). The problem is, and there's no getting around it, Simplicity is a terrible movie.

First off, the movie isn't very funny. None of the jokes really land. The technical work is really rough: at one point in the story, Maria's boyfriend Brett Primo (that really is his name, Jesus Christ) breaks up with Maria, and the camera follows Maria as she walks repeatedly from left to right. That scene literally gave me motion sickness. The editing is horrible too. The characters are written inconsistently. One of Maria's friends is a taong grasa named Angel (Kelly Welt) who is, to put it mildly, a few cards short of a deck. Miraculously, with no explanation at all, she gains her sanity towards the end of the film. Maybe Maria slipped in a little Lithium in her bacon or something. One of Maria's other friends, Shelly (Alexa Miro) is a traffic enforcer who runs around wearing a "sexy cop" outfit someone probably bought from Ebay. She also doesn't do a lot of traffic enforcement, with an attendance record that would probably make General Bato cry. The film has a bit of star power in the form of Rhian Ramos and Solenn Heussaff, who spend most of their time maiming each other on screen. I was worried they'd both be dead by the end of the film.

As a showcase of talent the film fails at that, too. The film decides to show the other contestants in the idol group competition, but only for 10 seconds at a time, using really weird camera angles and shots. It's as if the filmmakers didn't want the audience to see what was going on, and with the exception of some of the Simplicity Girls (Nami Onuma and Alexa Miro in particular), what was going on was mostly terrible, so it's not really a loss. 

A baffling parade of decisions from beginning to end, Simplicity is barely a movie. It feels like getting shot in the penis.

March comes in like a bunch of short reviews (Magbuwag Ta Kay, My Perfect You)

It also comes in like a goddamn sledgehammer, but that's a story for another day.

Cebuano speaking netizens who watch viral videos on FB or Youtube may be familiar with the works of Rowell Ucat, aka Medyo Maldito. For everyone else, the film Magbuwag Ta Kay (Let's Break Up Because...) may be their first time watching*. The story revolves around a couple (Ucat and Akiko Solon) in the final stages of their relationship: the girl is about to make a big move to Canada and  they mutually decide to break up in advance to preempt any sort of heartbreak. Of course, heartbreak ensues anyway.

The level of presentation may not be as polished as other films made by large corporations (Star Cinema, I'm looking at you) but the story Magbuwag Ta Kay tells is bittersweet and relatable. Ultimately, even though it takes a strange turn near the end, it makes a point that things don't last forever, and there are some things in life that one should cherish exactly because of that fact. 

*Fans of Medyo Maldito may find more than a few easter eggs in the movie, including a running gag where one of his video co-stars, Snake Princess, has an extended cameo role.

NOTE: THESE SHORT THOUGHTS CONTAIN SPOILERS AND IS RECOMMENDED FOR PEOPLE WHO HAVE WATCHED THE FILM.

Why.

This is just one of many questions I asked myself while watching Star Cinema's latest, My Perfect You. After watching, I genuinely could not make heads or tails of it. Perhaps reading the film as a relatively straightforward (if a bit tonally dissonant) romantic comedy makes things simpler. But for me, the dissonance ripples out and affects the whole film, which really made me wonder what the filmmakers were thinking when they made this thing.

What is the film trying to tell us regarding mental health? Does it offer "just smile" as a solution, which is not only wrong, but also irresponsible? Or does framing these suggestions as delusions negate the suggestions in the first place, with the real solution being therapy and counseling? Why does the depiction of symptomatology feel so wonky and inaccurate? Burn's condition feels more like Schizoaffective disorder. Catatonia is not strongly related to schizophrenia, and delusions in schizophrenics do not work in the way they were depicted in the film, in my opinion (they're more paranoid delusions than confabulations in reality.) Why does the film promote acceptance while making fun of its characters' speech impediment, stature or disability?

Why is the film so wacky in the middle? Does this fact make a statement on how romantic comedies in general are unrealistic delusions of a sick mind? Does it inadvertently make a connection between escapism and mental illness?

It's nice to make a movie that advocates for mental illness (or any illness, for that matter), but it has to be done right. And I'm not completely sure that this one did the job.

Sinag Maynila 2018 Festival Report

The first hour or so of Ralston Javer's Bomba is more immersion than anything else, content to show us that the world is a dark, unforgiving place. The entire film is filled with morally grey characters and death, both rooted in contemporary social realities. That also means that for most of the movie, Pipo (Allen Dizon) is a passive character; things happen to him instead of the other way around. But that fits perfectly with the question the movie poses: what causes a man to explode with rage?

Bomba is elevated above other films of its ilk thanks to amazing performances by Allen Dizon and Angeli Sanoy, who play the films two main characters Pipo and Cyril. Pipo is a deaf-mute who has trouble fitting into society, even at the margins, while Cyril is his daughter. The dynamic between the two forms much of the film's center.

One thing Bomba does really well is inculcate a sense of ambiguity, much like in Jover's previous film Hamog (2016.) The film inserts small clues here and there that call into question character motivations that the audience might have taken for granted. Is Pipo a good, kind hearted man, or is there something dark and sinister behind his actions? What exactly is Cyril's deal, and what is the nature of her relationship with other characters?

There are other things talked about in Bomba, little moments pushed to the margins of the frame, but visible enough to be noticeable. In making us passive observers to this darkness, the film uses these moments to paint a picture of a society quickly growing apathetic, a society that ignores the humanity of other people, where piling corpses in unmarked graves are as casual as eating dinner.

Tale of the Lost Boys finds an unlikely friendship between Alex (Oliver Aquino), a car mechanic, and Jerry, (Ta Su), a medical student. Their relationship is not romantic (Alex is straight, while Jerry is gay); instead, these two find a deeper connection with each other, one that finds its roots in culture, family and identity.

This connection, perhaps ironically, is fueled by a reluctance to connect, with both characters unable to share their true feelings with others or with themselves, lost in more than one sense of the word. Jerry has a hard time coming out as it is, but in addition to his gender, he is also part of the Atayal people, and his responsibility to his family is also compounded by his responsibility to his tribe. Alex has his own issues with parents, so much so that it's unclear what these issues are until the very end of the film.

Despite being very uncommon in personality and life choices, they are bound by their hidden similarities, even at a physical level - it's noted at one point that the Aboriginal Taiwanese may have found their way to the Philippines, making this connection bound by blood. Even with culturally diverse backgrounds, the film makes a point that we are all bound by the emotions we all experience - love, regret, resentment, catharsis.

That said, while the film deftly explores Jerry's side of things, it glosses over Alex as a consequence. Aside from a nice monologue and a short scene, his story arc feels relatively unexplored. Add that to a random plot thread that goes nowhere and an abrupt ending and the film largely feels incomplete. While interesting enough, especially in its middle third, the film meanders towards an unsatisfying conclusion.

Rachel Rivera (Tippy Dos Santos), a young teen from some nondescript Americatown, wakes up in a dark alleyway and is sent to a hospital. However, once there, weird things start to happen. Apparently Rachel has been dead for two months, and nobody believes she is who she says she is. How is she alive? Why doesn't anybody believe her?

The central mystery of Yam Laranas' Abomination is occasionally intriguing. The film does its best to keep details out just enough to make us wonder what the hell is going on. Tippy Dos Santos does a capable job of portraying a troubled girl living in a world she doesn't completely understand, and to be fair the film does have its share of good dramatic moments about teenage struggles with mental health, parental issues and the opposite sex.

Now my problem isn't with the mystery of Abomination, but its eventual resolution. When the truth is finally revealed, I found myself saying, 'that's it?' For all the buildup, the solution to Abomination's mystery was completely underwhelming.

That's not the only problem with the movie. The production is decidedly low budget, despite the fact that the film takes place in America and has an all English speaking cast. Some shots are better left to the imagination rather than be depicted in wonky CGI, and the overall aesthetic feel of the movie is distinctly direct to video. Points for trying, definitely, but ultimately Abomination is a disappointing experience.

Over the past four years I've come to expect a certain kind of film when watching Sinag Maynila: films set locally, dealing with social issues, with a generally conventional narrative structure. Melodrama/Random/Melbourne! is definitely unconventional, like it was cobbled together by a group of film students who met one day and wondered "what's the wackiest thing we can do while still managing to create a conversation?" And the end result, surprisingly, works really well once the pieces fit together.

The film is filled with all kinds of random characters from different facets of Australian society, but arguably its center is Aries, a documentarian out to make her latest film. It could also be argued that this very film is her eventual output, as the conversation gets a little meta later on in the last act. The rest of the film is filled with short sequences following one character after another as they traverse the neon lit streets of Melbourne, searching for something nebulous. Connection? Sex? Revenge? Who really knows? It's all accompanied by music, as if the entire film was a recording of a karaoke session, each vignette and segment serving as just one more song in the night's repertoire.

The movie tackles themes of race and gender in Australian society, which has become a melting pot of different peoples and ideologies. It might not be cohesive from a storytelling standpoint at the start, but by the end, the film's eventual shape communicates emotion rather than denouement, feelings of loneliness, isolation and even courage during hardship.

It's definitely not for everyone, given the unconventional and at times over the top way the movie decides to present itself. But for people patient enough to stay with the film to the end, Melodrama/Random/Melbourne is pretty enjoyable.

Pests disrupt daily life, either by being a general inconvenience or by causing legitimate harm through spreading diseases. In El Peste, the pest exterminator becomes a pest himself when Abner (Mon Confiado) falls for one of his clients, Viola (Jean Judith Javier), who is married to an abusive husband (Alvin Anson). Abner just can't stop coming back to Viola's house, even though there is the real danger of getting caught.

El Peste follows on the heels of the steamy social realist dramas of the early 2000s. But unlike last year's Baklad, which tried to extract inspiration from that time as well, El Peste manages to pull it off somehow. Abner is an interesting character, though not completely sympathetic. Having been separated from his wife, Abner is addicted to connecting with someone (connection being something of a theme for this year's films) to the point that he becomes something of a parasite in Viola's house. 

It's an appropriate role for Confiado, who is usually cast as an antagonist. Abner is something of an antihero, whose motivations are pretty selfish. But one can't help but feel for him sometimes because he does this out of loneliness and existential angst. To extend the pest metaphor further, pests do what they do because they have no choice; it's in their nature as pests.

The film's low budget shows, which can work for or against the movie in certain parts. The color grading for some scenes seems a bit off - while it makes other colors pop out, the frame is saturated with a weird yellow tint that makes everyone look jaundiced.

El Peste can be darkly funny in some parts, and it finds its greatest moments in irony. While some things about the film don't work, the positives just barely edge out the negatives.

Ang Pambansang Third Wheel: Flawed, but Thoughtful

SPOILER WARNING: I am going to talk about the plot of Ang Pambansang Third Wheel in depth here, so if you do not want to be spoiled, don't read this.

Trina (Yassi Pressman) has always been the third wheel in all of the relationships that she's been in. Opportunity comes knocking in the form of Neo (Sam Milby), who feels like a perfect match. There's a catch, however: Neo is a single dad.

Romantic movies involving single parents are a novelty in Philippine Cinema, partly because the logistics of such a relationship are much more complicated than your typical vanilla romance. When in a relationship with a single mom or dad, one has to deal with both partner and child (and partner's ex-partner, if they are still in the picture.) In reality, couples deal with this setup in varying ways. In itself, this story setup is ripe with possibilities.

To its credit, Ang Pambansang Third Wheel avoids the pitfall of treating the child like a prop; a lesser movie would have made the child exist to make trouble for our couple for the sake of creating conflict. The child in this situation is shown to have his own thoughts on the matter, and Trina has a couple of heartfelt conversations with him, never content to leave him out of the picture. 

On the other hand, the story makes some unexpected turns that don't completely work out. Near the last third of the film, the tone changes dramatically. The whole "relationship with a single parent" angle is pushed to the side, and it is followed by the death of Trina's dad. This is actually a great idea in a way - it could have shown us that while Trina thought she was a third wheel in all of her relationships, that wasn't the case with her father, with this notion transforming the film into a tender examination of a father and daughter relationship. But the film backs away from that particular thread, opting for a conventional romantic movie ending instead, with the complications of the romance-with-a-single-dad having worked themselves out off screen.

To people used to the tone of Ivan Payawal's films, Ang Pambansang Third Wheel is par for the course, though this is more The Comeback (2015) than I America (2016). It can be loud, even obnoxious, but it can still be entertaining - it all boils down to a matter of personal taste. All three films feature a strong, relatively well written female character, and Yassi Pressman shines in this particular case; personally I think she's a talented actress and deserves more interesting roles. The film is well shot and scored, and the ensemble cast is decent, though Alonzo Muhlach spends too much time trying to be cute.

Ang Pambansang Third Wheel may be flawed, but its greatest strength is in its quiet moments, when the characters are left to confront their problems without the noise and bombast. During those times the film can be quite thoughtful, offering an insight into a seldom explored variation of romantic love.

that post where I catch up on a bunch of movies: Meet Me in St. Gallen, Black Panther, The Shape of Water, Sin Island

There's something intoxicating about the idea of a perfect memory, and Irene Villamor's Meet Me in St. Gallen knows that. Split into three segments, it begins with one such memory: the very epitome of a romantic meet-cute. Bela Padilla and Carlo Aquino's chemistry is simply amazing, and the conversations are buoyant, funny and interesting. What happens next, however, helps deconstruct the very idea of the meet-cute, and the notion that chemistry alone is enough and everything will work out in the end. Perhaps it's foreshadowed in the names of our main characters, an obvious reference to Celeste and Jesse Forever (2012), a film that dealt with the on and off nature of love. There's a sense of hesitation in the way Celeste and Jesse act after the first act, in that their own insecurities bleed into the amazing possibility brought before them. In trying to lionize such a perfect  memory, they end up missing the possibilities that come with their meeting, and their relationship becomes one long goodbye instead.

Guillermo Del Toro's inspiration for The Shape of Water comes from a viewing of Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), in which he actively rooted for the monster while watching the film. The result, The Shape of Water, is perhaps one of his best films yet. It's a movie about monsters both supernatural and real, the latter ending up being scarier than anything wrought from fantasy. Its unlikely heroes are people pushed to society's margins, made even more evident given the film's 1950's setting. As much as it reflects Del Toro's own experiences as an immigrant living in a strange land, The Shape of Water can also be seen as a trenchant examination of nostalgia, and the good and bad implications that come with it. The film harshly takes down the notion of the "good old days," portraying the fifties as it really was: a society still  rooted in deeply racist and sexist ideologies. Never does it sugarcoat the setting, instead, our protagonists manage to find magic in this darkness  anyway through their own positive nostalgic feelings - such as Elisa's fondness for grand movie musicals. And given the fact that the film itself is tribute to a 1950's horror classic, that applies on a broader sense as well. To borrow from the ad people who did Superman (1978,) after watching this film, you will believe a woman and a fish-man can fall in love.

Much has been said about Black Panther's role in perpetuating cultural diversity in big blockbuster film, or its varied political ideas dealing with issues like isolation, colonialism and foreign aid, or how it created one of the most layered and interesting villains in the MCU. That said, the thing that makes Black Panther most notable to me is its Afrofuturist aesthetic, through its colorful costumes and its amazing soundtrack. It gives the film a distinct identity, contrasting it sharply with the bland sameness of every MCU film that has come before it. Sure, the action sequences were just okay for me, but my enjoyment stems from how the film joyfully plays with the superhero and secret agent genres. Heck, it's the first MCU movie in a long time that had me wanting to watch it again, and given that I've gotten sick and tired of superhero movies lately, that's something.

For a country so hardheadedly determined to not legalize divorce to "keep the sanctity of marriage," whatever the hell that means, we sure do love our infidelity films. Sin Island is a particularly trashy and stupid example, but it's trashy and stupid enough to be enjoyable on a drunken night with friends. The film may pretend to be this really hot, racy film, but it really isn't that sexy; pinku films on WOWOW on Saturday nights are far more racy to be quite honest. The film is also full of idiots, including what might be the worst lawyer in movie history. I wouldn't hire that guy to defend my cat, if I had one. From a pulpy, almost campy premise, the film devolves into a weird facsimile of Fatal Attraction, without the things that made Fatal Attraction good. If there's anything nice to come out of the film, it's Nathalie Hart's interesting performance, including a rampage scene at the end where she seems to channel Jason Voorhees or something. To its credit, the movie is really well shot and scored, but it's still not enough to overcome glaring flaws everywhere else. While it's probably passable for a drunk watch, horny teens will probably fast forward to their "preferred" scenes, if you know what I mean, only to find out that they still don't have enough material for a good fap.