Speaking of minor yet quite significant crushes, I am vacillating between Ann Curtis and Sid Lucero. I’ll give further details about this if planets align and some insane urge to blog hits me. Meantime, you, loyal voyeur, are getting these three grand sentences.
Read More......Movies reveal more than we really care to admit. Cloaked with blanket of darkness we see our forgotten, secret sadness, nervous relief, joys, humanity and aspirations staring back at us like mirrors that glimmer of omnipresent recognition. We root for the star-crossed, deeply flawed heroes flickering onscreen and a portion of us depart our private selves and leap towards the scene to participate, to toss out lines we are too familiar to recite—heartaches and absolute pining for instance, are said, in different words, phrases, idioms, expressions and nuances, all talking about the same deep, throbbing wound that we carry in silence, only now, following the movements onscreen we are reminded, like intimate echoes, and we nod with tender, awakened consent.
Read More......Facebook’s all fired up with updates 10.10.10. Impressionable idiots propagated this like it’s the most clever thing than splitting the atom itself.
I kid you, of course.
10.10.10 is supposed to be a perfect day. Since I’m the undisputed grumpmaster I’d say upfront that ‘perfection’ is the word that scares the daylight out of any rational man. Why do humans flog themselves with a delusion that there is such thing as perfect? Perfection is invented by deeply insecure people. The wise ones laugh at such folly.
But that got me into thinking. If I may leap right smack into this herd-like breed of thinking, how would I imagine a “perfect day” without boring people interminably with 10.10.10 memes?
What on God’s decaying earth is a perfect day? Let’s see.
A perfect day is when your ipod dock randomly picks U2’s Beautiful Day or Lighthouse Family’s High as wakeup alarm tune and you refuse to slam the snooze button.
You groggily drag yourself to the shower and the heater temperature doesn’t scald you to medium rare.
You pick up the shampoo/soap/body scrub and it doesn’t slip out of your clutch like an uncooperative eel.
You pick up the toothbrush and notice how your teeth gleams, making you make a mental note to cancel the exorbitantly priced whitening appointment from your smug orthodontist.
You gargle on your first caffeine fix of the day and feel happy as a pup, the warmth sliding down your throat makes you contented and calm.
You nail your day’s wardrobe at first try.
You exit your flat and the downward elevator opens at the exact same time.
There are no pesky kids, smelly people, and grumpy occupants in the lift. Also someone’s wearing your favorite scent.
Traffic was a breeze and you find yourself humming a tune instead of cursing under your breath or waving at other drivers with four fingers bent.
Attractive, sophisticated people share the lift with you instead of rowdy call center agents loudly displaying their recently acquired accent which makes you guess what part of Pluto is the provenance of such twaddle.
Your phone doesn’t ring.
There is a fight among your colleagues/friends over insisting to pay for your lunch.
You happily fork over heart-clutching dessert without mentally calculating the number of minutes of atonement on the treadmill.
Your superior had a bright epiphany and decided to do the smart thing instead of being an insufferable knucklehead.
The top priority tray is mysteriously depleted.
You pass by an ATM and there’s no queue.
You get inside the bank and the teller puts the “next teller/breaktime” countertop/tent card right after serving you.
Nobody emails asking you things that can be answered by life forms with five functioning brain cells.
Over dinner the waiter's not only attentive and polite but s/he places your orders right and has dimples that can put the Middle Eastern conflicts into a grinding halt.
Over drinks your favorite humans try and set you up with someone you’d actually bone at first glance.
You bone the one you’re set up with and it restores your faith in the universe.
Cosy flat greets you like a loyal pet.
You slide into bed, wishing there is such a thing as a perfect day.
You realize there is none so you let out a soft chuckle as you click off the lights and surrender to the kindness of dreams.
Visitors, most especially the untreatable neatniks, would glance at my office desk and elicit a low groan of disbelief. Their eyes would torpedo on the mounting mess of office priorities (what priorities? Everything’s stamped “the world will end this nanosecond, finish this fucking work!”) and their minds would whirr with high and mighty judgments about my abysmal lack of tidying skills while trying out of politeness not to imitate the rapid eyeball rolling trademarked by Linda Blair. The hell I care; I love my desk—it has a “lived in” resemblance of King Tutankhamen’s crypt after the looters trashed it and the mere fact that I’m making a vain parallel to mummified royals tombs and the rubbles of my working space is proof enough that I’m still trying to have a semblance of a busy, productive professional life. Ergo, blogging duties be damned. Pesky inquiries about my whereabouts, or the state of my well-being (no, I’m not decomposing unmourned in some remote landfill, though I know of some people who wish I am), this compact entry should be answer enough for now. I miss Manila and my favorite haunts, the mindless movies and the smart banters with smartass online friends who long ago threw the proverbial towel of defeat from waiting for a semi-coherent update.
Also, hello Xienahgirl and DencioPadilla.
There. Now I’m back to semi-silence.
N.S., a voyeur of this blog, needled me with questions that prompted this unplanned post. His concerns are the following:
I am writing to tell you that I am amazed by your writing in your LoudCloud Blog. How do you make such good writing? Do you have special, maybe expensive software? What books are you reading? What habits of writing can you give to a frustrated, non-English speaking, aspiring writer like me? It’s been more than 3-month ages ago since your last post in your blog. You used to be prolific, and the dwindling total number of posts each year is noticeable. Still, the quality of each post impresses me to no end. They are at par with those by Jessica Zafra or Clinton Palanca. Now, if you could answer and share with me why you are so good. Hope you help me with my poor writing. And hope to see that long overdue post, which is worth it.
Your kind words make my nipple harden especially when I keep on rereading that bit where my incoherent twaddles are mentioned in the same league as The Overlord Of The Universe and another fine man of Philippine Letters. However I have a nasty chromosomal streak that keeps my delusional tendencies in check so I must dampen your enthusiasm and say that I am not at par with those literary supernovas. I am not being coy; false humility is not stitched in my DNA either. What I do best is poke fun at the ridiculousness of everything (Hello, Cris Pablo! When’s the next flick?).
My blog is what it is: a blog. It’s not falling into the caliber of writing worthy of thesis dissection. It’s an obscure repository of warped drivels and occasional bursts of emo-ness that would make your epithelial cells curl.
I am sorry to have disappointed you dear N. I thought I’d make it painless for both of us and point you directly to Rilke’s Letters To A Young Poet so I can resume combating with my tornado-riddled daily life. I fear I am not the most credible adviser as far as finding your writing voice is concerned. The chic and catty Kitty Go once said that writing and cooking is something inherent: you either have it or you don’t. But I am sure there are seminars or workshops where foundations of great writing are taught, helping you find your own voice.
As for loudcloud, it’s not a voice worthy of analysis. It is an irregular disjointed howl of random things that the general universe can exist without much need of. Save for a few voyeurs who inhaled prohibited substances and for inexplicable reason keeps digressing here for unpredictable dispatch of warpedness.
Their persistent loyalty is rewarded with very long gaps in between posts.
Thereby educating them with the virtue of forbearance.
Outside my window sleep avoids the city and I am a compatriot in this plague. Looking down, the opposite lanes of EDSA stream with headlights; their velocities determined by degrees of drowsiness, urgencies and whether the limbs tapping the pedals have had an extra cup of coffee that afternoon. Pedestrians huddle in elevated walkways, their movements erratic, like a ballet orphaned by a sinister choreographer. Near the lower end of the stair planks the blind guitarist strums paeans to heartbreaks, accompanying the desperation drifting from sweet unschooled voice of the equally-blind female vocalist seating beneath him, their tragic duet a catalyst of sudden philanthropy and quiet shudder of relief among passersby who are confronted of their plight but unwilling to imagine having a chance to share in their misfortune. A pair of lovers, having just punched out their attendance sheet in the nearby grocery walk by, their feet a bundle of aching nerves for having stood all day yet their spirits are light, consoled by the thought of sharing a bowl of goto in the neighborhood stall—a moment where they are absolutely assured to be in control of their destinies before they part ways with a quick kiss into the hard boards of their respective bed spaces to dream of better lives before tomorrow’s drudgery start to creep in and rob them of such fantasies. A Sluggish cabby combs the streets for that random call center agent rushing to midnight shift so he can meet the boundary rates; a slight mix of remorse and guilt creep into his thoughts for having acted like a jerk, tormenting commuters during rush hours. Along the fading refrains of sappy pop songs and the hoarse voices of late callers seeking breakup advice from a DJ who feigns sympathy, he touches the dangling Rosary twined around the connecting node of a rearview mirror, bargaining with God for a generous passenger. Street urchins accost strangers with practiced expressions of pain only to be ignored. Policemen patrol the well-maintained lanes this side of the metropolis like bored hawks, avoiding an occasion of impulsive penile erection from staring at the pinup leering in the center spread of a tabloid. The convenience store across the corner becomes a beehive of chains smokers, drifters, a couple darting off their car who forgot a quart of milk earlier, insomniacs, hustlers busily tapping their mobile phones with their impatience growing while their patrons suffer the slowness of elevators and BPO employees having animated conversations in their newly-acquired accents. I pull the canvass curtain shutters, forfeiting myself from tableaus of wakefulness staging autonomous concerts twenty nine floors below, wondering what shades will float into my dream, if it ever comes, and whether it will have a face or a name that will haunt me long after I wake up.
Read More......Change, as clichéd tongues would mechanically wag to no end, is constant.Jose Mari Chan wailed (rather painfully) about it too. Though there is little room to dispute this unadventurous wisdom the smartass in me would oftentimes roll my eyes and reenact soundless vomiting midsentence when this very tenet is uttered.
What makes this tired belief more insufferable is the fact that whoever utters it is possessed of massive reserves of optimism that makes you wonder whether s/he swallowed both the sun and Oprah for breakfast.
I, being a habitual pragmatic/jaded lot, would take on this disposition with characteristic glum of someone who steered clear of Chicken Shit For The Soul, which is the cue for Mr./Ms. Sunshine to save me from the clutches of pessimism. Which, is precisely my cue to start screaming and begin entertaining thoughts on cannibalism.
And the most annoying thing is Mr/Ms Sunshine would smile brightly when you reject his/her positive, cheerful and hopeful disposition.
MSUNSHINE: Change is the only constant in this world.
YOU: So is your endless supply of clichés that makes my pancreas gray with boredom.
MSUNSHINE: (Smiling so bright you can tan youself under his/her gums): Why so negative?! Today is but another day and tomorrow...
YOU: *stabs him/her with a salad fork in the eye*
Which makes me wish for a raw deal:
IDEAL MSUNSHINE PREACHING: What an ungrateful, wretched bastard you are! Of course things change and you can either grow up and embrace this reality like every thinking person would rather than moping around like a baby who deserves to be forcedfed his own diapers! If it were up to me, fools such as yourself refusing to accept the evolutionary nature of things should have been aborted so you become less of a burden in this already insane world! Get real you piece of waste of protein!
I would have more respect for a person like that.
But no, I would always receive a dramatic sigh, an almost-psychotic smile and a sympathetic gaze that tells me the mutterer of a thousand clichés is worried for my very own welfare.
S/he probably is, and it’s a comfort to know it.
But why is unsolicited kindness always the Siamese twin of cliché?
Whatever happened to originality?
Disappearances are the hotbed of anguish. Often than not the despair resides in the hearts of those who are widowed by nonattendance, where it throbs and branches out like springtime tendrils searching for answers or apologies. The absentee, no matter how valid the reasons, or how urgent the manner of departure will always leave a bruise while carrying with him a pouch of guilt that can only be mended by homecomings.
When words fail you, melodrama comes in handy, doesn’t it?
Hello, I’m partially back. (Be warned though: this might lead to another sudden exit.)
I miss out on a lot of things, obviously. Just thinking on how to catch up exhausts the living sap out of me.
I wish I know which one to pick up first: the broom to sort out the cobwebs around here, or the mouse to click my way into non-refundable ticket to sunny Rio?
Decisions, decisions.
Strange. Ego deserted me and I muddle about for sober words to explain this sudden, awakened fondness. I go about my hectic day distracted, trying to locate a proper drawer in which to confine this incomprehensible stirring. Your harmless smile was a constant ghost - unshakable, omniscient like blinking billboards growing in every vacant space. It lingers: merciless, relentless, confronting me in every turn, humiliating me into realization of my feared vulnerability.
Nothing quite prepared me for your unscheduled arrival. I was in my prime that day: competent, self-assured—cocky even—dispensing shallow anecdotes, second-hand philosophies and creative treatises to pass the time as we all wait for the scheduled creative session to commence. I was bantering animatedly with your colleagues feeling rather good about myself: Life is worth living again—a positive career detour, novel challenges and I am in a time and place where I am in my element, the very familiar neighborhood of my creative enthusiasms.
I should be untroubled of the fact that you seem conventional on the surface: calm, steady gaze, fairly beautiful in a nonthreatening way, a self-possessed smile that is equal parts shy and searching.
You eroded me on the spot.
My defenses would hastily, alarmingly remind me that there are far more overwhelmingly beautiful subjects around worthy of my obsessive pursuits. I deal with them on a regular basis, them being demigods and demigoddesses blessed with polished features, physical proportions and excessive charisma enough to weaken the uninitiated. They orbit my professional life as faces we employ to trigger desire in others. And I thought that I have set my feet firmly at a point in my life when I can capably boast to have seen a fair share of superior good looks enough to be immune and unflustered; that I am now accomplished in the art of not being easily awed; that I would know how to navigate my way in a crowd of loveliness unscathed; that you will be a commonplace comparison to the grand buffet of beauties out there.
I never realized the gross miscalculations of it all until you held my gaze and that blameless smile raced across your bright, disarming face.
I was this close to being gone.
So I might as well profess this disconcerting feeling and come out clean of this disorientation. I might as well commit these thoughts into writing in the great hope that seeing them take shape into characters, words and paragraphs the feeling would come off too ridiculous and restore my conviction; that this is mere delinquency, a passing weakness not unlike beholding and being smitten by a glossy spread in a magazine. That this stirring is naive, silly and eventually be regarded inconsequential, a future source of shudders, self-mockings and embarrassments. Yet it’s not as easy as it seems. There are no manuals and tonics that can be easily had for these anxieties. That being human is sometimes an agonizing and sudden roundabout route into defencelessness.
However—and contrary to all these self-abortive denials—allow me to come to terms with a great difficulty:
You have set my armor worthless and I gazed back at you that day quietly shaken, my thoughts racing.
I was wordless, my spirits ablaze.
Confidence is an elected armor, isolating my helplessness and the arrows of your steady gaze. Look elsewhere because I am beginning to fumble for words.
I’m starting to feel naked.
Noontime television shows are a daily source of pure steaming shit. They keep on bastardizing the media’s powers and shred every remaining speck of intelligence of viewers. They keep on churning subhuman, formulaic, unwatchable idiocy and pander on the desperation of underprivileged populace and brand it entertainment and civil service.
And now it seems that the charming sparks at MTRCB, in a blinding flash of supergenius, are hell-bent in establishing a society of sedated woodpeckers of us.
MTRCB I have a branding slogan for you: "Thinkers Will Be Shot"
I applaud the balls of Ms. Roces—she’s been candid, brutally honest, yes, and speaking for what seems to be a fair assessment of majority of our educators isn’t about being insensitive: it is a glaring malaise that needs a sobering rethink. Our dank educational system has long ago gone to hell and when someone points it out she is vilified? People, you don’t need to oust a judge like that: you put her in charge of the government! You don't suspend a show not because you have an outspoken judge; you suspend it because its very existence is offensive to the basic dignity of humanity.
This is a democracy and a contrarian opinion should be encouraged, not subverted.
MTRCB is neither a voice of reason nor the guardian of morality. It’s an unwanted institution gloating in it's sparkling vision: zombify every citizen into a society of agreeable, slavering idiots.
Dear LouCloud,
Skip the pleasantries and let’s zero in on the most raw of facts: you’re a negligent blockhead. You seem to have forgotten how to write a decent blog, and let’s not even get started on the sorry state with which you have abandoned TBAC.
What happened? Someone stole your thesaurus? Shift+F7 keys worn out from rampant abuse? Mental Herpes?
Frankly I am sorely disappointed. I have put up with your inadequate postings in 2009 and I will no longer tolerate the same dismal state in 2010.
I miss you and your many hideous tendencies. I miss us.
Where are you? Where were you? Have you allowed yourself to drown in the gutters of a good book and decided not to come back?
Will you come back?
If you ever did, will you have breathless stories to tell?
Will these stories rush on like rivers of running sentences drowning me, drowning cities?
Please write back. Meanwhile I am swimming in the rhythm of repeated glancing towards the driveway, anticipating your homecoming.
lovelots, verbosecity.blogspot.com
Well-cultivated sense of irony, a warped sense of proportion and a taste for absurdity are three bare minimum requirements to truly enjoy Cris Pablo’s latest opus, Boylets. Given the auteur’s credentials it is illogical to enter the theater in search of profundity, thought-provoking dissertations or cineaste-centric treatises. Your film-going pleasure will be amplified if all you have to do is avoid snacking on polvoron while watching the movie, deposit your common sense in a hallway locker, and suspend all realities and levelheaded expectations. To truly grasp the Cris Pablo Cinematic Vision think of junk food floating in intoxicating marinade of formaldehyde and botox.
This is why I anticipate and love every new offering by the tireless auteur who, for all our sheer pleasure, shouldn’t retire as long as there are multitalentless actors out there who remain undiscovered.
Don’t look at me to thoroughly explain the plot. Figuring it out in its entirety would be like asking me to explain Quantum Physics in less than three sentences. All I know is Boylets would be what would come out if you produce a lackadaisical Bel Ami film for poor people.
From what I gather (before my cerebral cortex slid to coma is that) there exists a quartet of friends, three of which are so poor they alternate between petty crimes and providing sexual joys to a handful of fags whose assorted kinks and bizarre fetishes would make Caligula look like Sixth Grade home room viewing material. Only in Cris Pablo’s universe would you see horny gay men so repulsive it will drive our hero/poster boy for smart gays Danton Remoto give the possibility of a celibate straight life a second thought. But I deviate.
One of the characters is a caring son whose mother is deteriorating and ailing and since they are dirt poor, cannot afford medical attention. The scene where he is feeding her measly rice soaked in bullion of cheap chicken soup was distressing to look at. It can easily be the entire redeeming thing of this movie but is not sufficient to save this outlandish oeuvre. This is the brief affecting spark where Pablo's humanity is revealed.
The other character is a passenger tricycle owner that despite living in a crime and larceny-prone ghetto remains naive. (Except for one episode of a stolen tire), he parks his tricycle unmanned for extended period of time and, in this unique universe, the thing never gets car-napped at all.
The third dude is a caretaker of a slum rental property and his burning desire is to go to the province and discover his familial roots.
The other non-poor twink character is so smitten with the slum property caretaker/SPC (it’s difficult to tell them apart because the four leads seem to have a classified competition to outrank Orlando Bloom’s Legolas by being facially immobile and the first one to show a daintiest hint of emotion loses) that he is so obsessed in making SPC happy in order to rethink the plan of going to the province in search of his lost relatives. So Non-poor twink does a lot of chivalrous acts: he talks to the SPC’s ex girlfriend for her to profess her undying love; scours seedy theaters in search for SPC’s mother who abandoned him and now adopts a job whose income is derived from giving lewd theatergoers head jobs; he buys SPC his dream gift of a bicycle and cooks him spaghetti on the eve of his birthday and departure—all done in the great hopefulness that the provincial sojourn will be reconsidered if not altogether canceled.
The quartet gives us a glimpse of how it is to be young, restless and breathtaking untalented. Like the shining acting prowess of head-job giving mother they dazzle us with a vast repertoire of intense emotions consisting of a pout, a grimace, rapid blinking and if you pay close attention, drawn out period of vacant stares.
And the dialogues! The caring son delivers what appears to be random non-sequiturs isntead of a semblance of coherent dialogue. Consider these lines delivered in a breathless monotone after he got expelled from the vehicle (during the drag race equivalent involving wretched tricycles), and upon regaining consciousness after his head hit the hard concrete: “Para ako’ng ibon. Madami na ako’ng atraso sayo. Happy Birthday!” (I’m like a bird. I have many faults to you. Happy Birthday!”
Or this precious negotiating gem of a dialogue:
Twink (looking for a regular client: Nasaan si (insert name of client whose name escaped me)? (Where is name of regular client?)
Unprepossessing Fag Roommate of Regular Client: Wala siye eh. Next time text ka muna bago ka pumunta ha. (He’s not around. Next time please send a text message before dropping by)
Twink: Ikaw na lang gusto mo? (How about you, want to blow me?)
Unprepossessing Fag: Di ako pwede may singaw ako ngayon eh. (I have canker sores, sorry.)
Twink: Eh di tirahin na lang kita sa puwet! (How about I butt-fuck you?)
Unprepossessing Fag: May almoranas rin ako ngayon eh! (I also have hemorrhoids right now.)
Oh, joy! Pure cinema!
Then there’s this brilliant counter-argument of a sour fag when one of the twinks refused to reciprocate a blowjob:
“Mas masarap sumubo ang mga straight kasi hindi sila insecure sa kanilang pagkalalaki!”(Straight men give better blowjobs because they are secure with their masculity!”)
Thank you Cris Pablo! I’ll commit this pearl to memory because this would be a handy, persuasive line around Colin Farrel!
Useless to overemphasize but this is why I love Boylets. It provides the kind of window into the Human Condition—the kind of window that non-mental-institution-bound patients would rather have padlocked for the general populace’s sake.
I have deep respect for Pablo’s tenacity—He never gives up, and that's admirable. He persists on convincing us that prostitution is the direct consequence of unspeakable neediness. He spins a narrative exploring destitution and sexuality and he is the only indie auteur I have seen so far whose profound understanding of abject poverty doesn’t end in shooting scenes in shanties and slums. He truly understands that poverty goes beyond dire living conditions; that poverty is all about loose sandos, oversize jersey shorts and Orocan furniture.
The film is an enjoyably deranged excursion into a sexual bubble planet—a digital excuse of a flick to get post-pubescent actors to shed their Hanford briefs and flash their pubes. Contrary to critical cries I'd say Boylets is not one dimensional. It is half-dimensional. And I want supersize coke and a bucket of buttered popcorn to go with it!
(Catch Boylets in Robinsons Cinemas now on its second week of screening!)
Compassion is one elevated form of human sentiments. It is transcendent in the sense that you step out of selfishness and supplant your emotions into rooting for the welfare of another person. This may not be the core thesis of Ang Laro Ng Buhay Ni Juan but for some accidental reasons it just did that: this unusually poignant film makes you discover your hidden well of empathy and you surface from the screening astonished, startled and stirred.
Altarejos + Bonife along with Peping Salonga are back in vigorous form. With the recent head-scratching turn in Little Boy Big Boy they seem to have taken a momentary breath and here decided to resume making significant films utilizing their key strengths—that is penning well-thought out narrative, sincere dialogues and sexually provocative propositions. Although the central sex scenes in ALNBNJ are still charged (and even then it makes you wonder how much graphic footage got snipped by the charming folks at MTRCB) they seem to have taken a backseat to make the story, the acting and deft direction rule.
ALNBNJ is a far-reaching, affecting chronicle. It reels in the viewer into following the pivotal day in the life of its protagonist Juan aka Erwin (Ray An Dulay), a live (gay)sex performer who is making a crucial decision in his life: to leave the daily grind of seedy carnal routine in favor of beckonings of a sick mother and a simple provincial life.
Like thousands of other similar stories out there Juan arrived in the city in search of better things and months and months of struggle found him committing man to man action in an underground sleazy bar. Though he appears neither apologetic nor resentful of his fate, he is also not happy of his squandered potential—only the fading, laminated diploma hanging precariously on the dilapidated wall of his ramshackled pigeonhole of a room reminds him of once a promise of a decent life. Typical story for those who have seen scads of equally-sleazy indie movies lately but what made the story entirely his own is his quiet dignity: he never moans, complains or bitches about his ill fate; he forge on the daily struggle with courage and determined detachment.
He is not alone in this foul existence and he is very aware of it: There’s the scene where a destitute neighbor borrowed thirty pesos to buy a scoop of rice only to get bumped by a running street urchin sending every grain on the pavement and getting soaked by the murky canal water. She didn’t erupt into a wild melodramatic sob; she just tried to scoop what she can possibly retrieve, desperately trying to salvage every precious grain. In the catastrophic bar scene (you struggle to neutralize a lump in your throat as) you witness scattered, broken biscuits intended for homecoming present being picked one by one from the floor. It kills you. It breaks your heart. It makes you forget you went into the theater in the hope of looking at raging hard-on of the cast, only to be won over by shimmering raw talents who are in complete command of the role they inhabit.
Adept direction and a subtle script brought out the indisputable talent of Dulay into prominence. Whereas in the past Dulay’s acting aptitude glimmers but get eclipsed (because of the minority of his roles) ALNBNJ is his opportunity and he convinces us that you'll watch this movie not because of raging erections but because of hard-won talent. Even the minor casts approach their characters with precision and humanity they seem not to regurgitate a script but tossing out lines like spontaneous snippet of their daily dialogues.
Somewhere in the course of the film I wondered: Is it just me or the movie has an intriguing argument to make? The case being: Living in squalid condition, striving to live on and finding your way through brutalities of life are discouraging but not reasons to stop caring. Flashes of kindnesses are randomly injected to make this claim tangible: a sympathetic bar owner (essayed with candid, comic glee by Bonife himself who matter-of-factly declares “Kayong mga gays, bisexual, straight curious, straight tripper o ano man ang tawag ninyo sa sarili ninyo isa lang ang ipinunta natin dito: Burat!” Classic!), a benevolent police member of the NBI raid squad, a neighbor who would willingly split her meager meal all seem like rare likelihoods but one cannot deny their uncommon existence either.
Another interesting aspect is the underlying, semi-subversive stand essayed in the movie by putting an accent on the brand of people and forces that prey on the haplessness, desperation, misfortune and plain bad luck of individuals who are careworn and plainly, vainly trying as damned hard to claim a right to live for at least another day.
All throughout these tormenting moments ALNBNJ keeps itself in check: it is careful not to slide into sensationalism or petty melodrama. It never attempts to mine shallow sympathies on the plight and adverse conditions of its characters. It doesn’t rhapsodize the sexual scenes instead use them as natural progressions of the story. Thankfully Altarejos, Bonife and Salonga didn’t rehearse the rampant, cheap indie formula of “I Am So Desperate So I Am A Hooker” route but instead moulds its characters with willpower and fortitude. In so doing the movie and characters make our empathy spontaneous and potent.
ALSBNJ is honest and, despite the pitiable moments, is strangely kindhearted with acute understanding of a struggling soul’s tendencies and motivations. It is a well-crafted oeuvre and treats the widely familiar plot/flawed characters with delicate respect and legitimate deference. It openly tells a blunt story that will resonate with anyone who at one point in his life was driven to misery and anguish and how the viciousness and cruelty of other people (and life in general) will squeeze out that last remaining ounce of hope in you until you are rendered beaten, cynical and emotionally empty.
This is where I applaud and commend Altarejos + Bonife + Salonga. Ang Laro Ng Buhay Ni Juan is like a bittersweet, hand-written love letter designed to wound you. And it does wound you. It rouses your humanity into sudden wakefulness.:::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Ang Laro Ng Buhay Ni Juan is currently screening at Robinsons Mall Cinemas (Galleria/Manila. Please check other theater listings). Do support this worthwhile indie movie as a way of encouraging more neat materials to come to life and hit the screens!
Cinemas are abuzz with independent films recently offering wide-ranging persuasive propositions that I’d like to view as stick-the-middle-finger-up-the-nostrils-of-Mother-Lily mockery. With the exception of Brillante Mendoza’s incurable stage of Auteuritis Extremis—a terminal syndrome marked by a director’s inability to use a tripod or a steady hand—local independent movies are getting better and better. Be it the craft in storytelling, the stark realism, the convincing narratives, the indies are getting more compelling with skewed perspectives and provocative ideas not beaten to a quivering pulp by the bland-headed executives of ABS-CBN/GMA Films.
Eponymous Pipo is not one of those movies and I wondered what kind of parent would name her son something that, when pronounced (pee poo), gives a disagreeable image of combined liquid waste and solid excrement. Later it became apparent: given the back draft of the movie it dawned to me that the name seems apt because all throughout the film I avoid staring too long at waterlogged backyards of floating shanties in the slums out of fear that something would surface from the murky waters that would make me lose interest for three consecutive dinners.
Pipo (Tyrone Perez) is a story of a reluctant hustler. We see him at the crossroad of his life when the call for familial responsibility outweighs the mandate of decency. Pipo’s best buddy, Mark (Marco Morales), a seasoned hustler/online sex performer, have been pressuring him to do an orgy scene for a dubious B-Movie. In this B-Movie Pipo is required to have sex with the very willing Mark and Mark’s live-in slash cybersex partner (who happens to be the kind of girl Pipo have a soft spot for). This is the cinematic equivalent of a fantasy breeding in the mind of bi-curious FHM magazine readers whose best buddy and his girlfriend are reason enough to digress from heterosexuality for a moment.
To milk out our communal sympathy it is essayed that the Pipo is a gallant brother and judicious son who would do great lengths to help the family he loves. He is a handsome chap concerned with the welfare of those he loves whose only crime is sporting a hurried Ricky Reyes buzz cut. His second crime would be not flashing his pubes or his dick onscreen, which is a grave misdemeanor if you have to consider the loud gripes of four fags seated behind me. (To appease this agitation, and as if on cue, Marco Morales yanked his briefs down thereby thwarting a likelihood of disgruntled riots by hormone-crazed viewers who would otherwise feel shortchanged).
Being the eldest child, Pipo is conflicted over trading his wang for moolah. The pressing needs of living, sacrce food, electricity and the litany of school necessities of his younger siblings torment him to no end. His mom struggles tremendously to make ends wave at each other by selling fish in neighborhood slum areas.
This is the main thesis of the movie: Poverty is the Autobahn to prostitution.
How many times have we seen or read about this argument before? The movie stakes this issue as if prostitution is the exclusive career of slum dwellers. (A concept my condo-dwelling, high-maintenance hoe neighbor would easily debunk. But a condo-dwelling whore is less cinematic, therefore not a saleable film concept?) Whenever I see a movie that says Look At Him He’s So Destitute He Has No Choice But Rent His Balls I begin to feel like I am being punished for not finishing my overpriced soup at Italiannis.
Of course a radical aleck would certainly point out: The way prostitution is viewed in this country is such a terrible thing. The hypocrisy is such that one thanks his lucky stars every day for not having to auction his penis. So what if someone is getting paid for sex? He’s not robbing you of your money, he’s giving you the pleasure and what is so bad about that? Isn’t every job in every antiseptic office a form of whoring, too?
The Philippines has no absolute claim on this “Poverty shortcut to Prostitution” complex. Colombia, Brazil and India have bazillion tales of poverty as reason for commercial sex and their hustlers look like they leapt out of GQ or wandered in from casting call of Dior Homme whereas our local movie’s version offers a sad coterie of folks spotted at D’Mall and slapped them with acting contracts. You go to Las Vegas, Berlin or Amsterdam and you’d meet jolly chaps who seem like they are having a lot of fun doing something they do exceptionally for cash. No histrionics, no pseudophilosophical bullshit. It just is: a job that pays so you might as well embrace and love it.
And here are my other questions: is it imperative that all the independent gay movies coming out in the past two years would require a filthy slum or a super seedy bar to illustrate a gay piece? Would a poignant gay story cannot be told without getting intimate with fifth generation E. Coli/Salmonella co-leasing dilapidated housing and soggy alleys? Are slums the new Petri dishes of homosexuality?
Aside from those mind-boggling questions I must say Pipo is not necessarily a reasonable piece of distraction. The direction was not entirely faulty and you can sense commitment and sensitivity but it appears strewn. The tale is not spectacular, nor does it offer fresh insights on the predicaments of prostitutes or the triumph of the human spirit but it has a candid perseverance that attempts to win you over. Tyrone Perez labors to convey the turmoil and acceptance of his fate with a visible struggling grasp of material. Marco Morales delivers his role with lackluster candor though certain instances in the movie there were glints that he can be convincing with fitting and challenging roles in the future.
Pipo is a cinematic manhole (no pun intended). On one hand you’ll avoid looking under the lid for the darkness and grime. The other hand seduces you into a different kind of mirror where you’d see a sullied version of humanity stare back with unflinching eyes.
Ill supply of unique title seems to be the emerging trend among independent movies. Altarejos+Bonife triggered the wave with Little Boy Big Boy and now we have Boy by Solito Aureaus and Boylets by Cris Pablo. If the trailer is any indication Boylets seems poised to bring home the Cheedar Cheese Championship hands down, guaranteed to launch projectile/nostril-spurting of soda among moviegoers. Naturally I would brave the lines to watch it for the promise of sheer ludicrous, campy fun. Being a demented and devoted follower of Pablo’s autership I am hugely convinced that If It’s From Pablo It Must Be A Riot. He is the 21st century minor clone of Joey Gosengfiao and Elwood Perez manifested by his deep understanding of the public’s need for cinematic ridiculousness narrated with pubic hair.
I have repeatedly postponed writing about Little Boy Big Boy. I was convinced I’d be unable to come up with something sensible. LBBB was by far the least inflammatory among the body of provocative works we have learned to anticipate from Altarejos and Bonife. Though it’s not terrible piece I wouldn’t proclaim it a triumph either. I thought of not writing about it at all and opted to wait out till Ang Laro ng Buhay ni Juan hits the theaters but Boy and Boylets arrived and the troika seems to be an interesting thing to pursue.
Don’t get me wrong: LBBB was somewhat clever, the direction was earnest but I felt the very strength which was hallmark of Altarejos and Bonife backfired this time: that is the ability to cast unproven actors to inhabit roles and surprise everyone by delivering spectacular performances. In LBBB the two lead stars were visibly struggling and even the kid star lacked the charisma that comes off easily among children. The girl playmate of the kid emerged to be the saving grace and the cameo of Bonife as the diva slash high priestess facilitator in the grand orgy scene reeled the movie from static dullness.
Interestingly, and I maybe looking for a fish where there is none, the orgy scene provides unintentional revelation and critique on the brutal discrimination within the gay community. You have no business joining orgies if you are fat or unattractive or too swishy, more so if you can’t handle dismissal or rejection. Coming from a work of dynamic duo who steadfastly promote tolerance and equal rights and have used the cinema as medium for wider appreciation of gay culture makes it all the more ironic though it cuts through and drive a point.
LBBB clearly is not intended for fags itching for a quick fix. It is a story that just needed to be told. Unfussy, earnest, wry. It screwed your carnal expectations and, serves you right.
***
Consider Solito Aureaus’ Boy as Snow White’s celluloid love letter to gay twinks everywhere. It is a sweeping letter, throbbing with hormonal tension, pulsating with anticipation and yearning. It is the teenage daybreak to the pleasures and struggles of stumbling into incomprehensible, intense affection - affection so potent it hits you like a quick kick in the head, the ribcage and the crotch, all at the same time.
Fans of Ang Pagdadalaga Ni Maximo Oliveros (The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros) would meet this latest work with a sense of familiarity. With this new opus, it's apparent that teenage angst is the province Aureaus know very well. Boy is gleefully treading this recognizable terrain, this tricky path of honeyed agony mixed with exhilaration of being confronted, for the first time, with the kind of gravity that snatches you from self-satisfaction and sends you spinning into an orbit of desire and persistent pining for someone who seems to be beyond your reach. It is that tender, naive spot that will strike a chord with anyone who has ever rooted for another person who appears incapable of reciprocating your burning infatuation in equal measure.
It tells of the story of aspiring poet, Boy (Aeious Asin), a Barely Legal creative writing student whose freshly-scrubbed appearance belies the murky stirrings of his gonads. He wandered into a gay bar and was instantly smitten by the star dancer Aries (Aries Pena) writhing onstage. Aries moves like his choreography were either inspired by observing mating rituals of scorpions or he's keen on plagiarizing floor exercises of yoga instructors and Olympic gymnasts. This is the kind of choreography that you will be advised against by people behind Anlene.
Boy has charms in spades. It charms you into sharing the conflicting emotions of its protagonists. It charms you into easy empathy by providing a human window into the plights of sex workers. It charms you into believing, like that Snow White chorus line “Someday your prince will come”, and sweep you off your feet. It charms you into discarding cynicism and jadedness and for one moment convinces you to revisit the wide-eyed aspiration that love IS possible. It charms you the most that the acting of Asin and Pena were inspired, graceful, subtle, as they tossed out gestures and dialogues that make you wish you are either delivering them or the recipient thereof.
Various movie scenes ricocheted in my head while watching Boy. There’s that Jerry Maguire moment of talking to a fish (or was it the peek behind the aquarium moment in Baz Luhrmann's Romeo+Juliet?), there’s that La Pieta gesture of Whitney Houston’s The Bodyguard (which prompted unanimous gasps and sighs from love-soaked members in the audience) and the fantasy scene at the gay bar evoked the sequence in that teenage gay flick Were The World Mine. While the Stripper-meets-cute-client-and-fall-for-him vibe made me recall the funny misadventures of two dudes in Trick.
Though I must declare my soft spot for Boy - and believe me I thoroughly enjoyed the movie- I must register minor dissent towards how Aureaus seem to view coming of age like cotton candy handed out easily. In both Maximo and Boy, Auereaus appears to approach gay stirrings with down-cushioned mittens. Though I will not go the lengths of calling it fancy autism it’s noteworthy that Maximo's slum-hardened, tough guy father and siblings coddle him like a pampered princess (a far cry from what would happen in reality if you get caught staring at Bench billboards by your maton older brother). In Boy, Asin has a very accepting mother who didn’t launch into melodramatic hysteria (like most mothers would) upon walking into her sleeping son’s room and (finding him with cum all over his belly/or that crucial scene of) discovering him in bed blissfully asleep with a call boy in a cloud of post-coital haze.
Questions: How many of these ideal relatives exist out there? Where do these kind of people live? And how come no one I know rarely is in acquaintance with any of them? Is this wishful thinking to encourage everyone to dive for the open lifestyle? How many strippers out there would be instantly forge endearment with clients?
If the answers to these questions are not easy to come by in real life, in a way, does it give young gay people a false sense of hope? And all it takes is visit to Little Boy Big Boy’s orgy scene or opening an account in ferociously dismissive PlanetRomeo/ManJam, or a rather bad encounter with con hustlers for a sobering dose of reality?
Then there’s the glowing press fuss about how the movie shed a new light on the quandaries of sex workers and how they are given human dimensions in the movie. Laudable effort indeed, but this not a novel perspective. The Prostitute-Are-Humans-Too essays have been explored many times over in varying degrees of treatment and accomplishments and although in Boy Aries delivered this insight with great panache and restraint it is hardly a groundbreaking proposition.
Auereaus is a gifted, sensitive auteur. He has very confident command of his materials and point of view and he has deep reserves of sympathy for his characters and audience. He skates the delicate line between gentleness and perspective-changing without subjecting you to a moralist preamble. He is also possessed of that deft ability to infuse a dose of high-art (poetry reading/interpretative dancing/poetic monologues, anyone?) and keeping things in check to prevent a downhill into pretentiousness.
Boy is rich in breath-taking textures, mood, emotion and metaphors. It is a cinematic reminder of youthful delinquency and the very first encounter with tenderness remembered in vivid details. It makes you dream.
And you thought you have forgotten how.
*****
*****
(Coming up Pipo. AND Boylets.)
Losing humor is a rare occasion for me but tonight I so wanted to be The Grinch who wishes he brought an Uzi.
I decided to go to the Mega Tent at the DepEd complex, a few of blocks from where I live, to participate in the Human Chain project. If you are the exceptional species who was immune to the viral Facebook infection let me explain. The Human Chain was an initiative calling on volunteers to help distribute relief goods to typhoon evacuees currently housed at The Ultra. Some five hundred families sleeping on the cold concrete floor of the oversize gymnasium needed help. Volunteers will fall in line and pass on packed goods from the Mega Tent to The Ultra, recreating the human equivalent of the Great Wall. Think analog conveyor belt with hands.
Anyway the Facebook call was somewhat ominous. It said “Wear Green.”
I work in the creative industry and green means something else. On the metaphorical note it could mean life, hope, a newbie or soiled thoughts.
In this case it meant mingling with well-scrubbed, well-fed, folks with accented twangs, and cute beyond belief citizens of a certain university infamous for having Parking as the most difficult academic course. (Hello high school life, Misterheuge!)
I was in awe. People who would ordinarily consider lifting a broom beneath their dignity or doing menial jobs a fate one stoplight away from oppression or death were busily packing goods, animatedly bantering, not minding inhaling the CO2s of many jologs sweating, laboring next to them in the crowd. If this is not the closest thing to World Peace, I dunno what is.
So what got my goat?
The fucking grandstanders.
While majority of the well-intentioned Green People were frantically working along plebeians, a number of Green Dorks seem to have wandered in by mistake. Instead of toiling for the sake of others they were busy like, talking, like, you know, while busily preening, like with their friends, posing along neatly organized bags of goodies making peace signs and smiling like demented versions of Spongebob Fancypants!
I didn’t see some of them lift a finger to help; the only fingers they own that were busy were the ones glued to the shutters of iPhones and digital cams.
I wished I had access to a megaphone so I can yell: “This is not fucking Disneyland!”
What a bunch of retards. There is no doubt those images are gonna clog facebook later along captions on how they helped packed those goodies.
Huy poseurs, mahiya naman kayo! You are ruining the profound intentions of people with genuine motive to help. You are giving non-Green gawkers more ammunition against you by acting like bratty layabouts.
The Human Chain had a good turn out and excellent achievement. It restored our collective faith in human capacity for empathy/sympathy and for one moment you forget demographic divides for a common goal. According to the organizer it started as a joke but to the amazement of everyone, it snowballed into a tremendous response in the time of needs of others. Kudos to you people! This rotten country needs more of you!
All it takes is a few charming folks to foul the mood. I shudder thinking of the very likelihood that those PseudoVolunteers will end up running for public office.
Before that happens give me an Uzi.
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