Category Archive for: review

kultura

A Dose of Self-Conscious Pinoy Machismo

If there’s anything that made me pick up Isang Napakalaking Kaastigan by Vlad Bautista Gonzales, it was its size and title – the same things that allow me to pick up books by Milflores Publishing more often than I would any other publishing house. There’s something easy and light about the way their books are packaged, something that calls out to you as you browse through the Filipiniana section of any bookstore. And with prices that are almost always only equivalent to the price of a large cup of coffee in your neighborhood Starbucks, it’s easy to shell out for their seemingly endless set of new releases. (more…)

kultura

on the Filipinized Korean-novela

It is such a strange time for Philippine TV – and I’m not talking about reality television taking over our lives and creating many talentless stars in the process; nor about the fantaserye reminding us of how much we need to escape from the realities of rising oil prices and NFA rice lines. Both of these aren’t so much strange as they are sad.

What is strange is the rise of the Filipinized Korean-novela – a unique entity in a country where the Mexican telenovela Marimar was only Filipinized a decade after the original became a TV hit. This remake was something we actually had coming, given the too familiar plot of a poor simpleton turned rich powerful woman, ready to seek revenge, but is softened by her true love. It’s the stuff every other Pinoy soap opera is made of. (more…)

kultura

romanticizing poverty and wowowee

The past couple of weeks, Randy Santiago has been pinch hitting for host Willie Revillame on noontime gameshow Wowowee. Suffice it to say that it has been a breath of fresh air, a relief and respite from the kind of hosting that Revillame has been allowed to do on nationwide (worldwide!) television. (more…)

komentaryo

kidnap: truth as tribute

for something that ABS-CBN hyped up to high heavens, and advertised like anything, there was nothing new or extraordinary about Kidnap, the story of how Ces Drilon and her cameramen Angelo Valderama and Jimmy Encarnacion were abducted in Sulu. in fact, it was so much worse than the standard Correspondents episode that the network churns out weekly, or even a Probe Team segment – which says a lot if you’re familiar with the usually shallow and biased (for big business and hacienderos/elite) slant that these two shows usually take.

Kidnap lacked focus, sold a false sense of truth (or the limited one that ABS-CBN wants to feed us), and really was a perfect example of journalism turned propaganda – and tribute. (more…)

kultura

ano kenyo?

What’s in a name? In choosing to buy the album Radiosurfing by Kenyo, it meant nothing. Because seeing the face of Mcoy Fundales, old frontman of Orange and Lemons, was enough reason to get the album, never mind that his new band’s name did not, in any way, strike a cord, nor did it seem to work with wit or humor. Without thinking, and with memories of his creativity as part of Orange and Lemons and as housemate on last season’s Pinoy Big Brother Celebrity Edition, the album was bought. (more…)