Tag Archives: Chris Martinez

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The septic tank as critique

Ang Babae Sa Septic Tank 2 #ForeverIsNotEnough is probably the most fun I’ve had in a local film since … well, the first Ang Babae Sa Septic Tank.

It’s not that I do not find commercialized comedies funny — the ones that fall back on formula, the hilarious banter of every Vice Ganda movie character, even Sosy Problems from so many MMFFs ago. But there is a layer of intelligence that ABSST demands of itself, an ability at self-reflexivity that it demands of its audience, but also a sense of the archetypes and stereotypes that we inevitably create in the course of unthinkingly insisting on what is “new” and “different.” (more…)

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Chris Martinez, FTW!

on Temptation Island 2.0

It might have been the more apt title, actually, for the benefit of those who are so strict about originals and remakes, and imagine faithfulness to be about keeping to the level of copy. But there’s no crossing the same river twice, and it’s a foregone conclusion that every remake is a retelling, every retelling a different story altogether.

And so the question for Chris Martinez’s remake of Joey Gosiengfiao’s 1981 Temptation Island (Regal Films and GMA Films) is: does it still work? Is campiness something we’d know to be an exaggeration? Would campiness work with this set of five girls, three guys, and a gay man?

Could Martinez make it work?

He apparently can, at least if we take the laughter in that almost filled theater as an indication of success. I myself was familiar with the lines from the original and still found myself laughing, sometimes too loudly or just earlier than the rest of the audience in that cinema. Because there’s a learning curve here, during which the audience seem to warm up to the idea of exaggeration and extremes, the kind that campy relies on.

So when the movie begins with Lovi Poe’s Serafina, with her overtly slow and husky voice, and a body in the eternal act of posing, it was easy to feel the audience’s discomfort: ah, this is this kind of movie? Never mind that it wasn’t clear what kind it was. By the time Marian Rivera was delivering Cristina’s lines while dancing with her crook of a boyfriend, the over-the-top delivery seemed to have sunk in, if not the obvious look and feel of an Austin Powers movie.

click here for the rest of it!

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unexpected romances

I’ve been told with disdain that I have too much hope for local movies, puwede namang hintayin na lang na ipalabas saTV ang pelikula.

But it isn’t with hope that I go to the cinemas to watch Pinoy films. It is with excitement, always: I enter a cinema willing to be surprised, having as context what is usual or normal for movies on our shores. It isn’t with notion(s) of hope, as it is with a sense of how things have changed, and how there are still plenty of possibilities.

So I was willing to be surprised by My Valentine Girls (Regal Films and GMA Films), the trailer of which promised a trilogy, one that’s rarely done for romantic comedies these days, unless we count as love stories too the overdone Shake Rattle & Roll horror franchise.

The conclusions for this movie are easy, the enjoyment even more so. I chalk it up to two things: one, the limited amount of time for each episode made for storytelling that was quick, with no minute wasted on long stretches of nothing; two, creative directors are all you need, the ones who have a sense of how love stories are supposed to look, how comfortable love can be, and how sexual tension need not be about pretty boys and girls, and rarely happens in the most ideal of moments. It’s also never easy.

My only question is: who was directing the story beyond the three episodes? Richard Guttierez plays a writer with a deadline, and we are treated to his novel-in-progress by quick shifts to the three love stories within it.

the rest is here!