|
By Joey B. Ting, Contributor
At the Metro Manila Film Festival Baler was Viva
films’ entry and this year’s First Best Picture Award. Star
Cinema’s word-conjugation sequel Ang Tanging Ina N’yong Lahat
bagged the Second Best Picture Award. Octoarts films, with the
release of Iskul Bukol: 20 Years After, garnered the Third Best
Picture win.
Iskul Bukol is just an ordinary, laugh-out-loud
film that unites friends from their former school through a class
reunion. Its combines toilet and physical humor—the same tired
formula from Tito and Vic Sotto and Joey de Leon. Even as they
reprise their roles as the Escalera brothers and Ungasis, the
old-timers rehash their routines yet again. Even a cameo appearance
by Sharon Cuneta could not contribute to its decency in comedy. The
cast also included Tito, Vic ad Joey’s children—Oyo Boy Sotto,
Keempee De Leon and Gian Sotto—as well as screenplay writer Bibeth
Orteza as a tomboy punk publicly announcing herself as a breast
cancer survivor.
Ang Tanging Ina N’yong Lahat, directed by Wenn
Deramas for ABS-CBN, follows a surefire formula: make a sequel of a
box office hit movie and use a tried and tested director. The film
narrates the plight of a mother (Ai-Ai de las Alas) with 12 children
at hand whose kumare (Eugene Domingo) encouraged her to apply
together as domestic helpers for the presidential palace.
Deramas has evidently become stale in this Star
Cinema project. simply His formula is the same with his countless TV
and film projects. He’s no different from filmmakers like Luciano
Carlos and Mike Relon Makiling of the 1970s and 1980s. There should
be an end to this Filipinized-combination of farce, satire and low
comedy that perpetuates the absurd Filipino humor and taste. There
were so many fresh approaches to comedy that Deramas chose not to
explore.
De las Alas should also reinvent herself if she
wants to move on to a better slot in her show business career.
Ace-comedy actress Domingo is outshining her in most of the scenes.
With first best picture Baler, director Mark
Meily has made a genre-bending film, but not one that executes it
successfully. This epic Romeo and Juliet (Jericho Rosales and Anne
Curtis) tale of the turn-of-the-twentieth century melodrama talks of
how soldiers fall in love with their enemies (Spanish government
versus Filipino patriots).
Rosales and other Spanish-officials and soldiers
(Baron Geisler, Alvin Anson, Mark Bautista, Jao Mapa and Bernard
Palanca among others) with only the Spanish priest (Michael de Mesa)
developed much into their characters as opposed to characters
outside (Philip Salvador, Rio Locsin, Leo Martinez, Joel Torre, Anne
Curtis and Nikki Bacolod).
The mock-up church was made like a miniature of
a studio sitcom. The interior set was good enough—for an
advertising commercial. How could this happen in an epic film that
allegedly promotes truth and accuracy? The producer even put a
disclaimer that it was based on true events.
|
