Ang Tunay na Kuwento ng Hustisya

Spent the past week mostly holed up at the CCP watching Cinemalaya movies. The last film from the festival I watched yesterday was Joel Lamangan's Hustisya featuring Nora Aunor. 

Nora Aunor's Biring is full of idiosyncrasies: a devout Catholic who donates money for the construction of a church in her province, but refuses to give alms to a mother who uses her child for begging, but later gives her some help anyway, wants to care for her family with hard earned money that came from dubious ways, stays loyal to the one who has helped her in time of need, but will turn around when she finds another master to serve. 

Biring believes in the city as a living, breathing being--a kind of master/monster or demon to whom she must give offerings of wishes and money so that it might not devour her alive. It's a sight to behold, to see Biring on top of Manila City Hall's Watch Tower throwing her hopes and hard earned money to the winds of the city. At the end of the screening, a foreigner viewer--I think she was Japanese--asked us if it was possible to go up that tower to view the city. We said, probably not. Or else there would be throngs of people up there trying to do the same. 

Then there is that ending: The movie opts for an open, hoping to be ambiguous and edgy ending that has Biring laughing. So what did that man whisper to Biring during her bongga birthday dinner? What became of the notebook? 

Perhaps we will never know. So I opt for this one: 

Tarantino, Unchained

Poster by Federico Mancosu.

Django Unchained reminded me why we should watch movies in theaters, in the company of friends or strangers, where the distractions of real life melt away in the dark. 

It's the most fun I've had at the movies all year. To be fair, I've only seen  4 of 23 movies in a theater*, and the rest at home on a television or computer screen. I had the option to watch Django during that rush before the Oscars, when bets were being hedged and screeners ran aplenty. But something told me to wait for the theatrical run, and I am very pleased that I didn't give in to instant gratification. Because Quentin Tarantino created a visual spectacle, and it's the only way to appreciate it is to see it 

the way it was intended.

Django Unchained is part spaghetti western, only set in the American deep south. In a 2007 interview with The Telegraph, he talks about his plans to make a "southern":

I want to explore something that really hasn't been done. I want to do movies that deal with America's horrible past with slavery and stuff but do them like spaghetti westerns, not like big issue movies. I want to do them like they're genre films, but they deal with everything that America has never dealt with because it's ashamed of it, and other countries don't really deal with because they don't feel they have the right to. But I can deal with it all right, and I'm the guy to do it. So maybe that's the next mountain waiting for me.

It's also a road movie that involves the unlikely journey of two men on a mission. It's a revenge fantasy that takes on something that about a country's past that is so shameful, it could only be talked about in a big, sweeping serious historical epic. *coughLincolncough* 

But Tarantino was never interested in an historically accurate depiction of the slave trade or racism in the Midwest or the deep south. This is the guy who made an alternate universe where a Jewish girl and a band of basterds separately plotted to take down possibly history's greatest villain. Of course, it's going to be funny, it's going to shoot people in the knees and then poke in the wounds repeatedly, and there will be blood--lots of it. For every sweeping mountain vista, with our guys making off like Marlboro men, we get a scene where Schultz teaches Django how to be a good mark by shooting a snowman. 

The movie's trailer bandied around Leonardo diCaprio's participation, yet his Calvin J. Candie only showed up halfway through the movie. I didn't mind. The most interesting relationship was between Schultz and Django. Why does a white man, a bounty hunter at that, take interest in what becomes of a freed slave? 

Christoph Waltz's character Dr. Schultz** could have parted ways with Django after they had successfully hunted the Speck Brothers down. Schultz replies that he has never handed anyone his freedom before, and because of that, he has become invested and interested in how things turn out. Schultz rode with Django side by side, reminding everyone they encountered that Django was a free man, and must be treated as such. He taught Django his trade, trained him to shoot, and said nothing when Django picked a bright blue suit as his outfit. Let a man wear what he wants. 

So when Django told him he wanted to get his wife back, Schultz could not let him do it alone. Django couldn't just waltz in a southern plantation and get her back, could he? Or maybe they could, but they needed a ruse, an elaborate one that was hinged on the flattery of a greedy plantation owner, a francophile who couldn't speak French but loved his slave girls in French maid's uniforms. 

While watching the movie, I was actually surprised that except for the exaggerated blood spurts from shoot outs, it was relatively tame for a Tarantino movie. But I spoke too soon. He saved the bloodbath and the big boom for the finale. When Candieland went up in flames and Django and Hildy rode off into the horizon on their horses, you got a sense of fulfillment. Their story was the exception. In reality, it would be a few more years before the American Civil War and slaves are granted their freedom. It would be a hundred more years before the color of one's skin stopped dictating what one could do. 

If this is how Tarantino takes on the questions of history, first with Inglourious Basterds which I loved to bits*** and then this, I want to see what he does next. Perhaps an irreverent take on the Revolution, or chicken pox, the Mayflower, a ship crossing the ocean to the New World? Or maybe he would jump ahead a few years, decades, centuries and worlds into the future. Whatever journey it is, wherever he's headed, I want to go to there. Just make sure the blood doesn't get on my popcorn. 

*2 of 4 movies involved Nicholas Hoult wearing hoodies and one involved torture by live singing and being forced to stare at Anne Hathaway's pores. Surely, there are better reasons to watch movies. I need to get out more. 

**Christoph Waltz's bounty hunter in Django + his Jew Hunter in Basterds = evidence he can pull off the mercenary who grows a conscience role swimmingly. 

***True, I had a moment of doubt somewhere between Kill Bill Pt. 2 and Death Proof, but Basterds restored my faith in Tarantino. 

The Dangers of Public Fangirling: Fire Away, Fire Away

So I was quietly doing my business in the mall bathroom after a last full show when I suddenly heard a girl's voice singing, "I'm bulletproof, nothing to lose, fire away, fire away."

That other girl probably thought she was alone.

It's not the first time that I've heard that song sung whether consciously or not in public. It's part of the Pitch Perfect fever all over town. In jeepneys, that girl with a backpack and bright pink earphones. On the train, this young woman with the messy bun. I have yet to hear guys hum "Right Round" in public, and it's always "Titanium," so maybe this is a girl thing.  I mean, even my fourteen year old cousin sings it inside their shower, and I seriously doubt she even knows what "lady jam"meant.

But that girl in the mall is a different matter.

I choked back the giggle, and I channeled all my energy into composing myself.  I was trying to be proper.  It was a very thin line between fangirling with a complete stranger and then being a creeper in a public bathroom. On one hand, acting out Beca and Chloe's shower scene could end in a meet cute with another fangirl. Or I could suffer getting arrested or extreme humiliation in the very least. So I hightailed it out of there.

Now I kind of regret not giving in to the moment. When obviously the appropriate response should have been to answer the call and sing back to her and harmonize: "Ricochet, you take your aim. Fire away, fire away. Shoot me down, but I won't fall. I am titanium."

(500) Days of Summer

The movie in a nutshell.

I don't know how we came around to talking about heartbreak when we had spent a lot of time discussing zombies and martial arts, but this guy was insisting that (500) Days of Summer was *the* movie to talk about the frailties of modern relationships. Something to do with the rude awakenings between reality and expectation, and I said that's been overly done. Hell, Woody Allen did it better, subtitles and all. Don't care, he said. But that moment at the rooftop party. It's the best movie ever. WTH is this guy talking about? 

Surely, it's an exaggeration. But nearly a month later, and I decided to watch (500) Days of Summer again. I've seen it maybe 3 or 4 times, a really long time ago--it's the sort of movie that requires a certain state of mind. The first time I saw it was on the last full show of its first day local screening. I could have seen it weeks or months ahead, but I had avoided other ways of seeing it. It had to be in a theater. The circumstances were different then, but by the time I saw it, I was coming from a meeting that had run a little too late, and one that involved having to down the better part of a beer bucket. Some people wouldn't complain about that kind of job, but well… By the time I managed to haul my half-drunk self from Metrowalk to the nearest mall, the last screening had already started at The Podium. Not wanting to go home defeated, I raced to Megamall, where I promptly bumped into someone I knew who wanted to small talk, and I practically ran away and caught the very last screening just when the disclaimer about everything being a work of fiction were starting to roll.  I was alone in my row in a near empty theater, half drunk and heartbroken. "That bitch," the credits said.  

This was how I probably looked like while watching the movie in the theater. 

Of course I loved the movie. I was Tom frakking Hansen and all the Summer Finns of the world could just suck it. 

There's nothing original with a story of a boy meets girl, but which the film completely insists is *not* a love story. And there lies the key to appreciating this movie. It's about definitions and denials. If it's not, then how come Joseph Gordon-Levitt is breaking plates on account of a non-relationship that should not matter and the dissolution of which should not hurt one teeny tiny bit? The negation is a confirmation. Not a love story? Hell, yeah, it totally is. 

One where the tensions come from the insistence on not defining anything. Humans are strange creatures with a constant need for order and naming things. Perhaps the most dreaded sentence sequence ever in any language: "We have to talk. What exactly are we doing? What am I to you?"  Here, there is only one correct answer: an affirmation. "Yes, we are in a relationship. I love you, too." Anything short of it will lead to heartbreak, mayhem and maybe a few broken bones--or muscles. The heart is a muscle, yes? But nobody talks about how a heart is torn like ligaments or hamstrings that can be pulled. It can only be broken in a million pieces, as fragile as glass that met a baseball bat careening from behind the bed of a pickup careening down the bridge at 120mph. 

Here is where hindsight and distance are your friends. The first time around, I was as self-absorbed in Tom's plight that I could only see one thing: How dare this Summer person refuse the affection and feelings that I have for her? Everything was going swimmingly well. Tom and Summer hung out in Ikea, making out on the display bed while a Chinese family stared at them from the bathroom. They are perfectly at ease in make believe: the wife makes meatloaf to serve the husband at the end of a workday. Strangely enough, all their faucets do not work. It doesn't matter because they have a second kitchen. For all the perfection of their 50s style domesticity, they are not bothered by the fact that something as basic as the sink not working is going to cause all sorts of problems down the road. 

Early in the movie, after that bold insistence that this is not a love story, we were shown a splitscreen montage of Tom and Summer as children growing up. There's this one moment where young Summer, in a yard in Michigan, blows at a dandelion, the petals carried by the wind to the other half of the screen, where young Tom, in New Jersey, tries to catch and burst as many bubbles blown his way. It's the perfect dichotomy: Summer, perhaps making a wish before blowing away the petals, optimistically pinning her heart's desires on petals in the wind; and Tom swatting away at the perfect orbs, obliterating wonder and wishes at the same time. How little did they know that years later, they would be at opposite ends, playing opposite roles in how they approach reality? 

I missed this little contrast in world views the first time--it is easy to get lulled by a montage about the leads growing up. It's too early in the movie. Besides, it's just a (very) cute way of showing us how they came to be who they are in the present. But it is important because the imprint has been there all along. We have been told that Tom is prone to misreading cues--he totally misread the ending of The Graduate as romantic optimism. He believed in The One. No matter if his precocious younger sister breaks the myth of compatibility for him: "Just because some cute girl likes the bizarro crap you like, that doesn't make them your soul mate." But no, when Summer hums him back the lyrics to a Smiths song in the elevator, Tom had the realization that, by god, Summer was The One. Not even when Summer herself told him that she's never been in love. "There's no such thing as love," she told him. "It's a fantasy." 

Her name is Summer, not Fate.

But Tom is sold on the fantasy. Summer was pretty much up front about it. She's young, she wants to have fun. "I'm not looking for anything serious," she tells Tom. "Is that okay?" Tom says yes, he's fine with it. Later it becomes very obvious that he isn't. He wasn't.  He will never be the sort of guy who would be fine with Ikea roleplaying with someone who is not his girlfriend, shower sex notwithstanding. And that's the crux of the problem. Tom probably liked Summer so much that he said yes. Even when he said so, what he really wanted was to be boyfriend and girlfriend. Summer herself was clear about it. Later, she would say that "she just knew" that Tom wasn't the one. But as far as Tom was concerned, he was offering his heart and his love on a silver platter. Isn't that what girls want? But Summer is not just any girl. 

We're more used to seeing girls acting this way, wanting to know where things are headed before jumping right in. You know that story: the girl sleeps with the boy of her dreams. He's not her boyfriend yet, but she has so many feels about him and her and how good they are together. One day, she would ask him: Just what are we doing? Who am I to you? 

Girls are compelled to define the relationship. Girls always want something more, to know where they stand in the order of things. But to be fair, boys do fall in love and make love on Saturday night. Then later ask the girls they're with to DTR* in the middle of pancakes for dinner. At this point Summer realizes that she and Tom are not on the same page. Tom is the boy with all the feels, and Summer does not share them. They break up. It is Day (281) or something like that. 

Considering that the movie is called (500) Days of Summer, the break up occurs at (just a little bit to the right of the) story's midpoint. Which also means that Tom spends nearly half the same amount of time to get over the failed (non)relationship with Summer. 

Summer wants to be friends, but Tom simply is not equipped to handle that kind of closeness without thinking that she must still be interested in him. She disappears from the greeting card company. Tom also quits his job after it becomes obvious that he can't channel his heartbreak into making grief sound witty and polite enough to put on cardboard. He pursues architecture again, something which Summer convinced him he's actually good at and should pursue instead of rotting in greeting card hell. They have a run in at a colleague's wedding, and Tom becomes convinced he still has a shot at winning her back when she invites him to a party. He goes in with all sorts of expectations that end up dashed when he realizes that the party was to celebrate Summer's engagement.  And he was too dense to ever realize it. 

Later, he even runs into Summer again at that spot with too many parking lots overlooking the city. He still couldn't believe that Summer was married now to some guy she met in a deli. Where Tom thinks that the universe has forsaken him, Summer believes that Tom has been right all along: that there is someone for her all this time. Someone she wasn't just willing to call boyfriend, but even commit to him as her husband. It just happened that it wasn't Tom. 

Surely, this is difficult to accept for Tom: Why not me? Why not let me make you happy? Summer has made herself clear from the very beginning. Tom's sister even tells him that perhaps the relationship wasn't all that perfect in the first place, that's he's only remembering the good things. The warning signs have all been there all along, Tom was only too willing to turn a blind eye so much that the breakup over pancakes came as a surprise. Which shouldn't be, according to Summer, since they've been like Sid and Nancy for months by then. But Tom was oblivious to it. 

Just to be clear: He's Nancy. 

If you think about it, there wouldn't be a problem had Tom been sincere in his reply to Summer, who did not want a relationship in the first place. But Tom wanted to be with her, and perhaps thought that surely, Summer would change her mind. She did, but not in the way he thought she would. And that upset Tom big time. And it was also why I was so upset during all my previous viewings of (500) Days of Summer. I, like Tom, refused to see Summer's line of reasoning. 

Distance and repeat viewings bring fresh eyes to a subject. Watching (500) Days now, I could appreciate Summer more. My empathy has shifted away from Tom Hansen and I found myself saying, "How could Tom not see what Summer meant?" People objected then that Zooey Deschanel brought nothing to the table but big, bright eyes and her patent Manic Pixie Dream Girl charm. It wasn't her fault. Summer was meant to be a cipher. She was the obscure object of Tom Hansen's desire because that's all he would let her be. She tried not to be--she was upfront about her intentions, but Tom would have nothing of it. It was necessary for the story. It would be different if we made a movie from her POV. As it is, Summer (and the girl cited in the film's disclaimer) is the fuel to the creative fire. She's meant to be the muse, to stir the imagination. Or as McKenzie, Tom's best friend in the movie said, "The best way to get over girls to turn them into literature." Like Henry Miller did, though that dude slept with a whole lot more of women. Other than that, Summer's affair with Tom was like a pit stop, a minor story arc on the long haul of Summer's "How I Met This Guy Tom Who is Definitely Not Your Father." 

Tom's world may have been upended when Summer left, but the loss of faith on love and the universe was only temporary. The dichotomy has been set, reversed and reset to status quo: Young Tom who gleefully burst bubbles became absorbed in his own bubble of romantic fantasies. When those bubbles were burst by Summer, who once believed in wishes, who later became an utter realist, and who dumped him over pancakes. But all would be right again. The key lies in Tom's acceptance on what Summer said: he's pining after the wrong girl. Which implies that there is a "right" one--The One. Something as inevitable as the seasons turning, like Summer turning into Autumn.

_____

*See My So-Called Life. But will credit MTV's Awkward for using the term "DTR" as shorthand for "Defining The Relationship," i.e., "the uncomfortable talk no one wants to have about their dating status." 

Crazy in Love

People always say that falling in love makes one a little crazy. But what happens when it involves two people with legitimate mental health issues? I'm crazy. You're crazy. Let's be nutcases together. And while the film is no PSA, it does hope that in the end, it gets better. 

Silver Linings Playbook has mostly been sold on the media as the romantic comedy dark horse at the Oscars. All four of its lead actors have been nominated for awards. And I loved Katniss Everdeen Jennifer Lawrence. So I thought I would give this movie a shot. 

The thing was, the first few minutes were kind of slow going and I was afraid that the movie was going to be this year's The Help, ie, awards hype, lead actress whose work I liked, and yet the movie bored the hell out of me that it was abandoned by the way side. To be fair, it mostly had to do with Bradley Cooper settling in after coming out of an asylum in Baltimore. He apparently beat the shit out of his wife's lover after catching them in the act. 

The screen lit up when Jennifer Lawrence's Tiffany was introduced. People usually avoid uncomfortable topics out of politeness and propriety, and this movie's way of telling us that Pat (Cooper) and Tiffany are not "ordinary" is by not letting them have any social filter. Thus, it's okay for Pat to ask Tiffany how her husband died, or how many people she slept with to cope with the loss, or what it's like to sit on a woman's lap. Or for Tiffany to weasel out of Pat the very traumatic incident of walking in on your wife having sex with another man in the shower of very own home, while your wedding song is playing in the background. I totally understand his meltdown.

The scene that sold me on this movie was when they were out in the streets and then Stevie Wonder's "My Cherie Amour" plays and Pat freaks out. Tiffany talks him out of going batshit crazy right then and there. "Are you going to spend the rest of your life scared of that song? It's a song. Not a monster. Come on, breathe. There is no song." Bradley Cooper is mostly hyper in this movie, and I like that Jennifer Lawrence plays it subtle rather than match him with the high octane acting.

It's mostly a by-the-numbers movie. Sure, her Tiffany has issues, but she's still the female character in the romantic comedy who slowly walks the male lead through the path of calmness and sanity--and hopefully, romantic feeling are returned. Tiffany teaches Pat the value of equal trade--I am loathe to say it's unselfishness, because the girl has her own motives--he must do something in return if she's to sneak in a letter to his wife, who has a restraining order against him. I'm not quite sure when Tiffany falls in love with Pat. I'd like to think it's that "There is no song" moment. Otherwise, that moment when she walks out when Pat finally encounters Nikki in the ballroom is just way too late. 

Bradley Cooper does have his own subtle moment. I like that scene where he gets a response to his letter to Nikki, who says she might show up at the dance competition. Pat stands outside, reading that (computer printed) letter, and gets a big bright flame of hope that maybe, just maybe, his wife might also still be carrying a torch for him, too. 

Random thoughts about this movie: 

1. Raising the stakes by participating in a dance competition and then (maybe) fall in love during rehearsals has been done before. My favorite incarnations: Baz Luhrmann's Strictly Ballroom (1992) and the 1996 Japanese movie Shall We Dance? 

2. Even then, I want all of Jennifer Lawrence's dance studio outfits. For this leotard obssession, I blame Cassandra July. 

3. I want to know what Pat whispered to Nikki. It was an awfully long moment. (In my head, he probably said, You don't deserve me, you cheating female dog.) Thought not that long that Tiffany was still within a block or two of the dance competition venue. But that camera pulling out after the kiss? I cringe. 

4. I probably need to watch it again in the future, if I have time. Otherwise, this was just an okay movie and I don't get all the hype. For all I care, Pat could have been played by Gerard Butler--the role is certainly his territory. But the movie won't be as incandescent without Jennifer Lawrence. She makes it liveable--especially for a movie that is clearly following Bradley Cooper's point of view. I certainly will understand if she wins. I probably won't be as forgiving if Anne "One take, bitches!" Hathaway wins.

Adventures in Jodie Fostering, Part 2: The Silence of the Lambs

I have a confession to make: I have never watched the full movie before. I had been too young to see it in the theaters. I've seen bits and pieces on television, but could never stay with it long enough because Anthony Hopkins' Hannibal Lecter scared the bejeezus out of me. 

Then there's the part that's been shown over and over in film and writing classes since then: Clarice Starling pacing outside Hannibal Lecter's cell, unease written all over her, the prisoner stands calmly. It's a role reversal that leads us to the real reason why Agent Starling is intent on capturing Buffalo Bill. It's more than proving herself worthy and better than the men in her world or saving the senator's daughter. All Clarice wants is a good night's sleep. For the lambs to stop crying. 

When I finished the movie, aside from being scared sh*tless, my first thought was: Godammit, I should have watched this sooner. 

Hannibal Lecter is a master at perceiving characters. Starling has not even graduated yet from the FBI training camp, but she's at the top of her class and is given this special assignment to talk to Lecter. She's been warned never to tell him anything personal. Yet all it takes is a single eye to toe look ("Your good bag and cheap shoes."), a couple of seemingly innocent questions (Undergrad at the University of Virginia) and he has Starling's number. 

The movie is more than two decades old, came out three years before The X-Files and Dana Scully, at least 6 years before David Fincher's Se7en and a good ten years before CSI numbed us to the specifics of forensic investigations. (Odds are ten to one that Gil Grissom's insect geekiness owes a lot to the insect geeks in this movie. Anyway...) It's not really the grizzly details, the blood and gore and even the microscopic DNA whatever that matters. It's how the mind works, the wheels turning and memories unlocking. And yet, The Silence of the Lambs is still arguably better at providing psychological insight as to why serial killers/criminals do the things that they do. 

The most interesting parts of The Silence of the Lambs isn't the gore, it's the trust slowly building between Lecter and Starling, the quid pro quo, and that slow dread of waiting whether Lecter, who has developed a mild obsession for his student, would hunt her down and have a new friend over for dinner. And when Starling descends into that basement and the lights go out, you think back to that early scene during FBI bootcamp, that fake raid that ends with Starling with a gun on her head. It's not just a blind spot, it's a goddamn blackout, and dammit if Buffalo Bill gets to her first. 

But what I like the most about Jodie Foster's Agent Starling is that she gets the right mix of vulnerability and courage. She *is* better than everyone in class. And as Amy Taubin points out in her essay in the Criterion Collection: "Clarice's mission is not to marry the prince but to rescue the maiden." Whether by smarts ("Your anagrams are showing.") or with the aid of a gun, Agent Starling gets things done. 

You breathe a small sigh of relief when it's over. And yet it's not really over. Lecter is still out there, having dinner with an old friend and phones his new one during FBI graduation. Lecter has one question: Have the lambs stopped crying? Perhaps the more apt question is this: Will it ever stop? 

The Silence of the Lambs has quite the afterlife: There are many attempts to clone the movie's success and parlay it into television. (The movies are another matter.) There is a spinoff under development, a crime procedure that follows Starling after she graduates from the FBI academy. There's also a prequel that follows Lecter in his early days as a psychiatrist who occasionally eats his patients and the police. Or as the AV Club jokes, to complete this cottage industry mindset, all we need is a show that comes from Buffalo Bill's dog's point of view. 

Adventures in Jodie Fostering: Panic Room

I have been thinking a lot about Panic Room and Zodiac, so this has more to do with David Fincher, and less to do with Jodie Foster. Although I might admit that the "I am single" speech at the Golden Globes gave the viewing that extra push. 

I had first seen Panic Room in a theater it in its first run in 2002, and I'm glad to say that it does hold up to scrutiny and remains terribly scary even when watching on a smaller screen. Perhaps the more contained dimension helps in cramping up the space even more than the 6x14 feet of the titular safe room. 

All we need to know happens in the first few minutes: a recently divorced mother checks out new dwellings with her young daughter. On their first night, three burglars break in looking for the millions allegedly stashed in the safe room. The contained location becomes the crucible for all the action. Everything happens in one night, in that house, and mostly inside and the immediate environs of the panic room. 

What's interesting to watch in Panic Room is how David Fincher and the script by David Koepp were able to negotiate the balances of power between the intruders and the homeowners, managing it mostly by who is inside or outside that three feet thick steel door, and then having it escalate to matters of life and death. 

I also love it that the entire movie is summed up in a couple of exchanges. The first one was when Meg realized there were other people in the house and makes a run for her daughter's room. "What's happening?" The barely awake Sarah asks while they race to the panic room. "Pinball, in a house," Meg says. Which is true. A core of five (or six, or eight) people bouncing around the house, trying to force each other to open or slam doors. 

Then there's conversation waged over the security camera monitors. Jared Leto's Junior holds up a series of handwritten signs to tell Meg what their intentions are: "What we want is in that room." Junior figures out that women crave security, so he adds: "We will let you go." Even young Sarah knows this was a total lie, so she tells her mother to tell the invaders off. "We're not coming out. We're not letting you in." It's still not tough enough for Sarah so she tells Meg, "Say 'fuck'." Meg swears, but in the right way, so she has to repeat it for emphasis. "Get the fuck out of my house." That is the entire movie in a nutshell: Shit is going to go down if they don't do as she says. 

Also interesting for me this time around is the relationship between Jodie Foster's divorcee mother and daughter, a really young Kristen Stewart, several lifetimes before she became Bella Swan or became known as KStew. Hell, the first time around, I didn't even know Kristen Stewart was the kid in the picture. Her Sarah is pretty much a tomboy, with her androgynous haircut and even advising her mother to swear to let the burglars know she means business. Yet, Sarah is pretty much the vulnerable child, spurring her mother to abandon the safety of the panic room so she could get her child's medication.  

Then I read elsewhere that Nicole Kidman was originally cast to play the mother, and Stewart was cast to play off her: the daughter as antithesis to the helpless, glamourous mother. But Kidman had a knee injury from Moulin Rouge and had to leave. When Foster came on board, the role of Meg was rewritten to make her tougher, and more similar to her daughter. What even complicated the shoot more was that Foster found out she was pregnant five weeks into the shooting. But I have to say there is sheer joy in watching mother and daughter interact. 

Although some people might say that the story is pretty thin, I think it just can't get any tighter than that. I would even venture to say that Panic Room is way better than similar movies during its time (Phonebooth with Colin Farrell comes to mind) or even later--I'm thinking of Liam Neeson's Taken movies, but that "Harm my family and I swear to hell you'll pay for it" revenge theme comparison might be better suited to later Jodie Foster movies like Flightplan and The Brave One, which I totally intend to watch because it promises to be sheer good fun. I have a feeling that Jodie Foster makes for a better action star than Tom Cruise or even Angelina Jolie. We'll see. 

The Rom-Com Template

Vulture's Kyle Buchanan cracks down on the romantic comedy template--well, a very particular subset of the genre-- the latest incarnation of which is the Keira Knightley-Steve Carrell starrer Seeking a Friend for the End of the World. 

Briefly, the formula seems to be this: 

Sad-Sack Comedian +  Manic Pixie Dream Girl + Wordy Title = Rom-Com Template. 

They plugged in the formula using several variables, and what do you know, it does fit. My favorite of those name-checked is Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but I can also live with (500) Days of Summer (with queen of the Manic Pixie Dream Girls Zooey Deschanel) and Lost in Translation (directed by queen of the Manic Pixie Dream Director Sophia Coppola). Bill Murray wins for the largest age discrepancy from love interest--34 years between him and Scarlett Johansson. 

A Pratfall is better than anything.

Preston Sturges, father of the screwball comedy, drew up the following rules for box office appeal:

1. A pretty girl is better than an ugly one.
2. A leg is better than an arm.
3. A bedroom is better than a living room.
4. An arrival is better than a departure.
5. A birth is better than a death.
6. A chase is better than a chat.
7. A dog is better than a landscape.
8. A kitten is better than a dog.
9. A baby is better than a kitten.
10. A kiss is better than a baby.
11. A pratfall is better than anything.

The Fairest in the Land

Tell me I'm the fairest in the land, or I shall impale you with my crown.

I saw Snow White and the Huntsman on opening day. I was there partly to see Kristen Stewart grimace her way through the movie and partly to watch Charlize Theron's milk bath dry.  Also, I have a standing bet that KStew will have more chemistry with Theron's Queen Ravenna  than with the Chris Hemsworth's Huntsman. Or any other guy they throw her way for that matter. There's even a meme dedicated to that, but that's another matter.

I was also curious how the movie would pull off this premise: If Charlize Theron is your Queen, how can the mirror declare KStew the fairest in the land? Anyone with eyes and a cursory glancing knowledge of the tale knows the story didn't say "most awkward and would be first in line at the Converse sale." Sure, sure, Snow White is but a bud versus the Queen's beauty in full bloom, and the princess can still blossom into a fair maiden later in her youth. But, KStew is the fairest in the land, really? The One who represents "life itself" is deader than anything or even The Nothing. If I were the Queen, I'd throw a tantrum, too. But while wearing fabulous clothes made of raven feathers and hate, of course. 

The most interesting dynamic in the movie is still that of the Evil Queen and her stepdaughter. We see how she took over Snow White's father's kingdom: She sends out a phantom army, plays a damsel in distress, which of course pumps up the need to protect said damsel and marry her immediately, like the very next day. 

There are a lot of questions surrounding Ravenna's rise to power: how come this king has not heard of this modus before? Is beauty really so powerful that it enamors and enslaves men and drives them to their own ruin? We'll accept that this beauty is potent, courtesy of the spell cast by Ravenna's mother. It is unclear how often this spell be fed with the beauty of young women. There was this lone young woman in the tower with Snow White in the beginning--the one that Snow White wanted to liberate later on only to discover that the young woman had been drained of her youth. But later on, there's this hall full of dead women. Does Queen Ravenna have a cheat day where she can gorge on a buffet of pretty damsels? 

Also, the Mirror doesn't seem to do much other than to point out that the spell can be undone by the fairest in the land, and so Snow White must be vanquished. Once Ravenna became weak, there is no solace or advice from the Mirror. But it does drive Queen Ravenna to use all her powers. She apparently has the ability to transform herself--and guess what, she chooses to be the Duke's son William, Snow White's childhood protector. 

Trolled!

So technically, Snow White's first kiss is with her stepmother. And it kills her. What can be more awkward than that? To be fair, Snow White does get two more kisses: once from William--the kiss we have been told should revive her. But it did not do anything. It is the Huntsman's kiss that brings her back to life. Strangely enough, this turn of events wasn't explored much in the movie. 

I was under the impression that this would be about empowering fairy tale princesses, i.e., Snow White the Warrior Princess. The trailers were all about Snow White in chainmail on a galloping horse, on her way to battle the Evil Queen Stepmother, aptly named Ravenna. (How very Mulawin of them, no?) Unless the princess had received warrior training prior to her imprisonment in the north tower after her father's death, then Snow White has to get her warrior training somewhere before going off into a great battle, yes? So perhaps that's where the Huntsman goes in. I thought the deviation from the fairy tale would come once Princess and Huntsman get together. The movie is named Snow White and the Huntsman after all. 

But the closest we get to hunting lessons from the Huntsman is that one moment where he tells Snow White that she should drive the knife in all the way to the hilt. Where is the Karate Kid training montage? Where is Snow White's initial rejection of her role as savior? Other than that, it's a movie that's partly the Fellowship of the Dwarves in Pandora with a side of Narnia. And that's it, off to battle we go. 

Seriously, who rides off to battle after a semi-awkward speech from a recently back from the dead princess? 

There is this bit in the end that "fairest in the land" does not pertain to beauty but a sense of equal judgment. So it really is about Snow White reasserting her rightful role as ruler of her father's kingdom. She has no need for the Huntsman or the Duke's son. But I am more concerned about the Queen's fate: What does it mean when a woman is driven to protect her daughter by casting a spell that allows her to rise to power so that she would not suffer at the hands of men again, but the spell forces said daughter to make other women suffer at her expense, to feed off their youth and beauty? And yet her ultimate undoing comes from the one girl who refused to give her her heart. All it takes is three drops of blood. 

(Here's an alternative take on this: Who are we kidding? I went into the theater to gawk at the screen. The movie is gorgeous to look at, Charlize Theron is really pretty and wears fabulous clothes made of raven feathers and hate. Here's the interview with Snow White and the Huntsman costume designer Coleen Atwood on how hundreds of roosters sacrificed their lives at the altar of Queen Ravenna.) 

Even in Chinatown, nothing means more than being together.

There's a study that came out recently, about how the knowledge of "spoilers" don't really lessen the enjoyment out of watching movies or reading books, and that it even enhances the experience. 

While that is true of certain viewing fare, these days, I like being surprised. I show up in front of the theater at the appointed time. I don't check out reviews, and sometimes I know only the vaguest of details. (Like: "It's by Joss Whedon. Should be good. Though some poor girl is probably going to be in for a bender. Sure, let's go." Or: "Hugh Jackman in a wifebeater, with robots. Okay, count me in.") 

Same thing goes for home viewings. In honor of Mothers Day, I thought I'd watch a movie celebrating the occasion. I was going to pop in Beaches, then came across Incendies. I vaguely remember a friend raving about it, something about the story of a mother and her children, and enough for me to put in on queue in Transmission. 

So the movie begins with a twin brother and a sister having their late mother's will read to them by their mother's boss, a notary for whom she has served as a secretary. In order to bury her properly, the siblings must go back to the land of their mother's birth, an unnamed Middle Eastern country. The boy thinks it's bollocks; the girl decides to go and fulfill the mother's wishes. With a set up like this, we know that we are going to discover things about the mother's past, and it's probably not going to be pleasant. 

We follow the daughter's journey back to her mother's homeland. When she gets to each pit stop in search of her mother's past, we also get a flashback revealing pieces of the mother Nawal Marwan's history. It's interesting that her daughter Jeanne was made to be a mathematician. In pure mathematics, there is no space for the 'maybe.'  Everything is knowable, and has to be boiled down to the simplest  expression possible.  A statement: 1 + 1 = 2. The language of numbers is that of clarity and certainty:  1 + 1 =/= 1. There is no other way about it.  All the way to the very end, when everything has been revealed, it boils down to that simple statement. 

Nawal Marwan's family history is heartbreaking. The mother's boss, the last of a long line of notaries starting from the 18th century, tells the boy about a man who led parallel lives. The man had three wives, eight children in three different cities where he lived and did business. "That was fun, believe me," the notary said. "Death is never the end of the story. It always leaves tracks behind." It is old school tragedy, with deaths and murders in an epic scale. 

The one bright spot--if it can be called that--are the letters left behind by the mother. "Nothing means more than being together," she writes from her grave. People survive, which only makes it worse, as they have to live with the knowledge and the consequences of their discovery. But that is also why it is so effective: the viewer does not leave unscathed, she shares the burden of discovery. But in the end she can walk away: "Hey, just think of the awkward family reunions. At least it didn't happen to me." 

Going Gangstah

When I think of gangsters, I think of Bande a Part and of spontaneously breaking into dance, of running through the Louvre, and of that minute of silence that’s actually just 36 seconds, and wondering if "the world was becoming a dream or if a dream was becoming the world."


Later on, I'd come across an album with the same title by, appropriately enough, Nouvelle Vague. The music came as a jolt, as it was mostly bossa nova-type covers of songs like Tuxedomoon's "In a Manner of Speaking," which was what was playing over the end credits of a series in which two girls were running away after being connected to a crime. That was only gangstah by way of Glasgow. 


Last weekend, we were cleaning out a room which still had flood-soaked stuff. We had to throw them away, and among them were books. On top of the pile was a book on gangster movies and some other film and media theory books. 


I still don't know where my DVD of the movie is. But if I’m going gangstah, I want to be a French one, although I'm holding out on the bossa nova soundtrack.

Facebook: The Movie

Carson Reeves of Script Shadow gives us a glimpse of an Aaron Sorkin penned script about the kids who started social networking Facebook. The premise: "A look at the rise of Facebook and the effect it's had on its founders." It is also described as "an epic story that would capture the drama of late-night status updates, the power of the poke, who and who not to limit profile access to, and of course, the all important and always necessary "delete friend" feature. Okay, well, maybe it wouldn't be about those things per se. But it would be about computers and software and code and snobby rich kids."

It has to do with a kid who gets commissioned by a pair of rich brothers on the rowing team who want a website that's sort of like MySpace, but cooler. The kid teams up with a friend, works on the project and then comes up with something else as a dorm room experiment, TheFacebook. The friends will part ways later with the entrance of another web figure, Sean Parker, founder of Napster and the "informal adviser" who told Mark Zuckerberg to drop the "The" in TheFacebook.

Reeves insists that the Sorkin script is "a story about two friends - one a computer genius, the other a business expert - who began a website that became the fastest growing phenomenon in internet history. Three years later, one was suing the other for 600 million dollars (or 1/30th of Mark Zuckerberg's worth). It's a story about greed, about obsession, about our belief that all the money in the world can make us happy. But it's also unpredictable, funny, touching, and sad. It gives us that rare glimpse into the improbable world of mega-success."

So in the end, the kid who earned a bajillion dollars creating a web tool that connects people is ultimately disconnected with his friends and the rest of the world.

So who's throwing in the money to make "The Social Experiment" possible? Sony and producer Scott Rudin are supposedly attached on the project slated for release in 2011. Plus David Fincher is tagged as potential director. I loved most of the things that Fincher directed (Fight Club, Se7en, esp Zodiac) with the exception of Benjamin Button. If this turns out to be a good movie, then everything will be forgiven.

Movie in Three Frames

Your favorite movie distilled into three frames. What can I say, the three-act structure is basic and works really well. Also, this kind of reminds me of the "sweded" movies in Be Kind, Rewind, except these are "meticulously handdrawn" and rendered in animated .gifs.

via

Zim and Co.

It's French Spring in Manila once more, and the 14th edition of the French Film Festival offers a selection of movies that gives us a glimpse of a France that's more than just croissants on the Rue Montparnasse.

Last Monday, I caught the evening screening of Zim and Co, which features Adrien Jolivet as Victor Zimbietrofsky, a twenty-something guy who gets a little high, spends the night playing a gig for the deaf, goes to the markets to help move boxes, gets paid, and early in the morning, his motorbike skids past a car driven by a middle-aged man.

There's a dent on the car but this man thinks it's a grave injustice. Our guy Zim gets called for it, and the judge looks in his record and finds a previous offence, which now makes Zim a two-time offender and sent to jail immediately. Unless, the deal goes, Zim can find a job that gives him a payslip (taxes for the government, yey) before the end of the month.

Zim isn't a lazy ass. He scours the ads and manages to find a job which requires a car and a driver's license, both of which he doesn't have. But Zim is a resourceful young man and enlists the help of his friends. There's Arthur, whose dad wants him to succeed in the trade of bodyworking cars and thus earn pension later on. There's Cheb, who wants to invent the next best thing to sliced bread, or at least find your mobile phone when it's ringing. There's Safia, a Muslim girl who works in her uncle's canteen.

All the young people in Pierre Jolivet's Paris are street-smart and willing to help each other get better, even through ingenuous means. They need to survive by their wits, as the system isn't exactly friendly to a young Africans, Muslims and Polish immigrants. Zim is the only white guy, and he slightly benefits from this system--after all, the bureau needs to meet the quota of having enough white guys driving in the streets. In a world like this, where people are out to rip you off, where your family doesn't quite understand why you'd quit a boring factory job, where a small mistake can cost you your future, friendship is really the only thing going for you. (The movie also reminds me a lot of the Cinemalaya film Endo.)

Director Pierre Jolivet has this to say: “At twenty most youngsters create distance between themselves and their family and find the substitution in their peers. It’s the beginning of fears yet a feeling of being indestructible. It is this battle of contrasts that we tried to portray”.

The French Film Festival is ongoing until June 14 at the Shangri-la Plaza Mall, Cinema 3. Entrance is free. Tickets are handed out two hours before the screening.

Change This Movie

We literally had two minutes to get inside the theater last Wednesday. I just picked a time that was convenient, 5:10PM. I figured it wouldn't be that crowded because people were still in schools and offices. But when I got to the counter almost all the seats were taken and I didn't know it was in a THX theater. That's how I ended up paying a full day's pay for the John Lloyd and Sarah movie.

The first teamup between John Lloyd Cruz and Sarah Geronimo was A Very Special Love. Plain girl Laida desires the masungit rich boy Miggy who publishes the magazine Bachelor, which is published by Flippage, one of the many business ventures owned by the Montenegro clan, whose black dressed and tuxedoed members scowl from the cover of the Society magazine's huge billboard along Guadalupe. Laida the plain girl moons over this billboard every time she passes it, and she likes Miggy so much that upon graduation, she applies to Flippage to be an Editorial Assistant. And lucky girl she was because on her job interview, she ends up offering a cup of coffee to the love of her life. They fall in love. They do weird things like dancing to stop the downpour and hire trucks so they could sing Smokey Mountain songs on them.

AVSL was a big hit when it first came out and I suspect it was because it was pure fantasy: plain girl gets rich boy. Of course, the rich boy has issues: he was an anak sa labas. He resents that his mother (Agot Isidro, in pictures) died and his father's family doesn't really like him. The good (legitimate) brother doesn't trust his capacities as publisher. Laida helps him get through all of this, even meeting his dead mother. And in the end, Miggy's father vouches for him so Rowell Santiago has no other choice but to take him in. Sarah Geronimo is a funny girl, unafraid to make a fool out of herself and the energy with which she throws herself is admirable. John Lloyd is trading on his sullen boy act, which for some reason girls find attractive. There's one scene where John Lloyd gets sick and Sarah nurses him back to health. It's the atsay and amo act all over again. So this is what the Pinay really wants is to play mommy, yaya, assistant and girlfriend all in one.

These are the issues that You Changed My Life takes on.What happens after the "happily ever after"? In fact, I was rather surprised that the movie is actually a direct sequel of A Very Special Love. Perhaps the creators thought they had a story that worked well, and decided to just pick up where they left off. We find out that Bachelor lives, and Laida takes care of their advertising load. Meanwhile, the Montenegros venture into a partnership with an airline company, and Miggy has to write a speech for his brother announcing this. The speech was horrible and he has 30 minutes to revise it. Guess who he calls to revise the bloody speech? Laida is the middle of a client presentation, but her mobile phone fills the conference room with Miggy screeching, "Bebe ko, bebe ko!" It's one thing to be in love and announce it to the world via mobile ring alerts. But I tell you, that ring tone was like a rusty nail being dragged across a blackboard. To fill the theater with that ringtone was torture. But of course, Laida is in love, she pushes aside the client presentation and ducks under the table to think of a tag line for this wonderful venture into the airline industry.

All relationships have their ups and downs, and our protagonists have more on the way. Miggy gets entrusted with the family's manufacturing gig. It's a plant in Laguna where they make jeans. It's a low profile, minimum output operation. Rowell Santiago as Miggy's older brother used to manage it. He comes to the plant ready to roll up his sleeves and iron some jeans, the workers respect him, and Manang, the assistant, simply adores him. When Miggy shows up for his first day at work there in a coat and tie, he is greeted with hesitation. Will this wimp of a boy do the job as well?

The boy wants to impress, so he ups the production quota. He targets big clients, and one of them is Mikee Cojuangco on the verge of turning matronix. She doubts the boy can deliver. But if he hands in Mikee's huge load of skinny jeans, Montenegro Manufacturing's Clean Living can have the contract. Miggy accepts amidst howls of protest from workers. He later turns the place into a 24-hour sweatshop. The workers take arms, call his dad and kuya, and Miggy is shamed once again. "Hindi mo na naman pinag-isipan ito," Rowell tells him.

The Montenegros are forced to renege on their word and tell the clients they are sorry. Mikee and Rowell Santiago exchange memories of their old courtship. Rowell would call Mikee complaining about his sore back, that he needs Salonpas, and poor Mikee gallops to Laguna bearing Oil of Wintergreen or something. The scene affords us the opportunity for Rowell to shed the Evil Kuya role--he went through everything Miggy is being subjected to, even more. He had to let go of the girl he loved so he could be the good son. But this is also a little nice throwback to the '90s: Rowell and Mikee make for a nice looking couple, a director and model tandem for Swatch advertisements, or a loveteam showcasing the travails of boy and girl love in the dinosaur age before the Internets. It would have been a really nice cameo for Mikee Cojuangco, who had to abandon her movie career to be wife and mother. It really would have helped if they gave her a really nice wardrobe--not the mumu-esque black monstrosity they made her wear. And somebody smudge that eyeshadow!

Meanwhile, in Laida land, Sarah reconnects with her best friend from high school. Makoy also reneged on a promise: he and Laida were supposed to study in the same college, but he took off without warning and left Laida hanging. He's back now, and it seems like he wants more than just play patintero outside the Montenegro building. It's the best friend drama of the century: Makoy suffers his love for Laida in silence because he is the best friend. With Miggy busy in Laguna, Laida finds herself declining invitations from colleagues to eat and go out, only to be told at the last minute (by that annoying Bebe-ko ringtone) that yet again, Miggy can't make it to their date. Laida is taken for granted. She wants to make the ultimate sacrifice: resign from Bachelor and just play Miggy's assistant in Laguna. Isn't this what being in a relationship is all about: to be at the lover's beck and call?

It's a conflict that makes me recall all those movies from the 90s onwards, like that film with Eric Quizon and Giselle Tongi as preppies (or was it advertising executive and flight attendant, whatever). Or it could be that movie where Bea was a call center agent and John Lloyd was an accountant. Or this could have been a movie directed by Joey Reyes. It has that feel. You could replace Sarah with Bea or G or another pretty face. Except that none of the prettier faces could work as well in this particular movie. But the Laida Magtalas in You Changed My Life didn't have that many funny scenes. And the most fun part in the movie was the flashback sequence from AVSL.

There's no doubt in my mind that this movie will be a hit. The theater was full. And when we went out, there was a really long line of people waiting to see the movie. And this was the first day. I didn't even know that it was the first day of showing. Which brings us to the question: What else does this movie have to offer? The John Lloyd's scowling boy and Sarah's naivete act will wear off soon. What will the third movie offer? Miggy and Laida get married; we follow Laida's misadventures as she is introduced into "society?" We can't just follow them step by step into marriage and old age. Or maybe it's best to stop here, while the kilig (like fizz in a bottle of cola) is still there, while there's a chance at a happy ending, while Miggy and Laida still work as a fantasy project.