Daybreak

Paolo Rivero and Coco Martin

In the movies, put two people in an enclosed space and you can expect high tension that is ultimately a dissection of their relationship. The sneaky surprise of Daybreak -- about a gay couple in an empty hideaway mansion in Tagaytay -- is that it isn't so much a trajectory of emotions as it is one complete encapsulated moment. No explosive turning points, no overt character arcs -- the narrative isn't much -- but as a snapshot of two men on the eve of a breakup (Coco Martin the boatman player and Paolo Rivero the married doctor), in which they cook, eat, talk, fuck, dance, shower, sleep, and fuck some more, Daybreak plays out like a protracted sigh of goodbye. It's a fart, but it's a beautiful fart.

Director Adolf Alix Jr., with cinematographer Albert Banzon, capture the serene luminosity of sterile interiors, but the best images are of the two actors in passionate liplocks. Those are some of the hottest Pinoy man-to-man kisses ever committed on screen. Coco Martin and Paolo Rivero are extremely evocative in their most physical gestures (heads side by side in a slowdance; playing with unwanted food; the bare-butt lovemaking and the tiny movements in the morning after) that when they dialogue, the power seems almost insufficient by comparison.

Someday, an enterprising critic might analyze our fascination with gay pairings from opposite economic backgrounds. (Is there a political undercurrent to this? Why is rich-poor a sexually enticing proposition?) Or someone might explain to us the dramatic significance of a top turning bottom. (How much an act of love is submission? Why are bottoms presumed to be submissive in the first place?) Daybreak is only one of several recent films to capitalize on these story elements fast becoming cliches.

But the question most pertinent to Daybreak is the position of gay relationships/marriage in a larger society. Isolated from the rest of the world, a gay relationship can be a beautiful, powerful thing. But with a wife or a girlfriend or a lifestyle of multiple partners waiting outside, why does it seem natural for gay affairs to take a backseat in priority? In its quiet way, Daybreak asks us to rethink the way we value homosexual relationships. When two men love each other, what good reason is there, if any, to break them apart?

GRADE: A-

Ang Lihim Ni Antonio (Antonio's Secret)

Josh Ivan Morales and Kenjie Garcia

It's the story of a gay 15-year old and the random events that happen in his life. That's all there is to it. A falling out of friendship after drunken sex; coming out to another friend; living with a compassionate but broken mother; reaching out to an absentee father; and the arrival of a hunk uncle. The plots don't exactly bleed into one another in a satisfying, cause-and-effect, or thematic fashion. Collectively, they paint a portrait of a coming of age that is incoherent, and maybe that's the point.

Antonio spends a lot of time asking questions in his head. (We hear them as voice-overs.) It's an existential journey that ends in senseless tragedy -- where else? (The ending is a gay twist on the classic Insiang.) Maybe, the movie is saying, the meaning of life -- and of being gay -- is that it doesn't mean anything. It's a strong statement in our age of self-importance, when, in an increasingly liberated environment, we make so much fuss about our sexuality.

The movie's main fault is that it doesn't really make us care about any of this. Antonio is a walking empty shell. None of what he does, or what happens to him, seems to have any gravity. What keeps us watching is not that he's interesting, but that the occurances are familiar to us as gay men who've been there before or at least heard stories about it. Sure, I giggled at the memory of wearing somebody's used underwear on my face, but what was so special about that scenario, really? I got tired of scenes unfolding without distinctiveness or consequence. I stayed on my seat mainly because I already know uberstud Josh Ivan Morales will eventually flash his hefty manhood and that he will finally do it with cute newcomer Kenjie Garcia. It was just a matter of when.

Lihim was created by the same team as last year's sensational Ang Lalake Sa Parola, but it lacks that film's central provocative idea and the dirty allure of exploitative filmmaking. Lihim takes a more serious (read: dry) approach (just look at mother Shamaine Buencamino's serious acting), but doesn't have the serious meat with which to fill it. It's unremarkable cinema that gets by on expectation.

GRADE: C+

Related Links:
Director Jay Altarejos Says It Tackles the Loss of Innocence and Abuse
Other Gay Bloggers Review the Film
A Female Blogger Reviews the Film
Review of Ang Lalake Sa Parola (Rated R-18)
Review of Ang Lalake Sa Parola (Rated X)

Stardancer

The default thinking in the Philippines is that men who work as male strippers do so out of poverty; they wouldn't be in that profession otherwise. Stardancer, the straight-to-video documentary directed by Ihman Esturco, wants us to think it's different: It's pushing the idea that the men love what they do, out of unbridled choice.

The video seems to be in direct reaction to another recent release, Ang Pagtatapat Ng Macho Dancer, which was a frustrating repetition of cliches about poor guys forced to do things against their morals. Stardancer is a lot more liberal. In truth, though, the two documentaries couldn't be any more alike. They both forego the actual evidence to support their unoriginal claims, instead bludgeoning us with tabloid throwaway voice-overs and texts. In Stardancer, the voice of God is saying things that the real-life macho dancers aren't really saying. It also skims through topics like romance and the history of the profession, but it's so pedestrian, it's barely cohesive.

The one big difference is that Stardancer's men unabashedly show their faces during interviews. And what a bunch of good-looking men they are. It's easy to believe they're the titular monicker in whatever bar they work for. They overflow with charisma, confidence, and PR skills, which are valuable in their job, and for the camera, they seem to say they're not ashamed. Some of them are personalities you may recognize from modeling shows or male pageants, or from past erotica, such as Kiko Montenegro and Brent Lorenzo in Pantasya. You have to wonder if they were bar dancers discovered to model or act, or models/actors who are role-playing as macho dancers especially for this video. Other "stardancers" include Victor Valerio, Vince Ignacio, Russel Anderson, Gerald Makisig, Vincent Mercado, and Jeff Alajar.

In fact, the real reason to buy this DVD is the bonus feature of the guys individually performing one-minute erotic dance numbers packed with skin close-ups, peekaboos, and in some cases, erect penises flashed menacingly. The episodes are often photographed in low-key lighting that makes what is otherwise total flesh exposure a little harder to see (and also a little more pretentious in its artfulness). What the video fails in documentary filmmaking respectability, it makes up for in trashy titillation.

GRADE: B+

Related Link:
Official Site

Roxxxanne

Jay Aquitania

Roxxxanne sets up a world that may appear commonly third-world, with cramped housing spaces and limited water supply, except for one key advancement: Anyone can produce celphones from their pockets. In this world, instant videos and file sharing can dictate new order.

The achievement of Roxxxanne is that, for the first time, a movie makes us understand the viral life force of a "sex scandal" (a private sex video gone public) -- how it can start, its constantly snowballing momentum, and the extent of its impact, much more than Co-Ed Scandal, a 2005 movie that wasted the subject. Roxxxanne recreates our present wired world with astounding potency, fashioned around a story of secrets and intrigue. It's Scorpio Nights for the internet age, and it's gay, too. It couldn't be more en vogue.

Marlon (Jay Aquitania) is a student who receives blowjobs from gay men in exchange for cash and the latest video scandal. But he may be gay, too, as his sexual feelings for his friend Jonas (Janvier Daily) distract him more and more. It's the videos that will undo him. The two actors are undeniably hot, and there's been much talk already about Jay Aquitania's morning fresh deliciousness and Janvier Daily's sweaty from-the-streets machismo, but the sexiest thing about them in this movie is not mentioned enough: They talk like real boys and their naturalness is panty-dropping hot.

But where is all this going? That's the problem. MILD SPOILER ALERT! The movie is forcefully spiralled towards tragedy in the classic mode of those "important" social films like Scorpio Nights, with lots of blood and violence, and it seems to point to a naive cautionary message about the dangers of holding a celphone in your hand, and also, the dangers of being a closet homosexual teenager. What is it really saying about young men with confused sexual feelings? It's one thing to talk about the chaos brought about by the new media, but it's another to suggest that homosexuality is as poisonous to society as sex scandals, bringing only death, rape, and misfortune. Not very progressive, and alas, not very modern.

GRADE: B

Related Link:
Review of the Trailer
Writer-Director Jun Lana's Blog

Cruise: The Provocative Tour - Video

John Miller backstage

Fancy, swirling camerawork and speedy cutting create a frenzied energy that was lacking in the 2007 live show. We do get close-ups that reveal some information -- like, nobody was really naked onstage; they wore codpieces -- but don't reveal much else. Like, with all those video angles, why can't we be treated to a peekaboo or two? The men may not be great (or even good) dancers, but they're spectacular eye candies. Smooth butts are in ample supply, and they beg for rewind-and-pause. The program itself is hit-and-miss, but I want to watch another show like it.

GRADE: B

Related Links:
Review of the Stage Show
Backstage Photos 1
Backstage Photos 2