Santuaryo

Beautiful-people-stranded-on-a-deserted-island is not a very dignified subgenre. Wait, I already said that.

In Santuaryo, the castaways are all toned young men, and they're looking for treasure. Even though the movie doesn't make that hokey premise believable for a second, it still strains for a serious, high-suspense tone -- much like TV's Survivor Philippines, down to the island cutaways and drumbeats. (The director, Monti Parungao, is also the man behind that show.) As on TV, there's supposed to be tension when the guys begin to form rivalries and alliances, except that here, they're flaming over the stupidest things, like a missing Swiss Army knife, softcore magazines, or the loss of celphone signal. They're twelve-year old brats trapped in abs and pecs. They make the kids of Lord of the Flies look like wise elders.

You may have heard of behind-the-scenes reports that some of the actors behaved like brats themselves. Allegedly, a few of them backed out on their previous agreement with the producers (which included frontal nudity) by re-negotiating their fees. Done in the middle of shooting, after much principal photography, it sounds unprofessional, something a two-bit callboy might do to jack up his rate in the middle of sex, not to mention a huge turn-off, and possibly, career suicide. Reportedly, it effectively sabotaged the narrative, and reportedly, it's the reason a last-minute addition to the story was made: a romantic postscript between Basti Romero and Will Sandejas as lovers. Whatever. The finished product is a mangled mess, and those island shenanigans -- including something involving a guy who gives blowjobs then pukes right after -- incoherent.

The Director's Cut DVD is identical to the theatrical version, to my eyes, but at least with the pause button, we can stare lovingly at the dangling jewels of Gino Quintana, Basti Romero, and Will Sandejas. The DVD package also includes a mini-poster that displays everyone's butts (except Will's). The other guys are Justin Hizon, Nicos Bacani, AJ Ona, and Ralph Mateo. Brats or not, their hot bodies (and Parungao's smooth photography of them), even though they don't do much, are the saving grace of this film. Isn't it ironic?

GRADE: C

Related Links:
Photos by Ian Felix Alquiros
Negative Review by Cathy P.

D' Survivors

Beautiful-people-stranded-on-a-deserted-island is not a very dignified subgenre. Any movie that gets compared to the whack (and marvelous) camp classic Tempation Island (1980) by the revered Joey Gosiengfiao would be hard pressed to live up to any value-for-entertainment expectation. There have been countless B-movie descendants (look 'em up) but nobody remembers them. Ask me and I'll "recommend" a few titles.

Adolf Alix Jr.'s experiment in comic improvisation, D' Survivors, which follows air crash survivors frolicking on the beach, fails not because it's scriptless or absurd or, you know, "free-form" (these are virtues if executed effectively) but because it's never funny. In improv, we want characters to inhabit funny in every twist and turn, but here, the actors have little to build upon, because they're never given the chance to be actual people, to be more than dummies. Spewing standard-issue one-liners, they're stand-up comics clawing at every attempt for jokes. The flamboyant gay master of ceremonies is like a variety show host with no program. There's only so much empty blabber one can take. The sprinkling of "stories" -- like that of ex-lovers, or of a long lost brother who is now a sister, or the arrival of a diva -- not only goes nowhere, but matters none, not even at the moment it's being played.

Eye candies are supposed to make the folly worthwhile. The main draw are Brazilian models -- Daniel Matsunaga, Fabio Ide, Akihiro Sato -- all lovely, sometimes charming, but their sexiness is not even photographed enough. So, too, with other cuties -- Jubail Andres, Rocky Salumbides, Lemuel Pelayo, Kerbie Zamora -- practically camouflaged in the background. It's a showcase for Mercator, the modeling agency under which they're all signed, but not for individual talents.

Temptation Island was generous with beauty, and also with basic (and basest) human emotions, like anger, desire, hunger, which were fodder for our identification and laughs. By contrast, D' Survivors arrives with closed fists. Enjoyment, even of the camp variety, must be earned.

GRADE: C-

Related Links:
D' Survivors On Facebook
Negative Review by DiscreetManila

Chub Chaser

In his mission to film a narrative for every special-interest demographic in the gay dating wilderness, Crisaldo Pablo (with co-directors Remz Mallari, Jonathan Batoy, and Bob Galura) turns his lo-fi sexicomic filmmaking to an overweight twenty-something desperate to score. (The title is misleading; our hero is the chub, not the chaser.) Thanks largely to actor Joseff Young's valiant self-deprecation, Chubi's embarassing exploits -- he endures rejections, then cons other guys just so he can get laid -- don't come off as too pitiful; instead they're suggested to be a kind of spiritual quest for salvaging dignity. The jokes can be repetitive -- How many times do we need to be reminded that fat people are not high up on the sex food chain? -- but they're also designed to touch compassionately on everyone's anxieties on body image.

The corny fairy tale conclusion feels rushed, but the distractions before it are fun: Chamyto Agueda as the also-chubby best friend who uses money to keep his boyfriend; the trio of fitness-conscious but concerned roommates (including Jeff Luna, as the prince charming), and a series of cute date prospects and some surprising full frontals (masked in theaters, but not on DVD). Cast also includes Francis Sienes, Bryan Lorenzo, Archie De Calma, Ken Dequito, Siegfried Rosa, Miko Guttierrez, Justine Gomez, Trouffles, Bryan Ocampo, Bryan Balansyo, and Arnick Meneses.

GRADE: B-

Related Links:
Positive Review by Todo Sa Bongga
Negative Review by Make Me Blush
Photos of Jeff Luna and Joseff Young in Bed 1, 2, 3

Parisukat

Jeff Tatsuro

A sort-of-clever but certainly contrived mystery emerges somewhere in the middle of Parisukat, after we learn of the murder of a gay businessman (Toffee Calma), and all the four characters we've been following so far are pieces to the puzzle. There's the tranny (Darwin Taylo), the jock she's in love with (Christopher Canizares), the butch master of the house (Jobben Bello), and the young new tenant (Jeff Tatsuro). A silent house helper (Alvin Espinosa) adds nothing except decor. They converge in the same boarding house, and one of them may be the killer. Cool, eh?

Gay homicide has quickly become the year's cliche movie trend -- there's also Ben and Sam and Pilantik -- and we haven't even reached 2010's halfway mark. Writer-Director Jonison Fontanos says he drew inspiration from a gay friend murdered by a callboy.

Pulpy by structure, but flat by execution, his second film is at least more coherent than Hugot. The movie is like its star, Jeff Tatsuro: a cutie, but the expression is too blank to reel us into the fear and danger beneath the surface. Maybe those long exposition minutes should have already been laced with suspense, or at least, more fun, or sexuality. He gets us restless before he gets us thrilled.

GRADE: C+

Related Links:
Loads of Parisukat Info, Photos, and Press at Swim In The Sky
More Toffee Calma Photos
Review by Littlegapanese

Marino (Call of the Sea)

Rico Barrera, Raymond Cabral

Oh, to have a shipful of hunks and have them do… nothing. In this quasi-tribute to Filipino seamen, the biggest conflict happens between one worker (Allen Dizon) and the chef (Victor Basa) – regarding the quality of the food! How exciting! Meanwhile, the manual labor that happens on the tanker is a blur. The gay subplot tickles the imagination with an exchange of erotic glances (between Rico Barrera and Raymond Cabral), before their story evaporates from view. Emilio Garcia is sick, so we know where that is going.

Too much time is devoted to the situation back at the hometown, with a dead father-in-law, a housewife who may or may not succumb to an affair with a tricycle driver (Marco Alcaraz), and a brother failing his exams in maritime college (Mike Tan). It sounds like a busy film, but everything is so mild, nothing moves. Writer-Director Paul Sta. Ana fumbles with themes of fidelity and distance, but forgets that in order to dignify the seamen, they should be interesting first.

GRADE: C-

Related Links:
Men of Marino Photos
Marino Poster, Synopsis, Trailer
Music Video on YouTube
Negative Review by Make Me Blush

Ben and Sam

Jess Mendoza, Rayan Dulay

The romance between Ben and Sam is built on the stuff of great pop opera: Ben the jock (Rayan Dulay) and Sam the artsy type (Jess Mendoza) are rivals in both film class debates and an upcoming popularity pageant. So it's a disappointment that the movie doesn't muster connective power the way timeless youth movies do. How could it go wrong? The answer: Ben and Sam is a thoroughly distracted picture.

Directed by Mark Shandii Bacolod, with self-conscious camera work and frilly subplots -- the most belabored of which involves a homophobe (Micah Munoz) heading towards homicide -- the love story gets lost amidst much hullabaloo.

What's crucially forgotten is the attraction. Those intellectual debates, likely meant to be sparring matches as foreplay, meander into sexless recitation. It's hard to pinpoint when the two guys started getting into each other.

We're left to rely on the easy function of stereotypes for tension. Ben is The Closeted Athlete, and therefore, must be having a hard time with his feelings. There's little evidence for it, except in dialogue about honesty (Those truth-in-cinema discussions reflect being true to yourself -- what a stretch!) and in the acceptance of a crazy, costume-changing (hence, unconventional) Mom. Yet Ben also seems to be comfortable being different around his basketball teammates from the start. So what's the problem? We're made to grasp for clues about what it is that Ben sees in -- or needs from -- Sam, and vice versa. Neither Rayan Dulay nor Jess Domingo are intense enough actors (nor do they have enough chemistry) to fake this love without the story details. When they jump into making out while working on an assignment together, we understand it only because we know working on assignments together can do that to you.

(SPOILER ALERT!) In the end, when one of them dies, the film makes a tough bid for emotionality that only comes across as a lightweight you-love-him-now-that-he's-gone because we were never really convinced to begin with. We only understand it because we know death to be the pits. But dude, what loss are you mourning?

GRADE: C

Bonus points for casual locker room nudity and butt-naked frolicking in the garden.

Related Links:
Director's Blog
More Stuff About Ben and Sam Plus Production Stills
Who's Afraid of a Gay Movie Glut? By Bayani San Diego
Links to Many Articles About Ben and Sam at Aliwan Avenue

Libido

Jeff Luna, Marcus Cabrera

When people say a film is so bad that it's good, they're usually talking about one thing: passion. The film makes so many aesthetic missteps because, in the first place, the filmmaker has committed himself -- thrown his being -- into something so wrong or so awful. It's that dare to dream -- and fail -- that gives the film its unique joy. Think of your favorite so-bad-it's-good movie. Now try to measure the amount of love you conceive to have been put into it. Without that leap of passion, it would merely be bad bad. With it, it's bad good. I would argue that the best examples of such films aren't bad at all; they're usually just strange, left-of-center outcasts.

Libido never got a theatrical release, but it did have a special screening for a curious paying audience, before it was released on video. From the start, it was announced by its spin machine as a film of low standards -- you come for the sex and nudity because it has nothing else to offer. True enough.

The story is old, but not bad. A city couple vacations with a country couple (The women are sisters) in a house near a brook, which leads to an opening of minds, naturally. There's spouse-swapping, and rape, but better yet: After the city guy excites the country guy with stories of his pansexual experiences, the two dudes get it on. There's little guilt, or any other emotion for that matter, and everyone walks away happy.

The cardboard performances are the constant source of amusement, especially by actress Maricris Losada, who looks like she's perfectly content with not knowing what she's doing. A certain amount of innocence always works well with sexploitation. Jeff Luna as the older farmer and Marcus Cabrera as the young nurse are exciting because their limited, barely written characters are offset by their confident parades of fresh, fleshy, imperfect bodies. (CJ Manalo is the third guy in the flashback.) I probably would've been bored if they weren't so cute.

But where's the passion? Writer-Director Lucas Mercado's filmmaking is so sweatless and impersonal, Libido ends up less of a so-bad-it's-good movie than just every other run-of-the-mill cheapo. Most of the lovemaking scenes -- watch two bodies pile on top of each other -- barely generate heat, not because of misplaced effort, but because of lack of it. The recipe for a great bad-good entertainment is here. The cook would have served us better if he poured out his guts. I hope that's a lesson for everyone out there venturing into bad movies.

GRADE: C+

Related Links:
Photos of Jeff Luna in Libido
Photos of CJ Manalo and Marcus Cabrera in Libido
"Indie Movie, Naglalaman Ng Sex Education" at Abante Tonite

Pilantik

When murdering his victims, the cross-dressing serial killer (Mon Confiado) wields his weapon with his pinky finger pointed upwards! (The title refers to the limp hand movement that's supposed to be a telltale sign of homosexuality. Right.) This detail is the sole cool thing about Pilantik, a movie that ought to be scarier and funnier, but is only a mess.

It makes the great mistake of many psycho killer stories: The drama is all in the past. Here, an abusive, homophobic stepfather (Pen Medina) and a stepbrother broke his hand bones permanently when he was a kid -- but even this is staged like a bad afternoon teledrama. (It's directed by TV veteran Argel Joseph.) Meanwhile, in the present, what exactly is going on? For all the loony-fag hamming of Mon Confiado, the character operates without logic. What in the world is he doing with his life, and why? He's rich, takes care of his crazy mom, has a boyfriend, hangs out with a parlorista friend (Lito "Shalala" Reyes), and on the side, hacks people into parts. None of the elements connect. The movie is so lost that somewhere in the middle, we are introduced to three gay killers (as in, straight men who kill gay men), and in the "climactic" action chase that follows, one of them (Jao Mapa) may have suddenly turned into the movie's new lead role we root for. Or not. Your frustrated guess is as good as mine.

GRADE: C

Related Links:
LCP Films Blog
Mon Confiado Interview on Jojo A. All The Way - Part One and Part Two
What is Main-Die? By Edgar Allan Paule

S.R.O. (Standing Room Only)

Charles Delgado, Rain Javier

Are the younger generation still familiar with the meaning behind the title? In this age of reserved seating and fire safety regulations, “standing room only” is a moviehouse term that’s barely used anymore. The double meaning is that, in run-down theaters that also function as prostitution dens, there’s a lot of standing and walking going on inside. Like the title, the movie SRO feels moldy and out-of-touch. Can’t get enough of the sight of an experienced serviceboy throwing up after giving head? That’s just one of the film's many standard “insights” about the miserable lives of sex peddlers.

The acronym also stands for the initials of the three main hustlers (Sonny, Roldan, and Oscar), played by Rain Javier, Kristoffer King, and Charles Delgado, and the movie supposedly depicts the struggle for dominance among them – the passing of the baton, so to speak, of who is the hottest callboy inside. Sounds like a cool setup for some micro politics, or at least some backstabbing, bitching, or one-upmanship – but alas, the movie doesn’t know what to do with it. The boys don't really try to outsex each other. Like so many Filipino films lately, the conflict remains a concept, not really played out for the thrills they promise. For a film about a power struggle, it’s baffling why none of the people actually interact. They all prefer talking by themselves, like the blind woman (Ana Capri) who speaks but is not heard. Sonny, the first king of the territory, likes talking to the movie screen. Oscar, as the young upstart, narrates in dry voice-over. In effect, everyone is either a pontificator, or, like Paolo Rivero as a mysterious habitue, a spectre. Where’s the fun in that?

Serbis, also set in a dirty picture house, was over-semioticized junk, but at least it captured the existential chaos of its environment. SRO gives us ghosts in place of people, and blank space instead of place. But at least the horny kid stripping in front of the mirror is a guy this time.

GRADE: C

Related Links:
Positive Review by Wilberchie
Publicity Photos by Ian Felix Alquiros

The 100 Sexiest Movie Performances of The Decade (2000-2009)

The rules: (1) Males, of course. Women lovers can make their own list. (2) Each actor's name may appear only once. So, despite the many hot movies by, say, Coco Martin, I had to pick just one. (3) The sexiness of the actor and the sexiness of the role count, but most of all, it's about the performance: the sexiness that the actor brings to the role. As for the definition of sexy? Let these 102 examples (I cheated) illustrate that vast spectrum.


1. Coco Martin in Daybreak
2. Kristoffer King in Babae Sa Breakwater
3. Carlos Morales in Laro Sa Baga
4. Alfred Vargas in Bridal Shower
5. Josh Ivan Morales in Ang Lihim Ni Antonio
6. JR Valentin in Ang Pagdadalaga Ni Maximo Oliveros
7. Piolo Pascual in Lagarista
8. Paolo Rivero in Live Show
9. Jay Aquitania in Roxxxanne
10. Yul Servo in Dose

11. Christian Vasquez in Liberated 2
12. Tyrone Perez in Twilight Dancers
13. Sid Lucero in Donsol
14. Harry Laurel in Ang Lalake Sa Parola
15. Jordan Herrera in Lupe
16. Rodel Velayo in Kangkong
17. Diether Ocampo in La Vida Rosa
18. Justin De Leon in Ang Lalake Sa Parola
19. Gary Estrada in Booba
20. Zanjoe Marudo in Kimmy Dora

21. Jet Alcantara in Bathhouse
22. Kenjie Garcia in Ang Lihim Ni Antonio
23. Jamil Basa in Troika
24. Paolo Serrano in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John
25. Janvier Daily in Roxxxanne
26. Jerwin Mercado in Hanggang Dito Na Lamang at Maraming Salamat
27. Marco Morales in Walang Kawala
28. Edgar Allan Guzman in Imoral
29. Will Sandejas in Sikil
30. Joash Balejado in Heavenly Touch

31. Paolo Contis in One Night Only
32. Felix Roco in Engkwentro
33. J.E. Sison in Bikini Open
34. Joeffrey Javier in Boylets
35. Jomari Yllana in Katayan
36. Gerald Lauron in Mapanukso
37. Marky Lopez in Huling Birhen Sa Lupa
38. Cogie Domingo, Danilo Barrios, and James Blanco in Cool Dudes
39. Lauren Novero in Mga Pusang Gala
40. Khalani Ferreria in Xerex

41. Jay Manalo in Prosti
42. Jay L Dizon in I Love Dreamguyz
43. Ken Escudero in Sikil
44. Beejay Morales in Hada
45. Rayan Dulay in Bathhouse
46. Joseph Bitangcol in Paupahan
47. Topher Barretto in Quicktrip
48. Jam Melendrez in Red Diaries
49. Anton Bernardo in Saranggani
50. Toffee Calma in Showboyz

51. Alex Alano in Pangarap Ng Puso
52. Eric Parilla in Tuhog
53. JC Castro in Kapag Ang Palay Naging Bigas, May Bumayo
54. Gerald Madrid in Pedrong Palad
55. Sherwin Ordonez in Kurap
56. Allen Dizon in Ang Tipo Kong Lalaki
57. Andrew Schimmer in Green Paradise
58. Dennis Torre in Sagwan
59. Allyson VII in Gusto Ko Nang Lumigaya
60. Alberto De Esteban in Hayup Sa Sex Appeal
61. Leonardo Litton in Gigil
62. Ran Domingo in Binyag
63. Alvin Anson in Kapirasong Gubat Sa Gitna Ng Dagat
64. Mark Dionisio in Kainan Sa Highway

65. Rico Barrera in Lalamunan
66. Johnron Tañada in Lovebirds
67. Russel Simon in Room Service
68. Leandro Baldemor in Pedrong Palad
69. Paolo Paraiso in Imoral
70. Niño Fernandez in Ang Lihim Ni Antonio
71. Ryan Forbes in Jupit
72. Kris Martinez in Green Paradise
73. Wendell Ramos in Gamitan
74. John Hall in Xerex
75. Douglas Robinson in Little Boy/Big Boy
76. Dante Balboa in Takaw-Tingin

77. Cholo Barretto in Sa Aking Pagkakagising Mula Sa Kamulatan
78. Randolph Dungo in Sagwan
79. Aries Pena in Boy
80. Arjay Carreon in Campus Crush
81. Ralph Darell Mateo in Lukaret
82. Dayal Chowdhary in Seroks
83. Johnny Delgado in Tanging Yaman
84. Mark Anthony Fernandez in Biyaheng Langit
85. Robin Padilla in Buhay Kamao
86. Jake Roxas in Xerex

87. Andro Morgan in Quicktrip
88. Victor Basa in Maling Akala
89. Jason Abalos in Endo
90. Marcus Madrigal in Sa Pagdapo Ng Mariposa
91. John Lloyd Cruz in One More Chance
92. Sam Milby in You Are The One
93. Jericho Rosales in Nasaan Ka Man
94. Jon Avila in One Night Only
95. Polo Ravales in Manay Po
96. Bojo Molina in Gusto Ko Nang Lumigaya
97. Adrian Landicho in Hikbi
98. Neil Ryan Sese in Ang Pagdadalaga Ni Maximo Oliveros
99. John Prats in OMG! (Oh My Girl)
100. Rainier Castillo in Ded Na Si Lolo

At the Bottom of the 100: Stars whose sexier works are probably in television (Dingdong Dantes, Dennis Trillo, Marco Alcaraz, Richard Gutierrez, Derek Ramsey, Rafael Rosell), or whose sexier movies are probably ahead of them (Gerald Anderson, Aljur Abrenica, Jake Cuenca, Joem Bascon); Pin-up crushes deprived of memorbale roles (Francis Enriquez, Harold Pineda, Jethro Ramirez, Carlo Maceda, Jon Romano); Atypically sexy turns (Romalito Mallari, Nathan Lopez, Josh Deocareza, Eric Fructuoso, Robert Arevalo, Eddie Garcia, Vhong Navarro, Mark Bautista, Baron Geisler, Carlo Aquino, Rico Yan); Surprisingly sexy turns in flops (Manny Pacquiao, Mikee Arroyo, Mark Lapid); Powerhouse male acting (John Estrada, Mario Magalona, Julio Diaz, Ronnie Lazaro, Joel Torre); Macho icons whose sexier roles are probably behind them (Bong Revilla Jr., Vic Sotto); Off-the-radar sensations (Gabz Del Rosario, Bodjong Fernandez, G. Ford Lara, Leandro Muñoz, Arnold Reyes, Antonio Aquitania, Angelo Ilagan, Ping Medina, Jonathan Neri, John Wayne Sace, Carlos Agassi, TJ Trinidad, Luis Alandy, Jiro Manio, Alcris Galura, Aieous Asin, Joseph Obligacion, Rob Da Silva, Ace Ricafort, Raymond Cabral, Froilan Moreno, Charles Delgado, Denver Olivarez, Dante Gomez, Harold Montano, Winston Elizalde, and the rest of the cast of Sagwan).

Talk back. Which sexy performance did I miss?

***
This list is part of a continuing series of The Bakla Review's 2000's Decade in Review. Check back often for more.

The 10 Most Important Filipino Gay Films of the Decade (2000-2009)

I tried to avoid the word "important", because it's such a snooty concept. But there was no escaping it. The Pinoy gay film exploded in number and diversity in the last ten years, that it seemed necessary to identify the landmarks -- in chronological order, to see how we got from there to here. So this is not a list of the biggest critical darlings (Jay and Selda are not here), nor my personal guilty pleasures (Otherwise, there'll be Boylets) -- though they can be those, too. I simply asked: Can I imagine the decade in Philippine gay culture without these films? Or, Can I imagine moving into the future without having passed through them? Then I chose ten because it's a neat pretty number. A few crowd favorites have been left off (Ang Lihim Ni Antonio, Daybreak). Your friends or friends of friends will recommend unlikely titles (Wen Timawa Meets Delgado, Last Supper No. 3, or Imburnal, perhaps?) because people have varied tastes, and some films tend to get more appreciated as time goes by. But the following are the few that are must-sees if only because, in the decade that's closing, they've already made the most indelible impact.


Markova: Comfort Gay (2000)
Directed by Gil Portes
Written by Clodualdo Del Mundo, Jr.
RVQ Productions

The 21st century started with much jonesing for history, in the aftermath of the centennial of Philippine independence. Markova put a real-life gay face to our past, turning "comfort gay" into a household name for homosexuals raped by Japanese soldiers in WWII. By following the life of Walter Dempster, Jr., from young sexual awakening to a senior citizen living in a home for the gay aged, the drama traces a path of survival. Too bad it's the image of the flaming victim that stuck, in no small part due to the film's own shortcomings. But it boasts the biggest casting stunt in Philippine cinema to date; The title role played by three actors: Dolphy, a comedian always loved for his effem caricatures, and his two sons, Eric Quizon (a former heartthrob pestered by gay rumours) and Jeffrey Quizon, in the performance that jumpstarted his career as an actor's actor.


Duda (Doubt, 2003)
Written and Directed by Crisaldo Pablo
Grupong Sinehan

Movies have been shot in digital before, but it was Pablo's low-tech, low-budget model of distribution that was groundbreaking: He lugged around his own video projector to host pockets of screenings, thus birthing the so-called digital revolution we know today. It would have meant nothing if the film itself wasn't urgent -- an ultra-personal account of a tumultuous same-sex relationship in a circle of upwardly mobile friends, a slice of non-stereotypical realism that needed a drastic underground approach to find its audience -- picture and audio quality be damned. And found us it did. Thanks also to those first few who willingly shelled money to see something untested, the payoff to the gamble. The pioneering success of Duda directly led to all the independently produced digital releases -- gay or not -- that made its way into theaters thereafter. If Philippine cinema was believed to have been dying at the time, it took one small gay film to change the game.
Related Link: "TBR Answers Your Burning Questions #2"


Bathhouse (2005)
Written and Directed by Crisaldo Pablo
Grupong Sinehan

If Duda was the punch, Bathhouse was the knockout, proving Pablo's first venture was no fluke. It also announced something larger: By situating his drama in the darkened, members-only club for men, where "no callboys allowed", Bathhouse made real the existence of a gay community, away from mainstream eyes. Who knew? This was a place where our young hero (Rayan Dulay) made friends, found love, grew up, and found himself. He even became an asshole, and that's part of the process. It wasn't the self-loathing macho dancer bar of our parents' generation. Bathhouse was so attuned to the times, yet we wonder what took so long to make a film like it.


Masahista (The Masseur, 2005)
Directed by Brillante Mendoza
Written by Boots Agbayani Pastor
Centerstage Productions

Masseurs are the noughties' new macho dancers -- male sex workers that stand in for the general malaise of the Filipino people. (Not to say the macho dancer genre died.) But Masahista deliberately moved away from exploitation territory into oblique and gray -- in both look and feel -- as it somberly depicted a masseur's handling of one of his gay clients, and alternately, his father's funeral. With festival laurels, the movie ushered in a new era of arthouse Filipino films. It will most easily be remembered, however, for introducing us to two talents that would dominate the latter half of the decade: Brillante Mendoza, whose persistent "real time" dogma would culminate in a Cannes Film Festival award for Best Director for Kinatay, and his muse, actor Coco Martin, who would shine in all his gay and gay-friendly roles before becoming a TV soap star even our mothers would love. That their careers are only beginning makes the next decade exciting.


Ang Pagdadalaga Ni Maximo Oliveros (The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros, 2005)
Directed by Auraeus Solito
Written by Michiko Yamamoto
UFO Pictures

The freshness shocked the nation out of its torpor: Here was a movie about an adolescent femme boy (why only now?) who lives in poverty with his family of macho crooks, who are totally accepting and loving, until he starts to fall for the honest cop twice his age. And it all slid smoothly down our throats, mainly because the tender, truthful film gave the kid dignity. The runaway hit from the first Cinemalaya Festival, it demonstrated the possibilities of what a local fund aid can achieve and what a film could become: A record number of top awards from major international festivals, the biggest box office earnings for an independent film (later topped by Kimy Dora), and the paradox that a queer movie can be sweet and innocent without shying away from sexuality. Many filmmakers have since been trying to recapture that lightning in a bottle.


ZsaZsa Zaturnnah Ze Moveeh (2006)
Directed by Joel Lamangan
Written by Dinno Erece
Regal Films

Easily the decade's most original and lasting superhero creation was Carlo Vergara's Zsa Zsa Zaturnnah, first a graphic novel, then a stage musical, about a lonely gay parlorista who swallows a giant rock to transform into a buxom superwoman. The movie adaptation successfully broadened the popularity of the character, bringing it to the family-friendly Metro Manila Film Festival. Though not as emotionally resonant as the comix or the musical, the movie remained faithful to the plot and the campiness, and tried to extend the gender politics, though rather sloppily. But it did have another milestone in actor Rustom Padilla, a former matinee idol, who proves there's life after coming out as a transsexual. Does that mean the Philippines is progressive? Let's see if it happens again.


Ang Lalake Sa Parola (The Man in the Lighthouse, 2007)
Directed by Joselito Altarejos
Written by Lex Bonife
Viva Digital/Beyond The Box Productions

The change had already been encroaching, but Ang Lalake Sa Parola made it official: The erotic film of choice had shifted from straight to gay. We've stopped making female bold stars, but here, Justin De Leon and especially Harry Laurel became overnight sex idols. That the low-budget digital drama was produced by Viva, a studio that used to make the same but straight, confirms it. The tropes of the genre -- a bucolic setting, the repressed desires -- have been effortlessly lifted to fit what is basically a romantic story of homosexual awakening. Most of all, the movie put the Penis back onto the silver screen, which prompted an X from the MTRCB (Movie and Television Review and Classification Board), so they cut it out. But before you can snap your testicles, the full frontal became the formula for gay box office draw. Hate it? Or love it, because in the fight for gay rights, visibility matters. Either way, we have Parola to thank.
Review: Ang Lalake Sa Parola


The Thank You Girls (2008)
Written and Directed by Charliebebs Gohetia
Brooklyn Park Pictures

They're beauty pageant losers traveling the Mindanao countryside for a shot at tiny barrio contests, along the way conversing in Dabawenyo gayspeak, and basically living their lives as one big show, third-world style. They're walking, sashaying embodiments of the marginalized. At the tail-end of the decade when the newly found freedom of making (and earning from) gay films had resulted in a glut of myopic sameness, this regional ensemble comedy starring real-life transgenders confronts us with a reminder: What other stories of other queer people in other regions of this country are never told, but must?
Review: The Thank You Girls


Sagwan (2009)
Directed by Monti Puno Parungao
Written by Arnold Mendoza and Monti Puno Parungao
Roca Productions

At the end of the noughties, the gay sexual liberation in movies had spawned a full-blown backlash. And every misunderstood genre has its whipping boy. Sagwan -- with its nihilistic credo and unabashed, expertly executed eroticism, about tour guide rowers moonlighting in the sex trade -- fit the profile at just the right time. Critics have used it as an example of bad, harmful filmmaking -- of smut! -- to try to extend the jurisdiction of the censors to MTRCB-free venues like the University of the Philippines, where the film had its packed premiere without cuts. Like Live Show in 2001, or Larry Flynt's Hustler, we may find our right to see what we want, or to say what we want, rests on a silly little underdog -- a far-from-perfect, but vital, piece of trashy art.
Review: Sagwan
"Should U.P. Ban Gay Porno?"


In My Life (2009)
Directed by Olivia Lamasan
Written by Olivia Lamasan, Raymond Lee, and Senedy Que
Star Cinema

After a lifetime of struggle for gay representation, the most mainstream of movie studios in the country finally made a film with major gay characters played by major stars (John Lloyd Cruz and Luis Manzano). While the sensitive women's drama -- about a mother who comes to New York City to live with her gay son -- made no qualms about one of the character's homosexuality, the other's is left ambiguous, and the details of their intimacy are kept mostly invisible. Audiences have been divided: On the one hand, isn't it great not to make an issue of our sexuality? On the other, are we so ashamed that we need to hide it? With no other film as gauge, the widely distributed In My Life stands as the one testament to how mainstream moviemakers -- and audiences -- view gay people at this point in our history, and the extent to which they can accept them. Will it go any farther in the next decade?
Review: In My Life

***
This article is part of a series of The Bakla Review's "2000's Decade In Review". Check back often for more.

Campus Crush

The campus in question is an alternate universe where everyone is gay. The students wear pink and yellow uniforms and organize events such as “Equality Week”. Strip away the whimsy, and the school operates as in any other teen flick: There are friendships, betrayals, unrequited loves, and everyone is trying to get into each other’s pants. The jocks do it for the bragging rights, as when the swim team make bets on shagging the biggest losers in campus, while the rich offer iPods in exchange for fellatio in the showers.

That’s the subversive challenge of the movie Campus Crush: In the great power struggle, whether you have It or not has little to do with gender. So why do people in the real world make an issue of homosexuality, when the driving factors are usually beauty, wealth, confidence, values (or the lack of it) -- everything but gender?

Arjay Carreon is the brooding, well-to-do alpha male with a sensitive side, while Joeffrey Javier is the poor, bad-postured nerd who’s a romantic idealist, and the two charismatic actors have incredible chemistry. In a showboating role as the flamboyant best friend, Chamyto is a blast of unpredictable comic energy.

Writer-Director-Producer Crisaldo Vicente Pablo, who helms the afternoon TV teen series Lipgloss, at the same time heads the direct-to-video line of gay erotica Queeriosity Video Project, has scored a mash-up of both. Campus Crush is a gay fantasy sex movie young comedy romance! Beat that. Yet the film also doesn’t escape the limitations of each genre, embracing even the shortcuts and unpolished craftsmanship. That makes it feel slighter than it ought to be, but it’s a lot of fun.

GRADE: B

Related Links:
Trailer
Movie Stills and Photos at Freshboysasia
Negative Review by Philbert Dy

Walang Hanggang Paalam

Jake Roxas, with Rico Barrera

The quietly elegant Walang Hanggang Paalam spent the year floating in limbo with an X-rating from the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB). In the version that's finally allowed in theaters, we can vaguely make out the shadows behind the ban: The 16-year old girl (Lovi Poe) is too young to be running away with her boyfriend (Joem Bascon), whose sole mission is to claim her virginity, then cavort with a dying Japanese gentleman (Jacky Woo). They're all the while trailed by a private investigator (Jake Roxas) in a cruel gay relationship (with Rico Barrera). Oh, there's also incest, and in the X'ed original, an ejaculation scene, supposedly. Despite the elegiac mood, a potent sensuality curdles, and boo to the MTRCB for failing to see that this is what makes it a worthy piece of cinema.

At its best, Paalam plays like a tone poem, especially when intercutting between its lonesome characters -- such as in the opening where everyone shaves or clips hairs from their faces or bodies, then later, in their respective prison-like hotel rooms in the chilly mountains of Baguio. In short, the movie works best when the humans must be no more than symbolic pretty elements in deliberately composed tableaus. Filmmakers Paolo Villaluna and Ellen Ramos (Selda, Ilusyon) have finally found a subject that matches their fetishistic photography of still objects: Existentially troubled individuals who are no more alive or dead than the fog or the sunlight through the glass.

When they must interact, however, the movie thuds. It becomes clear as we watch that the characters possess only one dimension each. I'm convinced Jake Roxas was given a bad boyfriend just so he can spend the entire movie moping. And so with Jacky Woo and cancer. Joem Bascon, in case we miss that he's supposed to be horny, keeps thrusting his hips and pushing his girlfriend to do it. It's hard to see what else is in him that made him her prince. Lovi Poe, who's meant to connect and seduce and break free, only has layers of girlishness. It's telling that her boat ride with the older man is a bonding moment drowned out in music and impressionistic close-ups. Where there should have been drama, there's poses. I'd hate to think they're mere zombies awaiting their fates to arrive with the twist ending, but that's what they are.

GRADE: B-

Related Links:
Trailer
Mixed Review by Philbert Dy
Review: Selda
Rico Barrera Photos

Latak (Residue)

Marc Jacob

When Andrew (the yummy Marc Jacob) catches his lover (Zach Urdaneta) with another man, we begin to doubt if his experiences -- such as seeing ghosts in the house -- are real or imagined, or the effects of his cocaine habit, or manifestations of his sexually abused past. Not exactly in that order. Presented in a wild jumble of time jumps, the film indeed confuses, and succeeds in dragging us down a hole with nowhere to go. It's a bad trip.

The garish mishmashing functions to hide how bad the scenes are on their own. Latak is basically a whine-o-rama about a dull guy with barbie doll friends he can't trust and a boyfriend problem. That all the talky agony is suggested to be connected to being molested as a child by a priest is an outrageous cheat, because it doesn't really explain why the dude and his friends are such a pill. The lesbian frisking is hotter than the gay sex, which we barely see. The only scenes with the tiniest pleasures are the ones with the cute cop (Ram Galura, unconvincing as an officer) who makes advances at our guy, and sure, the brief frontal exposures.

Writer-Director-Producer Jowee Morel has been making films with a kind of derring-do that throws everything into the pot until the mixture turns to goop. (When a Gay Man Loves, Strictly Confidential) He's yet to prove it makes his films more meaningful -- or entertaining. I wish he'd focus.

GRADE: D

Related Links:
Latak on Multiply
Director's Website

I Luv Dreamguyz

It's been a while since our movies tackled the Filipino performer's dream to fly to Japan. If I Love Dreamguyz is to be believed, Japan is once again a viable career destination for handsome young dancers. As an update, not one person in the movie ponders the possibility of prostitution or illegal recruitment (you know, those very 90's concerns). Not once do the guys even rehearse with their shirts off. It's all wholesome-legit, except for a shady networking scam thrown into the plot, again to keep it modern, although it doesn't really tie up.

Just about everything else in the movie feels like regurgitated bullshit, down to the racial stereotypes and butchered Nihongo. It's not a pop musical. The two dance numbers are edited to indistinction, and what's left to see makes us disbelieve they're actual dancers in a troupe. It's not quite a barkada youth flick, although a beach vacation portion in the middle has the whole gang strip to their butts and run to the sea. In the hands of Director Joel Lamangan, from a story by Manny Valera and screenplay by Enrique Ramos (the same team that made DMV's two previous films, Walang Kawala and Heavenly Touch), Dreamguyz is a soap opera of the stupidest kind.

I realize the key to Lamangan's continuous popularity as a director is that he strips his movies of any potential complexity. That means despite different life stories for five different dancers, they behave in exactly the same way all the time, so that we may clearly see the simple path the movie takes: dreamers' optimism crashing down to hard reality. When the guys hear their names called for the final casting, they cheer and giggle in the same note. Then they're angry. Then troubled. Talk about group unity. In scenes, they're lumped together like one boring mass. Lamangan again directs with eyes closed. His films are plotty by necessity, because they burrow through to the end, even when the brain objects. It's schematic, not cinematic.

Too bad, because the guys make great eye candies. Marco Morales, the reliable frontal nudity actor, is on board, but the sexiest role goes to Jay L Dizon, a guy whose heart swings between his girlfriend and guy rival-turned-pal (Morales). We see him make love to both. He even flaunts a brief bulge in a phone sex conversation. Jao Mapa, straining into a tiresome high pitch as a gay manager, makes love with Sherwin Ordonez, as his lover. Survivor alum Rob Sy pops up conveniently but illogically as a thug nuisance. There's a threesome between Mhyco Antonio and his two women. Miggy Chavez rounds up the group as an abused teen. With these stories, the movie really should have been more colorful and nuanced. The shiniest performance belongs to a woman. As the conflicted girlfriend, Nina Jose defies the drabness to create someone who actually feels human. Let's give these beautiful people a better movie please.

GRADE: C

Related Links:
Trailer
Articles and Photos: Jay L Dizon, Miggy Valdez
News: "Miggy Valdez Gets Meaty Role in First Movie"

Ang Laro Ng Buhay Ni Juan

Tony Lopena, Rayan Dulay, Ace Ricafort

The tandem of director Joselito Altarejos and screenwriter Lex Bonife birthed four gay-themed movies for major studio Viva, under its digital arm, starting with 2007's Ang Lalake Sa Parola. With their fifth collaboration, Ang Laro Ng Buhay Ni Juan, the duo make their first "truly independent" film, outside Viva, with Altarejos wearing the producer's hat for BeyondtheBox Productions. With this move, the bigger financial rewards might finally go to the deserving artists, who were anyway responsible for the brand of movie-making that spawned a following. The better news is that the departure seems to have freed them artistically, as well.

The mode is "real time" -- that increasingly fashionable style of storytelling that isolates time and place, an economy of approach well-suited to third world budgets. We follow Juan (Rayan Dulay) during his last hours in Manila, before he permanently leaves for his home province of Masbate. The film is structured in two parts. The first half is daytime, when Juan navigates the slums of his neighborhood, mingling with an assortment of characters, before settling in a tiny room to say goodbye to his lover (Nico Antonio) -- a tender moment that aches so well because we learn so much about the two of them with so little. It's also a positive representation of a same-sex relationship built on mutual love.

Fans might find my next statement blasphemous, but I've always thought that, in the Altarejos-Bonife partnership, the writing was usually the weaker link. Well, so much for that now. Gone are the fussy expositions and purple dialogue that mar their sometimes overly earnest melodramas. Co-written by Bonife, Altarejos, and Peping Salonga, Laro is subtler, but also richer, fresher, more intelligent, if also a little cooler/colder. It's a film that pulsates with the discovery of the moment. Ang Lihim Ni Antonio is its closest forebear, both marked by naturally flowing existentialism, but this is probably the first time the direction and the writing complemented so effortlessly.

I wonder, however, if the film would have benefited from a more intense lead actor. Real Time seems to require a galvanizing, center-of-the-universe presence, the way Gina Pareño held Kubrador, or to a lesser extent, Coco Martin in Kinatay. Dulay is pleasant and effective, but I kind of wish he put more gas to his fire.

The second half is night, as Juan works for one last time as a live sex performer in a gay club, to make extra money for his trip. Here, we meet the kind ringmaster (played by Bonife), a newbie member being oriented, and the rest of the performers, including Juan's cocky partner (Ace Ricafort). The excitement builds up to the actual erotic show, with naked bodies, but the real culmination is... (SPOILER ALERT!) a police raid. What is it that happens to Juan in his last day in Manila? In the answer lies the film's powerful statement.

What the two parts illustrate, before we're even aware of it, is the transfer of money. In Juan's poor community, everyone needs it. But when people part with their cash -- to gamble, to lend to a friend, a lover, someone in need -- it always stems from free choice. What Juan chooses to do with his money is his right and his freedom. We get the spirit of people looking out for one another: It's there when a neighbor shares her plate of noodles, or when the club manager passes a hat and guests drop their generous tokens. By stark contrast, in the final act, when police officers snuff Juan of the contents of his wallet, it's a gross abuse of authority, a trampling of Juan's freedom and dignity. He was robbed of so much more than money. He loses control over his own life, turned into a wimpering idiot. That, according to the film, is the great tragedy of this country. It's what corruption looks like on a micro level, but it extends and affects all of us. No coincidence, then, that our hero is called Juan, the name of the everyman.

Ang Laro Ng Buhay Ni Juan is the second excellent film this year to indict the illegal, inhumane practice of police raids. (Big Night was the other one.) The topic demands attention, and both films are must-sees. That Laro drives the important point with quiet grace is amazing.

GRADE: A-

Related Links:
Info and Statement at Director's Blog
Ace Ricafort Pics
"Hari Ng Negros 2006 Makes Acting Debut"

Boylets

Boys who make money by having sex with gay men -- "What's new?" You might say. So it's with delight I report that the new movie Boylets, which chronicles a day in the lives of a group of teenage friends, is a breath of fresh air: a genuinely unflinching, humanistic, dirty, sexy, funny, and sweet picture. It has just about everything I want in a movie, except technical brillo.

The movie's first uncommon move is respect for real people. The boys in Boylets act like actual modern teenagers, not the usual cardboard victims too often carelessly sketched in our movies for some moral agenda. A youthful cast of cute-as-button actors -- Joeffrey Javier, Charles Delgado, Rusty Adonis, and Francis Sienes -- play their parts with lovable insouciance. Their reasons for needing money can range from petty to serious -- to replace the stolen wheel of the tricycle they wish to enter into a drag race, to throw a birthday celebration, to send a sick, stubborn mother to a hospital -- but hovering above everything is the casual acceptance that they just don't have money. They steal cable wires to sell, sometimes getting chased by town police in the process. But the easiest source of cash are the gay patrons, who are often the first to approach them on the street. The boys can drop by their old sponsors too. Here, it's one gay man whose groceries they fetch and house they tidy up. The boys expect to have sex with him, but the jovial guy is glad to just share. It's a nice balancing touch.

The rest of the time we're privy to the quirky negotiating practices between the boys and their customers, sometimes already during foreplay. Pay with softdrinks? How about a case of softdrinks? Often, the movie feels like a great social comedy. If we find entertainment in how rich and poor bounce off each other's lives, such as in British class comedies, why not this one, which incisively, cheekily, demonstrates a "warfare" of age, gender, and benefits. Some odd sexual practices get the movie treatment for the first time, most memorably a riotous powder fetish scene, supposedly requested by one of writer-director-producer Crisaldo Vicente Pablo's fans.

Pablo seems to have found his winning formula. Like Boylets, his two previous features, Quicktrip and Showboyz, are situated in worlds of casual, unromantic sex -- a cruisy movie theater and a macho dancer bar, respectively -- and he casts a keen observer's eye over them. He doesn't balk from detailing the sexual rituals. Then, he threads the narrative with something sweet: an idealistic wide-eyed hero who believes in the changing power of love. It's like the candy in the tangy brew. In Boylets, that sentimental corny center is the friendship between Delgado and Javier. But it's the latter who anchors the drama with his fiery soulfulness.

A few critics will no doubt claw at this film and call it exploitation. With a barely legal cast doing nudity and sex, they certainly wouldn't be so far from wrong. But it's also audacious filmmaking, if a little rough around the edges, a by-product of the economy of style and production. Kudos to the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB) for approving this movie without cuts. I wouldn't be surprised if Boylets becomes a guilty pleasure for many, except that we shouldn't be so guilty. When everyone is ready, Boylets will be rightly acknowledged as an unpolished pop commentary of blazing wit and feeling.

GRADE: A-

Related Link:
Movie Poster and Trailer
Review: Quicktrip

Boy

Since his debut feature Ang Pagdadalaga Ni Maximo Oliveros (The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros), celebrated director Auraeus Solito has made a string of coming-of-age films, but his fourth, Boy, is the most unabashedly gay yet. It’s easily a romance – between a poetry student (real-life young poet Aeious Asin) and the macho dancer he desires to take out for one night (real-life young macho dancer Aries Pena). But what elevates the movie from most of its kind – the macho dancer movie, the opposite-sides-of-the-track brief encounter – is the rich telling.

When the movie opens, Aeious is the earlybird customer in a gaybar. He feels a stirring the moment a boy his age comes onstage. What follows is a romance of careful ambiguity: Gauzy sensations of attraction simmer with the practical motions of negotiation. This is a tale of first sex from the point of view of a teenager who’s smart enough to know that giving in requires a bit of detachment, but still be horny and confused. Soon, the two boys talk and make love in intricate, deepening, increasingly sensual steps.

Aeious lives alone with his Mother, and theirs is an acutely rendered relationship of affection and distance. The fish tanks he collects provide an overwhelming, ethereal glow to the household, and the way the people navigate around them is intoxicating to watch. While lesser coming-out movies rely on the shock of the turning points, in Boy, the pleasures lie in the minute revelations of emotion and simmering mood, even during its weakest moments -- such as the sometimes theatrical behaviour and the tacked-on illustration of poverty. Still, they all work together to tease the film’s tempered playfulness. Boy is an enigmatic, wonderfully unsettled picture, a thing to be savoured and discovered.

It's a brisk capsule that's over too quickly (less than 90 minutes), so what it achieves in economical strokes is impressive: Boy turns the story of a teenager’s first sexual experience into that moment when he begins to transcend his existence.

GRADE: B+

Related Links:
Positive Review by Lyka Bergen
Positive Review by George Heymont with Director's Statement
List: The 10 Best Macho Dancer Movies Ever

Pipo: Ang Batang Pro

Marco Morales, Tyron Perez

You want exotic? Try the world of Pipo – about a group of youth moonlighting as cybersex performers in a partly submerged seaside town. The boys and girls get drunk, get high, sleep around with each other and with clients gay and straight, and when they walk along the floating shanties and bamboo footways, amidst the water greenery, the movie looks splendid.

So it’s a shame the makers aren’t interested in scratching deeper than the environment’s surface. You might feel compelled to do your own research on the business of internet sex after the film leaves you dry on too many what’s and how’s. In place of any real new insight, director Alejandro “Bong” Ramos, working from a script by Cleo P. Cantalejo, resort to the most overused poverty-and-prostitution clichés. Practically every scene is crammed with epitaphs of how badly our poor children need money, which is supposed to justify their “wayward” ways.

The titular cutie, played by Tyron Perez, must accept (or not) the offer of an American documentarian who wants to film a threesome between him, his pal (Marco Morales), and his girl. With sexy supports Rob Da Silva and Ace Khosin, the cast is a treat to the eyes, fresh and exciting, even though the film they're in is ultimately stale and hollow.

GRADE: B-

Related Link:
Poster and Trailer

In My Life

John Lloyd Cruz, Luis Manzano

The best thing about it is that it got made. Star Cinema, the most mainstream of movie studios in the country, lagged behind the so-called gay bandwagon, perhaps by strict design: It's not supposed to be their territory. Homosexuality, believed to be a niche concern, presumably falls outside the realm of Star Cinema's broad, PG-13 market. Yet by some dint of miracle, it casts Vilma Santos, one of the biggest stars ever, and a present provincial governor no less, in the main role of a mother to a gay son, played by Luis Manzano, Santos' real life son. And then, oh boy, in the role of Manzano's lover, the country's current most bankable romantic leading man, John Lloyd Cruz. It's directed by Olivia Lamasan, whose female-centered melodramas have come to emblematize the Star Cinema brand. With such trusted names, is there still reason for the public to shy away from the gay topic?

The uncanny hat-trick of In My Life is that the bandwagon it jumps is not the gay one, but still the female-centered family melodrama that Star Cinema helped galvanize, and also the OFW movie -- a drama mapping the plight of Overseas Filipino Workers and their families -- perhaps one of only two originally Filipino genres to emerge from our lifetime. (The other one is the macho dancer movie.) This one is largely set in New York City, and it's centrally the woman's story, with the gay elements tempered and almost subliminal. That is the film's winning strategy, but also its debilitating blind spot.

What suffers is specificity. What do we know of the two guys' relationship? Most of it is left to the imagination, or, more accurately, to That Which We Know But Never Show Or Talk About. Is their relationship even sexual? The film's one kiss, which arrives late in the movie, is a swift, barely-brushed lip-to-limp. It's also meant to express apology and forgiveness -- you know, the wholesome, Catholic facet of love. It's hard for me to muster enough love for a movie that's intentionally castrated and guilty.

But it's not just the sex that's missing. I vaguely get to understand the lives of these two gay men in New York City. For example, what is Mark's job and why is he so damn busy? There's also a gay bar, but we barely see what goes on there, or what the interior even looks like. And the ultimate missing information: Is Noel gay, bi, confused, pretending, or maybe just another straight guy who happens to love a gay guy? It's up to the viewer to decide; Your Mom might have a different opinion than you. Cruz's family-friendly persona is spared of the damage. Not to give away spoilers, but he does end up quite a chaste man by film's end. All's well in the happy sin-free world, where only one of two things can happen to a gay man: He either dies violently or just stops being gay.

Of course, John Lloyd Cruz as Noel is the archetypal leading man of Star Cinema: a man who loves unconditionally, who suffers for his love, who also happens to be devoted to his parents. He's predictably given moments to bare his heart out. But Manzano as Mark is the more interesting creation. He'd rather go to the gym than spend time with his Mom, and he makes that strange proposal to her (I won't give away the surprise), tapping into a son who's both practical and caring, tough and sweet. Plus, with all that missing sex in the movie, Manzano manages to hint at someone who's comfortable with it, next to Cruz's somewhat frozen take on man-to-man touching.

But what little gay moments that are permitted to slip through are strong. In one scene, Shirley (Santos) complains that her son never even "came out" to her. In defense, Mark points out the double standard: If his straight siblings were never obligated to declare their straightness, why should he announce his gayness? Lamasan's co-writers, Raymond Lee and Senedy Que, are minds behind two of the most progressive queer films of our time. (Lee produced Ang Pagdadalaga Ni Maximo Oliveros; Que wrote and directed Dose.) Like those films, In My Life belies a fierce intelligence, wisdom that comes from a place of experience, at least whenever it's allowed. The film's most special move is that it roots Mark's anxiety -- He's never good enough for Mom -- to that moment in adolescence when he felt his homosexuality was a disappointment.

Like that scene, the best moments in the film are those which meld specific personal experience to the anyone-can-relate universal -- which is really the aim of the genre of melodrama. Santos may be a mother to a gay son, but she's really just any parent who wants to say sorry for her mistakes. Dimples Romana, in a great supporting performance, is any daughter (or son) who felt like a failure.

But the makers don't know when to ease up on the melodramatic conventions, which stall the movie here and there. Shirley's journey is marked with obvious, rigid plotpoints. She spends the first part whining about America with a capital A, then finds mini-success as a career woman, complete with feel-good montage. There's an old-fashioned, weary mannerism to Lamasan's approach, not helped by her visual team. New York is a flat, gray city in the eyes of cinematographer Charlie Peralta, and lifeless and generic according to production designer Elfren Vibar.

Somewhere in this movie is a shining work of art, but it's shrouded in mediocrity.

GRADE: B

Related Links:
Official Movie Site
Star Cinema on Multiply