New Trailers

Lovebirds


Xenoa 2

My MVP: Most Valuable Pinoy

My MVP Winner Luis Palaganas (left), Finalist Adrian Pellejera (right), with guru Alex Compton

Quick, name the current reality show with the largest cast of crushable manly men! If you said Survivor Philippines or Pinoy Fear Factor, you're wrong. My MVP: Most Valuable Pinoy, on the revamped TV5 network, is a search for the next basketball superstar in the Philippines, and boy, does it have a lot of men. The show began with hundreds of applicants, whittled down to a top 25 for training camp, then to a final team of 12. The hosts are Bayani Agbayani and Jason Webb, with Norman Black and other coaches playing key mentor roles. The first episodes capitalized on the comedy factor of not-hot, typically unathletic wannabes, but also showed some undeniably cute players. Choice personalities got mini-features on their life stories, and, at its most touching and human, My MVP plays like Hoop Dreams for an entire nation. It's hard not to root for all the Filipino men taking a chance -- for some, a second chance -- at pro glory. Now, that's what I call a reality contest.

Too bad the show doesn't seem to be aware of its sexy potential. There's a fly-on-the-wall journalistic approach to coverage that makes it look like news footage. It lacks the clean elegance and jolty sensationalism that can make people ogle and swoon at the exciting events and personalities, which is what the most addictive game shows offer. Like sitting on upper box B, you'd have to squint and keep from blinking to relish the muscles and sweat.

The one advantage of buying an established international franchise like Survivor is that the format has already been perfected. With shifty focus and too-loose story editing, My MVP is a sometimes messy viewing experience. I even forget what the guys are playing for, and what the rules are exactly. I didn't even know this week's challenge against PBA veterans was to be the last episode. (The show bows this week.) I should have promoted this show earlier, with this unsolicited advice: If My MVP stepped up to woo a gay audience plus women who are only into the game because of the boys, we would have new basketball idols right now with obsessive following. Hey, there were at least a couple of homoerotic jokes thrown by the boys during the show's run, and we all know sports is gay anyway. Let's hope for a second season.

GRADE: B-

New Trailers

Lalamunan


Dose

Watch It This Week

You say you want to watch a gay film without sex or nudity? Then catch Maling Akala, showing at Robinsons Indie Sine from November 5 to 11. Starring Victor Basa and Jodi Santamaria-Lacson, the film is a romance and a comedy and a mystery, which portrays the guy's homosexuality ambiguously until the end. But I find it's best viewed with the knowledge of his sexuality beforehand, as it allows the film to take on deeper psychological colors regarding women who pin their hopes on gay men and gay men who wittingly hide their true nature. My full review from 2007 here. For showtimes, click here.

Meanwhile, three gay sex-marketed films yet unclassified by the MTRCB (doesn't necessarily mean X-rated) get "director's cut" premieres this week at the University of the Philippines Cine Adarna: Walang Kawala on November 5, Kurap on November 8, and Lalamunan on November 13. Trailers here, here, and here. But even without my prodding, I bet you're already excited about those.

The Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela

Raquela Rios is a ladyboy prostitute from Cebu City with a simple wish: To someday walk the streets of Paris. Based on actual events from Rios' life, whose birth name is Earvin, this work of fiction that's shaped like a documentary was made by Icelandic director Olaf de Fleur Johannesson and producers from Iceland, U.S.A., and the Philippines, and stars Rios herself. Her story is a geographic splurge -- New York, Bangkok, Amsterdam, Reykjavik, Cebu, Paris, and more -- a globe-trotting trip that has the easygoing flow of a fun fairy tale. Crucial to the charm are a cast of lovable supports, especially Raquela's transsexual and transgender friends in Cebu, a ladyboy internet superstar in Thailand, a ladyboy born and raised in Iceland but of Filipino origin, and Michael (Stefan Schaefer), an American owner of a ladyboy website who may possibly clinch romance with our heroine.

But the brilliance of The Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela is in the sadness that shimmers underneath the fabric of hope. The film mirrors Raquela's restlessness with that of the entire Philippines: a spirit of third-world dislocation and longing. The movie lays the truth about ladyboy existence, and it cuts deep: Because she was born in a physical, material state she didn't want, Raquela will never be fully realized, even when she is already living the dream. Her place could be somewhere in the past, in myth, beyond this world.

GRADE: A-

Related Links:
Official Movie Website
Queen Raquela on MySpace
Positive Review by Francis Cruz

Altar

Zanjoe Marudo

Writer-Director Rico Maria Ilarde has been making fantasy fright films since 1988's Z-Man. I wouldn't call him a master of horror, but he's at least a mason of pulp. In his latest, 2007's Altar, which gets a theatrical release this week, the economy of his mounting affects the overall impact -- it's not scary -- but the elements have a tingly charm. Zanjoe Marudo plays a retired boxer assigned to do construction work with a precocious buddy (Nor Domingo) in a remote, haunted house.

The real trademark of Ilarde's movies is the casting of bodilicious actors as lead machos who must battle the monsters (previously, they included Yul Servo, Carlos Morales, and Monsour Del Rosario) -- of course a subversion of the usual horror practice in which the terrorized hero is a woman, but no longer the gender novelty that it was since 1987's Evil Dead 2. I enjoyed watching the vertical, lean-beef, ex-model Zanjoe peel off his shirt, or work up beads of sweat, or burst into a torso-grinding dance (though clothed), or generally be a convincing emotional actor. It's the brief sight of him bare-chested in body paint that got me through the parts when the story logic began to malfunction. Not exactly homoerotic, especially when the maids in short skirts arrive as paramours, and only occassionally sexy, Altar is a truly unpretentious B-movie, yes, but just an okay one.

GRADE: B-

Related Links:
Trailer on YouTube
Positive Review by Francis Cruz
Positive Review by Noel Vera
Positive Review by Richard Bolisay
ZanjoeMarudo.Net
Zanjoe Marudo Pictures