What Your Blog May Look Like When You Find Yourself With a Lot of Things To Do or Thank Effing God for the French Film Festival

So it's been close to two months. I blame two things: my day job and the fact that nothing remotely interesting happened in the last month, film-wise. I read up and kinda followed the Cannes proceedings but there's really nothing to talk about until the films get released here, is there? At least I was right that Uncle Boonhee would end up winning; I called that really early on so I brag. To no one. No one I know really cares.

So imagine my delight, or misery (I'll explain in a bit) when I found out that Shang is screening yet another slew of French films this year. The 15th French Film Festival which started last June 3 and ended today was like an oasis in the midst of a really big desert. Nevermind that I'm currently running a New Hire class, I decided that day job be damned, I'm going to catch at least 3 movies. I did better, actually, I saw 4. Sure it meant two Saturdays of absolute sleep-deprivation, but is it worth it? Hell fucking yeah.

So which films you ask? Here ya go...

CANNES 2010

Just reposting this from Indiewire. Here are the official, In Competition films for this year's Cannes Film Festival:

“Tournee”
directed by Mathieu Amalric

“Des Hommes et des Dieux”
directed by Xavier Beauvois

”Biutiful”
directed by Alejandro Gonzales Innaritu

”Hors la loi”
directed by Rachid Bouchareb

“Un Homme Qui Crie” (A Screaming Man)
directed by Mahamat-Saleh Haroun

“Housemaid”
directed by Im Sangsoo

”Copie Conforme” (The Certified Copy)
directed by Abbas Kiarostami

”Outrage”
directed by Takeshi Kitano

”Poetry”
directed by Lee Chang-dong

”Another Year”
directed by Mike Leigh

”Fair Game”
directed by Doug Liman

“You, My Joy”
directed by Sergei Loznitsa

“La Nostra Vita”
directed by Daniele Luchetti

“Utomlyonnye Solntsem 2”
directed by Nikita Mikhalkov

”La Princesse de Montpensier”“
directed by Bertrand Tavernier

”Loong Boonmee Raleuk Chaat” (Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives)
directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul

It's a pretty good list but still disappointing. Where's Tree of Life? I was really hoping it will open here. There were also a lot of talk going around that Wong Kar Wai's Ip Man biopic had a pretty good shot at unveiling here. Also, no Brillante Mendoza or Raya Martin or Lav Diaz? I was hoping after the last couple of years, the Philippines' presence at Cannes would be more felt now. I guess not. Well, some sites are reporting that 4-6 films will still be announced in the next couple of days so here's hoping that Wong Kar Wai is still busy editing his would eventually be ready film and that someone from the Philippines could still squeeze in. I am pretty excited for some of the films I highlighted though, and I shall blog about them as soon as I have more substantial notes about them. Better yet, when I get to see them, which is hard, considering the kinds of videos we get released here everyday. It'd be interesting how Inarritu does without his former partner and I'm betting Weerasethakul would win one of the big ones.

WORKING GIRLS (1986)

I was tempted to harrumph that everything you needed to know about the movie was in this post's title, but then when I started thinking more about it, I thought it would be a disservice to greatness of Armando Lacuesta's crazy but spot-on script, Carmi Martin's and to a lesser extent Gina Pareno's comic genius, and Bernal's amazing ability to somehow pull this movie off and maintain his arthouse cred, and changed my mind.

It's a film that is very easy to dismiss, especially in retrospect. What with its plot lines of unwanted pregnancy, fake pregnancy and secretaries tuned prostitutes and its agenda of furthering the woman's plight in the workplace, there are moments when the film felt like an unholy marriage of vapid, regurgitated telenovelas and empty and insight-less politics. Take Sabel (Rio Locsin), she of the now oft-quoted "Sabel, this must be love!", for example; a quiet, even mousy secretary to the more successful Carla (Hilda Koronel) who got pregnant by the company's resident lothario (played, inexplicably, well at least to me, by Tommy Abuel). Because this is the plot line she finds herself stuck with, Locsin's character goes through the whole gamut of predictable cinematic representations: from the first instances of morning sickness and nausea that was, of course, shot with a great deal of drama and foreboding, to the tearful confrontation with the boyfriend who couldn't care less, to the inevitable redemption scene towards the end, with officemates applauding her knocking one of the jerk office guys out. Seriously, Merriam-Webster Online would have the word cliche linked to these scenes. Similarly, Rose's (Maria Isabel Lopez) descent to prostitution is maddeningly outrageous; really, one would be ready to sell her vajayjay for that stupid yellow and black dress/ensemble/whatever you call that piece of atrocity she was hoping to buy but clearly couldn't afford?! Well at least she was prostituting herself for a novel cause (shopping); I'd take that over, say, her kid's tution or a sick, dying mom. Blech.

What I think saved the movie from all the hokey attempts at gravitas and social relevance (prostitution, abortion, sexual harassment in the workplace, were after all, serious issues in 1984, some would argue even until now) was how willing it was to easily abandon these things for a good laugh. In Suzanne Galang, a character Carmi Martin effortlessly propelled to the stratosphere of comic heroines of Philippine cinema, Lacuesta and Bernal could have had a really interesting character study of a woman who may not be competent enough to hold even the most banal of office jobs, yet who remorselessly uses her other assets to get ahead. Maybe even find true love. You know, something to give these feminist folks something to chew on and lose sleep over. Instead, Bernal cranked the camp and slapstick meter way up that there really is no choice for the viewer to just give up on thinking and just laugh himself/herself out. Martin's slight retarded yet amazingly sensual take on the office dumb slut is nothing short of phenomenal and raises the whole movie to a whole a new level.

If Martin does nothing for you (which, really, is a sign that you may need to seek some professional psychiatric help) then there's the incomparable Gina Pareno, who, in her equally brilliant way, shed some more memorability to the whole picture than it probably deserves. Her steely determination to provide a better life for her son drove her to spectacularly weird situations, from stalking a Makati executive and following her to an aerobics class to haggling for a payoff to support a baby she was never going to have. Pareno's comic timing is as flawless then as it is now, and her dependable commitment to whatever character she's playing elevates this, let's admit it, sloppy sketch to a character that we understand, perhaps even identify with.

Overall it was a good movie, not as great as I anticipated to be (like, say Temptation Island, whose sheer craziness can withstand the most ridiculous of praise and cult following) but the odds are stil not in favor of the upcoming remake to top this. It may be a minor Bernal but it is still a Bernal, and the overall fun and entertainment one would have in watching it can easily dispel any nagging thought that what you're watching is really a silly, sometimes overzealous, piece of fluff.

When You Find Yourself With Nothing To Do

My boss wouldn't approve of this.

She always say: always be hungry for something to do. Never waste time. Well, maybe she would; I did find something to do, maybe something that she wouldn't want me to be working on, but hey, this doesn't really fall in the wasting your time category. Or does it?

Who cares? It's not like I'm using the company's resources anyway.

Why am I doing this? It's the oldest story out there in the cyberworld. 27 year old, slightly fat, slightly neurotic dude who had been recently dumped by his partner of five years decided to turn to blogging for that elusive meaning and purpose in life. Yep, these days, people don't go running to a church anymore when faced with a life-changing situation, they look for a wifi hotspot so they can blog. Or for the lazy ones, at least post a shoutout on Facebook.

Anyhoo, the why is never really important. Well it is, but really, no one wants to read a sob story about long distance relationships, duplicity and wasted youth, so let's get on with the what. This is a blog that would mainly be about movies-because I'm a movie buff-unless there's a TV show that I really like, or a book that makes my heart want to break out of my chest, then it's going to be about TV shows and books too. I might also blog about how awesome India.Arie's The Heart of the Matter is, especially as a break-up song, or any other song really. In certain occasions it might be about my personal life too, but don't worry I'll try my damnedest to rein those kinds of entries in. You will just have to forgive the occasional rant against my neighbors pathetic videoke voice and his frequent caterwauling; there are some things that the whole world would have to suffer with me if I am going to survive.

So yeah, really it's going to be about everything, but movies mainly.

So welcome you who don't have anything better to do. Welcome to my strange, wild and fascinating world...that is made up of a bed, a dvd player and a high stack of dvds and books. Seriously. I was gonna call this blog These Vagabond Shoes but changed my mind; people might miss out on the irony.

Ta!