Oscars 2011 Postscript

2010 will be remembered as a banner year for movies.  There were fine examples of modern filmmaking about stealing dreamings and social networking.  Pixar produced its best animated feature yet.  The film about the stuttering royal was superbly written.  The John Wayne movie was re-told in a more riveting way by the Coen Brothers.  Mark Wahlberg proved that you could put a new spin on the familiar tale of a boxer.

And the movie season had to culminate in a most forgettable Oscars show.

More of the misses –

·      The Academy wanted to appeal to a ‘younger demographic’ by hiring James Franco and Anne Hathaway.  For as long as it hands out awards to costume designers, documentaries, foreign films and sound technicians which young people don’t care about, the Oscars would always only appeal to an older set.  Just let the MTV Movie Awards do the 'hip' thing. 

·      Franco and Hathaway are two of the most exciting actors of their generation.  But they bombed.  Even if the Oscars hired the funniest writers, they still wouldn’t have done better.  The Oscar hosting job is for naturally funny and irreverent hosts like Bob, Whoopi, Billy and Steve.  It’s stand-up territory.  Hollywood should forgive Ricky Gervais and allow him to resuscitate the Oscars next year.

·      The fashion was just a drag.  There was nothing new or modern, except for Cate Blanchett’s Givenchy dress.

·      Most cringe-worthy stunt:  James Franco in drag.  Nobody laughed except for the overly giddy Hathaway.

·      Franco seemed more comfortable being pinned by boulder than hosting the Oscars.  Why the disinterest, James?  At least Anne tried. 
·   Highest score for unoriginality:  inserting the hosts in movie clips.

·      Melissa Leo will not be nominated again, not because of the ‘F’ word.  She must be the most un-elegant winner in Oscar history. 

      

The hits –

·      Denmark won its third foreign film Oscar after Babette’s Feast and Pelle the Conqueror.  How could a country with a film industry and population smaller than the Philippines have that much success at the Oscars?  (This point proves that only us old people care about the foreign category and the Oscars.)

·      Smartest plug:  by Christian Bale on DickEklund.com, his boxing trainer’s website.

·      Best speeches:  The Social Network's Aaron Sorkin’s "Roxy Sorkin, your father just won the Academy Award, and "I'm going to have to insist on some respect from your guinea pig."  And from the old man who wrote The King’s Speech:  “My father always said to me I would be a late bloomer.

·      The late Bob Hope as presenter.

·      Kirk Douglas stalling.

·      Russell Brand who’d make a great Oscars host.

I have nothing more to say.   I’m uninspired to do more Oscar talk.  I’m tuning in to CNN now to follow Gaddafi’s crazier costume changes.

1986: The Year Pinoy Film Art Died.

Maybe, that’s too harsh a statement. There were a couple more great films, especially from the indie world, that came after 1986.  Yet, it can’t be denied that the pickings had been slim after Marcos the dictator fled to Hawaii.

Mike de Leon's 'Sister Stella L.' (1984)

I said many times before that my generation was lucky to live through the Marcos years. There was always a new Pinoy film showing in the theatres, at least two major film events each month.   Brocka, Bernal and Mike de Leon’s careers flourished in that era.  Ironically, censorship then was so strict.  The slightest allusion to Philippine politics and violation of Imelda’s “the true, the good and the beautiful” precept found their way in the cutting room floor.  But those filmmakers managed to get their masterpieces through, sometimes heavily excised.  Even in their censored form, their films were still superior to what you’ve seen in the last two decades.

So, other than institutionalized corruption, a politicized military and patronage politics, Marcos’ legacy was the emergence of great film art.  Not that they were done under his auspices (except perhaps for daughter Imee’s Experimental Cinema of the Philippines-produced Himala and Oro, Plata, Mata).  Artists just had more daring during oppressive times.  It should’ve also been more challenging for them to mask their protest against the regime through slyly written dialogue or visual subtexts.

We’ve been free since 1986, but as film lovers, we haven't been as lucky.

Here’s a clip from the last great Pinoy film from the pre-EDSA era.

In praise of British actors

My apologies to anti-piracy advocates.  But I couldn’t help watching an unlawful reproduction of The King’s Speech in time for Oscar night.  A lot of people are predicting a win for Colin Firth who played a stuttering royal.  And they’re right – Firth must win the Oscar.

Firth doesn't just play the role of a would-be king battling an speech defect.  If it were just about that, Michael Palin of A Fish Called Wanda would’ve stuttered more believably.  But Firth inhabited the role with layers of emotion making George VI a real man struggling with issues and flaws that aren’t merely oratorical.  He was a pained resident of the royal palace, a fearful son to a strong king, a reluctant ruler, arrogant and resentful of help from a speech therapist, friend-less but a loving husband.  Colin Firth was all these, onscreen.

If you never liked British cinema because you think it’s snoozefest, reconsider, with The King’s Speech.   

I’ve always like watching British films.  As a pretentious child who grew up in a town that could not properly pronounce Leicester, I’d dream of playing Shakespeare and deliver lines like Olivier.  Of course, it never happened and never will.  Blame it on the Bahasa-influenced diphthongs that have forever ruled my speech patterns. 

So, Firth does deserve an Oscar, like all the great British actors that came before him.  They can recite highly stylized and complicated dialogue well, like it naturally came from them.  The diction and inflection so crisp that you could make out words you don’t hear everyday.  I also like how they control their body to communicate subtexts that Tom Cruise would otherwise spew. 

But then again, there’s Sir Anthony Hopkins who’d think all this exaltation for anything British is all "hogwash".  He once said, “I have no interest in Shakespeare all that British nonsense.  I just want to be famous”.  

Whatever.  I'll use "hogwash", and say it as sharply and haughtily in my next client meeting.

Art in the Park and in Paracale

Been absent for a week from the blogosphere.   There are so many things running through my mind right now, itching to fill up a week’s worth of blogs.   For now, I’ll talk about art.  After last night’s visit to Art in the Park in Salcedo Village, that seems like a fresh stimulus to reboot this blog.

The Salcedo Village event is an annual gathering of galleries, artists groups, fine arts colleges and other creative collectives in the most relaxing and stylish residential park in Manila.  Kudos to the organizers - my ageless college classmate Lisa Ongpin-Periquet, included - for making art accessible and non-intimidating to Manila residents.   It was nice to see other old college friends like Tina Fernandez, now an accomplished owner/curator of Art Informal, the UP Fine Arts folks (I miss UP and my crazy students) and my Pasay drinking group who came to support Avellana Art Gallery.   My only complaint:  it ended quite early at 10pm.  Wish it’d run till midnight next time so we could party longer in a friendly and colorful setting. 

I was told that the organizers also pegged the price ceiling at 20k.  So the art works were mostly small and un-framed, easier for the booth owners to sell.  That was fine.  But there wasn’t much interesting multi-media stuff.  Stuff that the late Baguio artist and UPCFA alumnus Santiago Bose was known for.

I discovered Santi Bose many years ago through a friend who really knew art (I was and still am a poser; I actually only like art that’s interior-friendly).   There weren’t much multi-media artists during the 80s.  His work was groundbreaking, using indigenous materials, folkloric accessories and junk to compose iconoclastic and irreverent images. 

Bose also did one movie.  He was the production designer Salome, the 1981 film directed by Laurice Guillen.  Salome was well-made, but  it would never be mentioned in the same breadth as Himala or Insiang because it was too much like Kurosawa’s Rashomon.  A retelling of a crime told from different points-of-view. 

Guillen’s vision wasn’t original but Bose’s art direction was most inventive.   His wit, cultural sensitivity and penchant for ethnic imagery were all there.  Salome’s Paracale Camarine Norte was the most beautifully shot and art directed Philippine town in local cinema history.  Himala’s Barrio Cupang in Ilocos would be a close second.

Try to see Salome and discover Santi Bose the production designer.  I just don't know where to get a copy.

Silly Putty, Villabona and Kubrick

It’s like Silly Putty, that silicone invention formulated to pick up icky substances like dirt and vomit.  It’s also used to alter the characteristics of certain materials.  Photoshop is today’s Silly Putty.  Heartless retouching obliterates (a person’s) original form or properties.

I’ve been seeing several friends and people I’ve worked with closely in fashion magazines, and I can’t immediately recognize any because of all the putty-ing.  So it’s refreshing to see subjects in their natural form, such as these taken by my photographer-friend Ricky Villabona for the magazine Spark.

Ricky’s is also Stanley Kubrick’s number fan.  Kubrick, who started out as a photographer before venturing into film, had a narrative style overflowing in every moving frame.  The stills of Ricky the Kubrick disciple evoke a parang-nandiyan-ka-lang-at-mayroon-nangyari subtext (like you’re there, and something interesting just happened), as someone puts it.

Kubrick should be the greatest filmmaker that ever lived, if ‘body of work’ were the criterion. He never did the same genre twice.  Every film he did was a major event, in terms of substance and style.  Spartacus, Dr. Strangelove, Clockwork Orange, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket and even the misunderstood Eyes Wide Shut.

A personal fave is Barry Lyndon (1975) starring a very young and hunky Ryan O’Neal.  There Kubrick pushed the boundaries of naturalism, eschewing artificial lighting to recreate 17^th century Ireland.  He used natural light sources like the sun through the windows and candles for the night scenes.  The effect was appropriately soft for a Romantic era.  Simply stunning.

Angel

This is an homage to Angel Aquino who turned 38 last Monday.  Wikipedia says she was born in 1973.  So I must have first met Angelita when she was 20 years old.  We signed her up for her first major TV commercial as a shampoo talent after my boss saw her face in an obscure  print ad.   At that time, mestizas or fair-skinned Filipinas where ruling the beauty care category.  We thought we should change the rules of the game by casting someone who was morena or more Filipina-looking.  18 years hence, she remains as one of the most sought-after endorsers for shampoo and other cosmetic brands.  

And for 18 years now, I continue to be blessed by my friendship.  I immediately took a liking to her in our first project because she was kind and uncomplaining.  Shampoo commercials are the toughest for any talent with all the torture the hair is subjected to before and during the shoot.  You can’t find a more cooperative and professional talent than Angel Aquino.

She behaved like a lost, naïve girl from Baguio in her first trip to Hong Kong.  My teammates Chrys F., Gil C. and I had to channel our inner Mother Teresas for Angel’s sake.  We rallied her on during the shoot.  One scene took all of 38 takes before she could get it right.  Then A-list HK director Larry Shiu threatened to walk out.  He muttered, “That girl has to believe herself.  She’s got no self-confidence at all”.  Before the 38^th take which made the final cut, we cheered, “C’mon, Angel, you can do it, think about the paycheck”.

The following year, Angel and I traveled together to KL for another shampoo shoot.  Holed up in a hotel that felt a thousand miles away from the city, it was only then that I understood why the loveliest talent ever was also the loneliest.  Her life story deserves its own telenovela.

After KL, she made very hard decisions that allowed her to come into her own. The confidence Larry Shiu missed was now oozing, and was specially evident in a multi-country shoot of top celebrities in Sydney where she was easily the favorite of production team made up of the best from L.A. and Sydney.  She also broke into film around that time, and earned raves for her honest, intense and graceful acting style. 

Just recently, she stole the spotlight in ABS-CBN’s highly-rated series, Magkaribal.  Cast against type, there she was bitchy, hysterical.  And for her enjoyable turn as the fashion mogul Vera, she was voted online as the 2010 Kontrabida of the Year, and arguably was primetime TV’s actress of the year.  Who would've thought?  Yet, in spite of all her fame and fortune, she's still the kind and gentle Angel I knew 18 years ago.

Happy Birthday, my angel.  You’ve done your Mother Teresas proud.

Murder of Oneself

Former Armed forces Chief and Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes shot himself this morning.  This happened before he was scheduled to appear before a Congressional Hearing investigating corruption in the military.

Suicides don’t happen in the Philippines as frequently as in other countries.   I guess it’s because people who suffer from depression could get more social support from family and friends than those in more progressive countries are usually left to fend for themselves.  And there’s the Catholic guilt.  Only a few believe in the finality of death.  It’s condemned as a most abominable sin by an institution that preaches existence beyond corporeal death.  So it’s not as easy, unlike those countless Japanese who throw themselves at oncoming trains to assert personal integrity and honor.

When someone takes his life in a country of God-fearing citizens, the reaction is generally unresponsive, precisely because it’s a big social no-no.  But not in Reyes’ case.  He was a political celebrity.  And beyond the fact the speculation revolves around a headlining corruption issue (How guilty was he about the corruption charges?  He didn’t want to drag loved ones and other friends in top positions into the whole mess?), the circumstances relating to his suicide were most cinematic.  He didn’t just jump to his death from a high floor.  He didn’t hang himself inside his bedroom.  Too common to generate as much interest.  He went to his mother’s grave whom he famously adored and shot a single bullet into his heart. 

Reyes’ death has gripped the nation.  Life has imitated art once again.  Think Romeo ingesting poison and Juliet stabbing herself, to liberate themselves from a doomed romance.   Geraldine Page drowning herself in the ocean after being perpetually rejected by her husband in Woody Allen’s Interiors.   Vincent D’Onofrio’s horrifying murder of his drill instructor and his own self in Full Metal Jacket.   

At least in the movies, we knew how it all led to that.  Will we ever find out why Reyes killed himself in such filmic proportions?

The roughest 5 days

Every time I’m faced with a task at work that seems insurmountable, I summon Shakespeare’s wisdom to help me calm my nerves.  There’s this line from Macbeth I memorized in high school after listening to a Royal Shakespeare Company recording that my fave teacher Fr. Chris Kennedy brought from London:  Come what come may, time and hour run through the roughest day.  It’s a more sophisticated re-working of “This too shall pass”, for dramatic effect.   

But after watching Danny Boyle’s 127 hours, I think that line wouldn’t do if I'd find myself in the same situation as trapped Aron Ralston was in.  In a panic situation, “bring a genuine Swiss Army knife” would be more apt.  However, I don’t think I have Ralston’s will to cut off any part of my body (yes, he amputated the right armed trapped under a boulder; this is one film you shouldn’t miss even if you knew how it’d end).    I’d go with “tell mom when you’re going”.  

That’s the most moralizing 127 Hours would give you.  It’s an unsentimental dramatization of Ralston’s five-day struggle inside a crevice in the canyons of Utah.   It doesn’t sound much of a film.   But with Boyle’s inventive writing and camerawork that employ backstories, flashbacks, hallucinatory episodes, the digi-cam as a narrative device, funny touches including Scooby Doo, a game show and a forgotten Gatorade, 127 Hours is extremely watchable.  

There two other great reasons to see the film:  The eclectic and kinetic soundtrack of AR Rahman who gave us the infectious Jai Ho; and James Franco the magnificent.  All these you should not let pass.

Bench strength

Magnolia was a much-debated movie when it came out in 1999.  Audiences either loved it or hated it.  Paul Thomas Anderson's final cut was more than 3 hours long, and anything that's longer than 2 hours is usually tagged as boring, unless you have hobbits outwitting Orcs to sustain your interest.  

The movie is an ambitious mosaic of the interlocking lives of about 12 characters, all living in San Fernando Valley, all in search of redemption and forgiveness, pained from the choices they had to make.  Those who liked it tried to find meaning in everything that Anderson had shown.  Does everything have to happen for a reason?  Is life ruled by coincidences?  Do we eventually become our own parents even if we resist that?  Events do happen inexplicably; some are of Biblical proportions.  

After watching Magnolia, I didn't even try to explore any profundities that were all over Anderson's intricate script.  Why punish myself intellectually when I just had an emotionally draining movie experience?  I just thought it was the finest piece of ensemble acting.  Every actor was worth Anderson's screen time.  Everyone jelled, was pulling his own weight.  Hmmm, teamwork's a nice lesson from the movie.  Much of my time at the office is spent harnessing teamwork.  It isn't easy.  Sometimes, the stress that comes with managing egos makes me want to burst into song as a means of diversion, and evasion.

In lieu of Casey Kasem

When life was much simpler ages ago, us kids would only have to tune in to our favorite weekly radio program, American Top 40, to discover new songs.   In the 80s, MTV was an additional source of new music.  Today, it’s become harder to know what songs are in vogue, as baby boomers and Gen X’ers listen less to radio, and have to deal with more adult distractions. 

In the ‘hipster’ wedding reception I attended last weekend, I realized how much out of touch I’ve been since I didn’t know any song that was played.   Depressing, indeed, for someone who’s been desperately trying to stay young.

MTV plays less music videos now.  Jersey Shore’s on mostly.   The top FM stations are all “beki talk radio” – gay DJs, loud, rambling, sardonic, hug the airwaves.  Other than the occasional positing of a video by a friend on Facebook, my reliable source of new music is the movie soundtrack.

I especially like listening to film scores for movies I haven’t seen yet.  I’d visualize how the real movie goes based on the mood of a particular piece.   The imagined aural journey is much more exciting for me now than reliving a film I liked through its score. 

I heard the CDs of Juno, Garden State, Hi Fidelity, 500 Days of Summer, Twilight and The Social Network before I saw the movie versions.   The tracks were a great preface to the movie experience, except for Twilight perhaps.  And I learned new songs!  I hope contemporary film music would keep coming.  There’s just too much symphonic film music in my CD collection.  I must be able to sing along to new, young music in the next wedding reception.