Philippine Movies Thread

plsletitrain

Member: Rank 5
@sitenoise

I'm excited to hear what's your take on Ruined Heart. If you're thrilled at it all, or puppy-eyes enthused, your sitenoiseness-ness has just turned a notch higher. Hehe.
 

plsletitrain

Member: Rank 5
Ang Dalawang Mrs. Reyes (The 2 Mrs. Reyeses) 2018

A seemingly comical plot with uncomical dialogues, this movie just falls squarely into "miscasted" territory. Judy Ann Santos and Joross Gamboa are unconvincingly husband and wife of 15 years. And its not even the age disparity. Judy Ann Santos and Joross Gamboa just don't fit in a bed together. But the worse problem for me, among others, is casting Joross Gamboa and JC De Vera for gay roles. They looked awkward and too painful to watch. And its hard to manage because the movie centrally revolves on the fact that they're gays. Guess who better plays the gay-man-without-acting-too-girly role? Paolo Ballesteros! Or maybe I'm not fully sold and convinced on Joross' and JC's acting prowesses that it was very painful to watch them both.

The movie was overacted. Judy Ann may be her generation's Maricel Soriano (can pull off both dramatic and comedic roles) but she was wrongly placed here. I don't even know why she bothered accepting this project. Angelica Panganiban was okay, but she and Judy Ann were wasted because of the poor dialogue. Add to that cliches and over-the-top acting, it's easy to get lost on this.

Plot summary: Lianne Reyes(Judy Ann) and Gary (Joross) are husband and wife with a 14 year-old daughter. Lianne suspects Gary has a mistress so she signs up for breast augmentation to revive the sexiness. While in the hospital recovering from complications, her husband confesses to her that yes, he has an affair, but not with a woman, but with a man. Next we're shown the lives of Cindy Reyes (Angelica) and Felix (JC), husband and wife of 5 years without a child. Cindy tries her hardest to live up to her mother-in-law's standards (played by Carmi Martin--she was too much here---really the wrong is all over the place) but despite Cindy's wanting to preserve the marriage, Felix just seems dry and unresponsive. The reason being: he's in love with a man. The two Mrs. Reyeses then embark on their full-blast conquests to separate the two.

Not recommended.
 

plsletitrain

Member: Rank 5
Ronda (2014)-

IMDb’s synopsis goes like this: A policewoman roams the city of Manila to fulfill her duties as a police patrol and to look for her lost son.

And yes, almost half of the movie just shows her literally roaming the streets of Manila.

Ai-ai de las Alas takes on this rare non-comical role of policewoman Paloma Arroyo, mother of a teenager (Leo) who has gone missing. She carries on an illicit affair with her son’s school guidance counselor, played by Cesar Montano while as a policewoman, she carries out her job with her partner, Tamayo (Carlos Morales).

A good chunk of the movie literally just follows a police vehicle running. Even the (too long) credits minutes into the film just shows the vehicle being driven along the streets of Manila. These bits take too long. Not much is said about how she had a gap with her son (or is it just a generational thing?) but we can glean that they might have had a falling out and that the son is in his rebellious state. His son’s sexuality has also been subject of one of the film’s pivotal points but the film just left it at that and carried on with the usual day-to-day job of a policeman, as if nothing happened.

To be honest, even the presence of versatile and veteran indie actors in the film (Bernardo Bernardo, Perla Bautista, Angelie Bayani, Menggie Cobarrubias--now that's a star-studded ensemble!) didn’t do much to me because ya know, I have pacing issues. That problem is unique to me so if you’re one who doesn’t mind watching some good 5 minutes of a police car being driven along the streets, (no, there's not even a young woman staring pensively outside), without dialogue, then suit yourself. But as I said I have issues with these stuff that’s why my interest is easily lost. It didn’t help that the story isn’t engaging to begin with. It didn’t start with a bang, it had a mildly interesting middle part, but the ending was a bit of a question mark. No, there were no cliffhangers. More like, just that? It just faded into darkness. Just that.

Not recommended.
 

plsletitrain

Member: Rank 5
Warning: I know I've always given very serious, scholarly movie reviews but I think I'm worse these days lol.

Aurora (2018)
- I swear Anne Curtis really distracts me. Not because she’s beautiful, its because she can’t act dammit. Period. lol. Fine, she can…......................................a little….......................okaaaayyyy????

The movie had a promising cinematography (whatever that means). I mean, it was visually appetizing. It was shot on a sea with a big rock formation anyway, and a sort-of-abandoned house overlooking the dark ocean…nothing can go wrong man! Well yes something went wrong. You can always count on me to nitpick. The overall feel was an overkill. I do like the soundtrack, but at times they were overused. The movie tried too much to be “horror”. Ya know, eerie background music, frightened trembling face of the actor, lightbulb broken, thunder and lightning, etc. etc. I thought it was too much. Don’t get me wrong, the movie is promising. I think it was just overdone. The black and white atmosphere really contributed to the eeriness of the film. There were just a few parts that were a bit exaggerated, to the point of being unbelievable. I mean yes, its super unbelievable that there’s still an uninhabited island in the Philippines given how our population balloons by the year but let’s brush that aside. What I’m referring to is, in the hopes of making it one of the best horror films of the year, he overdid it.

I'd still recommend this one, though.
 

plsletitrain

Member: Rank 5
Four Sisters and a Wedding (2013)

I have a love-hate relationship with Star Cinema. Doesn’t matter because its mainstream or indie. Mainstream or indie, my eyebrows are made for raising. I’ve seen a lot of Star Cinema movies that I love. What I despise is when it panders to a certain audience. Like, the usual love teams. I swear, having your tooth getting pulled is probably more enjoyable. The strength of Star Cinema is family movies. It has some feel good movies that are passable, some are just plain Overacting (OA). This one is of them.

Despite having a powerhouse cast composed of some of the best actresses of this generation, this movie is just plain OA. If you made a movie out of my facial expressions every time I watch them, that would be a lot funnier.

Basically the story is about a family with well, 4 sisters, and their youngest sibling, the lone guy, wanting to get married. They’re against the marriage for various reasons so they do everything to stop the wedding. In the process, they discover that not only is their sibling’s love life that needs rescuing, but their relationship as a family as well.

I didn’t “feel good” after watching this! I had an eye-roller exercise which must be good for my eyes but they aren’t. The story is not catchy, the acting was OA. Can I pull my own hair?

Why am I even reviewing this.

Not recommended.
 

clayton-12

Member: Rank 4
I have a love-hate relationship with Star Cinema. Doesn’t matter because its mainstream or indie. Mainstream or indie, my eyebrows are made for raising. I’ve seen a lot of Star Cinema movies that I love. What I despise is when it panders to a certain audience. Like, the usual love teams. I swear, having your tooth getting pulled is probably more enjoyable. The strength of Star Cinema is family movies. It has some feel good movies that are passable, some are just plain Overacting (OA). This one is of them.
From my outsider's perspective, I think the real strength of Star Cinemas is that it keeps a local industry alive and constantly ticking over. Whether or not the films they produce are any good, they put bums on seats and keep the people employed in an industry that could just as easily be outsourced completely to imported Hollywood product - it kind of keeps in place an infrastructure that enables the likes of Eric Matti, Yam Laranas, Mikhail Red et al to keep coming through.

In a way, the films Star Cinema puts out do the same job as Nikkatsu's Roman Porno flicks did. Lol.
 
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