It Takes a Man and a Woman: To the Bottom of the Barrel

Directed by: Cathy Garcia-Molina
Stars: John Lloyd Cruz, Sarah Geronimo, Isabelle Daza

Likes

• Great performance from Cruz and Geronimo
• The whole cast is back!
• Loaded with allusions from previous films
• First and second act are hilarious

Dislikes

• The movie degenerates after its second act
• Troublesome consistency of Geronimo's character
• Ends up too inclined to traditional and conservative values
• Cathy Garcia Molina is stuck with her formula

Gist

Laida and Miggy grows up, but Cathy Garcia Molina doesn't. Stuck with  formula and, worse, adopting the current trend for facebook-quotable dialog, Garcia-Molina serves a movie flush with potentials but far from the earnest and effortlessly fun work of its predecessors.

Synopsis
Laida Magtalas (Geronimo) returns from New York to do consultant work for Flippage Publications, where she met her ex-boyfriend, Miggy Montenegro, who has traded her for his ex-girlfriend Belle while she was away in Canada. The conflict between the two belies the emotions buried within each person's heart, wanting the other person back. And just as things are starting to get better between the two, the pains of the past come back and 

The last Cathy Garcia Molina film I reviewed is My Amnesia Girl, starring Tony Gonzaga and John Lloyd Cruz. In it, I mentioned that Cathy Garcia-Molina found a formula that works and is seemingly planning to stick with it for the rest of her career. MAG actually surprised me even after all the formulaic tendencies that Garcia-Molina has. It had twists, it was frank, earnest, and funny without overreaching. I have also liked her other films. Her Hero-Sandara treatment for Bcuz of U is earnest and innocent, while her Sam Milby-Toni Gonzaga films are also one of her most emotionally heavy and funniest works--remember Purita Malasmas aka Sally? She has a way with character development and bringing out the quirky side of her cast. This skill has been put to great use in her Sarah-JLC works. The result: a franchise of multi-million proportions that none of her other works have surpassed.

4 years after her first Sarah-JLC movie, she has since gained an influential power in Star Cinema. Five of the biggest grossing Filipino films are directed by her (and all star John Lloyd Cruz).

That said, she is by far the most accomplished of the romantic-comedy/drama local directors lot. She can do anything. And what does Cathy Garcia-Molina do with that power?

First up, she executes an opening sequence reminiscent of Will Gluck's Friends with Benefits. While this is not completely unique to Friends with Benefits, I suppose, this execution will definitely strike some as lacking originality. There are a thousand ways to execute that opening sequence and I believe Cathy Garcia-Molina would've done better avoiding the execution she used (ie do an X-Men First Class vs Inception). Second, she sticks to the idea that Miggy (John Lloyd Cruz) will always need Laida's rescuing. Why does this always have to be the case, why is JLC forever the damsel in distress and Sarah Geronimo his knight in sunshine-laden weave? Third, and maybe a good thing, the film stuck to the light-hearted feel its predecessors have been known for. Cathy Garcia-Molina must be a firm believer that life is delightful--if not with its flaws that can be overcome.

Character development, a characteristic of CGM movies, happened mostly outside the movie--2 years prior--and we are presented with damaged versions of Laida and Miggy. Miggy Montenegro has gained weight and cares very little for what he's wearing at the office (a stark contrast of the autocratic, vainglorious Miggy of A Very Special Love). Laida Magtalas has now grown a penchant for theatrics and accent that would elicit laughter in New York. She must have watched Sunset Boulevard prior to showing up at the office. She's twice as showy as the old Laida. She's noisy, annoying (as Miggy commented), and self-confident. These new characters are easy to love even after all that said. Laida is still as funny--even if shes's challenging our capacity of belief, and Miggy's turn for the tragic is mighty heart-breaking. The fault perhaps is that Garcia-Molina trusts her audience remembers what these characters were like before and that you have watched the previous two films. Chances are, you remember only a bit. She does help to refresh your memory by throwing allusions, but the charm gets easily lost if you don't remember the things they are alluding to.

The first two acts of ITAMAAW were good--hilarious, light-hearted, and fun. Laida's first day of work as consultant was the high point of the first act, while the second act, when the conflict was introduced, is marked by two events: one is Laida finally crying to Miggy's karaoke singing, and the other when Laida's mom was giving her advice on how to forgive. Those two acts were funny and emotionally affecting. Laida's innocence was shown by Geronimo's vulnerability amid her wish to smile the whole day on set--a stark contrast to the quirky Laida 2.0 she's been displaying earlier.

After those two acts, the film's tone becomes inconsistent. The New York part felt particularly unnecessary or executed as unimaginatively as possible, which makes the chemistry between the leads feel forced. By this time, Garcia-Molina was forcing the kilig. And by the time the conclusion at the airport happened, I wonder how Miggy managed to pull such an act even if the prior events weren't closed properly.

If you look at the franchise, what makes these movies engaging is that Garcia-Molina was tackling a number of things about the characters and tackling them with a skillful depth. For instance, in A Very Special Love, Miggy was cold and felt unloved, all while struggling to keep his magazine company from folding. This happens while Laida falls out of her infatuation with Miggy as Miggy changes and falls for her. In You Changed My Life, Miggy is now charismatic, but is still unaccepted by his siblings, and he and Laida are head over heels in love with each other but their work gets in between the way and an old flame comes into the picture. Garcia-Molina has stories to tell there. There was a lot of work to do and she managed to do them at a comfortable pace. In this sequel, there was little story to tell and she told it twice as long as she needed to.

In this third installment, Miggy disappoints practically everyone, Laida included, and Laida, for the conservative that she is, couldn't forgive a simple kiss that she had the misfortune of witnessing--and what a very contrived happenstance that scene is. That's about it. The drama was all on Miggy and Laida, unlike before where each has a backstory to deal with. Other than the need to get a publishing license for Metamorphosis, there was nothing else on the background. Laida's mom and dad were good already, and there was zero drama on Miggy's family (but, hey, CGM attempted). There was also no falling in love in this movie. Just a lot of hiding and holding one's self from basically telling the other that it's their fault. And these little backstories, they make for much character development and depth. These back stories that made the franchise, they are absent here.

And if you look at the movie in its pure conceptual form, the problem begins with the fact that a straight-arrow career girl falling (back) in love with a manic pixie dreamboy with a penchant for depression isn't as cute as a miserable, snobbish, unaccepted, dashing love child falling for an innocent, earnest, sunny assistant who says anything is possible (that sounded almost like Be Careful With My Heart) and ends with the fact that there wasn't really any strong resolution on display. I mean, come on, who doesn't like it when we see a handsome but strict young man lighten up because of a sunny woman--just look at Be Careful with My Heart. And then, there's the issue of forgiveness. Did I miss it? As far as I remember, I never heard Laida say that Miggy is forgiven, and wasn't that the idea of all this--that a sin was made and that it needed to be forgiven before one moves on? What I am saying is that I wasn't convinced with the resolution, if there was any. It was just love winning the day just because love does. Sure that can be true. But that's just lazy when one executes it that way.

Now, the movie is not all bad. It has its moments. And for me, the best parts of this movie is when they actually tackle the topic of forgiveness. The part when the team was shooting for their mock issue of Met and Laida was forcing herself to smile up to the karaoke part where she just breaks down and cry was so effective in courting genuine sadness and sympathy. Another scene that I find that worked well for the movie is the one where Laida's mom tells her about forgiving people who have wronged you. In another scene, Dante Rivero (Miggy's Dad) delivers a speech for his son in Filipino (and the foreigners are so intent at the video even if it's missing subtitles) about how all he wants for his son is to be a good person. For some reason this scene is both funny and effective even if it doesn't completely gel well with most of the movie since Miggy wasn't really a bad person, just an unlucky one.

In closing, I'd say that I had fun for most of the movie, but I struggled through the unnecessary things they added in. And while the performances from Geronimo and Cruz are strong, the overall consistency of the film's tone is a bit questionable and the emotional depth is missing more often than not. Laida and Miggy grows up, but Cathy Garcia Molina doesn't. She's stuck with  formula and, worse, she's adopting the current trend for facebook-quotable dialog. Garcia-Molina serves a movie flush with potentials but far from the earnest and effortlessly fun work of its predecessors.

My wish is that this is the last of it. It may not have ended with the greatest execution possible, but I am satisfied with it well enough and I hope we can all move on. My fear is that anything after this will just be scraping the bottom of the barrel and, ultimately, I am afraid to learn that they have no more stories to tell.

Verdict: Unnecessarily long, has its moments, not as good as its predecessors, but still a lot better than most mainstream Filipino films these days. I'm giving It Takes a Man and a Woman 3.1 / 5 stars

For this movie, I am willing to pay 170 pesos. I paid 200 pesos.

PS: The poster for this movie is god-awful. I wonder how such amateurish photoshopping passed the approvals. Look at how fakely white and bright those teeth are and how pore-less the leads. Really terrible and fake-looking. And also, kudos for the most sexual-orientation sensitive title. Lol.

Erratum: I mistook One More Try, a film directed by Ruel Bayani as a Cathy Garcia-Molina film. I have now removed that from the review.

In Review: Stoker

Directed By: Chan-wook Park
Stars: Mia Wasikowska, Nicole Kidman, Matthew Goode

What I Liked

Beautiful cinematography with pronounced, haunting imagery, great performance by its cast

What I Disliked

Unlikable / unrelatable central character, screenplay makes for an unnecessary length that makes the film feel slow with little to nothing happening.

Gist

Miller's screenplay allows for Park to practice beautiful cinematography punctured with haunting images, but it's a double-edged sword that hurts the film with turtle-paced storytelling that dillydallies too much to deliver imagery over story.

India Stoker is a privileged young lady who prefers hunting fowl over shopping. She also has a peculiar ability to hear the softest of whispers and see clearly even things faraway. On the day of her 18th birthday, her father died in a car accident of unspecified causes. Following her father's funeral, her father's only brother, Charlie, arranges to live with her and her mother. And while her mother finds Charlie an enigmatic and delightful company, India has nothing but suspicions that Uncle Charlie is up to no good.

Mia Wasikowska didn't exactly shoot to international renown after her major box office hit of a Disney movie, Alice in Wonderland last 2010. She has often chosen to do indie movies (The Kids are All Right) or movies that don't get released in this side of the globe (Albert Nobbs, Jane Eyre). Nevertheless, she starred in 5 movies more or less since. In Stoker, we find that Wasikowska is just as disturbed as someone who just came out of Wonderland. Mia's "India" is a sociopath who with an affinity for keeping herself looking vintage. Later on, this sociopath blooms completely to a psychopath, but I am getting ahead of myself.

The film is based on Wentworth Miller's script that made it to the list of best screenplays written in 2012. In a nutshell, it was based on Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt, with Miller stating that it starts off similarly and goes a separate path. Spoiler alert: it goes full away to the direction that the Hitchcock film didn't take. This is braver, to be honest. But in such a case, the execution needs to be done extra carefully because you might end up having an unlikable lead, something that rubbed off to me. I don't like India Stoker and I don't understand her. Sure, her character was written to spawn mystery (was she in love with her dad? Were they having an incestuous affair? Why didn't she just finish off what she did in the end earlier, what's the difference between the stairs and the mother's bedroom anyways?). She just wasn't written in a way that would make one curious enough to know / dig deeper for the answers. And with that said, I think the vision was good but the execution was forced. 

Adding to that, the screenplay / editing felt gimmicky, lending a contrived vibe throughout the short playing time, as if forcing some sense of mystery to its audience. And in that attempt it made the movie feel longer than it is with little to nothing happening. Though to the screenplay / editing's credit, it allowed for Park's haunting cinematography which is one of the things that the movie has going for it.

On top of my mind, there is one scene among many that was filmed so well that it etched itself to my memory: The piano scene. In this scene, India starts playing the piano and was soon joined by an uninvited Uncle Charlie. For most of the scene, India is unwelcoming but Charlie is persistent. Eventually, India gives in and kept on going to the point that she was on the verge of a dry orgasm only to find the seat finally vacated. This scene: Amazing.

Anyways, I couldn't find fault with the acting as there was nothing explosive going on. If ever I would have any complaints with the characters, it is with how they were written not how they were performed.

Overall, It's an OK movie. There are pros and cons and I find it hard to feel that the pros outdo the cons or vice versa. I remember myself getting bored for a lot of the running time and I actually couldn't relate to any of the characters that I soon feel that I was disengaging from the movie if not for the beautiful cinematography. Miller's screenplay allows for Park to practice beautiful cinematography punctured with haunting images, but it's a double-edged sword that hurts the film with turtle-paced storytelling that dillydallies too much to deliver imagery over story. Would it have been better otherwise? I am not sure because the cinematography might get affected so maybe the only thing that can be fixed is the way characters were written. Maybe let the audience in on what they're thinking because from this point of view, I felt so blocked and eventually disengaged, watching pretty pictures.

Judgment: 3.3 out of 5 stars

For this movie, I'm willing to pay, 150 to 170 pesos. I paid 190 pesos.

In Review: Mama

Directed By: Andres Muschietti
Stars: Jessica Chastain, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, a CGI poltergeist

What I Liked
Cinematography by Antonio Riestra provides a creepy atmosphere full of scares and surprises

What I Disliked
Pedestrian resolution, throws a bunch of potentials that it never fully develops

Gist
It's a frightfest executed with creepy visual style, but Mama is flush of potentials that it never fully develops--giving itself to a rather pedestrian idea of an ending.

After being left to fend for themselves for five years, the Desange sisters were found alone in a cabin in the woods. They were remote from human: feral, savage, and running on all fours. Their uncle, a spitting image of their father, and his girlfriend, claims them and fends for them. But a shadowy, jealous guardian that they call Mama has followed them to their new home, unable to let go and ever wanting to whisk them away from their new family.

There is little doubt after one look at Chastain's wig that this film would be scary. If you guessed like I did, you're more than right. Mama is indeed scary. Not in The Hills Have Eyes or Texas Chainsaw Massacre scary, but in an Insidious, The Grudge, or The Eye (original Asians versions of the latter two) scary. But who is this Andres Muschietti? To most of us, he is a first time director, and the probable reason you are watching this film is because 1.) you heard Guillermo del Toro is producing (or in my case, I thought he was directing), 2.) you like either Chastain or Coster-Waldau or 3.) You have no idea who those people are and you just heard from your friends that this movie is nuts (actually, del Toro directed Pan's Labyrinth and Hellboy, Chastain is Zero Dark Thirty's Maya, and Coster-Waldau is Game of Thrones' Jamie Lannister, but you probably know that anyway). Anyways, Muschietti.

Andres Muschietti created in 2011 a short film called Mama, stress on the last a, that caught del Toro's imagination. Below is that video where del Toro justifies why he produced Mama as well as the full short film itself (actually 3 minutes long only but is way scarier than the full-length film itself). The scene has an identical in the movie. So, if you haven't seen the movie, I would advise against watching it just yet.

If your reason is number 3, then your friends are right. Mama is crazy nuts scary, one that would work better on the cinemas as a sort of a communal screaming event. The cinematography invites a certain atmosphere of creepiness in a suburban setting that unsettles. Hands down also to the acting of the two little girls, Charpentier and Nelisse were very good at portraying nature-raised jungle children, hostile to any modern form of social interaction. The score also contributed to the largely creep-out feel of the film. Of course, there was a lot of CGI use. Mama is full-on CGI and everytime she appears, CG artists get paid.

At the start of the film, you would think that this is going to be a largely psychological horror movie, with most scares coming from the psychological terror of an unknown house intruder inflicted upon its cast, and it attempted this to good effect. Eventually, though, this idea is dispelled as Muschietti's monster become ever more visible. The more the Desange orphans feel human, the more monstrous Mama is, and the more abandoned the psychological terror is, making it clear that this is a creature feature rather than a psychological purveying of any sorts.

Some day, Chastain would look at this wig and think it was
all worth it.

Chastain's character, a rocker chick who you'd think would guest star on an episode of Jackass just for the hell of it, slowly develops maternal instincts just because. There's no explanation how she'd acquire the parental skills required to rear two jungle rats other than the fact that she was with them for days on her own (and probably for the love of her boyfriend). It's just hard to imagine how a woman on her late 20s (or early 30s) who'd praise the Lord for getting negative on a pregnancy test wouldn't immediately run and return these children to foster care. I mean it's not really that bad, but come on, we can do with some depth in the character development.

Anyway, all that lack of depth in character development makes the movie feel faster than it should be, trading away dialogue and heart for more scares. And it does feel scary, especially with the score and the cinematography (and all that grunge and moth and Nelisse acting all jungle book and shit). But as the movie reaches its third act, everything feels so unimaginative and derivative already--a common pitfall in almost all horror movies is that they don't know how to end themselves after delivering several scares. As with most horror movies, everything is revealed in the end, explained, and ends as unimaginative as you can get (but, in all fairness, not as shaky a resolution as Insidious). By the time it's about to end you know, like the whole movie, the resolution will compromise.

It frustrates me, that we couldn't really have a horror movie nowadays with an ending that 1.) doesn't feel cheesy or 2.) feels like a femme fatale movie or 3.) just doesn't have a heart or 4.) makes you think it's planning a sequel. Mama attempts and ending that is satisfying and has a heart, but its methods are too unimaginative to pull it off. Yes, I loved Mama, and I wish it was a bit better than it is. As it is, it's a frightfest executed with creepy visual style, and Mama is flush of potentials that it never fully develops. In the end, it gives itself to a rather pedestrian idea of an ending and that just feels a bit too much of a wasted opportunity.

Judgment: 3.3 out of 5 stars

For this movie, I'm willing to pay, 170 to 190 pesos.

In Review: Warm Bodies

Directed By: Jonathan Levine
Stars: Nicholas Hoult, Teresa Palmer, Analeigh Tipton, John Malkovich

What I Liked
Levine managed to mash a dozen of genres into an entertaining genre-bending feature film, Analeigh Tipton outdoing Teresa Palmer

What I Disliked
Teresa Palmer feels and looks like Kristen Stewart, incosistent zombie behavior

Gist
Warm Bodies successfully mashes several genres into a darkly comic oddball full of quirks. And while its resolution or its casting of Palmer is not as strong as the other leads, direction, or its screenplay, Warm Bodies still makes for an enjoyable take on the zombie genre.

Nicholas Hoult plays a zombie named "R." He narrates his daily goings on as he walks around their airport home. One day, while searching for food with his horde, they stumbled upon a group of humans looking for medicines in an abandoned lab. This encounter result in him falling in love with Julie (Teresa Palmer), prompting him to rescue her from his fellow zombies and take her home. But something in him is changing, and slowly as he protects Julie, he is starting to feel less dead and more alive.

I once read that of all the popular horror creatures, zombies are least likely to get the Twilight treatment.They stink, they have no humanity in them, and they eat you the first chance they get. This assumption was put to shame by Levine's Warm Bodies, adapted from the Isaac Marion book of the same name. Nicholas Hoult from UK E4's TV series Skins, and films like About a Boy, and 2010's X-Men: First Class plays quirky narrator  and dead walking who can only remember a fraction of his name, "R," opposite I Am Number Four's Number 6, Teresa Palmer as Julie, daughter of the leader of remaining human survivors (Malkovich). Levine, who directed 2011's cancer comedy 50/50, directs and writes a film quite difficult to adapt.

Immediately, one has to ask, will this be a movie one would like? Anyone would answer you with a canned "that depends." Initially, I was put off. "Ugh, they finally are ruining zombies and making a Twilight material out of the beloved brain-eating dead." But the final product from Levine is delightfully far from a disaster, at least in my books. But here's the thing, it would only work if you accept the central premise that in the universe where Marion's story is set, zombies are capable of thoughts. Yes, unfortunately, for zombie purists who grew up with titles like The Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, and played games like Resident Evil, this is unthinkable. Zombies think?! And not only that, this zombie (R) narrates, too, cracks jokes, and is given to school boy anxieties--heck he even grew a vocabulary and maintains a house. If you remain unaccepting of the central premise, then this movie will frustrate you since that premise is its main source of humor, too.

At an early point in the movie, I felt it did a full stop when it tried to explore the humanity in R after he rescues Julie. This part, I felt, Levine failed to take advantage of. It felt slow and given to teenage tendencies.  There were scenes that felt out of place or inconsistent with the whole premise. For instance the scene when Julie and R went driving a car on the airport for fun because Julie was bored--and yet no zombie could smell Julie, but we were shown early just how keen zombies are to the presence of the living, come on, why would Julie even do that after the traumatic experience early on?! Then there's also a scene when R narrates that zombies can't run. Yet later on, zombies run.

But that's not my main concern at all. The inconsistencies are forgivable because I didn't really take the movie as seriously as one would, say, Inception or No Country for Old Men. Of all, it was Palmer's casting that bothered me most. Palmer, in most of her shots, looks and feels like Kristen Stewart--something I cannot find pleasure at. The initial impression to me was that this casting was made to ensure investment returns and that it feels comfortable for Twilight audiences--probably the same target audience of this film--to watch this film. After the movie, I was able to research about how she was cast and it bothered me less. I mean, it's not her fault that she looks like K-Stew. She fought for the role and got it after working hard. Still not a fan of her acting, though, and for those who are bothered by the existence of Kristen Stewart will be bothered by Palmer's casting, too.

K-Stew on the left, Palmer on the right

After the slow parts at the airport, the movie begins to enjoy itself. Levine manages to throw in several genres into the mix: at one point it was funny, in another it was rife with suspense, in another it was full on horror, then action, then romance, then soon enough you can't tell just what genre it is because it stirs so many emotions (sports fan beware, it doesn't transform into a sports flick, though. Sorry).

Analeigh Tipton, who plays survivor Nora, occasionally trumps Palmer in their scenes together. In the film, Nora is the sort of girl who doesn't feel shaken by the Apocalypse or by the fact that she saw her comrades get eaten by zombies--which makes little sense but whatever. She is lively through out and another source of humor for the the remainder of the film as well as a dependable companion.

In the end, the resolution might still be divisive for those who remained and enjoyed the film thus far. For me, it wasn't as weak or corny as one would expect--although you'd know it's going that way and feels predictable. It  manages to be humorous--a bit awkward at spots, but altogether works, albeit limping. As I said earlier, zombie purists wouldn't last the film halfway if they reject the premise. But those who are open and stuck it with Warm Bodies will be rewarded with a film that successfully mashes several genres into a darkly comic oddball full of quirks. And while its resolution or its casting of Palmer is not as strong as the other leads, direction, or screenplay, the zombie purist in me who opened himself up and didn't take the movie as seriously finds that Levine's (or Marion's, for that matter) take on the zombie genre makes for an enjoyable 97 minutes.

Judgment: Zombie purists exercise caution on watching this film. Do not expect this to have a Walking Dead treatment, think Zombieland with a wtf twist. The romance is also light and does not go cheesy so this one is also for the guys. 3.67 stars out of 5.