MMF 2011: Viewer discretion is advised

MANILA, Philippines - Enteng Kabisote and I are twins by association. We were both conceived in 1987, he as sitcom character and I as that horrid little thing that got flushed out of my mom’s womb. From a baby, I grew up to be a writer. From an ordinary mortal plagued by magical mishaps, Enteng became an ordinary mortal plagued by magical mishaps and arthritis. Unlike mine, Enteng’s apparent lack of progress in life isn’t frowned upon by his parents. He’s gone from episode to episode and film to film without much change in his character. He’s become so static that the filmmakers of the Enteng series have resorted to mash it up with other titles. Last year it was Agimat. This year it’s Tanging Ina. I shudder to think of its future lovechild with Mano Po and Shake, Rattle, and Roll. Only in the Metro Manila Film Festival can this madness be considered sane.

It’s hard to take the MMFF seriously. Once the premier stage for Filipino storytellers like Ishmael Bernal (Himala, 1982), Mike de Leon (Kisapmata, 1981), and Eddie Romero (Ganito Kami Noon, Paano Kayo Ngayon, 1976), the annual event has now become a vending machine of cheap thrills and laughs. The opening ceremonies are equally kitschy. Come Christmas Day, families charge in droves, hoping to see a display of lavishly decked-out floats. Of course, these people aren’t there for the mobile décor. The main attractions are the celebrities, who serve as wind-up ornaments designed for two functions: to smile and to wave at the crowd. The entire procession is a pageant. Despite rumors of off-screen chaos, rushed production, and managerial disputes, the stars still find a way to look perky and botoxed.

In case everyone didn’t know that they’re married with kids yet, Ryan and Juday filmed My Househusband: Ikaw Na, a romcom that once again casts them as spouses.

A few weeks before the festival, a mysterious e-mail was circulating the Internet. It contained what many believed was a viral campaign for Tikoy Aguiluz’s testosterone-packed festival entry, Manila Kingpin: the Untold Story of Asiong Salonga. The title itself sells it. It’s about gangsters, guns, and goons in pressed suits. The film was poised to fill the shortage of action films in Philippine cinema. But apparently, most of the action happened behind the scenes. With producers doing last-minute tweaking behind Tikoy’s back, the gung-ho director decided to pull out his name from the project. Now producers are literally covering up the snafu with stickers of their A rating from the Cinema Evaluation Board.

Staying away from scandal is Senator Bong Revilla. After all the drama his family’s been through this year, playing Panday’s Flavio is the perfect escape. He can put on a costume, set aside politics, and let his inner thespian out. Even though he’s basically playing the same character again — the heroes in Agimat, Captain Barbell, and Exodus aren’t really much of a stretch — at least he gets to share the screen with Marian Rivera, right? I’m not saying the Senator doesn’t have range, not at all. He’s just found something he’s debatably good at and is sticking with it.

Kris Aquino has also found a niche of her own as the queen of Philippine horror. Her career in the early ‘90s, which mostly required her to play either murder or rape victims, should have been a precursor of things to come. For some strange reason, Filipinos draw immense pleasure from seeing her get tortured, if not by crazed men, by cursed inanimate objects. Case in point is this year’s Segunda Mano, where a haunted handbag is the root of her misfortune. With comedy greats Joyce Bernal and Angelica Panganiban directing and co-starring, respectively, the film has the potential to be a certified scarefest or at least a master class of camp.

The Enteng series has the unique honor of being the only film franchise to be mashed up with other titles.

But as far as horror goes, Shake, Rattle, and Roll (SRR) still takes the cake. Although the quality of SRR’s episodes has dwindled over the years — you have to admit, nothing has ever matched the toilet terrors caused by Undin — this year’s 13th and supposedly final installment of SRR hopes to bring scary back. In order to pull this off, Regal bound and gagged three indie filmmakers and flogged them mercilessly until they did their bidding. What materialized was Richard Somes’s family thriller, Tamawo, Jerrold Tarog’s wiccan-inspired Parola, and Chris Martinez’s Rain, Rain, Go Away, which is a fitting tale about floods and other natural disasters. Based on early feedback from critics, SRR 13 promises to have one of the best episodes from the entire 13-year anthology.

For the faint of heart, the festival also offers two family flicks. Jun Lana’s Yesterday Today Tomorrow features a powerhouse ensemble led by Maricel Soriano. From the get-go, it looks like another sappy teleserye in big screen form, but the several tangled story arcs could make for something interesting. The other flick is My Househusband: Ikaw Na, a Ryan-Judy Ann romcom that once again casts them as spouses. This time, director Jose Javier Reyes switches the stereotypical roles of husband and wife and even adds Eugene Domingo as a third wheel to stir things up. The premise is amusing, but one has to eventually stop and wonder how many angles Jose Javier Reyes will take before he exhausts the married couple shtick.

At this point of the article, a sensible writer would say something within the lines of “Support Philippine Cinema,” but I’m not one of those writers. I’m going to put my neck out there and propose something different. Instead of spending your hard-earned cash to fuel this yearly moneymaking movie machine, why not donate a few pesos to the victims of Typhoon Sendong? Help out and make other people happy. The joy of that will last longer than the hour-and-a-half you’ll spend watching a flick in some cinema. Happy giving and Merry Christmas!