Studs and hot mommas

I dunno why the cineastes behind this year’s Metro Film Fest have forgone Bridal Shower as a main contender when the entries chosen were bordering on the ridiculous, basking on sympathy with three-hankie tearjerkers and befuddling with overkill hype.

Of course, I now realize that Mano Po 2 is actually a fantasy film (Kris Aquino metamorphosing into Susan Roces, hello?!), and Captain Barbell is actually a midget with a weight problem.  I don’t mind that Malikmata’s memorable moments were Rica Peralejo’s mammaries, I care less that Regine Velasquez’s Darna was a tad too shy to don a two-piece costume (but the dangling chiffon between her legs was a total irate number that drove more attention to what it was supposed conceal), and surely, I won’t bother to argue that Eric Quizon’s crying should earn him one of the title roles in Crying Ladies – but Jeffrey Jeturian’s Bridal Shower is surely meritorious and I’d file it under Go See!

Don’t bring in the Coke and the popcorn when you see this film or you’ll end up choking on the stuff at every punchline.  I understood this fully well as I cringed at the snack counter – only to swallow my snot down my nostril as the movie was so darn funny that I was jumping out of my pores until my face was wrinkled up like a log with too much laughlines.

Beneath the cheesy title lurks a sensible, hilarious film from Seiko Films that would rake in the bucks even without the charm of the "wallet na maswerte."  Bridal Shower is the story of three friends as played by Dina Bonnevie, Francine Prieto and Cherry Pie Picache.

Dina is a restless stunner swarming in the soup of romantic anguish after she has saturated her share of sexual escapades.  She has found Mr. Right in Christian Vasquez, but he’s separated, with a son to boot.  Dina is desperate enough to tie the knot with Christian that she even bribed the judge handling the case to expedite her boyfriend’s annulment.  She has delusions of walking down the aisle, and to complete her illusion, she hired a sampaguita vendor to stand in as a flower girl.

Dina’s intermittent chance encounters with previous touch-and-go Lotharios (oh my, including a butch on a motorcycle) were such jaw droppers.  Her suicide attempt is so convincing – I was so sympathetic that I wanted her to succeed, but heck, it’s just the first 30 minutes of the movie so I predicted the attempt would go bonk.

Francine, on the other hand, is a two-timing ad exec whose business acumen has taken to wearing peek-a-boo plunging Karimadon sabrinas.  She’s preggy and the father is a toss between her Alabang Boy (Juancho Valentino) and her Balic-Balic Rebel (Douglas Robinson).

The well-bred contender gifts her with a house and lot in Alabang while the BB Boy’s way of showing his affection is through a boa tattoo on his chest dedicated to her with the serpent’s head strategically leading to the family jewels.  I can imagine the boa on cold nights when its head wears a shaft hood in its awkward size – the body of a boa constrictor but with the head of a maggot.

Cherry Pie, on the third hand, puts the weight on the F word.  She’s fabulous and fat.  She’s got friends and flabs.  She is smitten by a go-go boy (Alfred Vargas) hired during the bridal shower of Francine.  Yes, Miss Fordham, love moves in mysterious ways, she finds love beyond thong numbers and lap dances.  She takes to reforming her beau by making him sell insurance.  Of course, the effort is futile – from one-night-stands-by-the-hour to peddling insurance, it doesn’t happen, even in the movies.

When the go-go boy borrows fifty grand from Cherry Pie, she think he’s back in his old skin and was hustling. His excuse turns out to be true, but it is too late.  Later in the movie, the MD (macho dancer, nitwit) is accelerated to DI (dance instructor, get it?) and the P50k is paid in full in a time-metered tango.

Bridal Shower is such a splash. The bevy of leads has delivered a luminous performance.  Dina is her usual vibrant self, for a while there I thought her character was a sequel to the sexually-starved hedonist role she took on Ang Babaeng Nawawala Sa Sarili.  And did I mention she looks sooo fab (makeup connoisseur Victor Palmos has a wand in his brush!)! Her outfits are simply ravishing (thanks to dream clothesmith Nono Palmos).  Francine is surprisingly good, a far cry from her previous "non-acting acting" in Liberated.  Thank heavens (or thank Direk Jeturian) her Botox acting (read: non-expressive) in the previous offing is waning. Cherry Pie, oh this girl, is just explosive on screen.  When she surfs the Net for cybersex with her Swimbod chatmate and her fingers do the talking, I had this urge to hit the BUZZ keys and make her realize that rejection is in the next sequence.  One thing though:  Cherry Pie looks better as a fattie in her Tubby fashions as compared to that ill-fitted fuchsia asymmetrical tango dress.  Rodel Velayo, as the girls’ homosexual friend, is unexpectedly comfortable in his role, but it could’ve been better if he did his own dubbing.  Rodel is convincing as the girls’ surrogate adviser, and when he gets his puke (Vomit! Vomit, okay?!) from the infanticipating Francine and the intoxicated Dina, you simply squirm in disgust and want to offer him a hankie.

Why the filmfest’s screening committee had overlooked Bridal Shower we don’t know. But then again, the Metro Film Fest never disappoints to disappoint.  Bridal Shower is still at the tills.  Go.

(Have you seen this film? Dina was just fab, Francine looked better and Cherry Pie was such a blast!  Methinks any of the girls should’ve been nominated at least.  Whadyathink? Tell me about it at sarcaster_star@yahoo.com.)