JOSHUA: MMFF Review #1 - Captain Barbel: Dissappointing



Got to see one of the Metro Manila Film Festival Movies - Captain Barbel. Pretty much dissappointed. I should have known better than to expect much from a Filipino movie.



The story: It barely holds true to the history of the character. It's well and good thay made some explanation on how the barbel appears and vanishes. I think the scriptwriters didn't really think about the plot of the story, the whole movie looks like a weekly-mutant from smallville (glowing rocks appearing on their time of death and then giving them strange powers).



The characters: Enteng (played by Ogie Alcasid) was good. He was able to hold true to the character. However, Captain barbel (played by Bong Revilla) was just plain... errr... plain. I don't know if they decided to make the character really like that but I doubt it. He probably used the old superman movies as basis for his character. It's just plain weird. The villains were good, however, the movie could have given them better backgrounds and even death scenes. I had a better time watching the supporting casts.



The special effects: The movie was supposed to have 200 special effects, the audience won't be able to miss them coz the screen turns kinda moldy when a special effect is coming up. Probably something wrong with the digital editing. They could have checked this before finalizing the film.



False Advertising: Part of the reason I went to watch this movie first was that it had more superheroes than the other movies. I was wrong. It seems Darna (played by Regine Velasquez) and Lastikman (played by PJ Manalo?) was just part of a dream sequence. Grrr!



More Advertising: Blatant product placement could be seen in the movie. Milo (who's taekwondo commercial actor can be seen behind playing on one scene) and PLDT (now that scene was pretty blatant).



Audience: It was supposed to be a movie for the kids but they (the kids) were just running bored inside the movie houses. I had fun listeing to their comments. On one scene Freezy (played by Rufa Mae) was raped by her boss. A kid asked 'Mommy, anong nangyari kanya? Anong ginawa sa kanya?' The Mom didn't know what to tell the kid. Another funny comment was 'Bakit mataba si Captain barbel?'. Ha ha ha!!!



::sigh:: They could have done better.

MIGUEL: Death passes by a few meters away.



Was on the bus heading home. Somebody stands up from a few rows in front. He pulls out a butterfly knife and slashes the old man who was sitting at the eisle near the bus' door. He then makes a run for the door. The man who was slashed looks down to see blood soaking on his shirt. He reaches to his neck and finds a wound there. It's pretty long but shallow. He's lucky.

JOSHUA: Darna in Leather?



Seems the boyfriend of a friend of a friend of mine (blame Miguel for this) is an actor who played a supporting role in one of the local indie films. I was able to see his film and wasn't really that much impressed. I have just seen a third of the movie but felt i was already sitting there for three hours. So when I unexpectedly ended up having dinner with them after watching the movie I knew I had to watch what I had to say - enough to praise the film but also enough to give them nasty comments. (Good thing Miguel wasn't online during that time)



Anywasy, to avoid making any further social blunder, I managed to divert the dinner topic to producing independent films. It seems there are a bunch of local companies which were more than happy to sponsor independent movies as long as they were shot on digital medium. Looks like Epson and Kodak have enough budget for these (Hmm... have to confirm that with Zak).



Still, the topic on what to produce was part of the problem. It was decided that superhero movies were not only a blast during the MMFF but also off christmas season as long as they were good. But what would be considered to be good? We had losts of discussion of who should play who, what effects should be done. We ended up at around 3 a.m. with no final deision. It seems playing Darna in Leather would be too much for the 'madlang people' and just would sell. Or would it? I guess I have to see the locan MMFF movies to check how good competition is...

RICO: busy . . . busy . . . reports to make . . . busy . . . busy . . . books to close . . . busy . . . busy

RICO: busy . . . busy . . . reports to make . . . busy . . . busy . . . books to close . . . busy . . . busy

JOSHUA: Thanks Zak! Got help from Miguel and , with the use of a little coincidental magic, was able to find a copy at one of those out of the way cd shops.



Will Young's good. This one will be the one lulling me to sleep for quite a while.

JOSHUA: Zak! Do you know where I can get a copy of Will Young's 'From now on' album? I've been searching around the metropolis for a copy. Seems they just vanished. Kainis. Anyways, do tell me when you do find one. Thanks.



Oh, and if you do find 'Friday's Child' his sophomore album, give me a call too.



(Just in case you don't know, Will Young's the European pop idol - kinda like Eropean's version of Americal Idol)

GENE: had a weird dream. in my dream, raistlin and gollum were the same person/being. must be the rotk fever kicking in. but then, when one thinks about it, the dragonlance trilogy and the lord of the rings trilogy does have some very similar ideas - that is, the hickman/weiss tandem got some ideas from mr tolkien's work. but could you really blame them since both works deal with the same genra - fanstasy. the companions and the fellowship members also share similar personalities as that of the non-fantasy group. the group has done this tens of times, let's take the (extended) gaming group as an example (as raistlin sees them):



allan - tanis - the official leader. he's the one who the members follow around (or in our case, we have no choice since he owns the car we use to go around)

sunshine - laurana - strong leader type - has her own angsty side though

max - flint - always comlaining about stuff, yet cares for those around him in his own special way.

chris - tasselhoff - always lost. always getting himself in trouble. always finding something that distracts him.

mike - riverwind - the warrior ranger wanderer. until the time he hooks up with goldmoon (see below) that is.

ching - goldmoon - another strong leader type. pious. was able to tame riverwind.

obey - kitiara - dark sister.

edy - caramon - twin to raistlin. shares some sort of bond.

ipe - tika - caramon's s.o. (for some reason, i could really see ipe in tika's role)

me - raistlin - his manipulations and dark secrets tolerated by the group.



see?

RICO: busy . . . busy . . . reports to make . . . busy . . . busy . . . books to close . . . busy . . . busy

Ying Tzi: Onmyoji. Medieval Japanese film. Scary piece of work. For my own sanity - better to stick to Chinese or Korean.