Welcome to the 60s!!!

While I am an avid fan of selected musicals, I have never really seen Hairspray onstage. What had me running to the movie theater with friends was seeing a trailer of John Travolta playing the lead character’s mom. You bet I was darned curious!

Hairspray is an interesting mix of post 50s fashion and political agendas stuffed in a feel-good entertainment package. The movie starts off with a rather short and plump Tracy Turnblad (Nikky Blonsky), who sings and dances to “Good Morning Baltimore!” all the way to school. From the previews, you might already have gleaned that this girl will audition for a role in some TV show and phenomenally rise to the top. What can’t be seen in the previews, however, is that she has a vision of integrating the “coloreds” and the whites — Tracy Turnblad sees people through their talent and not through the color of their skin.

What really shocked me was how, despite her size, rising actress Blonsky moved with such grace and lightness. She also oozed with such surprising confidence that Tracy’s character completely deviated from the stereotypical angst-ridden, insecure, uncontrollable eaters that vertically-challenged people often portrayed in Hollywood. Tracy’s love interest, Link Larkin (Zac Efron), also did pretty well. In fact, I believe they’ve achieved on-screen chemistry together. The acting was so convincing that I forgot about the size factor. The moment Link started showing signs that he was intrigued, I felt the butterflies in my stomach flutter.

Of course, the object of my curiosity, John Travolta, who plays Edna Turnblad, did not disappoint. Everyone knows the man can dance, but to see him prance in high heels and all that padding was an absolute joy. Watching him romance Christopher Walken, who plays Wilbur Turnblad, tickled me pink and I left the theater with a huge grin plastered on my face.

Having Michelle Pfeiffer as the nasty Velma Von Tussle was a bonus, too. I can see no one else playing that role. Only her timeless beauty can capture the essence of a young pageant winner who turns into a mean-spirited, conniving stage mother. She’s the Wicked Witch of the West — in cotton candy pink.

Ah, the glitz, the glamour, the colors…and all that hairspray. It’s the perfect ending to a completely busy day.

Being one of the avid watchers of Transformers as a kid, I grew up seeing Optimus Prime as the benevolent leader, Megatron as the no-nonsense arch-enemy, Bumblebee as the cute little yellow beetle and so on and so forth. I’ve been thinking of the right words to put into Coolay! while watching this. For one thing, I thought that Optimus Prime had never looked so good. For another, it was one heck of a funny movie! After seeing so many of my favorite Japanese entertainment icons get bastardized by Hollywood (among them Godzilla, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and then there are those sentai wannabes like the Power Rangers), I was expecting major disappointment. Thank goodness most of the jokes (and the in-jokes) really got to me! The most hilarious lines were uttered by the protagonist’s parents, some by the robots themselves, and the others by some of the lesser supporting characters.

While the effects are completely in the 21st century, there were some things that they left well enough alone. One of them was the sound the robots make when they’re transforming. The movie was pretty close to depicting the personalities of the original animated bots, although the Decepticons, who are usually more colorful (what with the psychotic Constructicon-based Devastator and the whiny traitor Starscream) have been downplayed. They’ve focused mostly on Bumblebee, which isn’t exactly a bad thing, as he is the one who actually connects with the human protagonists.

The music rocks majorly. I actually enjoyed the mix of alternative, rock and a few classics like “Who’s Gonna Drive You Home?” thrown here and there — and I recognized the Linkin’ Park background music (”What I’ve Done”) — as they aptly describe all the emotions, struggles, and adventures going on. Every atmosphere, every scene, has been effectively set by the score. In fact, I even remember getting goosebumps.

As for the meat of the movie, there’s a whole lot of action involved. The old boring car chase scenes, which action flicks overuse, have now been beefed up. I’ll never look at cars the same way again. I’m a little miffed with the camera angles and animation, though. The animation is so fast sometimes that you get confused as to who’s beating up what. I understand that if this happened in real life, I probably wouldn’t know what hit me. But if I’m in a movie theater and I’d appreciate a bit of slowing down so I can grasp what I paid to watch. Having said that, I think the highest point animation-wise was that radio. He’s so fluid and cute, even if he’s annoying.

Many hardcore geeks might wail that Bumblebee is no longer a Beetle or that the Dinobots aren’t present in the motion picture. I am one of the less geekier fans, who were sad about the changes, but I’ve come to see that these made sense. I know that there are a lot of complaints, especially from movie buffs and real Transformers fans. It’s expected. Disappointment is always expected from a movie that’s based on something with a cult following. With this fact in mind, I decided to leave my brain at home and the penchant for overanalyzing at work. That’s how I managed to find myself entertained by the Americanized Transformers Movie. I mean, seriously, would you expect majority of today’s teens to connect to the 80s?

On a side note: I had one male friend who commented that the bodies of the robots weren’t proportional and that in real life, they shouldn’t be able to stand. I responded by saying that men want women with oversized melons for chests and still expect these women to stand up straight, too. I don’t see them complaining when women are depicted that way in animated features.

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From the very first page of Carlo Vergara’s obra, I had thought that Zsa Zsa Zaturnnah smacked of Ruffa Mae Quinto and Dodong of Piolo Pascual. The comic book adventure has since then been turned into a play, with Eula Valdez donning Zaturnnah’s costume. She surprisingly pulled the role off with such expertise as she was able to get down, dirty and totally crass. Exactly like a funny gay parlorista who finds himself suddenly blessed with a woman’s body. It was something that most people were sure that only Ruffa Mae could naturally pull off and yet Ms. Valdez didn’t fail to impress.

That we were going to be disappointed with the movie version was already a foregone conclusion. My cousin Virna, my sister Leki and I just wanted to see it out of sheer morbid curiosity. All right, so Zsa Zsa Padilla playing Zsa Zsa Zaturnnah wasn’t really that bad. It’s just that she couldn’t exactly turn her socialite way of speaking off, despite exchanging her F’s for P’s. Zaturnnah’s gayness disappeared and most of her punch lines didn’t quite hit the mark. She just sounded like an extremely noisy woman. Everything was loud and mixed up. The most hilarious lines were delivered at the same time, so you couldn’t quite make out what everyone else is saying. Festival Mall’s sound system didn’t help either. I swear I could still hear the ringing in my ears when I left the theater.

Rustom Padilla as Ada, Zaturnnah’s alter ego, did good. In fact, if I had not read the graphic novel, I would say that he knew what he was doing. I have nothing against the fact that the writers seemed to have deviated from Carlo Vergara’s Ada and created a whole new different character that Rustom made completely his own. Thing is, the book’s Ada was conservative and quiet, a very far cry from the totally effeminate, cross-dressing Ada of the motion picture. I suppose this might cause problems for die-hard Carlo Vergara fans, especially the ones who had seen the play. To his credit, Padilla looked so beautiful and classy that I heard a few straight girls in the theater loudly wish they were gay.

Alfred Vargas as Dodong did not disappoint either. Though he did not look like Piolo Pascual, he pretty much embodied what Dodong is all about. Dark. Hot. Male. The kind that most yaoi fans would often dream about: One that does not care what gender his love interest is. Then again, if my love interest is as gorgeous as Rustom Padilla then I wouldn’t mind what his gender is.

Though Agot Isidro was magnificent as Queen Femina, Pops Fernandez’s version was well executed. She was lovely. She didn’t fail in projecting Queen Femina’s sexy amazonistic tendencies, which is perfectly suited for anyone playing the pivotal role of the main antagonist.

Most of the disappointment fell on Chokoleit. Didi had the most sidesplitting lines in the book and Chokoleit’s rendition of the silly sidekick failed to elicit as much as a snicker from the viewers. His delivery was weak and they mostly got drowned out by cast members who’d say their lines at the same time that he’d say his.

Most of my gripes, however, come from the production values. Technology-wise, it seems that the Philippines has come a long way in terms of 3D artistry and visual effects. Unfortunately, someone ought to tell the special effects people that they should also play with the lighting. The effects looked fake and reminiscent of the 80s. The 3D CG and the real-world components didn’t mesh well. They could’ve actually done well if they had gone totally baduy, as one would expect from the comic’s feel, and dumped the effects altogether. Or concentrated on making the punch lines stand out. Zaturnnah is a comedy, after all.

And the costumes! I was looking forward to Queen Femina’s battle suit so I could hear Zsa Zsa quip, “Ay ate, nagdamit ka pa.” But the queen’s suit had been so simple that that line had been taken out.

Furthermore, the camera shots and angles were horrible. As Virna would say, they should take a cue from Japanese sentai shows and stop taking distant shots, unless they’re filming stunt doubles. The actors’ bad forms were obvious, especially during action sequences. The only good fight scenes in this movie are the ones that were taken up close.

Again, I stress that I had already expected not to like the movie. It’s just sad that the industry can still come up with such mediocrity when you could see Multimedia Arts students produce excellent video projects. I suppose some filmmakers these days have been so happy toying with digital advancements that they fail to see that these should only enhance, not be the center of, a production such as this. Why else did the play become hugely popular despite its primitive setup?

The moment I saw the poster bearing the name Marie Antoinette, I knew I had to watch the movie. What drew my attention further was the fact that this is director Sophia Coppola’s project and that it was based on Lady Antonia Fraser’s account. Lady Antonia Fraser is the name behind one of my favorite books of all time, Mary Queen of Scots. She had interesting perspectives on many speculations regarding controversial historical figures and though I had not read her biography of Marie Antoinette, I had been curious as to how the film would turn out. After all, Lady Fraser would have produced an intriguingly seductive manuscript. With an actress the caliber of Kirsten Dunst portraying the flighty queen and a director as noteworthy as Coppola manning the helm, one would really have high expectations.

My disappointment, however, was palpable through half of the showing. Kirsten Dunst was very effective as the vulnerable Marie Antoinette. That much was established from the beginning. You can really imagine how frightening it is to be a cloistered fifteen year old that suddenly gets yanked from the comforts of her home so that she can marry a foreign dauphin. She had to adjust to the stuffy culture, deal with gossip, and learn to live with the fact that her husband would have nothing to do with the marriage bed. The pressure to produce an heir was apparently nerve-wracking, as she knew that her place would never be secure if she couldn’t accomplish her duties as the future queen. Letters from her concerned mother did not help.

The magic stopped at a certain point. At the beginning, there were times when the pace dragged itself and you’d wonder how people of that era lived without TV, PS2 and laptops. It felt authentic because you know that people had longer attention spans then. The mood, however, would be completely obliterated by the funky music. There I was, feeling sorry for Marie Antoinette when this noisy, ear-piercing sound, which pretends to be music, suddenly assaulted my auditory canal. I have nothing against rock or country music being used in a historical film, but they could’ve at least used songs that did not grate on the ears. Did they really have to choose artists that wail like they were going to be guillotined the next day?

After Marie Antoinette dealt with her insecurities, the pace ran marathons. The annoying “music” ran with it. The transitioning became abrupt and viewers weren’t given time to digest the flurry of events that unfolded. The ending was anti-climactic, but it wasn’t the good kind of anti-climactic. There had been no proper build up so it came off as weak.

Historians worth their salt would, of course, know that the royal couple would be beheaded and their children sent to the Temple Prison. I didn’t really expect to see it here, but the movie could’ve done better if they had come up with a more powerful ending. Anything besides the scene where the royal family just stared at each other would’ve been a vast improvement.

One good thing I can say about Marie Antoinette is that it’s a visual treat. Foodies, like myself, would drool at the cakes, pies, baguettes, macarons and hors d’oeuvres. Now, if you start wondering how the women stay fit despite their calorie bingeing, you can always look at the clothes. Those exquisite fineries, in all their vibrant glamour, should weigh at least a hundred pounds. How’s that for daily weight-lifting?

Historical / Romance
Credits: 2006 ApolloProMedia GmbH & Co. 1. Filmproduktion KG (I), Epsilon Motion Pictures, Franchise Pictures, QI Quality International GmbH & Co. KG, Scott Free Productions, Stillking Films, World 2000 Entertainment

Amazon Product Description: From executive producer Ridley Scott (Gladiator) comes a sweeping, action-packed saga of epic battles, political intrigue and forbidden passion, set in a time when the lines between heroism and savagery were etched in fire and carved out with broadswords. After the fall of Rome, visionary warlord Marke (Rufus Sewell) seeks to unite the squabbling English tribes to form one strong nationand defeat brutal Irish King Donnchadh. But when Lord Marke’s greatest and most loyal knight, Tristan (James Franco), falls in love with Isolde (Sophia Myles), a beautiful Irish woman, it threatens to destroy the fragile truce and ignite a war. In the spirit of Braveheart and A Knight’s Tale, TRISTAN+ ISOLDE is a rousing tale of trust and treachery that will leave you breathless!

Coming from an Asian country, the only times I find myself immersed in European legends is when I actually go out and look for them. I’ve read books on Norse, Celtic, Greek mythologies and Arthurian Legends with relish but I have never encountered the story of Tristan and Isolde until I saw this motion picture.

This movie’s selling line is “Before Romeo and Juliet, There was Tristan and Isolde.” Actually, it seemed more like Lancelot and Guinevere’s story to me than Romeo and Juliet’s. While the plot involves war between the Irish and the English, the romance is actually centered in a love triangle. You might conclude, without reading your Arthurian Legends, that Tristan and Isolde may have been the basis for Lancelot and Guinevere’s story simply because the setting is much more primitive, though the conflict is generally identical. You will not see large keeps or vassals or political order in the beginning. Everyone starts from scratch. Literally.

Like King Arthur, King Marke is portrayed as a benevolent leader who is blinded by his love for his wife Isolde. Isolde, on the other hand, is blinded by her infatuation with Tristan. The feeling is mutual, much to King Marke’s despair. The most prominent versions of the Tristan and Isolde story are very detailed and has far more depth than what was shown in this motion picture. For one, there are more characters; 13th-14th century proses even included the Knights of Round Table into the accounts. Second, many of the ancient tellings had been injected with a bit of magic and sorcery.

This film revolved only around Marke, Tristan, Isolde and had a few weak but token villains here and there. This adaptation isn’t so bad, considering the fact that you can’t exactly fit a romance of epic proportions into 125 minutes of screen time. It is also quite realistic, seeing as Tristan and Isolde grew to love each other naturally — without the help of the infamous love potion that made the legend somewhat hilarious. You’ll just feel helpless as you watch such passionate love ruthlessly bound by fate and duty.

If there’s one actor who shone brightly than the rest, it was Rufus Sewell. He left a lasting impact in my memory as the vile, lust-crazed Agamemnon (Helen of Troy) and the sinister Count Adhemar (A Knight’s Tale). Tristan and Isolde features another side of Mr. Sewell. It was the first time I saw him play the vulnerable cuckold, who’s torn by love, friendship, loyalty and duty. You can actually feel his anguish — the hate he wants to harbor, but is rendered weak because of his close ties to the protagonists. He becomes paradoxical — a strong, decisive commander whose downfall is his heart. The betrayal is intense, as he had risked life and limb countless times for Tristan.

The film may not be the greatest ever when it comes to legendary retellings, but it’s pretty cohesive and well delivered. For those who are interested in historicals, this is one title you may want to add to your collection.