Worst Pinoy Movies of 2009

Please raise your right hand if you want to watch bad movies. No one? It’s a fact that nobody enjoys watching awful films, so we avoid them at all costs.

Every time I get asked to critique, I hope and pray that the movie I’m about to see will be good. I look forward to discovering cinematic gems unfold in front of my very eye. I’m always hungry for bold, innovative, and gripping narratives.

I hate watching bad movies and I hate it even more to write bad reviews. But I think my readers deserve some honesty, I can’t just give away compliments if they don’t earn it. So every once in awhile, I am forced to watch god-forsaken films – films that shouldn’t have been made, films that make me cringe at such intolerable disrespect to the art of filmmaking.

And so, I’ve compiled the five worst Pinoy movies I’ve seen in 2009. I’m not saying that these are the WORST films of the year since I haven’t seen Nandito Ako… Nagmamahal Sa’Yo, When I Met U, Tarot, Ang Tanging Pamilya, and all those skin flicks that tarnish the reputation of independent cinema. I bet the aforementioned are strong contenders for the Hall of Shame.

Pasang Krus

Director: Neal “Buboy” Tan (Ataul For Rent)

Starring: Rosanna Roces, Ketchup Eusebio, Empress Schuck, Joross Gamboa

Although independent filmmaking is said to provide cutting edge and modern cinema for Filipinos, filmmakers are still caught up in a hangover infinitum caused by the classics. Most of the times, they can’t help themselves but genuflect to the past by borrowing clichéd and overused elements from the classics. And although we already have a handful of these dramas, especially those about the poor and their travails in life, some directors just don’t know when to quit. To label Pasang Krus as a tearjerker is a disgrace to the term. The film is just grossly sentimental and overly dramatic.

Read the full review at http://pixelatedpopcorn.blogspot.com/2009/04/review-pasang-krus-15.html.

Sagrada Familia

Director: Joel Lamangan (Mano Po 6: A Mother’s Love, Dukot)

Starring: Emilio Garcia, Snooky Serna, Lovi Poe, Gloria Diaz

The script is a little extreme compared to your average primetime soap in its inclusion of hefty servings of violence and incest. But other than that, the requisite elements are all in place: camp, sentimentality, and hearty melodrama. Its fatal flaws are its lack of logic and an inconsistent characterization. Lamangan’s direction shares the same distaste for melodrama as the script. The film is replete with hysterical acting, caboodles of tears, and clumsy dialogue. Like your typical soap opera, Sagrada Familia ends with a climactic shootout: a police intervention that’s a little too late. We’ve seen this ending before on the television. It’s sad that they have to recycle it for the big screen.

Will post the full review soon.

Astig (Mga Batang Kalye)

Director: GB Sampedro

Starring: Dennis Trillo, Sid Lucero, Arnold Reyes, Edgar Allan Guzman, Glaiza de Castro

The screenplay breathes and lives in third world clichés – movie house prostitution, suicide, gratuitous sex, and plenty of foul language. Instead of presenting a new treatment on the worn-out subject, we are left with an overused template of yet another movie about Manila’s squalor.

Read the full review at http://pixelatedpopcorn.blogspot.com/2009/07/review-sanglaan-155-astig-15.html.

Pitik-Bulag

Director: Gil Portes (Mga Munting Tinig, Saranggola)

Starring: Marco Alcaraz, Paloma, Victor Neri

MTRCB approved this ‘sexy thriller’ without cuts despite an explicit woman-on-woman sex scene that wasn’t necessary to the script at all. Aside from the titillating scenes, this film has nothing left to offer. Shallow story. Cheesy dialogue and equally cheesy delivery. Wooden acting. Awful score. Dry screenplay thriving on poverty clichés and plain stupidity. But wait there’s more, it’s Graded A by CEB.

Read the full review at http://pixelatedpopcorn.blogspot.com/2009/06/review-pitik-bulag-15.html.

Ang Manghuhula

Director: Paolo Herras (Rekados)

Starring: Eula Valdez, Glaiza de Castro, Emilio Garcia

Ang Manghuhula is a mess. With numerous missteps in direction and editing, the drama largely feels flat and unaffecting. The ineffective editing doesn’t make the scenes flow seamlessly to the next. Peek into the future, I’m sure you won’t see Ang Manghuhula receiving any compliments.

Read the full review at http://pixelatedpopcorn.blogspot.com/2009/09/review-manghuhula-15.html.

Aside from Pitik-Bulag, Ang Manghuhula and Sagrada Familia are also Graded A by the Cinema Evaluation Board (CEB). What a flagrant display of lack of taste. Why don’t we abolish CEB? Isama na rin ang inutil na MTRCB!