My Weekend... Bow

As promised, I'll be telling you guys what happened with my weekend.  See here, my two friends from high school, Betty and Wilma (their real names), kinda coaxed me to watch the new Vilma Santos flick, "In My Life" because they thought that I could prolly relate to the movie. The story is about a Filipina mother who decides to go to New York to live with her Filipino gay son who is currently dating a Filipino gay illegal immigrant and how the three yadi yadi and life yadi yada and the tribulations of illegal immigrants in the US yadi yada yadi plus the issues of parenting and gayness yadi yada yadi yada true love in time of prostate cancer yadi yada. The movie sucked ass (and not in a good way mind you). It wasn't that I was hoping for a full frontal nudity from both of the actors or even from Vilma Santos (although a full frontal from Vilma woulda been nice), but the movie was just too commercial that it didn't even pretend to be a proper film.  Don't get me wrong,  I'm okay with gay themed films, I'm gay after all.  I'm just way too tired of films purporting to be gay because of the following reasons:

1. that there are gay characters in the movie.
2. that these gay characters would either be a gogo boy, a hustler, a drug addict, a psycho or a priest.
3. that these gay characters would have a full frontal in the movie or...
4. that these gay characters would suck faces in the movie like "normal" people would suck faces
5. that these one or two or all the gay characters would die at the end of the film
6. that these gay characters are not really gay but they're doing it because a gay role does boost ones market value in the business

OK. Just to get things straight (nyahahaha), I don't mind the nudity.  I'm comfortable with nudity.  But it seems that there is a current trend in Philippine Independent Cinema that an indie gay film would always involve nudity in all scenes.  I've seen some films wherein I was absolutely sure that the frontal nudity, oral and anal sex was used because they didn't have any idea what to do with the scene.  Like, OK, there's still more film before that gogo dancer character OD's and dies, so why don't we have a blowjob scene between the breakfast table scene and the dinner table scene and an anal sex scene between the morning that he wakes up scene and the night that he realizes that he was the son of his regular John scene? There we have it! Voila! Gay film 101.  I'm not being a hypocrite.  I like those scenes alright, but they have just become waaaaay too trite for my taste.  ITS ALL OVER GAY INDEPENDENT CINEMA?!?!?! CAN'T WE THINK OF SOMETHING ELSE? I'm sure you guys can Google something up.  The funny thing is, we {me included} know that this movie is gonna suck but we still wanna watch it because this up and coming model something something is showing his dick or getting blown by someone. Let's lay low on the dick show a little and focus more on developing the plot.  Some of these films that I've seen are even story worthy but the problem is its way too underdeveloped. I mean dudes, if yer just gonna fill up a scene with dicks and asses then I've already got  BADPUPPY and SEANCODY and BILATINMEN and BROKESTRAIGHTBOYS and BAITBUS {OK I'M WRITING WAAAAY TOO MANY PORN SITES NOW} for that.

"In My Life" sucked ass for two reasons:

  

One, the title sucked.  I think the executives just thought of a title that their singer baby could sing in the whooooooole goddamned movie.  The soundtrack sucked.  It was all midi.  An independent film could've done better in the soundtrack department.  Two, the plot was trite and waaaay too predictable.  It's like, haven't I've watched this before in the Hallmark Channel?  I paid 160 pesos for this? To see John Lloyd and Lucky Me brush lips for .5 nanoseconds?  OK I didn't pay, Wilma did. I did like the way Vilma Santos acted.  I love it when she acts her age for a change.  Although there was a lotta shouting which gave me a headache.  

Here's a thought.  Why can't we make Filipino gay films...

• wherein there are no gay characters in the movie?  {is it even possible.  YES, I think it is. Eversince Moulin Rouge, I think anything is possible}
• wherein nobody would die of AIDS, cancer, accident, natural calamity or sheer boredom
• wherein the characters are actual people NOT commercial model beef cakes
• wherein the characters are actually gay? 
• wherein the plot is not copied from another gay film?
• wherein the title didn't come from a song?

Honestly my gay brothers and sisters in the film industry, we could really do much better.  Say that Maximo Oliveros movie about the blossoming of a 12 year old gay kid growing up in the slums of Manila, I liked it.  Sure somebody died in the end but it had all the right elements.  It had the right mix of comedy and drama and struggle.  AND THERE WASN'T ANY SHOUTING OR NUDITY INVOLVED.  

Nuff of that already.

The highlight of the night was not the movie.  Actually there was two.  

First was the chicken that I ate in Don Henrico's. It was AWE-SUUUUUUUM. If you ever eat at Don Henrico's in Manila look for the Captain Crunch Something something Chicken. I think I ate about 10 or something.  Yum.

Second was because of what happened after the movie.  See, my friend Betty loves and jizzes over John Lloyd Cruz although I don't know why but she just adores him.  He's not a bad actor by the way.  Anyways, I was telling her throughout the entire film that John Lloyd looked like one of our classmates back in high school, Paul {not his real name}.  You see, Paul here, is supposedly a closet case.  Now I don't care if somebody's a closet case because I was once in there myself.  Whatever floats yer boat, I always say. It's your business to be in the closet because maybe you have an ample amount of closet space or maybe you're closet value has gone up two points and it's worth a timeshare.  Good for you!  But it infuriates me when some people in the closet mind OTHER PEOPLE'S CLOSETS {straight or gay}. You see, Paul has an attitude.  He likes to OUT people who are not in the room. Like one of my good friends in high school who got pregnant early. She's an intelligent and independent woman who just happened to get pregnant before she got hitched.  We had sort of a highschool reunion in one of our classmate's house 5 years after our graduation.  During that get together, he started talking about her being pregnant and all like it was something vile and to be despised at. He was talking as if he was standing on top of Mt. Fuji or something. Then there was another recent incident wherein he said to a group of our former classmates that another former classmate in high school is gay. The person in question was not in the room {of course}. He delivered the "news" in such a way to illicit a booming reaction from our male highschool friends who reacted like this:

"LIKE WHOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA MC SCRUNGY IS GAY?!?!?! WOHOHOHOHO. WHODATHUNK DUDE?!?!"

then they went on drinking their beers and pissing in the wind and shit.  

I'm glad I wasn't there at that time or I could've said an expletive or two {maybe three}.

OK.  So it appears that I don't like Paul.  OK I don't like him.  Well so does Betty and Wilma.  So while we were watching the suckfest movie that was IN MY FRIGGEN LIFE, I kept commenting to Betty how John Lloyd looked like Paul and like a true John Lloyd fan, she kept defending his honor.  So yeah, the banter went on the entire movie until the movie finally FINALLY ENDED WITH SARAH GERONIMO SINGING IN MY FRIGGEN LIFE! Credits.  Lights on.  AND LO AND FUCKING BEHOLD WHO DO I SEE ON OUR SAME ROW ACROSS THE OTHER AISLE!?!?!??!?!?!?

ASHTON FUCKING KUTCHER!

ANDERSON FUCKING COOPER!

WALTER FUCKING CRONKITE OH HE'S DEAD

KANYE FUCKING WEST WHO CARES!

BARBARA FUCKING WALTERS YESSS BUT NOT REALLY!

Paul! 

Fucking Paul. 

And not only fucking Paul! 

Fucking Paul with a fucking guy!

THE UNIVERSE RULES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Little old humble me was not only flabbergasted but in times like these when the Universe decides to reveal one of her little secrets to lowly persons like me, what does one do?

I PANICKED GODDAMNIT!

Here's what I said on verbatim

"Paul?

..... Paul?????.....

PAUUL!!!!!!"

Mind you, I did all this with my right pointy finger pointed at him.  I think I pointed at him three times like with every name there was a point. 

 "Paul? (point).... 
Paul???? (point) 
PAUUL!!!!!! (point point) 

OK. It was four.

I should've called him Blanche at that time because he was as pale as a mayonnaise when he saw not one, not two, but three of his former high school classmates watching the same  gay film that sucked ass, in the same movie theater, and seated in the same row with him and his "companion". Now Betty and Wilma were a bit slow on the uptake and thought I was still joking. But when they looked at the direction where I was looking they were both......

gleeful.  

If you would've seen the look on their faces it was like they were in  a MasterCard commercial. 

Whereas I, was in total panic.  You see, I was still so overwhelmed that the Universe had decided to bless me with glad tidings on that night that I didn't know what to do!  I hate this about myself.  Fuck I screwed it up. Well, said Wilma and Betty.  I think I did really.  Wilma was about to throw Paul the bone laced with cyanide while Betty was about to cheer her on {they were both friends of the preggy girl that Paul decided to broadcast to our friends years back} when I kept talking and talking and talking.  Honestly I wanted to laugh like laugh that sinister laugh that would ring throughout the walls of that cinema so I could vindicate all of Paul's victims of his Kanyeistic acts back in high school and after but I couldn't because I might die of so much rapture and bliss and as much as I would have wanted to, I couldn't because I still had to write my Great American Novel which is about a Gogo Boy from the Bronx who decides to leave his night job to help poor people in some Third World Country so he could find meaning in his life and thus end up finding the love of his life who happened to be his father in two previous lives. (How do you like them apples?!?!? Huh huh!)  So I kept talking and babbling just so I wouldn't laugh.   

Fuck me hard till Tuesday.   

I screwed it.  

I still hate myself for screwing it. 

Wilma and Betty made that known to me a number of times during the night and they decided to play a practical joke on me by changing one of my contact names on my cell {I think it was Wima's} to Paul's name.  I still hate them for doing that.  

Still, I had fun that night.  See, the funnest part was after Wilma and I got out of the cinema.  We were waiting for Betty who was in the ladies room because of the impending flood that was about to come gushing out between her legs.  As we were waiting outside, Paul and his companion were coming out {no pun intended}.  See, Paul took his sweet time to leave the cinema thinking that the three of us have already left.  What he didn't know was that Betty drank a whole gallon of iced tea at Don Henrico's and she just held the floodgates during the movie because of John Lloyd fucking Cruz.  So Paul and his companion were there.  He definitely saw Wilma and me. Well I waved to make sure that he saw us.  In a panic, Paul and his companion didn't know whether to turn left or right thus they ended up bumping each other then turning right before giving the two of us a quick wave goodbye. 

So that was my night with my two highschool friends, and with the highschool classmate that we didn't like and with the Universe telling us that life is really worth living sometimes.   And by the way, Paul doesn't in any way look like John Lloyd Cruz.