Casual Cogitations

The following is a scientific test designed to examine your soul. Please answer the following questions as honestly as possible.

1. Describe your feelings about directors Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer. In case the names do not ring a bell, please be aware that they are the two responsible for Date Movie, Epic Movie, Meet The Spartans and now Disaster Movie.
A. Two no-talent hacks who somehow keep managing to get work that pays quite well.
B. They look just like the bees I saw yesterday.
C. The two gods of awesome.

2. Which films do you think a film called Disaster Movie should spoof?
A. Titanic, Volcano, Independence Day, Deep Impact, Armageddon and I Am Legend
B. The entire filmography of Gus Van Sant.
C. Whatever f—-ing blockbuster movies came out most recently, so that they are fresh in my mind.

3. If Hellboy, The Incredible Hulk, Batman, and other iconic movie characters of 2008 appear onscreen in a comedy, what should they do?
A. Something entertaining that justifies their appearance.
B. Paint the cobblestones on Piper Street.
C. Introduce themselves, because I'm totally going to forget who they are if they don't say whatever.

4. Seeing an Amy Winehouse look-alike burping for about one minute straight is…
A. Dumb and unfunny.
B. Smelly like a fish, but also revealing.
C. Best joke ever. Can we make it two minutes, please?

5. Disaster Movie makes a point to criticize the writing in Juno on numerous occasions. What is your reaction to this?
A. The writing in Juno may be worthy of mockery at times, but the people who made Disaster Movie have absolutely no right to criticize the writing of any film, much less Juno.
B. There are lots of good writers in Alaska.
C. Dude, that is so spot-on. I couldn't understand that whore in that movie, anyway. All those obscure references were totally over my head. Arrogant little jerk.

6. A man falls into a giant pile of fecal matter. He then utters the word, "S-t!" What is your reaction to this?
A. Quite an obvious and unfunny gag.
B. Did he have any quarters in his pocket? I hope not, we wouldn't want them sullied.
C. Hahahahaha! That is brilliant, because the dude fell into a pile of s-t, and then he said, "S-t!," so it's like all connected. Haha.

7. Should every female character in a film be referred to as a bitch and/or whore at some point in a film?
A. Such demeaning language indicates a profound level of disrespect for women. Unless the film is attempting to reflect such unfortunate attitudes, no, such language should not be used.
B. If they are wearing turtles on their heads.
C. Yes, because you gotta be keeping them bitches in line.

8. Which of the three following activities appeal the most to you?
A. Reading a really good book.
B. Pondering the meaning of swiss cheese. Where are the missing pieces?
C. Kicking people in the balls.

9. Which category would you say best describes the type of humor you like?
A. Sharp satire, well-staged slapstick, witty dialogue.
B. Anything involving the word "esoteric."
C. Balls, wieners, boobies, butts, and lots of pee and poo.

10. What should a movie spoof attempt to do?
A. Satirize some of the weaker points of a film.
B. Blow bubbles until one is shaped like a queen.
C. Simply offer an amateurish version of a popular scene from a popular movie trailer, and add some sort of painfully one-dimensional sexual and/or crass context.

Okay, please tally your answers. Got it? All right, let's see how you did.

If you answered "A" to the majority of the questions, congratulations. You are permitted go on about your business, skip Disaster Movie and have children.

If you answered "B" to the majority of the questions, you are either insane or high. If the former, then you certainly need to seek help. If the latter…um…got anything for me? It's been a bad day.

If you answered "C" to the majority of the questions, then you will love this film. It will make you laugh endlessly, until you forget about it ten minutes later due to the state of your badly-damaged brain. In fact, you probably didn't make it this far, but rather quit three questions into the survey and started surfing the web for free 15-second porn clips.

Believe it or not, but Disaster Movie is the only recent spoof that actually lives up to its title. A painfully disastrous mess, this is just another embarrassing comedy that spends almost 90 minutes making shameless fun of the year's biggest blockbusters and celebrities. Now, I don't have anything against spoofs in general, but making fun of other flicks the correct way takes quite a bit of creativity, and that's exactly what Disaster Movie is missing.

Laughs are obviously nonexistent in this movie, and nearly every scene suffers from either disgusting slapstick humor or primitive dialogue. Whether it's an Amy Winehouse lookalike burping for 30 seconds straight, Dr. Phil trying to get laid, the Hulk losing his pants, a Juno wannabe beating a male Carrie Bradshaw, or Carmen Electra and Kim Kardashian wrestling with barely any clothes on, the list of embarrassingly bad moments is endless, really.

I feel utterly sorry for everyone who agreed to participate in this cataclysmic failure. I feel sorry for those who decided to green-light the project in the first place, and I feel sorry for those who wrote, directed and starred in it. My suggestion to them is to stop doing whatever it is they're doing, as I sincerely believe it would be for the best of all of us. You can totally hate me for being so harsh here, but this is exactly the kind of film that helps turning Hollywood into even more a shallow place than it already is.

FAMOUS LAST WORDS

The film ends with a parody of Sarah Silverman's "I'm f—-ing Matt Damon," in which all of the characters from the film sing about how they're f—-ing each other. When the song concludes, the viewers will realize that they have just been f—-ed by one of the worst comedies ever made.

If you want to insult your own intelligence, go ahead and watch this, but I can only recommend you stay away from this stinker as far as possible.

I must say, after being acquainted with this perpetual television rivalry for supremacy, my hands were eager for some action, I couldn’t wait to backfire everything I just read, in spite of the fact that I have no interest or past experience when it comes to anything remotely related to our Filipino entertainment commerce since I turned eight pips and set out to exhibit myself to series' that didn’t make me bash my own head to the wall day in, day out even before the credits begun rolling.

Truth be told, I don’t really give a hoot about ratings or such, as long as I get good quality programs. That’s probably why I am not bombarded with regular messages explaining some discrepancies in data gatherings for ratings in certain towns, on contrast to most patriots who struggle to watch our local news. I just don’t care.

At any rate, I like to disagree, if I may, with this faceted belligerency. It dawned upon me that the reason behind all this fuss is money. For us consumers ratings could simply be indicators of how popular a television (or radio) channel or network is, for a given time of the day. However, for the network and for the media industry, ratings represent pricing power. For media that are not able to count exact “hits” or “page views” ratings are used as an indication of popularity and reach. This translates to how much the television network or station can charge advertisers, particularly as they price ad spots on cost per thousand pairs of eyeballs (or impressions, if that’s a better term).

I can say that metrics and such “ratings” go only as far as being helpful as “first impressions” of a T.V series. What matters more to me is the quality of the content, and relevancy to my interests, and of course, if the show is able to reach out to me in a way I like. I would rather watch intelligently-written and presented TV series from a channel with low ratings, than watch crappy programming just because it’s popular among viewers.

So how about those networks with their rating wars? I’d say just focus on fixing the quality of your content, and perhaps the good ratings will follow.

Unfortunately everything I said up to this point is numb and insensible, because like I said, I do not even bother to glance around our local channels to begin with. If only I had a gentle heart and consider the fact that the Philippine entertainment industry is in its infancy compared to American and other national entertainment industries (not taking into account the third-world budgetary constraints imposed on most productions), I would just close my eyes to the small, forgivable faux pas and scapegoat formulas filmmakers resort to.

The real culprit I surmise is the “Pwede na ‘yan!” attitude and mentality ingrained in the Filipino consciousness. We as a people make do with mediocrity and just shrug, “Pwede na ‘yan. Di na ‘yan mapapansin” Unless we delete this pwede na ‘yan mentality, we will never progress.

The bad news for the entertainment commerce is that viewers are more intelligent these days and they know when they are being treated as fools or shortchanged. The good news though is that producers, directors and people in the industry are slowly realizing that quality, in the end, will thrill the viewers, make or break a show and determine its mass appeal.

Regretfully so, that is not where it stops. Because Filipino programs are not simply for entertainment; it's a reflection of the Filipino culture and these show also help shape up the identity and help shape further the culture of the Filipinos. And from what I’ve seen, the entertainment industry doesn’t crave for new concepts, ideas and twists, they’re fine with the way things are, and that my friend, is being sorely mediocre at best.

Avert your eyes all you want, but lets face it, how many times did a show made you scream out loud these questions: Why does the car always does a somersault and end up exploding in car chases? Why does the gun of the protagonist never runs out of bullets and gunmen never hits their targets despite the raining bullets? I’m sick and tired of having to sit through a show/film watching an amnesiac lead character be bumped in the head to miraculously get his/her memory to get back. Or the painfully dull and tedious rags to riches story, where the poor, underdog heroine who is being maltreated by her mother will soon find out that she's just adopted and really belongs to a filthy rich family. The puzzling thing is that the writers, producers and directors must be aware of how trite these scenes are, yet they still resort to the same formulas.

I don’t blame that Chinese journalist for stereotyping us as the nation of slaves, regardless of the fact that thousands of OFWs are employed in Hong Kong households as housemaids, helper or chambermaids, of course. Simply because not only that we act and look like a slave of nations, we don’t do feces to prove them wrong.

However, I do like the idea of a wide-awake media, without regard for their reasons, because I recall a Jefferson line that really had this resounding deep insight, ”The price of freedom is eternal vigilance” . And in our case, Filipino programs are always sleeplessly watchful on anything that pops out. Funny to think that there finally came a day when having an excessively greedy and power-hungry media became the safe-guard of our democracy.

There's very little here that's left to chance here. In less than four minutes, they establish who this character is and leave him dangling on the edge of death. Over the next 30 minutes, we learn Stark is whip smart, has the resources to do whatever he wants, and most of all has the passion and determination to pull it all off, no matter the cost. Now imagine that power in the hands of someone whose entire life has been turned inside out and the consequences of his lifelong actions have returned to haunt him 100 fold. This field is fertile beyond belief and they cultivate it well. From the opening title card to the crash of the Mark I, this is hands down the most impressive Marvel character adaptation to date. And yeah, I'm callin' you out Spidey.

Bringing Iron Man to the big screen must have been tough. Sure, the high-tech armor and all the explosions are no-brainers, but the character behind the armor is tougher to pin down. Superman and Spider-Man are likable every man, Batman is a brooding (and therefore cool) loner, and the Hulk and the X-Men are sympathetic, misunderstood monsters. But Tony Stark? He's an obnoxious bastard. He rubs people the wrong way, he makes bad decisions, and he often puts his own needs and wants above others. If you were to meet him, you'd probably think, "What a rich jerk."

So how do you make this guy a hero for audiences to root for? One option would have been to toss out the character as originally written and go in some other direction. Another option would to have made his change of heart—so to speak—in the movie a "night and day" juxtaposition, where's he's only a jerkwad before he becomes Iron Man, and then he's a newly stalwart Tony afterward. Favreau and the screenwriters, however, take the path less traveled, by sticking with an unlikable protagonist throughout. Sure, Tony sees life in a new light after his Afghanistan escape, and he's newly devoted to doing the right thing, but he's still Tony. He still loves the parties and the hot cars, and he still doesn't give a damn what anyone else thinks of him. Funny thing about unlikable protagonists—when written well, we do end up liking them in a way, simply because they're fascinating characters.

Shouldering the burden of this performance—and the entire film, really—is Robert Downey Jr. Some have said that Downey Jr. is merely playing himself in the movie, and others have drawn parallels between the actor and the fictional character. I won't disagree, but if that's what he needs to inform his performance, than why not? Downey Jr. carries the movie with loads of cocky swagger, but there's just enough of a glimpse to Tony's underlying humanity seen here and there to let us know that he's not really that bad of a guy.

For as well-made and fun as this movie is, it made some serious narrative missteps during its climax, just slightly tainting the enjoyment of the overall film. As noted above, the finale does offer some action, but it's not really the big, larger-than-life set piece the movie needs at this point. The finale starts with Iron Man not at full strength, with his suit's automated system already telling him he's losing power. Wouldn't it have been more exciting to Iron Man cut loose with all his firepower, instead of being in a weakened state for the whole fight?

Even worse, it's here that the movie falls into cheesy superhero clichés, giving Paltrow embarrassing lines like "He's gone insane!" and "But you'll dieeee!!!" Likewise, Stane has an awkward line about his targeting system, which will give all the Star Wars haters nightmare flashbacks to that whole "I've got the high ground" thing. With all the careful thought and planning that went into this movie, it's too bad they couldn't go the extra mile for the finale.

Downey makes this character and the movie. The levels he explores are as fascinating as the game plan that Jon Favreau, Peter Billingsley, and their creative team put together. Iron Man is a rare nuanced superhero adventure—loud and boisterous when it needs to be, but thoughtful and provocative at its core. I can't wait to see where they go from here.


The world needs another comic book movie like it needs another Bush administration, but if we must have one more (and the Evil Marketing Geniuses at Marvel MegaIndustries will do their utmost to ensure that we always will), Iron Man is a swell one to have. Not only is it a good comic book movie (smart and stupid, stirring and silly, intimate and spectacular), it's winning enough to engage even those who've never cared much for comic books or the movies they spawn.