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My Amnesia Girl, a Star Cinema production directed by Cathy Garcia Molina, starring John Lloyd Cruz and Toni Gonzaga

The first 30 minutes: An engaging romantic comedy. The next hour and a half: Filler. With no characters to develop and no more plot lines to reveal, the filmmakers use up the time with jokes. They are cute at first (being of the “Hindi tayo hayop, hindi tayo tao, bagay tayo” variety) but quickly grow tiresome. This may be the first motion picture conceived as a series of SMS jokes.

John Lloyd Cruz is a wonderful actor because he can say bloodcurdling lines with total conviction. Toni Gonzaga has loads of charm and great comic timing. They are both wasted in this project. As is the case with many Cathy Molina Garcia movies, the lead characters are surrounded by friends who have no lives of their own, who exist only to comment on the leads’ relationship.

The fact that My Amnesia Girl is the sort of picture that is generally described as “well-made” only makes its shortcomings more egregious.

To my shock and awe I have just realized that I am in the wrong profession. I should be running an extortion ring.

I went to the wish registry at Adora, picked out the presents I wanted, sent out the postcards to selected targets, and voila.

It worked. My friend gave me the Ray-Ban Colorized Wayfarers I had coveted but would not think of buying for myself because I am a vintage eyeglass frames-thrift shop-flea market snob. I have always known the power of emotional blackmail—my cats use it to control me—but this could have long-term effects on my weltanschauung (Avarice sounds more palatable in conjunction with something Teutonic).

Of course we know from fairy tales that wishes are fraught with complications and plot twists, so we have composed these ground rules for registering your wishes.

1. Only make your wishes known—that is, extort—from the people who know you well enough to appreciate the humor/irony of the situation.
2. Only extort from those who love you and find your acquisitiveness amusing because they know it does not define you.
3. Only extort from those you love because you are giving them the right to extort from you. When it’s your turn to grant their wishes you will want to do so freely and happily and not just because you owe them something. (Tit for tat is so bourgeois.)

And don’t forget to encourage your friends to put their wishes out there because you never know what’ll happen.

Shokot
noun
1 Fear, takot: namatay sa shokot.

Phrases
shokot na shokot: deathly afraid
nakakashokot: terrifying

I am in training for the holidays. This week so far I have hauled my antisocial self to two parties. And there has been no body count, but the week isn’t over. Last night: The Shokot Wrap and One Month Before Xmas Party.

This just wrapped: Patayin Sa Shokot Si Remington, the gay zombie horror-comedy written by Raymond Lee, Michiko Yamamoto and Jade Castro, directed by Jade Castro. They are now doing post-production and mulling over the title. I vote Shokot!

The fabulous Raymond Lee (make-up by Chus Lozada) hosted the party at Mogwai at Cubao Expo. Raymond has brought back the One Month Before Xmas Party, an annual ritual we approve of. At the last OMBXP (Was that six years ago?) we met Ettore Paterno del Toscano of Catania, who lectured us on the misrepresentation of Sicilians in American cinema. Ettore if you’re reading this, Ciao bello!

Sherad Sanchez, auteur of Ang Huling Balyan Ng Buhi and Imburnal, updated us on his Scandinavian saga.

This is a rare-ish photo of the gorgeous, reclusive Michiko Yamamoto, writer of Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros, Endo, and other films that keep alive our hopes for Philippine cinema.

We are posting this picture of the acclaimed visual artist Geraldine Javier in the hope that she will cough up a painting for us. Cough up, like a hairball. We would buy a hairball by Geraldine Javier. Her next exhibit is in South Korea. Good luck!

The stars of Shokot: the great Roderick Paulate, director Jade Castro, and actor Mark Escudero who is hysterically funny as Remington the boy who lives with a curse. Apologies for the red-eye effect that makes them look like zombadings.

We have figured out what we want for Xmas: a Roderick Paulate Blu-ray boxed set including Kumander Gringa, Petrang Kabayo, and Engkantadang Kangkarot. And Alkitrang Dugo, the Nora Aunor-produced Tagalog adaptation of Lord of the Flies. (Yes, Filipino producers used to adapt books like Lord of the Flies.) And Scotch on the Rocks to Forget, Black Coffee to Remember, the legendary English-language movie by Ishmael Bernal, starring Rita Gomez. Legendary because we’ve heard of it but no one seems to have seen it.

Roderick Paulate’s imdb page is not complete. He says that according to his late father’s list, he had made 150 movies by 1986. The list does not include all the Regal comedies like Gringa, which in the late 80s opened every month. So if there are movie nerds out there with a complete Roderick filmography, help.

This is line with our discussion of beauty and Darwinian theory.

My friend Michael P the genomics guy was in town recently. We remembered to ask him the question which has boggled us for many years:

When a Filipina who is not particularly good-looking* has children with a foreigner who might be downright unprepossessing**, why are the issue usually beautiful***?

* Yes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, we are oversimplifying for purposes of discussion.
* * You can give us the political correctness lecture, but you know what we shallow people mean.
* * * In Tagalog, which sounds more cruel but possesses a visceral accuracy: Bakit pag nagkaanak ang Pinay na hindi naman kagandahan sa dayuhan na lalong hindi maganda, ang mga anak ay mukhang artista?

“That phenomenon is called transgressive segregation,” Michael said.

There is a name for it!

“It’s when you have two parents with different phenotypes and the progeny have phenotypes that are outside the range that you see in the parents. For example, if the dad is 5’8″ and the mom is 5’0, but some of their kids are 6’1″. Happens a lot,” he continued.

“Why are the children gorgeous when the parents are. . .not?”

“The trait you refer to has multiple genes, so you can get a mix not found in either parent,” said our genetics authority.

Here’s an article on transgressive segregation in Heredity. It is studied in hybrid plant populations.

“Some readers have pointed out that the progeny is more likely to be beautiful if the Filipino parent is the mother rather than the father.”

“Then it is a sex-biased transgressive segregation.”

We should get a grant to do the ground-breaking research.

That would explain so much. And justify some very strange behavior.

Watch this video, and then we will discuss.

It’s a stretch, but an entertaining stretch.

Leo Abaya, art professor: “What I am thoroughly convinced about is that the hand axe and its long predominance in the history of prehistoric man does not really prove our being hard-wired to beauty, as such. In fact this claim is too adventurous especially with the absence of language at the time. Being drawn to certain forms or configurations does not necessarily prove our primeval propensity for beauty, maybe just for order. Beauty is much more complex, adaptive, and subjective, even with language.

“What the lecture does manifest is the idea that the anthropologist proposed: that it took a very long time for primitive man to be conscious of the relationship between form and function (tool-making) and the distinction between form and function. Because before these two concepts, everything else was just raw nature, or what primeval man would have instinctually felt: everything outside of himself.

“Moreover, the presentation ignores an important component: man’s relationship to nature and natural phenomena (pleasant and unpleasant, beneficial and hazardous) and how these early forms were related to that functionally or symbolically.”

In sum: Clever, but no cigar.

“It is easy. You just chip away the stone that doesn’t look like David.” Michelangelo on how he sculpted David. Photo and quote from www.michelangelo.com.

It was Jose’s belated birthday celebration last night at Attica. I don’t know about you, but when I hear “Attica” I think of Al Pacino yelling in front of the bank in Dog Day Afternoon. This Attica is a bar in A Venue. On Wednesdays they have open-mic night and anyone who wants to sing is accompanied by a guitarist.

Joey

They had the printed set list on the tables. I discovered to my horror that if forced to sing I would have to render something by Oasis. (This abomination is foretold in Revelations.) And mere weeks after I sat through a Malaysian band doing “What’s Going On” by Four Non-Blondes, a song that makes me want to burn down buildings and parked cars.

Noel
I wore The One Ring. Of course it’s a replica, fool, the real one was dissolved in the fires of Mount Doom.

I am shiny because even if it’s a replica it’s still heavy. Nah, I’m always shiny.

While the opening act was onstage we nerds sat in the balcony and schemed towards world domination or at least spectacular wealth. We decided that with our first few million dollars we will buy that odd, beautiful building across the street.

We went back inside just as Jose was launching into his killer rendition of “Creep”.

After Jose someone sang “Don’t Speak” and someone else sang that Eric Clapton song that was the theme of the movie where John Travolta sees a meteor or something and becomes a genius.

A cover of “Whenever Wherever Whatever” prompted the question, “Where is Maxwell?”

“He’s making a comeback,” Joey and Noel said. “He cut off his hair and wears glasses now.”

“Maxwell cut off his hair?? Is he insane??!” Then we discussed the various phases of Lenny Kravitz and which one we liked best. And whether open-mic acoustic nights should have a maximum song rule because what if someone refuses to relinquish the microphone, and we don’t care how well that guy sings, he’s already done three in a row.

Happy Birthday, Jose!