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Ms Celia Rodriguez at the screening of Gerardo de Leon’s Lilet, introduced by the Filipino pop cinema specialist and filmmaker (the epic Search for Weng Weng), Andrew Leavold.

Celia Rodriguez is a contravida in real life, but only to the mediocre and stupid. Listen to or download part 1 of our conversation with Celia Rodriguez at the podcast page.

Our favorite Celia Rodriguez contravida lines:

1. In Lipad, Darna, Lipad!, where Valentina is dining al fresco at the Manila Hotel and she spots the flying Darna and says, “Sino ang babaeng yan na mababa ang lipad?” (For non-Tagalog speakers: “Who is that low-flying woman?” Low-flying as in “tramp”.)

2. From Renly: In Joey Gosiengfiao’s Nights of Serafina, where the lovers have a tryst in a barn strewn with candles for that sexy mood. Unfortunately the hay catches fire (Tanga). The lovers burn to death, naked. In the next scene, they are charcoal in each other’s arms. As they are carried away, Celia says, “Yan ang nararapat sa naglalaro ng apoy.” (“That’s what happens when you play with fire.”)

3. From Louie: In Mario O’Hara’s Bulaklak sa City Jail, when Nora Aunor and Celia enter the prison and Zenaida Amador asks Celia why she’s back.

Zenaida: Ba’t bumalik ka na naman, ano na naman ang kaso mo? (“Why are you back?)
Celia: Ano pa, di pagpuputa, mayroon pa bang iba? (“Whoring, what else?”)

What are your favorite Celia Rodriguez lines?

L-R: Robin Wright, Naomi Watts, James Frecheville and Xavier Samuel in Adore, a.k.a Perfect Mothers, based on The Grandmothers, a story by Doris Lessing

Recently we saw Adore (a.k.a. Perfect Mothers), which stars Naomi Watts and Robin Wright as best friends, both single mothers, who have long-standing affairs with each other’s sons. It sounds ooky, but in the film by Anne Fontaine it makes perfect sense because everyone is so beautiful, the setting is so beautiful (Seal Rocks, a coastal village in NSW, Australia), and everyone behaves in a civilized manner. Maybe too civilized, considering the movie could’ve been called The Mofos (thus raising its box-office potential). Despite the “taboo” storyline (though it’s not incest and the sons are of age) and the sumptuously-photographed erotic scenes, everything comes across as healthy and wholesome. It’s not as if anyone were trying very hard to hide their affair; nearly every scene takes place in glorious sunshine.

Later we found that Adore is based on The Grandmothers, a recent short story by Doris Lessing, who died yesterday. We wonder how close the adaptation is to its source.

Here’s Doris Lessing’s priceless reaction to hearing that she’s won the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Celia Rodriguez today, with the director of the Valentina episode of Lipad, Darna, Lipad!, Elwood Perez.

On Sunday afternoon we had drinks and a fascinating chat with our favorite cinematic supervillain Celia Rodriguez, the definitive Valentina, Darna’s snake-haired nemesis. We’d post the podcast right now, but we have to review the recording carefully lest we get sued by the people we talked about haha. Here’s an excerpt.

You will never see Celia Rodriguez in public not looking like a star—she considers it her obligation to the audience. So we had to dress properly in order to hang out with her.

Us: How was Valentina’s snake hair done in the era before digital effects?

Celia Rodriguez: Those snakes are igat, water snakes, delicacies in Bulacan. Elwood said, “I don’t want anything artificial.” I said, “Fine, as long as they don’t bite me.” They’re slimy and smelly, and they don’t thrive anywhere except in water. They put prosthetics on me so that I would look kalbo. Cecile Baun was one of the greatest when it comes to mga ganyan.

I was playing a model from New Delhi, so nakakulot ang pilik-mata ko. Pag nagsasalita ako in Hindu, gumagalaw ang mga igat, napupunta sa pilik-mata ko, pumapasok sa tenga ko. Sabi ni Elwood, “Good, good, don’t say anything. Cut! Perfect!” “Ay *&^%$#@ niyo, alis! Alis!” Isang batya, puro igat.

Our podcast with Celia Rodriguez is coming up midweek.

Javier Bardem, Javier Bardem’s hair, Javier Bardem’s outfit, and Michael Fassbender in Ridley Scott’s The Counselor

– Aaaaaa! The latest in Javier Bardem’s gallery of bad hairstyles. What’s the ranking for this?
– It knocks his hair in Skyfall out of third place. His No Country For Old Men moptop is still second, and the indescribable coiffure in Love in the Time of Cholera first.
– Hmm. I think Fassbender should always play cold characters.
– I can’t think of any warm characters he’s played.
– Cameron Diaz is beginning to look like Ellen Barkin, only Ellen doesn’t have to try so hard to be freaky and scary.
– This is weird. The characters talk too much.
– Worse, they’re speechifying. In quaint, ponderous English. Who wrote this?
– Cormac McCarthy.
– What!! Well, it could be a not-bad radio play. From 1920.
– It sounds like they’re reading a mediocre Cormac McCarthy novel out loud.
– I suspect they treated his screenplay like a sacred text. Couldn’t bring themselves to cut the blather.
– And no Coen Brothers (No Country For Old Men) to whip it into shape for cinema.
– Are we allowed to describe dialogue written by the author of Blood Meridian as “sophomoric pseudo-philosophical drivel”?
– As we are sitting through it, yes.
(Onscreen Bardem asks, “Do you know what a bolito is?”
– I know! Seamen use those.
– Is Fassbender going to show it to us again? Oh, it’s a different bolito.
– So everyone warns Counselor Fassbender that he’s taking a huge risk and getting himself into trouble, but nothing is shown us so we have to take their word for it.
– Fine the movie is less interested in the procedural than the philosophical, but the philosophy is so…baduy.
– Why did he say “My back’s against the wall?” His life is fine, he just gave Penelope Cruz a humongous diamond.
– I love Fassy, but he needs to moisturize. Brad Pitt is 13 years older and they look to be the same age.
– Where are we having dinner afterwards?
– Exactly what I was thinking.
– It’s never a good sign when you’re watching a movie by a major director, with big stars, written by an important novelist, and you’d rather think of food.
– Oh, I’ve heard about the catfish scene. Gross.
– Pardon the disrespect, but this is like two old guys trying really hard to be cool.
– I want Al Pacino’s Scarface to turn up with a machine gun. “Say hello to my leetle fren!”
– What about Shi Lin?
– I’m tuning out the dialogue, but I like the furniture and the decor.
– You can’t make movies about Mexican drug cartels anymore. Breaking Bad was too good.
– Look, it’s Hank Schrader! Miss you, Hank!
– Wooden Spoon?
– What was the point of that scene with Edgar Ramirez in church?
– Or of John Leguizamo’s appearance?
– Or of Bruno Ganz’s?
– So Bruno could use the word “cautionary”. Tan-tan-tan!
– That monologue by Ruben Blades is straight out of a high school literary journal.
– CPK?
– Incoherent storytelling and ridiculous dialogue. Even the musical score is slapdash. Sumptuous visuals, but for what?
– Great, it’s over but I still don’t know what was happening.
– And I still don’t care.

Verdict: Skip it. Spare yourself.

* * * * *

Watch Fight Club in GIFs.

Last Saturday we attended a screening of the 1971 gothic melodrama Lilet, organized by the Society of Filipino Archivists for Film (SOFIA) on the occasion of the great filmmaker Gerardo De Leon’s centenary. More on the movie (And we’re doing a podcast with Celia Rodriguez!!!) later. After the screening, organizer Onat Rios had his picture taken with us. We could hardly decline to pose with our gracious host, but we don’t have to show you the picture. As far as we’re concerned, the most terrifying thing about it is our triple-chin.

But Onat pointed out that there are orbs in the photo, notably the one next to his head. Orbs are circles that are supposed to indicate ghostly presences. “Naah,” we said, “That’s not a mumu, that’s probably our mummudrai.” Onat wanted an expert opinion, so we asked a professional photographer, who said the circle was caused by a dirty camera lens or sensor, or a drop of water in the air that got blurred in the shot.

And then we showed the photo to our friend Tina, who said it really was an orb. “Is it Gerry de Leon?” we asked. “We should’ve gotten his autograph.” Tina noted that the orb is next to Onat, so it probably has something to do with him. We can believe that the CCP is haunted, if not by ghosts then by dust creatures, because the place really needs a major vacuuming.

As they say in the movie, “Lileeeeeet…Lileeeeeeeeeeet…”

What do you think?