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SANA DATI Official Trailer from Jerrold Tarog on Vimeo.

As the credits rolled, we sat there with tears and snot pouring down our faces and decided that it was not the time to be clever. We were floored, we were gobsmacked, we were won over completely. This is a love story that plays like a suspense thriller—you can sense the tension long before you have an inkling of what’s going on. It is a real romance—you feel yourself brimming with emotion, and you’re not even sure who the lovers are. It is a work of cinematic virtuosity that doesn’t call attention to itself.

We spend a lot of time bitching about Filipino cinema; this is a movie that makes us shut up. All we could say to Jerrold Tarog in a text was: !@#$%^ mo, naiyak kami doon, ang ganda.

Sana Dati. Direction, screenplay, editing, musical score and sound design by Jerrold Tarog.

The remaining screenings:

Today, August 1: 4pm at Trinoma; 4pm at Alabang Town Center; 9pm at CCP Tanghalang Huseng Batute

Tomorrow, August 2: 4pm at Greenbelt 3; 9pm at CCP MKP Hall

Saturday, August 3: 6:30pm at Trinoma

Sunday, August 4: 1:30pm at Trinoma; 1:30pm at Alabang Town Center

He didn’t create the X-Men, he didn’t create Wolverine, but he is the author of the greatest X-Men stories ever written. The Dark Phoenix Saga! Days of Future Past! When we think of the X-Men, we think of the tales spun by Chris Claremont. The Wolverine, now in cinemas, is based on his work and he gets no credit. Not a line, it’s just been pointed out to us, in the ten minutes of end credits. Yeah legalese, corporate ownership, blah blah, but that’s not right. The filmmakers may not acknowledge him, but we know who he is. Thank you, Mr. Claremont. Keep on writing.

Is it an emotional experience, watching these characters you’ve lived with for decades on a movie screen?

Oh, it’s very emotional. It’s a unique sense, when I listen to Hugh Jackman bring some of the characters’ signature lines to life. That’s incredibly cool. I can look over all the five films and see, “That’s mine, that’s mine, and that’s mine.” I wish the “Dark Phoenix” saga had been done more effectively than it was, but that was out of my hands. That, unfortunately, was a clusterfuck from the get-go.

Read Sean Howe’s interview with Chris Claremont.

Yesterday we took a break from Cinemalaya to attend to our chores. Besides, our friends were also busy and we didn’t want to watch the movies alone. One of the things we enjoy the most about Cinemalaya is the discussion/debate that follows the screenings, usually over a very late dinner. We’re resuming our viewing this afternoon with Instant Mommy (We’ve only seen the offline edit) and Sana Dati.

After the aggravation of having the bathroom drain de-clogged (Probably the cats’ fault because they keep kicking kitty litter out of the box), we compiled all the questions you sent in for Tom Rodriguez and added some of our own (You’re a graphic artist. What would be the sigil of House Mott?).

Then we watched My Husband’s Lover. Is it just us, or have they been crying for the last two or three weeks? We did enjoy seeing Kuh Ledesma and Roi Vinzons as the gay husband’s parents. Kuh Ledesma’s character sounds like a lot of moms in denial about their gay sons (“They’re just confused, they need help.”). Roi Vinzons’s character is always holding a drink, which accounts for his constant good cheer, interrupted only by homophobic statements. “You’re lucky your son is very straight,” his brother-in-law declares. Oof.

We hope Joss Whedon’s Much Ado About Nothing gets shown in local theatres; while we wait there’s Kenneth Branagh’s adaptation from 20 years ago. Everyone looks tanned and fabulous: Emma Thompson, Kate Beckinsale, Robert Sean Leonard, Ken. Denzel Washington is insanely hot, and Keanu Reeves is beautiful. Fine, he’s terrible in it, and putting him next to excellent actors doesn’t help, but we’ll always be fond of Keanu.

Much Ado is a hoot—it’s the classic ligawan-tampuhan (courtship-hateship) scenario with gorgeous language. Evil Keanu tries to break up the young lovers, and once again someone comes up with the dopey solution: “Let’s tell the guy the girl has died so he’ll be sorry and they’ll get back together.” Yeah, tell that to Romeo and Juliet.

The best lines go to Benedick and Beatrice, played by Ken and Emma. Every time they’re in the same room they start sniping at each other. So their friends conclude that they really have a thing for each other: as they say in high school, “Uuyyyy, the more you hate, the more you love.” (Fine, sometimes the hatred may be sexual tension, but sometimes it’s just hatred.)

Denzel and co. hatch a plan: they tell Benedick that Beatrice is dying of love for him, and then they tell Beatrice that Benedick is madly in love with her. It works! Watch how classically-trained actors do slapstick, mug shamelessly, and overact intentionally.

“Love me! Why?”

This is the moment in the trailer that convinced us to watch The Diplomat Hotel. If only there were 30 more of these.

We had many chances to walk out of the Greenbelt 3 screening of The Diplomat Hotel, but every time we were about to leave, one of the characters would address us directly.

We’re not leaving until this is finished!

Ayyyyyyy a psychic horror movie! So we stayed in our seats, vibrating with suppressed giggles, and then the movie said exactly what we were thinking.

Why did you bring me here? I’ll kill you!

Verdict: If the intention of The Diplomat Hotel is to make the audience feel like they’re in The Diplomat Hotel, it has succeeded. We enjoyed it, though not in the way it was meant to be enjoyed.

Seriously, the movie looks incomplete unfinished. This version seems to have been cobbled together from available footage by an editor struggling valiantly to find two shots that matched. Gretchen Barretto is the best thing about it.

This year we decided to watch all the feature films in competition at Cinemalaya: ten in the New Breed section (for newish directors) and five in the Directors’ Showcase.

The films are also being screened at Greenbelt, ATC and Trinoma, but we decided to get the complete experience and watch them at the Cultural Center of the Philippines. It was gratifying to see the crowds turn up this weekend despite the rains, and stay on despite the heat and humidity inside the building (Was the airconditioning on?).

Whenever we needed breathing space we hung out by the non-operational fountain in front or at the Chicken Rice Shop across the street. (We’d never eaten there before, it’s pretty good.) We spotted this bird–is it a heron?–doing yoga on top of one of the water jets. It ignored the crowds completely.

Our patron for Cinemalaya 2013 is Jeffrey Jeturian, who anointed us his representative for the sacred festival pass which allows miraculous entry to all the CCP screenings. Thank you! Jeffrey’s highly-anticipated film Ekstra starring Vilma Santos is part of the Directors’ Showcase.

On Saturday we watched Purok 7, written and directed by Carlo Obispo, and Porno, directed by Adolf Alix from a screenplay by Ralston Jover.

Purok 7 is a very assured first feature about the joys and sorrows of childhood. It is sweet but not sappy, giddy (kilig) but never cloying, moving but not maudlin. Don’t miss it.

Angel Aquino with our extremely opinionated friends (L-R) Chus, Ricky and Leo. Angel stars in Porno as a transgender individual. Point of discussion: What if an actual transgender like B.B. Gandanghari had been cast in the role?

A movie that calls itself Porno is calculated to provoke. We can’t say we liked it, but something kept us in our seats till the very end. And then we spent the next two hours trying to figure out what we just saw. To us this is a good thing. Our full reviews will appear at InterAksyon.

While waiting for the Ekstra gala we spotted filmmakers Pepe Diokno and Ian Wang, who is visiting from China. We feel like Pepe’s kvetching aunt because every time we see Pepe the first thing that comes out of our mouth is, “Where is your second movie?”

We were seated near filmmaker Marlon Rivera, who has a highly challenging role in Ekstra: one that puts him in a select group with Etang Discher and Zeny Zabala. Marlon is now a size negative-2 after a bout of dengue. (That is not an endorsement of dengue, okay?)

Everybody loves Ate Vi, and she requites this love. Ekstra could be viewed as her tribute to all the bit players, walk-ons and crowd extras she’s worked with over the decades—the people who make a movie seem real but never even make it to the credits. In his introduction Jeffrey Jeturian mentioned that in 1983 he got his first job in the movies, as production assistant on Baby Tsina starring Vilma Santos. He knew that he wanted to be a director, and that he wanted to work with Ate Vi. Thirty years later, mission accomplished.

* * * * *

We did the English subtitles for an early draft of Ekstra. The version screening at Cinemalaya does not use our translation, but we’re still mentioned in the credits.

For translation geeks, here’s how we rendered an early exchange between Loida (Vilma Santos) and her friend. (Yes, we’re just finicky about grammar.)

– It’s exam week. I need to work double-time.
– I don’t understand why you don’t accept your husband’s offer.
– Ex-husband.
– Accept your ex-husband’s offer to pay for Joyce’s tuition.
– I managed to put her through school since the 3rd grade. Now that she’s about to graduate graduating, I’m not about to ask him for help.
Next he’ll be bragging that he put her through college. Excuse me.
– So that’s you, huh. Not just a great extra but a great mother.

Between the maid and Belinda (Marian Rivera)

– Ma’am, wait! Use your umbrella. If your skin darkens your mother will be angry.
– It’s okay, Nanny, I brought a bandana.

And Cherie Gil’s speech to her abductee.

– Well, well, look who’s here. Who would’ve thought we’d meet here? Right at the spot where you and my husband frequently betrayed me! Are you surprised? Did you think you could fool me?

Probably to distinguish it from the earlier Wolverine, the new movie featuring your favorite self-regenerating berserker mutant comes with a definite article. He’s not A wolverine or just any wolverine or D’Wolverine, but The Wolverine.

We’ll spare you the synopsis sprinkled with backstory and citations demonstrating the reviewer’s in-depth knowledge of the material and general disdain of previous attempts to bring assorted mutants to the screen. (The opposite approach being the “I’m a serious critic and too good for this juvenile drivel”.) We will say that it’s compelling in the old-fashioned Hollywood movie-making way rather than the superhero franchise way we’ve become accustomed to in recent years. There are intense fight sequences and intriguing characters. And we get a kick out of the fact that Hugh Jackman who plays The Wolverine can not only out-fight, but also out-sing and out-dance his enemies if he cared to. (Is that his real body, with the veins? Yes, it is.)

Directed by James Mangold (Girl, Interrupted; the 3:10 to Yuma remake), The Wolverine is an interesting study in present-day Hollywood economics. The setting and predominantly Asian cast acknowledges the importance of the foreign, esp. Asian market to American film production. Your movie could sink in the US, but if Asia comes to see it, you live. Jackman is the only brand name in the cast; presumably they save on star salaries, so they can employ all of New Zealand (Weta) to do the special effects.

The funniest moment arrived in the middle of the end credits. This being a Marvel movie, we knew we had to wait for the stinger. There was something on the screen and someone in the next line, but that wasn’t it. When (We Won’t Say) appeared, the fanboys in row E had a loud collective orgasm. And when (We Won’t Say, Either) turned up the fanboys impregnated their seats, creating new mutants that are part-human and part-upholstery.

The Wolverine: Highly recommended.

Saffy is Wolverina.