Sucker love is known to swing

A friend, who I’m vaguely good friends with, is possibly still very lonely because of a break-up. This is a friend whose house I never leave sober and whose house I once left in only my boxer shorts one very rainy Saturday night. He of the endless cheap tequila, leftover stale red wine, cheese, paksiw and various leftovers, whose heart, to borrow a phrase from one of our time’s greatest romantics, Stephen King, has just been shot to shit. It used to be a Them with the cheap tequila, leftover stale red wine, cheeses, etc, but there would be no more them, the once unbreakable, Brangelina-like power couple. Now there’s just him and the leftovers.

Break-ups are ugly and normal. For two boys, it’s really just a pronounced desire to want to be with another boy. It’s just that sometimes, the pronouncement comes in the form of staying behind and leaving something behind. And by something, I mean evidence. But that’s just me imposing my narrow view on the thing. But for some, breaking up means re-evaluating living conditions, dropping off regular activities, re-adjusting to the absence of the person you used to do fun things with like splitting utility bills and fighting over who gets to wash week-long dirty underwear. But ultimately like week-long dirty underwear, break-ups are shitty. Even shittier is that in this day and age, no breakup is spared from a facebook status update.You would not like to be the on the receiving end of a vengeful ex. It’s relatively safer to quote a line from a love (or hate) song to say what you feel because it’s easier to disown borrowed, already copyrighted anger should there be a need to disown. If you’re in a relationship, it’s impossible for you and partner not to be not connected on all of your online social networking accounts. So when you break, it’s important that you be prepared for the possibility that your wall will have something along the lines of  ‘Roses are red, violets are blue, fuck you, whore.’ If you’re the type who barfs at this type of crass sentimentalizing, you’d feel ickier by the fact that such feelings are obtained from popular movies. And there’s no escaping this. But if your ex were to be more compassionate, you might find this act of juvenalia safely burrowing in your inbox instead. It is never wise to break up with an online community-thriving person via cheating.

Moral: obliterate all connections of you and wronged partner immediately after admitting your sin and be more morally upright next time. Or just try, or just be more stealth. I hope my friend stands by his song of choice although I don’t completely approve of the idea but who cares. Maybe next time he could pick something from Placebo, the emoest of all emos. I’m just suggesting because I can’t belive he picked Rihanna.

G

A year ago, Kicks invited me to a birthday party. It was during that period when the prospect of meeting a fellow blogger is… thrilling. So I went. Is it fat? Is it gorgeous? Does it wear a pink tee? These are important questions when deigning to meet people online. Up until that time, Kicks was the only person I’ve met within the blog community whom I felt at ease with. So I went to party even though I wasn’t planning to, and even managed to drag my usually undraggable friend Jose. Blogger attendees were commanded not to tell about it since the celebrant was a prominent Mafioso. I’m not sure if any of us are allowed to do it now that a year has passed but I’m thinking, no one among those guys is likely  to divulge undivulgeable personal business as I am.  By which I mean, no one among those guys will make a year old retrospective about how attending that stranger’s bash meant something other than being referred to by their real names by people who originally referred to them by their online names such as… I’ll divulge some other time. So if you could already see where this is going, quit already and I’ll just blah blah blah and celebrant and me hooked up and are still together, and it turned out that my attendance to that party meant more than just getting very drunk that Sunday night in Timog.

Ours is not a story Joyce Bernal flicks are made of as it is ostensibly from the Brillante Mendoza stockpile since it has Coco. And since you told me I’m corny sometimes, I might as well indulge. I’ll just set This to private when I feel like I have to, or if you command me to, since blog drama is very much part of our Brillante movie. I’m sorry, art film. And I’m telling these as if I won’t be cringing about this when we wrestle on the weekend and hopefully the weekends after that. 17 movies, 54 late night talks over beers, 29 fights, 18 flights, 1098 smooches and 1 war later, we’re still on. May we have more and still be on.

In short, I’m glad I went to your birthday party last year.

Sick Puppy That Barks Really Mean at the Table

Contrary to Augusten Burroughs’ personal belief, old man Burroughs isn’t such a terrible man. He’s just not the type of father you’d want to hug after coming home from school. He’s also not the type  you’d give an affectionate, spontaneous son to father kiss on any given day. But daddy Buroughs is not completely deserving of the supposedly symbolic Wolf in Augusten’s A Wolf at the Door. To be honest, Augusten’s father simply wasn’t much of a father figure and that is it. But for little Augusten maybe that’s enough to earn him the title Worst Father of America. But he’s not my father so it’s probably best not to judge.

The people in Augusten’s life, his family and those very close to him, do they perhaps daydream about murdering him? If his allegedly psychotic mother were alive and read his memoirs, would she disown him? And his father, if it were physically possible, would he roll in his grave and maybe choke Augusten to death or scare him to insanity? To be fair, Augusten doesn’t quite paint a very ugly picture of his mother as much as he did in previous books where she was described as crazy, aggressive and unstable while his father was mostly a mere apparition. In here, her mother grows a heart and his father takes center stage. If you’ve read any of his previous books, you’d wonder just how he could get away with all the things he said about them and manage to make it appear like he truly cares about them more than his vain, writery self who maybe needs to fulfill contractual publishing obligations. The difference probably lies in the fact that Augusten Burroughs is a New York Times Bestselling author, a distinction that the average father/family disser would want to achieve first before he gets away with saying shit about anyone. And also, that Mr Burroughs is probably telling  truth.

To up the creepy father ante, Augusten shows only brief flashes of wit and focuses instead on the minute details of daddy’s meanness such as willing the household pet to bark at him and his mom and drive said mom insane and him to a strange psychotherapist’s house which he would later on write about and get rich off of. If you think about it, he actually ought to write his father a check for all the books he’s sold (Running With Scissors) because he made his life equal parts interesting/school-free and independent/unbearably loony. I would never understand how it feels to be sent to your psychiatrist’s home and live with nearly insane women-children so again, I shouldn’t judge. But by book’s third quarter, I sort of get the feeling that his dad just isn’t very deserving of this.

One also has to consider the fact that fathers and gay sons, NOT the best of friends. In some cases, not even civil to each other. But mostly, never. In Augusten’s special case, a philosopher/Karl Marx-quoting university professor father and Vidal Sassoon-worshiping and would be NY Times Bestselling memoirist son = foes forever.

I suppose that if one wishes to badmouth one’s family member or anyone, it would have to be in a strictly literary way, which Augusten does effortlessly. It would have to be in such a movie screeplay-in-the-making kind of way so that one could get away with it with impunity. That if one wishes or itches to say ‘My brother is a worthless piece of shit’ or ‘My sister is a slut who conceives 2 sons and leaves the other at home while she skanks around with her sorry excuse of a husband’, one would have to be ambitious enough to stretch such ugly sentiments to about at least 300-400 pages and not just through one lousy tweet or corny blog post, although sometimes either of the two works too. And if disser is skilled enough to really go at it, pronounce his family as Shit to the world and manage to amuse people at his impressively written but ill-conceived memoir, by all means write it. Otherwise, it would be greatly economical to just pollute the web with your ugly, fake identity and even uglier and sometimes fake blues.

Beef for breakfast

If I can help it, I try not to read other people’s petty, corny and useless rants. It’s an assault to the senses to have to read hate stuff if they’re not expressed in a manner that’ll make you go Wow anyway. I myself try not to impose upon the hapless lurker words of extreme hate to anything and anyone. The last time I said shit, a full, carefully-though out and unreservedly graphic steaming pile of shitty things about a friend, and got caught, I swore never to do it again not because it makes me look like a heartless son of Satan, or just Satan himself but because some people just don’t deserve it although right now I’m really not trying to sound reflective and apologetic. But some mornings, I just can’t help but want to pound on some people’s head, and in the absence of the possibility of actually pounding someone and a concrete pounder, I resort to harsh words instead. Whereas I’m supposed to be thinking about piles upon piles of work that are begging to be finished, my mind wanders to far places, sometimes as far as the Middle East and sometimes not too distant such as my home. And so I indulge in this supposedly therapeutic practice of expressing hate and not try to save it for later because if I do, it will eat me up for the rest of the day or the week. In this country there are plenty of things to hate and all the spaces This can provide might not even be enough but maybe it can but I don’t care to be certain. They’re too plenty that I often think it’s too good not being able to buy guns freely because if I have one, it is probable that it will be used but with caution. But it’s not as if today is a day for shooting people. I wish to just let it pass, wait for the day to end and work myself to exhaustion and if really warranted, drown myself in alcohol later but that’s about as useful as fantasizing about owning a gun. I was thinking of bleeping the whole thing somewhere else and get over it in 140 characters but it won’t do because I would hate to have to be asked ‘Sinong kaaway mo?’ in a manner that is no different than being asked what I had for breakfast. What I really, really want to consider doing is to not think about the shit that shat on me this morning. I hate many things and many human beings. I am crippled both by the desire to tell and confront, and by the awareness that saying shit about Anything is mean and ugly. I think I know enough now that if I do say anything mean and ugly about anyone, it will leave such a huge imprint on some people that if I die, very few will attend my funeral, half of which will damn me to hell. If I die, even more people I know might spot this little shitfest I have for a site and think, What a foul person I truly am. If I do die next week or soon, I’m sorry to you, you know who you all are for disappointing you, for not being the opposite of disappointing and for saying those things. But I probably won’t die yet. Masamang damo and that. Actually, I’m not that bad. A little deluded, yes but not very bad. I’ve been trying to maintain a passable composure, online and in Here, in the physical place but I’m in such manic mood that the first person to greet me good morning, or something resembling a greeting, is met with Leche!!! in full force by me. Now I’m tired. This will probably be over by 4 or 5PM.

Waking up in the worst Saturday of your life

I woke up Saturday morning feeling quite nice even though it was so noisy because of the rain. I didn’t care much for the heavy rains even though it crushed our kitchen roof. If anything, it was just the thing that would glue me into bed. It provided me with an excuse not to get out of the house and not do anything, and do my second most favorite thing in the world: sleep. I woke at 8AM, played Mafia, had coffee and slept.

I woke again at around 12NN, and around this time I wasn’t feeling so nice. It was still raining very hard and I was upset because our kitchen roof was truly shot to shit. We can’t cook anything aside from instant noodles which my daddy had the ingenuity to mix and experiment with. I hated the rain mainly because of this terrible inconvenience, not knowing yet that elsewhere, people would not be eating until after they get rescued from their rooftops which would mean no food for them until the following day. And God knows if that’s even going to happen.

I was also annoyed because it was still so noisy and the noise drowned the sound of the speakers which I haven’t yet realized I’m lucky to be even able to turn on since we have electricity. Elsewhere, people are not only unable to hear music, they’re also incapacitated to let people of authority know of their life and death situation because there was just no way they could let people know of their dilemma since they’re very close to being obliterated by the quick rising flood, because they have no access to internet, landline or cellphone because, well, they’re about to be drowned not in sound but in flood water.

I only got to know of the grave danger that most people were in when I turned on the TV and found that Jessica Soho’s regular show was pre-empted by a special news report that aimed to inform of the country’s current situation which at that time was already nearing Noah’s Ark proportions. I was just about ready to call it a night and forget this all happened because we in the south are relatively unharmed and it was just a little too grim to take it all in, the floating bodies, the live footages of people struggling in the San Mateo River in Rizal. It was very depressing.

And then it’s Sunday and my thoughts shifted onto more practical matters, ie if there would be work the next day. Of course there would be. That’s the most brilliant thing about being in a multinational company, is what I instantly though and this is of course a typically bitter sentiment from someone does not LOVE work so much. I was hoping that maybe the bosses were themselves feeling the enormity of the situation and that they call off work for all employees regardless of position or place of residence. Of course, that is not to be the case. Even if our bosses were the most compassionate and most humane of all bosses, we all know, even I, that our work’s stoppage’s will make itself felt in the coming days. But then of course, that’s just me feeling so tamad and hopeful for the best. And so we go to work.

I got over my petty worries and am currently supposedly doing decent honest labor. I just want to make it known for the record that I understand (naks), although maybe not completely, that there are so much bigger concerns than mine. September 26, 2009 might not actually be the worst Saturday of my life but it is for many, many pinoys. I also just wish for things to get better really soon for us and that in spite of our inefficient weather bureau, the NDCC, and our president, may God still bless us.

For Chrissakes

The moment Anne Rice said she’s no longer going to write about vampires, witches and bitches, and that she would instead be writing about Jesus Christ’s early years, I knew there’s no way I would enjoy any of it even she cuts out all those hefty descriptions of Italian curtains, Greek chairs and Roman marble columns. I think I actually miss her extensive cataloguing of various furniture in her books. And it’s true, I did not fully enjoy Out of Egypt, the first in her Christ the Lord series, a series that couldn’t be more different from the Vampire Chronicles and Witching Hour. However, I’m a little disgusted by myself for openly taunting her decision to write about Jesus. While it’s true that I can’t find a single reason why I should forge and pursue this series (book 2 is already out), I think it’s a little too Satanic to begrudge a writer for writing about something she really likes. I’m not that sorry though. If you’d ever read or had been fascinated by her alternate universes of vampires taking nutrition from menstruating nuns  and ghost granddaddies impregnating granddaughters, then you probably earn the right to be a little miffed that the genius behind such concepts is now satiating the very demographic that her old series’ followers isn’t from. In short, she’s gone Chistian on our asses and there’s no turning back. I’m sorry again, that seems mean. I also realize that it’s not nice to take the effort to say how unenjoyable a book is because it’s mean and frankly, a waste of time. But the thing about Out of Egypt is that it’s a big improvement in her prose. Definitely gone are the aforementioned long descriptions of inanimate and unimportant objects, and trading that for slightly better characterization of the book’s anti-Lestat, Jesus Christ. I was worried that she’d make Jesus speak tons of Egypt’s fine sands, gorgeous Egyptians, silky smooth Egyptian hair, and ornate sandals. That was not to be the case as Jesus in this book is a 7 year old, slightly clueless boy who mysteriously but skillfully heals dead people, just as skillfully and stealthily he kills them. The only people Jesus is killing in this book, I would imagine are the old Rice fans. The goths, if you will. But if you take the time to realize the radical shift in faith it took her to write this, then it might not be too hard to accept that she just had to change and that there are other vampire books to be had anyway, minus Lestat of course. Twilight series, for example. But that would probably suck more. I’m not completely sold though. If I were to be my old spiteful self, I’d probably think that this series is Anne giving the finger to those who maligned her, her faith and her skills as a writer, when the final V-Chronicle book came out and many called her, well, a witch and other unflattering names. I was honestly not too thrilled during the whole day that I sat down and consumed this. And that’s something that could not be said of any Anne Rice book, the proverbial reading in just one sitting. I came to the Author’s Note page and that was all it took for me to have a change of heart, although still  not completely. Say what you will of Anne but her immersion for the things that fascinates her are undeniable and all we could do, the followers or followers-turned hecklers, is to wait to get amazed again, even if it looks like it’s going to take quite a long time.

Oppression

WordPress is oppressive. You can’t just plainly say anything and be done with it in 20 words or less. You have to be verbose. The white blank page that stares at you in the Add New Post page mocks your inability to fill out its entirety even if you’re completely sober. The page stretches on for eternity and it’s so huge, the space. Unless you have something really important or really  interesting to say, THIS white blank space just wouldn’t do it for you, for people who want to say very inconsequential things about their inconsequential selves. You need small but you’re not getting it here. You just have to have the word Really preceding anything to say even if all you ever say is not really. WordPress is not called WordPress for nothing. It’s not just aiming for cuteness unlike some people we know. The vastness of the available space calls for lengthy words and passive sentences, if there is such a thing, a passive sentence. It begs to be taken seriously as a tool for nonsense-speakers by limiting the amount of gimmicks. Exactly what gimmicks, I wouldn’t know since they’re limited. You can’t just simply complain and be done with it in the standard, high school paragraph-length of just 5 sentences and call it a night. No. Shit you say in WordPress have to have some depth and ‘meaning’ for it to get attention, if attention is what you aim for. And the thing about WordPress is that you can’t have it if you’re not the type who seek attention. You can have it, sure, but it will tell you soon enough that you don’t deserve it. It will get back at you by letting people know about your dormant page when you least expect it to let people know about stuff that are supposed to be secret, even though the idea of secrecy in WordPress is really just a myth. When people find out, that’s when you know that not only were you stupidly oppressed, you’ve also been humiliated and exposed through no fault of anyone but you. This is exactly the type of site that when you’ve committed words in it, you feel so very sorry about all the words you’ve said because they will be published by you, and all the words you’ve said are, in your mind, too precious to be deleted, erased from the mind of those who are embarrassed for you, that they’ve read about what you had to say about a thing they wouldn’t otherwise know or care about. And yet, you don’t go away. You can’t pretend to be speaking to yourself because you’re inadvertently linked elsewhere, without your permission or your liking, although this part about being linked, sometimes you don’t mind it very much. And they, whoever they are, they’re there whether you like it or not. Because really, if all you really ever wanted to do was to have something  immortalized in print, you’d have grabbed a yellow pad, an old notebook, a receipt, a napkin. Not website. Also people accuse you of adopting a style which should just be the thing to erase you from the face of the earth (or just the www) because it hurts to be accused of that whether true or not. I think that in my case, my co-called and totally false style pertains to those instances when I cut my sentences short. And I follow it up with another seemingly cut sentence and thought. And then I precede my statement with a sentence that starts with And, although for me, that doesn’t really count as style. It’s just that I believe that certain thoughts can not be said in a single breath. I would admit though of trying to end things in a rather abrupt way. Good night!!!

Fanne Rice

I’ve been obsessing about Anne Rice lately. I keep thinking, what if she dies already? Sorry for being morbid but, what if she does? She’s just 2 years shy from 70 and so far, at least for the last 5 years, all she ever wrote are her Jesus novels (which I prefer to get from the likes of Christopher Moore who gives Jesus hard-on and other sorts of unmessiah-like virtues) and her still in hardcover and therefore still expensive Christian-themed memoir Called Out of Darkness. I’ve been meaning to read that but I wouldn’t just yet as a matter of principle and because it’s still expensive at 800 PHP.

In college, I had obsessed even harder. In my so-called book review in the college paper, I prepared extra hard to write the most flattering, most know-it-all sounding book review of the last Chronicle to come out of Miss Rice’s most fabulous and most popular series, The Vampire Chronicles. I’d be the happiest fanboy if I could just get that ‘review’ on the paper. You know how college writers are: so eager to dazzle the studentry with their gorgeous poetry and prose, with their world-changing take on the latest popular novel as if their sad, would-be ignored, cookie-cutter reviews will ever be read by anyone other than the editors and their sad selves. As if hoping that major dailies such as the Philippine Daily Inquirer are on the look out for untapped literary talents in business colleges who will write life-changing book reviews on vampire fiction. Me, I didn’t care. I basically just wanted to show off and hoped that Anne Rice herself will one day will pick up some third world college paper from God knows where and see for herself that even in South East Asia, a fanboy named Me adores all the literature she throws our way.

As preparation for this, I’ve read every single Amazon review there is on Blood Canticle and they were among the most vicious criticisms I’ve ever read. The Anne Rice fans were short on cursing her entire lineage only because they weren’t happy on Lestat’s final book. Like your everyday fanboy who occasionally litter the web with his take on matters of extreme importance, I took this personally and I may even have made an Amazon account just to get back at the retards who called Anne a hack. Fortunately for them, the nasty reviewers for whom I was all set to impale with verbal bile, Amazon does not allow reviews from wannabes because they have a way of detecting. Joke lang. To be an Amazon reviewer it turns out, you need to have purchased at least one item in order to review. Then October came and I was finally able to read the book in all its tarnished glory.

It sucked.

In a way, I was more relieved because it was certainly easier for me to malign, hate, criticize and write lengthy accounts of something, anything unpleasant. And I know Anne Rice so it was very, very easy. And though she may never come across my beautiful but sinful writing as I wish she would, I still have the same hopes for vampire lit’s most enduring, most flamboyant, and sexiest vamp tramp Lestat. Lestat should have been given a more proper exit, a more bombastic one, any kind of exit befitting the true prince/king/rock star of vampire lit, anything but that. If you’ve ever cared for Anne’s works, you’ll have no trouble denouncing Blood Canticle as an  instrument of destruction which in its very slim (as far as Anne Rice’s works are concerned) form, took all but 400 pages to ruin whatever fantasies, hopes and dreams (of movie adaptations, musicals, etc) you may have had turned into, uh, ashes. My college self and those Amazon reviewers puzzle me now, looking back, because all anybody ever really needed to say about that tenth chronicle was that it was plainly bad. To be honest, it hurts me to even say that. But like the millions who slobbered in grave praise over Lestat, I was hopeful that this wouldn’t, because it simply just couldn’t be, the last. But it looks like it really, really is. :c

I’m surely, truly, irrevocably out of college and I have been looking for some thing to attach devoted fanaticism to but I just can’t find one as enduring as Anne Rice. She’s to turn 69 this October 14 and to be symbolic about it, I am rereading Prism of the Night: A Biography of Anne Rice by Katherine Ramsland. I have a month to finish it and even though it’s Anne Rice-novel long, I’d still gladly indulge and set aside Blackwood Farm for the meantime. I have yet to find a thing to fanatically follow so I really hope she doesn’t go soon, and that she starts revamping The Vampire Chronicles soon. A fanboy can hope.

Dear Anne, if you’re reading this, happy 69^th!!!

Briticism

If… most people buy books because they like to be seen reading rather than because they actually enjoy it, then I would suggest that you can’t beat a collection of letters by an author – and if that author is a poet, thenso much the better.

This adequately explains my feelings about reading a book about books. I think I took this passage out of context but the thought goes well with my current condition of wanting to read non-stop. I do jobs on the side but mostly I prefer to read. In Housekeeping Vs. the Dirt, Nick Hornby suggests reading a book comprised of letters by a famed writer/poet because it will imply that you do know or you are at least familiar with said writer’s works and that this exercise in pure braggery will surely ‘impress the hell out of anyone’ who will see you reading the stuff. I don’t know what to make of this suggestion except that it’s a slightly weird thing to say, coming from the writer of such a funny and impressive book, High Fidelity. But maybe all he’s trying to say is that any book of that type is good and that it’ll do anyone well to be reading Letters To/From Author type of books. As for his book, it’s doubtful if one is going to achieve impressive status by reading it, his collection of book criticisms because for one, it has a goofy, non-serious looking cover. And speaking of goofy, sometimes I feel like my desire to read isn’t pure. I suspect that some of my reasons for wanting to spend hours with a book is so that I could write about them? Which is goofier and so very purposeless. At least Nick Hornby gets paid to read and criticize. I normally find this sort of I Love Books sentiment corny but there are people who make book-loving sound sincere and Nick Hornby is surely one of them. And so after giving it much thought (not really), I think I’m agendaless after all. I don’t read to impress… I think. I  like the smell of paper and I like how books, when stacked nicely, make my room look really, really nice.

Kimmy More!

When Chris Martinez brought us the wonderful 100, we knew it’s only a matter of time before Eugene the great Domingo stars  in a movie of her own. If 100 wasn’t such a good movie itself, we’d have clamored for another Eugene movie. But Martinez’ film debut was great and it filled a void. Months (or was it years) passed and still no sign of Eugene in the big screen. So we go and see those that has her as supporting player in movies like ITALY (I Trust & Love You), Tanging Ina Nyong Lahat and Ploning. But these movies are NOT great and Eugene can only do SO MUCH. She may be a terrific actress but she can’t single-handedly and magically turn crap into cinema greats. She’s human too.

And then Facebook resurfaced as the premiere social networking site and we suddenly have the means to stalk our divas and rock stars. It provided a platform for announcing our fanaticism for something and anything and so we hurriedly Become a Fan of the great actress of our time. And through this formidable medium we got a  glimpse of a great movie in the making called Kimmy Dora, Kambal sa Kyeme. Finally, redemption! Eugene will have a movie out and it looks like she would play twins! Not only was there going to be a Eugene movie, it’s going to be a Eugene movie written by Chris Martinez and set to star two Eugenes. Orgasm.

In the movie, Miss Eugene plays Kimmy, the acerbic and poisonous boss of Go Dong Hae Corp, and the twin Dora, the adorable half-twit who effortlessly elicits the affection of people and their mogul dad played with uncorny enthusiasm by Ariel Ureta. Kimmy is the fitness buff, the over-achieving Go Dong Hae daughter who is the family’s brains and allegedly, beauty. But the unassuming Dora is the twin who manages to get the adoration of the dad and the office hunk Johnson (Dingdong Dantes) without ever having to do so much. This and the fact that Dora is the exact opposite of her gets on Kimmy’s nerves and her hatred towards the half-retarded sister is only magnified by their father’s decision to bestow only a margin of his estate to her while Dora gets the bulk. The unputdownable Kimmy is unhappy so she confers with an equally evil colleague played by Baron Geisler. Things go out of hand when Baron’s character mistakenly hears from their phone conversation certain instructions that are actually intended for the house ipis, that is, ‘paluin ng tsinelas, tapakan, at itapon sa malayo’ the clueless Dora. Trouble and endless parade of funnies then ensue when Baron calls for the kidnapping of Dora to execute what actually is an ipis plan.

The movie is mostly character-driven, not heavily relying on plot to move things forward, but when you have Eugene as your star, that is probably the best way to go about it. In Kimmy, the action is relegated to the reliable shoulders of Eugene Domingo and she doesn’t disappoint even though there’s hardly any action. In typical Pinoy comedy, action here happens in the kidnapping scenes which call for the escape plans,  police chases, and the inevitable jail scene. Sadly but not despairingly, not much of the plot works and towards the end, the resolution feels a bit rushed and it didn’t make much sense that the police knew where the kidnapped was taken to because even though Dora, the intended victim, could have wormed the information out of Baron, she is clearly not too sharp to do it and the movie doesn’t even show that she tried. But what the movie lacked in plot movement, it more than made up for great characterizations, even those who are in scenes for not more than 10 minutes. Chris Martinez is after all, more adept at developing complex, interesting characters. And in this, he made plenty.

If I haven’t emphasized it quite enough, let me just say again, Eugene Domingo is a great, magnificent, and super good actress. When she speaks lines like ‘Najejebs ako!’ in a retarded fashion as definitely called for by the script, prepare to die laughing. You’d also die in her other scenes, such as the ones in the office where she terrorizes her co-workers and Johnson, specifically by doing a Sharon-Stone-in-Basic-Instinct leg-crossing minus the crotch-flashing bit, the Julia-Roberts-in-Notting-Hill swimming pool scene (there is no such scene in Notting Hill) where she asks for the very pogi Johnson to love a floating girl, scenes with the katulong who very funnily calls her ate Kemmy and ate Dura, the ones with Zanjoe Marudo where she bitches for every inconvenience she experiences, basically in each and every scene she’s in. The days of Eugene Domingo stealing scenes from her supporting roles is over at least for now.

Although not burdened by the numerous cameos of stars, one had to wonder why this had to be.  Maybe they didn’t trust her enough to carry the movie on her own and that it’s necessary to have some super famous celebrities turn up in certain scenes? That would have been a wrong assumption as the movie is All Eugene. Or maybe it’s a stroke of brilliance. We don’t get to see a lot of that in Pinoy movies and it’s quite fun to see the likes of, well, just see for yourself on September 2 when the movie officially opens which big stars show up.

The bevy of ’stars’ in the supporting cast actually did good and they were quite enough if there ever was concern about the lack of Major Big Stars. Take Dingdong Dantes for example, a pogi actor who was good and believable as a hunk who’d fall for a dork like Dora. What makes his performance good is that he doesn’t seem too self-aware in the tradition of good-looking actors who maintain expressions that seem to pander to the idea that they’re pogi playing the lovestruck hunk pining for the unattractive character (not actress, take note). Also of note is Ariel Ureta who does not resort to the cartoonish Chinese billionaire depiction, also in the tradition of billionaire Chinese dads in movies who feel like they have to speak with a Ching-chongese accent to put the message across that they’re playing a Chinoy businessman. And who could forget the katulong who, in her maybe 8 minute scenes managed to be unforgettable? Martinez and his casting troupe know talent where they see one. The Kimmy katulong reminds me of Me-anne, the 100 katulong. Miriam Quiambao, Baron Geisler, Zanjoe Marudo, all pretty actors managed to not just look good but hold up their own beside The Great Actress.

Kimmy Dora is the first feature film of a newly established firm, Spring Films  and supposedly the first time a press screening was held for a local movie. It is also the first starring role for Eugene Domingo and boy, what a way to start. For now, those of us who slobber over Eugene movies have this to feed us for the meantime. In the press screening, one can sense a certain asking tone from the producers and understandably so because we’re not likely to see the trailer in those two local channels of ours who are affiliates of major film studios, Viva and Star Cinema who make sure that when their movies are to be launched, we’re reminded one freaking month ahead of the showing dates. The promotion and marketing for Kimmy Dora will probably largely depend on good word-of-mouth and Facebook and maybe Twitter and that might not be enough and that would be a shame because Kimmy, while not perfect, is largely better than the song lines-titled romances we’ve been getting since forever. I guess all I’m saying is if you can sense a future aching for another Eugene movie or maybe even a Chris Martinez movie, go see this and die just a little.