Why Carlo Caparas shouldn’t be a National Artist

I’m now a fan of Lourd de Veyra’s blog at Spot.ph.  He’s super hilarious and witty, I think I love him na.

His latest is on why Carlo J. Caparas shouldn’t have been conferred the National Artist Award.  Alam mo, Lourd, thank you for writing this since I’m now reminded why I hated those massacre movies and why I think we should all sign this petition.

SOURCE

Excerpts from Lourd’s blog:

In the ‘90s, his string of dramatizations of sensationally gruesome crime stories may have lowered the bar in terms of directorial incompetence. He was, it seems, employing the pito-pito method at a time when those young Mowelfund geniuses were still fantasizing about big-budgeted Mother Lily productions. It is a well-known industry fact that he shoots without a script, only his pen and yellow pad, as he thinks things up as he goes along. It is after all, his movie. He is, after all credited with story, screenplay, and direction. He is an auteur in the most disastrous sense of the word. The critic Isagani Cruz called his Ang Babaeng Hinugot sa Aking Tadyang “clearly one of the worst films of 1981.” In a review published in Parade magazine, Cruz writes what would become one of the consistent characteristics of a Carlo J. work hitherto: ‘Although Caparas is an extremely successful writer of komiks novels, his screenplay for this film lacks narrative interest, not to mention logical motivation and imaginative insight.”

But it’s not really the only problem. It’s the ineptness of direction and the seeming disregard for the fundamentals of moviemaking that marks a Caparas movie. Perfection and verisimilitude are not something he ambitions to. He concedes to production shortcuts, like thinking he can get away with a shot of theMakati skyline to substitute for Singapore, or the ashes of Pinatubo to simulate the Saudi Arabian desert. A movie set in the post WWII period shows people dressed like they came out of the SM Surplus Shop. Normally outstanding actors give truly embarrassing performances (If you want to see Sharon Cuneta, Joel Torre, Cesar Montano, and Gina Alajar utterly humiliated, I urge you to watch 1995’s The Lilian Velez Story: Till Death Do Us Part. Don’t you just love those subtitles? They complete the rhythmic flow, like 2001: A Space Odyssey or Gloria Macapagal Arroyo: Oh My God, Ang Anak ni Janice! (No such movie yet, but that’s what I’ll do in case I get a Cinemalaya grant).

My favorite Caparas film—and I say this without irony—is Pieta (1983), which starred Vivian Velez and the late, great Ace Vergel in his most intense, bad-to-the-bone performance. But I must reserve a special place in my heart for The Cory Quirino Kidnap (2003), which is so transcendentally bad it approaches the territory of genius. Ara Mina plays the famous socialite. Here the supposed North Forbes diction smokes like hell: “Yes, I wuz keeeednap!” Memorable scenes: slow motion shot of Ara a la shampoo commercial, and when she turns her head to face the camera she becomes…. the real Cory Quirino. Plus, the ending: the rescue sequence where the heavens part to the grandiose rhythms of Handel’s Messiah. With special effects that seemed to have been made with laundry chemicals and discount-store crayola.

Read Lourd’s full blog entry here.

Now, are you convinced?  So let’s all sign this petition. Now na!  Otherwise…

Magtatampo si Mars Ravelo

As y’all know, Carlo J. Caparas was conferred the National Artist Award for Visual Arts and Film.

Though I believe that art is subjective and have nothing against Carlo J. – except that I really, really hate his cap, hair, shades, and jacket – I think lang may isang grupo na susugod sa Malacanang para pagpaliwanagin si Gloria, lalo na’t may mga balitang apat na awardee ang isiningit niya.

These guys are powerful, you know.   Gloria better get ready.

Mars Ravelo

And as for Francisco Coching, the long-forgotten master of Pinoy komiks, gusto niyang ipatanong kung kelan daw siya maku-consider.  Unfair na kasi, eh.

Kami naman, agree kami sa alternative list ni Lourd de Veyra.