Zsazsa ze Bomb

The Manila Film Festival is supposedly the showcase of the local industry, during which time all cinemas are required to carry Philippine movies. Unfortunately, it's also the time when stingy producers force-feed moviegoers with what they substitute for art these days.

Sad to say, but that's the truth. Case in point - Zsazsa Zaturnnah (The only movie I happened to watch, by the way).

I read the comic book, and found it hilarious, as evidenced by my glowing review here. I also watched the musicale (twice), so I cannot be accused of being non-receptive to the subject matter. Believe you me, I have no issues with a beauty parlor queen transforming into a super heroine by the simple expedient of deep-throating a massive rock.

So, I sat down in the movie house, expecting a much more glamorized movie version, and slowly deflated into dismay. For a variety of reasons, none of which can really be attributed to the material, the movie stank.

Ill-timed delivery (this, for a comedy), tepid (if not outright horrible) acting, unintelligent editing - what more could go wrong? Sure, you had two hot babes in the lead with fabulous bodies (that's Pops and Zsazsa) plus one extra-hunky lead actor (albeit with much too-droopy eyelids) and an excellent supporting role played by comedienne Tsokoleyt (with a few exceptions)- but they simply couldn't carry the load.

Rustom Padilla as the lead, Ada, was a terrible casting choice. There was simply no way the emaciated Pinoy Big Brother cast-out could connect with the audience. And, did the producers really think that with beginning the film by depicting Ada as a parlorista doling out tuition to a school boytoy, and then boy decides to dump him, the audience would empathize with Ada? Come on.

What straight person hasn't been frightened with yarns about gay beauticians preying on minors? And that's exactly how they portrayed Ada, the lead character, from the movie's very beginning. A surefire way to alienate the audience, if you ask me.

Of course, Rustom doesn't have a singing voice, and so the premise that this is a musicale starts self-destructing when he opens his mouth. More likely, the audience is treated to a karaoke-fest within the movie - but if this is all they're going to get, maybe they're just better off going to a real karaoke bar - at least there's a sense of responsibility for the racket.

Pops Fernandez as the arch-villainess alien queen doesn't quite cut it. Pops on screen could only look decorative, and maybe she can enunciate the posh English required of the role better than most actresses. But her acting is uni-dimensional, and she's unable to induce the antipathy necessary to make the audience hate her, and ergo, root for the heroine. And so, she's unable to generate conflict, leading us audience members terribly unexcited about the outcome of the battle sequences.

Then we go to the love interest, played by Julio Vargas. Sigh. I wish there was more to say about this guy, aside from the fact that he looks like the comic book illustration of the lead. One good reason to cast him in the role, but in a better world than this third world, not the only reason. His banal personality translated on screen quite well - so we notice the marked absence of excited schoolgirls giggling over their matinee idol.

I wonder why I broke my vow to stop watching Philippine movies. Those two hours could have been spent doing something more productive (like writing this column). I had already made up my mind that local films consist of eye candy, with minimal acting talent and lots of masa appeal, and almost no plot except for the same tired formulas (e.g., oppressed maiden triumphing against rich oppressor, poor action hero winning against impossible odds, cute teenyboppers in love), and this was no exception. (Poor hairstylist triumphing against aliens in the face of impossible odds and falling in love with cute boy).

I heard the producers cut out the all-male kissing scene for the film to get an acceptable rating. In hindsight, they might as well have left that scene in. That might have lifted this film from the crushingly boring product that it ultimately ended up as.