Thoughts On…Honor Thy Father and My Bebe Love

For the second installment of our MMFF 2015 coverage, we watched two films that were often compared in social media, Honor Thy Father and My Bebe Love.

I’ll try to share my thoughts without spoiling the movies but, yeah, read at your own risk of getting spoiled.

HONOR THY FATHER

Honor Thy Father tells the story of Edgar (John Lloyd Cruz) trying to save his family from people who were duped to invest in his father-in-laws ponzi scheme.

• Continues On The Job’s individual hero fighting against systemic issues theme
  • So many interesting visual cues throughout the film that highlighted its themes of “survival of the fittest” (i.e.  kids fighting for fried chicken, people jumping from a bridge to get stray money, etc.) and social stratification (i.e. Edgar watching a dog eat the scraps that he gave, Hummer vs. old truck, etc.)
  • “Tutusukin mo rin ba mga mata nila Papa?” SOOOO GOOD
• It’s as depressing as On The Job
  • I felt the movie could have been soooooo much better if Kaye was given some form of redemption rather than being used as a plot device.
• Yeshua’s an interesting interpretation of God’s name to use.
• Interesting how all the other father figures aside from Edgar are either dead or incompetent
• JOHN LLOYD CRUZ WAS DESTINED FOR INDIE MOVIES. STAR CINEMA Y U NO LET JOHN LLOYD ACT IN INDIE MOVIES????
• After watching all the shit JLC had to do in this movie, I think he’s now the only actor who has the right to use the “Panoorin niyo po ang [pelikulang Y] ibang [actor X] ang makikita ninyo sa pelikulang ito” cliche promo
  • As much as I enjoyed Jericho’s performance in #Walang Forever, JLC should have won that Best Actor award. The guy displayed a wider acting range, and not to mention, LUMUSONG SIYA SA IMBURNAL. At partida, NANG WALANG ABS.
• List of JLC’s Breadowns In Movies Ranked:
  1. A Second Chance’s “Can you love a failure” breakdown (painful for an egotistic man to get emasculated by his strong-willed wife)
  2. Honor Thy Father ending breakdown (a breakdown of a man trying to fight his futility)
  3. One More Chance’s “You had me at my best” breakdown (probably taught millions of male Filipino teenagers that it’s okay to cry [as long as it’s in the name of love])
  4. The Mistress’s “Ibang lalake kasama mo” breakdown (Had a good mix of anger and frustration)
  5. It Takes A Man And A Woman breakdown (had that feeling of a boy trying to look for emotional refuge when no one was available)
• I would have loved some more backstory on Yayo Aguila’s family. It was interesting how an upper-class family was duped into a ponzi scheme
• Masterful sound design in the bank scene.

 

MY BEBE LOVE

It’s a straight-up romcom about two couples (Vic-Ai-Ai and Maine-Alden). Nothing much to say besides that.

• It’s not as bad as what the people in the internet say it is (I’m not even sure if they even watched it)
  • Based on the reaction of the crowd, there’s still a market for this kind of comedy movie
  • I can see an occasion when I’d be happy enough to watch this movie.
• It was way longer than I expected (was expecting around 1hr 30mins a standard for romcoms, but this movie stretched to almost two full hours)
• Why was Ai-Ai angry throughout the movie????
• My Bebe Love is a movie about shoutouts
  • What’s cringeworthy in the film was blatant advertisement of brands. I do believe they earned so much from Kalye Serye (the no-commercial Tamang Panahon event) that they need not to have this much sponsors on-screen. I mean, I’ve watched Enteng Kabisote movies way back when and they didn’t have this much sponsors.
  • Here’s the list of all the sponsors we counted (22):
    1. Ber Brand Adult Plus
    2. Google (Google Search, Maps, YouTube)
    3. O+
    4. San Miguel (Pale Pilsen and Light)
    5. Glutamax
    6. Phoenix
    7. Ayala Country Club
    8. Sir George’s Bindo’s Best Print Shop
    9. Tide
    10. Goldilocks
    11. McDonald’s
    12. Talk N Text
    13. Solmux
    14. Kuse
    15. PLDT Home
    16. B Hotel
    17. Gumatay Hardware
    18. Coke
    19. Rebsico
    20. The brand that Vic and Alden wore throughout the film
    21. One Esplanade
    22. Posh Nails
  • Cameos by Eat Bulaga and other artistas
    • Lilia Cuntapay
    • Jose Manalo
    • Paolo Ballesteros
    • Ryan Yllana
    • Ryzza Mae Dizon
    • Pauleen Luna
    • Mikael Daez
    • Aegis
    • Wally Bayola (as Lola Nidora)
• What is the definition of a family movie nowadays? This movie overtly talked about impotence and sex. Of course they used euphemisms, but still overt nonetheless.
• I understand the development of Vic and Ai-Ai’s relationship; Maine and Alden’s, not so much
  • Justified na ba dahil love at first sight?
  • Maine and Alden could have been more effective if their characters were written better (plus pa sana sa #AlDubNation)
• With his silent off-screen persona, I can totally see Vic Sotto as a jigsaw puzzle type of guy
• Just echoing what Maine on twitter said: “bakit ako?”
  • Objectively speaking, I love her work on Kalye Serye and in her commercials but you can clearly see that she still needs more experience in playing a scripted character. Do I blame her? No, not at all.
  • Do I blame MMFF for giving her the Best Supporting Actress award compared to heavyweights who were more efficient in their respective movies such as Kim Molina and Nova Villa, definitely yes.
  • Don’t hate on Maine, she did what she could using her yet-honed movie talent and a so-so script. Hate on MMFF for pushing her to that pedestal of Best Supporting Actress. Kahit siya di niya nga alam kung bakit. She can win Best Support Actress or Best Actress in two or three years time, but winning it immediately with less than a year’s experience? MMFF, that’s overextending stuff.

 

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Watch out for our full discussion on MMFF 2015 in our upcoming podcast!