Nenz and Euge discuss the controversial car sex scene and the necessity of the MTRCB call out and Iris and Basti’s marriage. Aaand a special announcement.
Tonette Jadaone
All About TIMY – 07 – Ang Pagdadala Ni Ali Nicolas
Nenz and Euge discuss how Iris turning into an unlikable character and Ali fumbling in his first attempts in dating.
Intro/Outro by Lee Rosevere
All About TIMY – 06 – Tenement Feels and Daddy Issues
We’re back after a one week break! Nenz and Euge discuss how TIMY’s expanding its story, Iris and Robert’s confrontation and WTH is up with Val’s character.
Intro/Outro by Lee Rosevere
All About TIMY – 05 – Payoffs and Dugdug Moments
Nenz, Rein and Euge discuss the idea of the “the dugdug moment” and the current payoffs of the story.
Intro/Outro music by Lee Rosevere
All About TIMY – 04 – Best Character (So Far) and Timeslot Change
Nenz and Euge discuss the weird scenes in TIMY’s 3rd week, the best character on the show right now (spoiler alert: it’s Val) and their reactions to the show’s timeslot switch.
Intro/Outro by Lee Rosevere
All About TIMY – 03 – Pace and Ratings
Nenz and Euge discuss the highlights of week 2, the pros and cons of TIMY’s storytelling pace and Till I Met You’s ratings so far.
Intro/Outro music by Lee Rosevere
All About TIMY – 02 – First Week Impressions
Rein and Euge discuss their impressions of the smart and fast-paced first week of Till I Met You. They also discuss the metarelevance of James Dean and the similar themes of TIMY with OTWOL.
Music by Lee Rosevere
ALL ABOUT TIMY – 01 – Trailer and First Episode Reactions
Welcome to the first episode of the TILL I MET YOU PODCAST by POP PHILTRE!
Nenz, Rein and Euge discuss the trailers, the first episode, JC Santos and the other cast members of TIMY
Intro/Outro Music by Lee Rosevere
Thoughts On…The Achy Breaky Hearts
The Achy Break Hearts tells the story of Chinggay (Jodi Sta. Maria), a thirty-something lady bemoaning her apparent inability to settle down with a guy. It also doesn’t help that her other relatives judge and ridicule her for it (based on the laughs in the theater, a relatable experience I guess). After a seven-year dry spell, she suddenly gets attention from two strapping beaus: Ryan (Ian Veneracion), her work client who just came from a relationship and Frank (Richard Yap), her long-time ex-boyfriend who cheated on her seven years ago. Will she choose the broken guy? or the guy who broke her heart?
I had low expectations from the movie given the template romcom premise and that the three main cast members were part of Jadaone’s All You Need Is Pag-Ibig– the director’s weakest film in my book. But since it’s a Jadaone film, I had to watch it. I cannot turn away from the director that shined the spotlight on Lilia Cuntapay and Brgy. Captain Boy English.
The film did not disappoint. It had the Tonette Tropes (see below) that I always welcome; but most especially, it had a strong message to say. Given the popularity of her films, Jadaone has the right platform and connection with her audience to impart wisdom on society’s unfair expectation from Filipinas since time immemorial. Moreover, a round message such as what TABH has doesn’t have a place in a square genre like the romcom. The romcom is an archaic genre of film. Its roots can be traced back to old Disney fairy tales wherein the female protagonist is swept by her prince to live happily ever after. A message like this doesn’t have a place in a romcom film but somehow, Jadaone managed to fit it in.
And by managed to fit it in, I honestly meant that I don’t know how it got there. The third act was messy especially when the characters started their exposition on their understanding of what love is. A character early in the movie professed adamantly that people should fight for their love, but would later leave this person’s loved one because that’s how this character understands “fighting for your love”. I’m not sure how many mental flips you have to do to land that logic but “flight” is the direct opposite response of “fight”.
But even with that muddled end game, overall, it was still a solid romcom with a strong statement. I still have to give props for that.
SHOUT OUTS, CALL OUTS AND WATCH OUTS:
- Shout out to Jodi Sta. Maria for really carrying the movie. She was evidently working on a different level. You know in wrestling when good established wrestlers like Chris Jericho have to carry and eventually lose in matches against new wrestlers to make the newbies look good (see jobbing)? That was basically Jodi Sta. Maria in this film. She had to work double, sometimes tripletime in scenes to make her two stiff beaus look good.
- Shout out to the condom jokes scene! I couldn’t believe we have this on a mainstream film.
- Watch out for the role of onions in the movie
- Are onions also a metaphor for something? I’m not sure
- Shout out the original Beauty Gonzalez (Denise Joaquin) and the new Beauty Gonzales (Beauty Gonzalez) in one film!
- Shout out to the Donna Cruz reference
- Shout out to the OTWOL easter egg. I had to watch the Most Approved Kiss video on YouTube to confirm this.
TONETTE TROPES:
- Use of animation to intro a film or episode: Not really animation but used toys and dolls for the intro. I’m not sure how you call this style but it’s similar to Digital5’s Dramalala style.
- Women’s Issue Tackled: Society’s judgement towards relatively old single ladies (also had a Single Ladies reference in the movie)
- Dan Villegas/Tonette Jadaone Stable of Actors Spotting: Ruby Ruiz (Ekstra, OTWOL), Phi Palmos (Always Be My Maybe, OTWOL),
- Sponsor Spotting: Anlene, Victoria Court, Jollibee and Jollibee Spaghetti, Primera Light Brandy, Flanax
- Most abrupt endorsement goes to Flanax, a sudden cut to the scene and wasn’t clear who was the person that needed Flanax
- Runner-up award goes to Jollibee Spaghetti. Chinggay suddenly shared a fond moment with Jollibee Spaghetti
- Dan Villegas/Tonette Jadaone 80s – 90s Song Soundtrack: Sana Dalawa Ang Puso Ko by Bodjie Dasig
- Additional music: Sasakyan Kita by Gladys and The Boxers, One More Chance by Piolo Pascual (this song sucked so bad that Erik Santos’ I’ll Never Go became One More Chance the film’s theme song)
- The Joem Bascon Award for Surprise Appearance In The Last 5 minutes Of The Movie: Michael Flores as the Singles For Christ guy of Desiree Del Valle and Bernard Palanca as Denise Joaquin’s baby papa.
5 Things TV Networks Can Learn From OTWOL
On The Wings Of Love finally ended its fantastic seven-month run last week. As much as I want this show to have a season 2, Clark and Leah deserve their peace after all they’ve been through. It was must-see local TV for me for its last two months. Thanks a lot Tonette Jadaone and Jojo Saguin, now there’s a gap in my heart that aches every 9:30 – 10:15pm (oo dahil laging naeextend).
Kidding aside, more than just being entertaining, the show experimented and did things that I do hope the TV network bigwigs will consider in producing the next batch of teleseryes. Here are a few things that I took note of:
1. THE FILIPINO AUDIENCE NOW HAS A DIVERSE PALATE
We’ve somehow touched on this in the most recent The Streamline Podcast episode; on how the treatment of our local romance films and TV shows had progressed from latin american telenovelas to more western and asian drama-infused. We can all praise the internet for that! Streaming or downloading your Breaking Bads and Baker Kings exposed Filipinos to other forms of storytelling and characterization that we haven’t seen yet in local TV. This made us generally more appreciative of entertainment.
It was nice that a teleserye like On The Wings Of Love was able to get the attention of Filipinos even though it didn’t involve rich guy-poor girl leads, villains (Simon’s an antagonist but not a villain), revenge plots or abandoned warehouses–the standard tropes you’d see in a local teleserye.
2. TIME TO BREAK OUR TRADITIONAL CHARACTER MOLDS
What if the man in the relationship’s the nurturing one while the woman was the driven one? What if we have gay characters that aren’t caricatures? Not only did On The Wings Of Love subverted our traditional notions of males, females and LGBTs in media but it also fleshed them out. Yes, Clark and Leah were good-natured people, but they were also selfish and often insecure.
On episode 03 of All About OTWOL, I applauded how the writers approached the characters of Tita Jack and Mama Lou. Even though they were lesbian and gay, their sexuality wasn’t milked to play up the story. Tita Jack, even though she might be typified as a butch lesbian because of her looks, was as nurturing as any mom can be to Jigs and Clark. In the same vein, Mama Lou wasn’t typified as the loud parloristang bakla sa kanto, he was calm, composed and a voice of reason in tenement uno (the loudest resident award goes to Bebeng). [These characters reminded me of an episode of Netflix’s Master of None wherein Aziz Ansari’s character tried to fight his right to audition for an Indian character in a TV show without the stereotypical Indian accent.]
3. TRY OUT NEW WAYS OF STORYTELLING
Again, the Filipino audience of today’s more appreciative of creative ways of telling the story. Not every detail needs to be part of the dialogue or explicitly said or shown in-frame. Here are some of the things that they tried out:
- Used spoken word poetry in key scenes to intensify the mood (Juan Miguel Severo’s piece in the finale was hella great)
- Utilized teasers to mold expectations of the audience (damned San Fo teasers!)
- Used animation as preface to a major turning point in the story (a classic Antoinette Jadaone technique 😉 )
- Tatang Sol and Tita Jack conversations to help the audience process the motivations of Clark and Leah
4. GAWIN MONG LIGHT (AND UNEVEN)
Honestly, I have a hard time categorizing OTWOL, it wasn’t a pure comedy nor was it a pure drama. It did make good use of both. Throughout its run, it mixed up the comedic highs and dramatic lows to make a satisfying viewing experience. I can’t even call it a teleserye because the term is so heavily associated with a more serious tone. I guess I should just call it a good primetime TV show?
5. THE CONVERSATION IS ALMOST AS IMPORTANT AS THE PRODUCT
You know a show is great when you have an intense desire to discuss it with another person afterwards. Cable channel, AMC, capitalized on this insight and created companion talk shows that air after each episode of The Walking Dead and Breaking Bad (for season 5.2). It helped audiences process the things that happened considering how intense these shows can be.
OTWOL, may not have a companion talk show but it had #otwolistalk. OTWOL’s prod staff scoured the internet to feature reactions of viewers either either via video or via their website. Promoting content created by fans help in showing that the show values the support its fans are giving therefore encouraging fans to invest more on the TV show.
FOR THE LOVE OF POP 