Call the doctor

Review by Vives Anunciacion

Ang Cute ng Ina Mo
Directed by Wenn Deramas
G / 102 minutes
Star Cinema/ Viva Films
**1/2 (2 ½ stars)

The industry is ripe for an Ai-Ai – Eugene showdown. Wenn Deramas’s lucky cast is still making people laugh in the latest permutation of the “Ina” shows. All hail the queens of (pinoy) comedy.

In this movie, Georgia (Ai-Ai de las Alas) is separated from her Australian love interest, Jack (I didn’t get his name, sorry), and their daughter Christine at the height of the EDSA revolution. While trying various ways to get to Australia, Georgia adopts boy orphan Val, who takes the place vacated by Christine.

Fast forward 20 years and Jack’s unhappy relationships in Melbourne force him to reconsider taking Georgia back. Christine (Anne Curtis), convinced that Georgia abandoned her and Jack before, flies back to Malabon with her Nanny (Eugene Domingo) to tarnish Georgia’s reputation and stop Georgia’s and Jack’s reunion. It’s Malabon versus Melbourne when the nanay meets the nanny (complete with Ozzie accent.)

Absurd as absurdist humor goes, but funny as funny can tell, the narrative is a badminton game of this goes here and that goes there and by the end it’s just a mess and a redundancy of Tanging Ina mother’s concerns and ingrate children. But Ai-Ai and Eugene out-shouting each other is side-splitting, they deserve another movie, hopefully not another nanay one.

Stomp the Yard
Directed by Sylvain White
PG 13/ 110 minutes
Screen Gems/ Columbia Pictures
Showing only in Ayala Cinemas
* (1 star)

We rarely see dancing like this on local entertainment, except maybe with the Streetboys in ASAP every Sunday (in SOP they sing, in ASAP they groove). Great dancing (called krumpin’, but they safely call it stepping, as if it’s a form of riverdance) but what’s the story for?

Young, misunderstood but talented guy gets thrown into a new environment (read: school), meets beautiful and interesting girl who happens to be the girlfriend of the guy he first gets into a fight with, defies peer pressure to perform his way to salvation and becomes the school sensation. Hmm, sounds like a rundown of previous talent shows: Step Up, Footloose, Drumline, even, God forbid, Flashdance.

If this were singin’, we’ve heard it before and no, couldn’t care less.