Some of you folks may have noticed the new radio.blog feature on the right-hand side; the theme for this month (or so) are covers:

1. First up: probably the song of the year, Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy,” and three covers of varying quality from folks like Nelly Furtado and Ray LaMontagne. My money’s on The Kooks‘ version, but as Bulletproof Vest would say wisely, though, “The original is still the best.”

2. It’s impossible to improve on perfection — namely, the Beatles’ “Here, There and Everywhere” — but this cover by some band from Swindon called Belarus takes some interesting liberties with the melody. (Yes, the idea of Coldplay-does-the-Beatles sounds horrid on paper, but really, give a listen to the track first.) The high point of Mojo Magazine’s latest freebie, a song-by-song cover album of Revolver, on the occasion of its 40th anniversary. (Though there’s a cover of “Eleanor Rigby” by The Handsome Family that’s darn good too.)

3. Sometimes there are songs that pop out of nowhere and you go, Where has this song been all my life? In this case, it’s The Left Banke’s “She May Call You Up Tonight,” covered expertly by Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs. Their album of nothing but covers, Under the Covers Vol. 1, seems way too respectful and somewhat redundant (do we really need another cover of “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue?”), but one can’t complain about the overall summery vibe of the fantastic harmonizing throughout the album. Unlike other cover/tribute albums that make you run to your CD collection and pull out the originals, this one works quite well.

4. I should explain this a bit: every year, Yo La Tengo, my favorite American band other than the now-defunct Guided by Voices, plays a benefit concert for the radio station WFMU — the schtick being, YLT plays whatever song the call-in pledger wants to hear, live, with no rehearsals. Their slaughter of Billy Joel’s “You May Be Right” is from their latest album, Yo La Tengo Is Murdering The Classics, and they mostly deliver on their promise.

5. I’m a total sucker for the way M.Y.M.P. strips everything down to guitar and luscious vocals, and their sweet take on the Eraserheads’ “Huwag Mo Nang Itanong” — the highlight of the otherwise disappointing tribute album, UltraElectroMagneticJam: The Music of the Eraserheads — is just as good as the original.

It’s disappointing because it’s a compilation filled with bands that are essentially the E-Heads’ offspring, and so most of the album basically sounds like one big karaoke fest. The lead singers’ vocals aren’t particularly distinctive either — unlike, say, Sweet and Hoffs above — since I honestly can’t tell the difference between Orange and Lemons, Cueshe or Sponge Cola. (The exception was Imago’s “Spoliarium,” which made me appreciate the original even more.) The trick to a good cover version, I think, is to make the song temporarily your own, as do South Border (“With a Smile” gets the r&b treatment) and the Radioactive Sago Project (a spazzed-out “Alkohol”). But not the others, unfortunately: Isha blows a great opening to “Torpedo” by returning to the same E-Heads arrangement; the otherwise very good Barbie Almalbis attempts to sing in Tagalog and fails (I think that’s what happened on “Overdrive,” but I’m not sure); and everyone else, including, most disappointingly, Rico J. Puno, churns out different variations of blandness.

Popularity: 1% [?]

In Ian Ganazon and Neill dela Llana’s terrific thriller, Cavite, the Filipino American filmmakers take the tired cliches of the genre and craft an exceptional film. The plot isn’t anything you haven’t seen before, from Cellular to Red Eye (the only one I’ve seen of the four) to Nick of Time to Phone Booth: a man receives a call on a cellphone from a kidnapper, telling him that his mother and sister has been kidnapped and that he has to follow all the kidnapper’s demands or they die. The result is a surprisingly politically complex and gripping suspense movie, made even more interesting for its being set in the Philippines.

What Cavite will also be remembered for is the astonishing constraints under which the film was made: an overall budget of less than $7,000, cameras resold on eBay to pay for editing (which was done completely on a home computer), a practically two-man cast and crew. (Two weeks before they were to fly to the Philippines, they still couldn’t find a lead actress who wanted to accompany them, so they rewrote the script so that Ganazon could play the protagonist, with dela Llana holding the camera the whole time.)

Formally, the film is a marvel in its economy — actor, disembodied voice, circling camera — and the narrative is structured in the classic three-act fashion. Cavite is also clearly more than just a jittery travelogue. As the taunting kidnapper orders Adam to walk through twisted alleyways, crowded markets, squatter camps, and rivers choking with festering garbage, it is clear that he (and the audience) is receiving a political education as well.

The film, however, provides little historical or economic context for the poverty that Adam witnesses, and it is presented as almost being “endemic” to the area. A later scene where the kidnapper gives him a history lesson on the gross injustices experienced by Muslim Filipinos isn’t exactly germane to what Adam sees in Cavite. (We get a possible glimpse of this in two clever digressions from the taut narrative: the camera breaks away momentarily to follow a boy buying a McDonald’s meal for his grandmother, but one of these scenes ingeniously happens at a point when filming may have been impossible.) But we begin to understand, at least, the process of radicalization for the Muslim kidnapper, as we find out halfway through the film that he is a member of the Abu Sayyaf (I’m not spoiling anything here, as this is telegraphed in the opening credits).

Cavite could also be read as quite intelligently following the stereotypical plot as seen in your average Pilipino Cultural Night — confused Filipino American in search of self, “returns” to the Philippines, and discovers one’s self. What further animates this thriller, and elevates it from the genre, is the interweaving of the theme of cultural discovery. (Indeed, the movie could be seen as a suspense-thriller twist on the ethnic-identity film genre, and not the other way around.) Filipino American youth — perhaps like the filmmakers themselves — would no doubt find familiar tropes here, tweaked and heightened: the dizzying confusion, the humidity, the shock of the misery of the Third World, the bewilderment of a half-understood foreign/native language, the balut offered up as a kind of culinary litmus test. The filmmakers make perfect use of the staring bystanders; Adam’s incongruity as he trudges through Cavite City is perhaps only a little less jarring than the presence of the two filmmakers themselves.

In the end, it is significant that the action takes place in the province of Cavite, where Emilio Aguinaldo first proclaimed the independence of the Philippine Republic from Spain. The Muslims of the Philippines, however, failed to receive, and continue to do so, the benefits and rights of any form of independence, and the events in Mindanao of the last three decades certainly bear witness to this.

(What makes the film rather politically problematic, on a couple of different levels, is the decision the protagonist makes, and the way the kidnapper is portrayed. Arguably, however, the filmmakers shroud this in moral ambiguity, depending on how one interprets the opening shot. But unfortunately, any further discussion would spoil the film for you folks, so perhaps any spoilers should be mentioned — and explicitly designated so! — in the comments, if any of you readers have seen the film…)

Popularity: 2% [?]

Courtesy of Boyong and the V-Monster (looks like Bryanboy beat me to the link again), comes the funniest thing I’ve seen all month: brand-new Pinoy internet celebrity Alyssa Alano, with her incomparable version of Sixpence None The Richer’s “Kiss Me” (or rather, “Keys Me”). And hats off to the genius who supplied the brutally funny videoke subtitles. (You may need the real lyrics to figure out what she’s singing.)

Watch her YouTube video here; thank me later.

p.s. On a slightly more serious note: Ian Gamazon and Neill dela Llana’s Cavite is one hell of a terrific film, and if you’re living in the SF Bay Area or San Diego, please do make plans to see it. I’ll be posting a longer entry later, but take my word for it: it’s very good. (Yes, we can talk about the politically problematic parts later.)

Dennis Lim’s review for the Voice is here.

Popularity: 1% [?]

CAVITE

A film by Ian Gamazon and Neill dela Llana opens June 16, 2006 in the Bay Area

A Filipino-American suspense thriller

Landmark’s Lumiere Theatre – 1572 California St., San Francisco, (415) 352-0821

Showtimes (valid 6/16-22): shows Fri-Sun at 2:30 5:00 7:30 9:45; Mon-Thu at 5:00 7:30 9:45

On Fri 6/16 discussion after the 7:30pm show
moderated by Benito M. Vergara, Jr.,
of SF State University Asian American Studies

Advance ticket purchase at: www.moviefone.com

Tickets are $9.75 for general admission and $7.75 seniors and children

Landmark’s Shattuck Cinemas – 2230 Shattuck Ave, Berkeley, (510) 464-5980

Showtimes (valid 6/16-22): shows daily at 1:30 3:30 5:30 7:30 9:30

Advance ticket purchase at: www.moviefone.com

Tickets are $9.50 for general admission, $7.50 seniors and children

http://www.landmarktheatres.com

Official film site: http://www.cavitemovie.com/

Message from CAVITE filmmakers:

Dear Friends,

How often is it that a movie is released in theaters where Filipino-Americans can watch a representation of their generation up onscreen? Not often enough. Cavite opens May 26 in New York and Los Angeles and three weeks later in San Diego and San Francisco, with dates in Seattle to follow. It’s easy for us to ask all of you to come and support so we can continue our careers as filmmakers. But what we ask is so much more than that.

Cavite has been called “a landmark in diaspora cinema” and it could not be more true. It represents a journey back to our homeland that not only we, as a generation of Filipino-Americans, but audiences outside our culture have responded to as well. And it’s that idea of Cavite traveling beyond the lines of the Fil-Am boundaries that we should celebrate on this occasion. Now we have a chance to show people of all cultures and races a slice of the Filipino-American experience told in a manner that anyone, no matter what your heritage, can appreciate.

And it’s in that thought that we urge you and your friends to come see Cavite. It will thrill and it will educate, it will present a side of a spectacular world rarely seen in cinema today. But most of all, if people see this movie on the weekend of its release — and let’s not kid ourselves, attendance will be key — it will allow all of us as filmmakers or storytellers to make more films that our generation, and future generations can be proud of.

In conclusion, what we ask for is a celebration — a celebration of a movie born out of a desire to represent who we are and what we can do. So let’s rejoice, go see the movie, tell anyone that will listen, and not wait another minute to watch a representation of Filipino-American filmmaking up onscreen.

Sincerely,

Ian Gamazon/ Neill dela Llana

co-directors, CAVITE

The San Francisco Chronicle calls the Filipino-American suspense story an “exploration of identity…what it means to be a Filipino, an American and a Muslim.” Read the full article on: http://www.sfgate.com

“CAVITE ingeniously turns a Hollywood action movie premise into a report on the Philippines and the social and religious divisions that continue to roil the country. Directors Gamazon and Dela Llana get into locations not seen in the West since Lino Brocka’s provocative, politicized films of the 70’s and 80’s….Among the most striking American independent movies of the year.” –The New York Times

“CAVITE is a brilliantly resourceful film with sensational camerawork…A landmark in diaspora cinema.” –The Village Voice

“An intimate political thriller that’s fresh and compelling to the end.” –Los Angeles Times

“CAVITE is a breathless, jugular thriller” –LA Weekly

“A must see!” –Justin Wu, Asianweek

AWARDS:

Someone to Watch Award, Independent Spirit Awards 2006

SXSW (South by Southwest), Special Jury Prize 2005

SFIAAFF (San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival) Special Jury Award 2005

Golden Maille Award, Best Picture, Hawaii International Film Festival 2005

Maverick Award, Woodstock Film Festival 2005

Popularity: 1% [?]

Today at Borders I finally held this book in my hands — the cover of which is this same photograph right here.

Wow. I have an actual “Jacket photograph by” credit. Is that cool or what?

Popularity: 1% [?]