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A Rowdy Nosedive into Film: Pelikula Tumblr’s First Year by Don Jaucian
We could hardly call ourselves ‘film critics.’ To do so would be putting ourselves into the ranks of such greats as Oggs Cruz, Dodo Dayao, Richard Bolisay, and the late (and sorely missed) Alexis Tioseco. To paraphrase the film archivist Teddy Co: We don’t pontificate; we’re just enthusiasts. Every single line in each of our film reviews is laden with such collar-grabbing tenacity, urging you to test the limits of your patience and explore new boundaries in your cinematic nuances. But the challenge still remains, not only how to get the job done but also how to make the blog flow smoothly without the gears falling apart every single day.

I’ll have to blame everything with the question that started it all. One bored day at the office (and rowdy Twitter conversations) brought the seven of us (Shinji Manlangit, Nan Santamaria, Aldrin Calimlim, Jansen Musico, Ipe Cenvantes, and R. Sedricke Lapuz) together with one thing in mind: make a list of the decade’s best films from a Filipino perspective. And after several hours of intense Google Wave conversations, YM conferences, text messages, e-mails, and Gabbly hitches (thanks for introducing it to us, Ipe!), we unveiled our best of the decade list just in time before we bade goodbye to the noughties and welcomed the new decade with hope in our hearts and smiles on our faces.

But we didn’t stop there. Because I felt we failed our jobs as Filipino kids who love movies, I urged everyone to complete a best of the decade list dedicated to Filipino films. And the problem of creating a solid list still haunts us today: accessibility to the past decade’s best films from the best Filipino filmmakers. Fortunately, some of us saw a few of these, such as Jerrold Tarog’s Confessional (here’s to hoping Cinema One would finally release the DVD), Raya Martin’s Independencia, and Jim Libiran’s Tribu. But what about John Torres’s Todo Todo Terros or Sherad Anthony Sanchez’s Imburnal, you ask? That’s where the accessibility or distribution problem goes. Unless we ask the filmmakers themselves for copies of the films or invitations to screenings.

We tried to remedy that by asking Jansen to cover this year’s Cinemalaya Film Festival, and I certainly hope the weeks that he poured over viewing and writing about the films, both from this year and the previous ones, were enlightening as to how the local film industry is faring.
But having just seven in-house writers is not enough, a reality I faced early on. I was very happy to have Francis Cabal join our ragtag bunch and until now, I feel he’s always been part of the original pool of writers. He’s the one responsible for bringing gritty crime flicks, music documentaries, and Americana into your consciousness.
By this time, we were all giddy to let you guys know more about the people behind the blog, hence this post. And until now, it needs to be updated.
Come March, we decided to throw an Oscar special to complement the buzz going around Tumblr about the much hyped Oscar films of the year. It only made sense to invite Jay Santiago to join our crew. I’ll have you know that Jay probably knows everything about the Oscars more than everyone I know. If I succeeded in urging him to write a predictions post, he would have aced it.

After Jay and Francis, we thought it was time to add boobs, I mean, girls. Carina Santos, Dani Veluz and Patricia Valerio then became regular contributors, adding more credibility to the reviews that we publish every day. Zet Diaz and Johnine Dalangin also contributed film reviews. And most recently, Issa Perez de Tagle joined the team. Issa is based in the US and she gives us the advantage of posting reviews of films way before their Philippine playdate.
Speaking of “foreign correspondents,” the only non-Pinoy member of our team is Ariel Cayer. Aldrin and I have been impressed by his posts in his blog (particularly with his Criterion posts) so we decided to have him on board.
As we continued to post special features, we met several good people along the way. We invited Gio Dionisio and Koji Izuka during our Style Special, where Gio gave us an impressive post about the influence of Blade Runner in the film and fashion industry while Koji recounted the days of one of the fashion industry’s formidable and controversial stalwarts, Coco Chanel, with his review of Coco Avant Chanel. You’d have to give us credit for inviting the most talented people around to write about the things they are most passionate about. With our Fight! Week, Stan Geronimo gave a hardcore ‘Anatomy of a Fight Scene’ which is a welcome departure to our regular movie review posts.
I think, and Aldrin would have to agree with me on this, that one of the best decisions we made for the blog was the addition of THE Rob Cham as the blog’s resident illustrator. We’d sometimes think that you guys pay attention more to his illustrations than the film reviews.

Of course, we’ve had our fair share of controversies, particularly the Hate Week where we wrote about some of what we think are the most loathsome films to ever exist in the history of cinema.
Nevertheless, we were surprised and elated at the same time as we check back the blog’s dashboard every day to see the ‘like’ notifications as well as the growing number of followers. I didn’t think the blog would make it this far and I would like to thank everyone who has clicked that ‘follow’ button and read every post we publish in our page.
I’d also like to thank the people who we admire who gave us support while we’re still starting, especially to Mr. Michael Mirasol, Roger Ebert’s Philippine correspondent, who was one of the first people who paid us attention. To the other film critics and filmmakers, thank you very much.
Much love also goes to the filmmakers who shared their films with us, particularly Raya Martin and Jerrold Tarog, who invited us to an advance screening of his latest film, Senior Year.

And also, many thanks to Kenna Marcelo for the awesome theme of the blog. Our first theme was a dreary and lackluster theme from the Tumblr archives but, thanks to the efforts of Aldrin, we got a layout that perfectly matches our approach.
So there, a year of swimming through the muck and the mire. It’s not all fun and games, but we’re all glad we made it this far. Again, thank you very much. Here’s to more years for our little film blog!

Thank you very much! I’m looking forward on working on possibly a new one this 2011. Great job you guys! If you’re not yet following Pelikula, you’re missing a lot.

A Rowdy Nosedive into Film: Pelikula Tumblr’s First Year
by Don Jaucian

We could hardly call ourselves ‘film critics.’ To do so would be putting ourselves into the ranks of such greats as Oggs Cruz, Dodo Dayao, Richard Bolisay, and the late (and sorely missed) Alexis Tioseco. To paraphrase the film archivist Teddy Co: We don’t pontificate; we’re just enthusiasts. Every single line in each of our film reviews is laden with such collar-grabbing tenacity, urging you to test the limits of your patience and explore new boundaries in your cinematic nuances. But the challenge still remains, not only how to get the job done but also how to make the blog flow smoothly without the gears falling apart every single day.

I’ll have to blame everything with the question that started it all. One bored day at the office (and rowdy Twitter conversations) brought the seven of us (Shinji Manlangit, Nan Santamaria, Aldrin Calimlim, Jansen Musico, Ipe Cenvantes, and R. Sedricke Lapuz) together with one thing in mind: make a list of the decade’s best films from a Filipino perspective. And after several hours of intense Google Wave conversations, YM conferences, text messages, e-mails, and Gabbly hitches (thanks for introducing it to us, Ipe!), we unveiled our best of the decade list just in time before we bade goodbye to the noughties and welcomed the new decade with hope in our hearts and smiles on our faces.

But we didn’t stop there. Because I felt we failed our jobs as Filipino kids who love movies, I urged everyone to complete a best of the decade list dedicated to Filipino films. And the problem of creating a solid list still haunts us today: accessibility to the past decade’s best films from the best Filipino filmmakers. Fortunately, some of us saw a few of these, such as Jerrold Tarog’s Confessional (here’s to hoping Cinema One would finally release the DVD), Raya Martin’s Independencia, and Jim Libiran’s Tribu. But what about John Torres’s Todo Todo Terros or Sherad Anthony Sanchez’s Imburnal, you ask? That’s where the accessibility or distribution problem goes. Unless we ask the filmmakers themselves for copies of the films or invitations to screenings.

We tried to remedy that by asking Jansen to cover this year’s Cinemalaya Film Festival, and I certainly hope the weeks that he poured over viewing and writing about the films, both from this year and the previous ones, were enlightening as to how the local film industry is faring.

But having just seven in-house writers is not enough, a reality I faced early on. I was very happy to have Francis Cabal join our ragtag bunch and until now, I feel he’s always been part of the original pool of writers. He’s the one responsible for bringing gritty crime flicks, music documentaries, and Americana into your consciousness.

By this time, we were all giddy to let you guys know more about the people behind the blog, hence this post. And until now, it needs to be updated.

Come March, we decided to throw an Oscar special to complement the buzz going around Tumblr about the much hyped Oscar films of the year. It only made sense to invite Jay Santiago to join our crew. I’ll have you know that Jay probably knows everything about the Oscars more than everyone I know. If I succeeded in urging him to write a predictions post, he would have aced it.

After Jay and Francis, we thought it was time to add boobs, I mean, girls. Carina Santos, Dani Veluz and Patricia Valerio then became regular contributors, adding more credibility to the reviews that we publish every day. Zet Diaz and Johnine Dalangin also contributed film reviews. And most recently, Issa Perez de Tagle joined the team. Issa is based in the US and she gives us the advantage of posting reviews of films way before their Philippine playdate.

Speaking of “foreign correspondents,” the only non-Pinoy member of our team is Ariel Cayer. Aldrin and I have been impressed by his posts in his blog (particularly with his Criterion posts) so we decided to have him on board.

As we continued to post special features, we met several good people along the way. We invited Gio Dionisio and Koji Izuka during our Style Special, where Gio gave us an impressive post about the influence of Blade Runner in the film and fashion industry while Koji recounted the days of one of the fashion industry’s formidable and controversial stalwarts, Coco Chanel, with his review of Coco Avant Chanel. You’d have to give us credit for inviting the most talented people around to write about the things they are most passionate about. With our Fight! Week, Stan Geronimo gave a hardcore ‘Anatomy of a Fight Scene’ which is a welcome departure to our regular movie review posts.

I think, and Aldrin would have to agree with me on this, that one of the best decisions we made for the blog was the addition of THE Rob Cham as the blog’s resident illustrator. We’d sometimes think that you guys pay attention more to his illustrations than the film reviews.

Of course, we’ve had our fair share of controversies, particularly the Hate Week where we wrote about some of what we think are the most loathsome films to ever exist in the history of cinema.

Nevertheless, we were surprised and elated at the same time as we check back the blog’s dashboard every day to see the ‘like’ notifications as well as the growing number of followers. I didn’t think the blog would make it this far and I would like to thank everyone who has clicked that ‘follow’ button and read every post we publish in our page.

I’d also like to thank the people who we admire who gave us support while we’re still starting, especially to Mr. Michael Mirasol, Roger Ebert’s Philippine correspondent, who was one of the first people who paid us attention. To the other film critics and filmmakers, thank you very much.

Much love also goes to the filmmakers who shared their films with us, particularly Raya Martin and Jerrold Tarog, who invited us to an advance screening of his latest film, Senior Year.

And also, many thanks to Kenna Marcelo for the awesome theme of the blog. Our first theme was a dreary and lackluster theme from the Tumblr archives but, thanks to the efforts of Aldrin, we got a layout that perfectly matches our approach.

So there, a year of swimming through the muck and the mire. It’s not all fun and games, but we’re all glad we made it this far. Again, thank you very much. Here’s to more years for our little film blog!

Thank you very much! I’m looking forward on working on possibly a new one this 2011. Great job you guys! If you’re not yet following Pelikula, you’re missing a lot.

Source: pelikula