Coco Martin aka Ramon of Tayong Dalawa

He’s my friend’s current crush. Coco Martin. The current toast of town. He appeared in 14 indie movies in the span of 3 years. Have done almost everything in these indie movies: kissed a guy and bared his skin in Masahista, Daybreak and Condo. He’s graced the Cannes International Film Festival for 2 consecutive years. He has met Sean Penn, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie and Quentin Tarantino in these stints. Wow!

Right now, though, he is more popularly known as Ramon, the bad guy in the local teleserye Tayong Dalawa. Thanks to this teleserye from ABS-CBN, Coco has gone mainstream. Before this teleserye, I can only remember him as the alleged father of a sexy star’s kid. See what a teleserye can do to a lesser known star? It can really catapult him to stardom! And it did to Coco!

Coco deserves every minute of fame he is experiencing right now. He’s really a superb actor! I bet after Tayong Dalawa, he will be given another teleserye, or a Star Cinema movie.

I cannot fathom the need of indie films to show nudity, sex, perversion and all that just to call their movie an art. I know that the stories are good, like Serbis starring Jaclyn Jose and Gina Pareño. The mere fact that veteran actresses like Jaclyn Jose and Gina Pareño star in these indie films is already an indicative that the movie is good.

Do they really have to show too much perversion in these films? What happened to suggestive acts and all that? Can’t we do a scene or two of these and just go on with the story? Do we really have to sell these indie films as vehicles of lust? Butas, Masahista, Ang Lihim ni Antonio, and others with suggestive titles. Most of these films have too much sex in it, homoerotic scenes, frontal nudity, and other kinds of perversion that they say are abound in society and that we are just too scared to admit.

Art? I don’t think so. Not entirely. Because whatever others say, some stupid people still get ideas watching movies with too much sex and perversion in it!

Why not sell a movie based on a great story? Like Munting Tinig. It is not commercially successful, yes, but it was acclaimed internationally. It is a great story with an equally great performance from Alessandra de Rossi. Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros. And others that escape me at the moment.

Do you watch indie films?