Topic: Carlo J. Caparas, a National Artist?!

[blitzkrieg]

It says a lot about your "artistry" and how much you deserve the title National Artist if your most vocal supporter is Manoling Morato.

When Manoling was MTRCB Chief, he despised anything that is vulgar and tasteless. And now he's behaving like this? Hilarious! And then nilait-lait nya ang kapwa niya bading dahil mas magaling gumawa ng gown kesa sa kanya. When he brainlessly lauded Caparas, he should have stopped right there. Manoling talaga!

[rusty]

When Manoling was MTRCB Chief, he despised anything that is vulgar and tasteless. And now he's behaving like this? Hilarious! And then nilait-lait nya ang kapwa niya bading dahil mas magaling gumawa ng gown kesa sa kanya. When he brainlessly lauded Caparas, he should have stopped right there. Manoling talaga!

This is apparently Manoling's notion of tasteful cinema:

Excerpt from the book Mondo Macabro by Pete Tombs
In 1993, two versions of the same story appeared simultaneously. The gruesome case concerned a Filipino woman murdered and hacked to pieces by her American boyfriend. One of the films, based on her estranged husband's version of events was called The Chop Chop Lady! Even more tasteless was The Lipa Massacre (subtitle: God Save us From Evil). The film begins with the badly recorded sound of children talking, overlaid with ominous synthesizer music...

The climactic scene is particularly offensive. Before the eyes of her terrified children, the man's wife is tormented and abused by the maniac while the soundtrack plays Whitney Houston's schmaltzy hit 'The Greatest Love of All'...The ensuing murder scene lasts for nearly ten minutes and ends with actual newspaper photographs of the three corpses.

Youtube clip(partial):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmXCNbNU5XI

[keating]

I thought this thread was a joke.

[keating]

Posted from PQ's notes in his FB acct:

SPOT SCOOP: Statement from BenCab on the National Artist Brouhaha
Published: July 31, 2009


2006 National Artist for Visual Arts BenCab. Photo by Erwin Obcemea

“I feel bad. It’s a mockery of the system. They might as well just appoint [their own choices] and not go through the whole process. I will boycott the awards. I will not march. I will not mention any names but we heard that there was one very influential person who helped manipulate the results.
Sabi nga ng mga artists, it won’t be a “parangal” kundi “pagdadalamhati.” It’s sad. The awards have been debased. One can just lobby for anyone. Hindi na ‘yung peers ang nag-de-decide. Our opinion doesn’t mean anything.
There used to be prestige. Well since the presidency of Ramos there has been an understanding that the President can add one choice… there was Carlos Quirino (historical literature) , Alejandro ” Anding ‘ Roces (literature) , Abdulmari Asia Imao (visual arts) But this time GMA added four!
About these four, they didn’t go through the deliberation, there was no presentation. There are 22 of us National Artists. We were bypassed. It was a sudden announcement just before the President left for the US. The results were supposed to be announced before June 12. We were asking. ‘Why the delay?’
My message to my fellow artists: We should make a statement, particularly the writers who are more articulate. Why should it be like this?
Now everybody can be a National Artist. They keep adding categories: Landscape Art, Fashion Design, what’s next, hairdressers? They should stick to the seven arts: Music, Dance, Theater, Visual Arts, Literature, Film and Broadcast Arts, and Architecture and Allied Arts.
Carlo J. Caparas won the award for visual arts because he draws comics daw. They wanted to put him in Literature because he writes scripts daw.
(According to a comment on SPOT by ‘Gerry Alanguilan’, comic book writer, licensed architect and illsutrator for a variety of comics including Wolverine, X-men and own creations Timawa and Humanis Rex!: “The puzzling thing is, CJC is NOT an illustrator. He has never drawn any of this comic book stories, least of all his most popular creations. Panday and Pieta were drawn by Steve Gan. Bakekang was drawn by Mar Santana. How can someone who is NOT a visual artist get the National Artist title for Visual Arts?It is illogical, it is ridiculous, and it is insulting to every visual artist out there, including those who deserve it so much more, like Francisco V. Coching and Larry Alcala, who should have been awarded this title long ago.”—Ed.)

***BenCab , Arturo Luz and Napoleon Abueva have decided to boycott the awards ceremony on (according to NCCA Public Affairs, no date has been announced yet.) They will continue their dialogue tonight at the farewell dinner for CCP president Nes Jardin.

[X44]

“Sino ba sa kanila ang nailagay sa stamps natin? Si Carlo, anim na nobela na ang naka-imprint sa mga selyo natin, ‘yong Totoy Bato, Bakekang, Joaquin Borado, Kamandag, Babaeng Hinugot sa Aking Tadyang at ‘yong iba pa. Naku, history na lahat ito kaya walang makakapag-contest,”

Nakalimutan niya yung pang-anim. Hehe

“Even Jesus Christ was criticized because of his boldness to save mankind from sins,”

Quote of the year, right after "Just like an overdose - - you moron!"  

[d4nu65+3R]

which just proves that you can't win an argument with morons.

[X44]

Maybe Caparas and the missus should address the issue of why he won for the Visual Arts category - - - when he isn't a visual artist.

I wonder why there hasn't been some enterprising journalist out there who has asked the Caparas couple about that specific issue. Never mind all the other issues of palakasan, etc. This technicality might be what tax evasion was to Al Capone. And could give the protesting some actual legs.



( There's a rumor that a new category was created - - -Visual Arts Film - - -which means Caparas is actually winning as a filmmaker.  And pretty much blows all his wife's counter-arguments out of the water.)

[X44]

And since we're talking about this sham, why was Cecille Guidote Alvarez included, too?!

That's almost as offensive as the Caparas inclusion. No wait . . it is as offensive.

[technosprite]

Visual arts my ass. Caparas doesn't even draw.

Are we going to pay for his stipend and medical bills now?

GMA strikes again.

this should even triple our collective rage and indignation! and are we supposed to give this cabalen of ate glue a round of applause every time he is acknowledged/introduced in a public event?

"Lord deliver us from evil."

[vaportrail]

Your vote?

[garyMD]

duh??.......do we really need to do this to ourselves? Hindi kaya katawa-tawa tayong lahat nito? I think Dolphy is better than Carlo J.

[vaportrail]

marami kasi naganchong artists yan. i cant elaborate cos mahabang usapan. by the way, this is to quote a comment by the family of Mars Ravelo who said he's more a con artists than anything else. In short, he does not deserve the award. dinaan lang sa palakasan at lobbying (albeit thru close political ties and ass kissing) with malacanang.

[indie boi]

Luksang Bayan Para Sa National Artist Awards
A gathering of artists and arts supporters to eulogize the death of a meanigful National Artist Awards.

Friday, August 7, 2009
2:00pm - 6:00pm
CCP Ramp
Roxas Blvd.   
Pasay City, Philippines

Iniimbitahan kayo ng mga National Artists na sina Ben Cabrera, Bien Lumbera, Rio Alma, F. Sionil Jose, Arturo Luz, Salvador Bernal na makilahok sa isang luksang bayan para sa pagpanaw ng makabuluhang National Artist Awards. Pakiusap, panluksang pananamit.

[garyMD]

marami kasi naganchong artists yan. i cant elaborate cos mahabang usapan. by the way, this is to quote a comment by the family of Mars Ravelo who said he's more a con artists than anything else. In short, he does not deserve the award. dinaan lang sa palakasan at lobbying (albeit thru close political ties and ass kissing) with malacanang.

   true. just like what happened with the nominees for the Supreme Courts justices na pinababalik ni GMA coz wala dun yung mga tuta nya. I really don't know with GMA. she's really destroying all the Institutions in our country. She's prostituting everything just for her to stay in power. Buset! 

[richmondes.]

Luksang Bayan Para Sa National Artist Awards
A gathering of artists and arts supporters to eulogize the death of a meanigful National Artist Awards.

Friday, August 7, 2009
2:00pm - 6:00pm
CCP Ramp
Roxas Blvd.   
Pasay City, Philippines

Iniimbitahan kayo ng mga National Artists na sina Ben Cabrera, Bien Lumbera, Rio Alma, F. Sionil Jose, Arturo Luz, Salvador Bernal na makilahok sa isang luksang bayan para sa pagpanaw ng makabuluhang National Artist Awards. Pakiusap, panluksang pananamit.

dadalo ba si carlo "the national artist" caparas dyan?

[indie boi]

Ano sa tingin mo?

[gearhead000]

dadalo ba si carlo "the national artist" caparas dyan?

Caparas airs side on Nat'l Artist Award
By BOY VILLASANTA/ abs-cbnNEWS.com | 07/31/2009 11:21 AM

........

According to Donna, Carlo will just wear his signature cap, jeans, polo shirt and his extension, his shades during the awarding ceremonies that will be held after President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo returns from her US trip.

“Dapat makapag-identify sa kanya ang masa,” she quipped.

[Krenn]

Ugh. The award was disgusting. My God. I can tolerate the smell of my dog's poop rather than this sheyt. Oh God. It's like awarding an Oscar Best Director to Uwe Boll or Michael Bay. My God, can someone tell me IT'S JUST A NIGHTMARE cause it's VERY SCARY.

[ALICE GO]

ESPOUSING Carlo Caparas, Manoling Morato has taken an irresponsible, indulgent stance that shoot down his cultural scholarship. Manoling is a culturati, a sophisticated antique collector and an author of a highly readable Rizal tome - why did he ever propped up a pedestrian-level "artiste" like Caparas, what's going on in his mind? Is he becoming senile? The only movie line Caparas may be known for is "Huwag mong buhayin ang bangkay!" For Manoling's benefit, he ought to know that Caparas the (sham) writer/filmmaker should not be split from his moral background. When he was making a name as a filmmaker by churning out those "pito-pito/7-day shooting/grade-C" movies - Caparas abandoned both scripting komiks and his wife. He hitched with Dona Villa - a Tisay/half-bred bold starlet of the 80's who astoundingly got mesmerized by him. Caparas has to pay his forsaken wife, who's certainly nowhere near Villa's physical league - generous allowance for years, to make her shut up and not call in the courts. The pop culture footnote of a man whom I'd likened Caparas is April Boy, the epitome of bad taste, baduy to the bone - but at least some of us still gets a kilig factor when "Di ko kayang tanggapin na mawawala ka na sa akin" blares out of a prehistoric jukebox. At best, Caparas was able to cast Kris Aquino in his que horror feast, but Aquino would've  blotted that out from her film portfolio, if she can help it.

Villa pumped millions to financed Caparas' embarassing films, and when the interest waned for their creations, they tied up with PCSO under the chairmanship then of Manoling, to make television dramas that bolsters the sweepstake's claim to make millionaire's out of indolent, gullible betting Filipinos. When I was small in the 70's and my panitikan tutorial is helped out invaluably by reading rented Tagalog komiks every week in the local neighborhood market, I haven't remembered Caparas' serials being particularly remarkable or imbued with above-the-usual literary merit. There are far far better writers than him, and graphic artists who're unsung masters of their craft, a few even got trans-Pacific job as illustrators for Marvel & DC. When the Arroyo era will finally bite the dust and passes off into the annals of the thoroughly unlamented - it'll best be remembered for its thievery, duplicity, horsetrading, and the highest casualty of crusading journalists who shout against the bulok; setting free unrepentant and demented high-profile criminals like Jalosjos and Teehankee, and, making a sonofagun massacre-meister Carlo Caparas as National Artist. Bulok, bulok, BULOK!

[gearhead000]

ms. go.... idol na kita!   

[garyMD]

ms. go....maybe we shud rally behind vincent cua jr. then...batang komiks ka rin yata eh..

[ALICE GO]

YES, I remember BENJAMIN VINCENT KUA. His illustration heyday was between 1979 to 1981. After that I lost track of his works because pubic hairs is finally growing on my loins and that signals my farewell to my childhood. By my juvenile years, I hardly took to komiks anymore - but only after collecting Funny Komiks issues 2 to 40. Kua has died young, but his style is so qualifiably neat, never cluttered. Its a classically-trained cartoonist style, with mellowy, fluid anatomy and men and women having delicious-looking lips. He would've been truly in demand if his career was set back in time during the 1930s to 50s as commercial illustrator for magazines and posters. Those decades the photograph is not yet the dominant image and brand showcaser because of the limitation of the old presses, hence in 99 percent of the time, advertisements are illustrated by graphic artists like, say, Kua, or by painters like Amorsolo.

For the komiks to impact well on its reader ought to be a collaborative effort, a creation of THE dibuhista and the scriptwriter. Its the dibuhista who actually brings to life the story. When the illustration is so rich and vibrant, a mediocre storyteller becomes a mere filler of the thought balloons. But when both achieves narrative fusion, then you get Fantastic Four comic created by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee in the 1960s. Or, Anak Ni Zuma.

While not a criminal neglect, its a shame that no category exists for Komiks Artist within the National Artist institution. If such a thing would be made now, its 30 years too late, for (hand-drawn, non-computer-aided/colored) komiks is now a moribund industry and art form. Who would care if Vincent Kua or Joe Lad Santos or Nestor Redondo gets posthumous mentions as National Artists? Only their generation of readers recall their works - and those folks are obscure in number and has taken to komiks reading because of mainly three innocent reasons: To immerse and lost ourselves to the glorious four-strip color fantasy world; to learn panitikan and Tagalog grammar, by the wayside; and because, komiks for rent is the cheapest entertainment my ten centavos could buy at that time.

Carlo Caparas therefore, is a choice without rhyme nor reason. A schizoid handpicking because whether as a storyteller or a moviemaker, he doesn't ever excelled in both

[garyMD]

YES, I remember BENJAMIN VINCENT KUA. His illustration heyday was between 1979 to 1981. After that I lost track of his works because pubic hairs is finally growing on my loins and that signals my farewell to my childhood. By my juvenile years, I hardly took to komiks anymore - but only after collecting Funny Komiks issues 2 to 40. Kua has died young, but his style is so qualifiably neat, never cluttered. Its a classically-trained cartoonist style, with mellowy, fluid anatomy and men and women having delicious-looking lips. He would've been truly in demand if his career was set back in time during the 1930s to 50s as commercial illustrator for magazines and posters. Those decades the photograph is not yet the dominant image and brand showcaser because of the limitation of the old presses, hence in 99 percent of the time, advertisements are illustrated by graphic artists like, say, Kua, or by painters like Amorsolo.

For the komiks to impact well on its reader ought to be a collaborative effort, a creation of THE dibuhista and the scriptwriter. Its the dibuhista who actually brings to life the story. When the illustration is so rich and vibrant, a mediocre storyteller becomes a mere filler of the thought balloons. But when both achieves narrative fusion, then you get Fantastic Four comic created by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee in the 1960s. Or, Anak Ni Zuma.

While not a criminal neglect, its a shame that no category exists for Komiks Artist within the National Artist institution. If such a thing would be made now, its 30 years too late, for (hand-drawn, non-computer-aided/colored) komiks is now a moribund industry and art form. Who would care if Vincent Kua or Joe Lad Santos or Nestor Redondo gets posthumous mentions as National Artists? Only their generation of readers recall their works - and those folks are obscure in number and has taken to komiks reading because of mainly three innocent reasons: To immerse and lost ourselves to the glorious four-strip color fantasy world; to learn panitikan and Tagalog grammar, by the wayside; and because, komiks for rent is the cheapest entertainment my ten centavos could buy at that time.

Carlo Caparas therefore, is a choice without rhyme nor reason. A schizoid handpicking because whether as a storyteller or a moviemaker, he doesn't ever excelled in both

    amen to that! and Ms. Alice Go, isa kang alamat!!!!!  

    Postscript : thank you for the full name of Benjamin Vincent Kua. it was a sad news that he died young pala? such prolific hands to make those kinds of illustrations. it was a romantic period of my youth too. and my 50 centavo coin can go places already.

     thank you!

[Noel_Vera]

Oh, you mean this article?. Don't think it's aimed at me--haven't been in a film since, oh , 1996. And besides, I'm small fry.

[firewired]

And since we're talking about this sham, why was Cecille Guidote Alvarez included, too?!

OT, but the Alvarez star seems to be shining again. Wonder why? Her husband, Heherson, was a surprise addition to GMA's very small White House entourage. I have nothing personal against Cecille, but seriously, as Executive Director of the NCCA, she really should turn this down out of delicadeza. The NCCA is heavily involved in the selection process for one, and second, Alvarez is also the Presidential Adviser on Culture.

[oweidah]

sorry im quite late on this news.

pa-OT:  ask ko lang po kung kasama si DOLPHY? Dont you think he deserves to be a national artist?

[marj]

Sino naman ang ko-contest sa decision ng Cultural Center, ng NCCA at ng Malacañang tungkol sa award na ito?

His name was not even included in the list submitted by CCP and NCCA to Malacañang!

[marj]

Even Jesus Christ was criticized because of his boldness to save mankind from sins

Blasphemy!

[indie boi]

Oh, you mean this article?. Don't think it's aimed at me--haven't been in a film since, oh , 1996. And besides, I'm small fry.

What a hilarious article. Lo spent a lot of space talking about nothing. All the points he raised to defend Caparas are laughable. So what if there's a street named after him? And to say that the massacre movies are just a drop in the bucket. Well, it's a drop in an admittedly deep, but also glaringly mediocre bucket.

I don't understand why the constant defense on his nomination was that he was very prolific. When did National Artist become synonymous with numbers? He may have made a lot of movies but those movies were all crap.

[wedge]

I pointed that to Noel, thinking it might be directed against him. Hehe.