I watched "Cuddle Weather" and it's a unique romcom

Cuddle Weather is a romantic comedy with a bitter subtext and a non-American point of view. It is the story of two Filipino sex workers who have very different outlooks, experiences, and desired outcomes. The question is can they make it work. (4/5 stars for two very good performances and tight-focused storytelling)

The film was funded by the Film Development Council of the Philippines and most of the dialog is in Tagalog. The characters speak Taglish from time to time and there's a bit of English as well. I can't tell if this is authentic or something done for the film but since I rely on subtitles for pretty much all my watching these days I didn't notice much difference.

Sue Ramirez plays Adela, an older experienced sex worker who is nearing her goal of getting out of the life. She's still supporting her family, while keeping them at arm's length from her work. Adela's bitterness isn't just the one-dimensional "my family rejects me"; rather, she's complex and nuanced and we get to feel for and sympathize with her bitterness.

RK Bagatsing plays Ram, a younger kid new to sex work. He has just come off being scammed out of a job and his savings and can't return to his family in disgrace as they are expecting him to send money home. He's a bit naïve but that's not his only trait. Again, a complex character who has the newness trait mixed with his own seriousness and drives.

The two meet, find convenience, and... well, it's a romcom. You kind of know where it's going. It just happens to be a romcom set in the Filipino sex industry. In addition to the two strong lead performances, I particularly like that the film treats its subject industry well. There's neither glorification nor vilification of sex work here. It just is - a fact of life. People treat prostitutes badly sometimes and some people are hypocritical about sex work. Other people don't, or less so.

Romcoms don't need suspense, really, and they don't need propped-up one-dimensional villains. This film avoids both and benefits from that as it lets the story stay tight on the characters, lets the characters be multi-dimensional, lets their tension be developed, lets them play out their differing goals, and eventually gives us a satisfying resolution. Great credit to Rod Marmol who is both writer and director here.

I watched "Code 8" and it's a miss

This Code 8 is the 2019 Netflix film. It tells the story of a world in which some people have one of a handful of super powers - fire, electricity, physical force, and some rarer ones like mind-reading. These powered people are cast into society's underclass in a world that's moving toward robotics replacing humans. Previously shut out of conventional work, powered people are now at risk of losing even the low-wage manual jobs like construction day labor that they rely on due to rising use of robots. At the same time, criminals are ramping up production and distribution of Psyke, a powerful drug made from the spinal fluid of powered people. 2.5/5 stars for stringing together some bog-standardard SFnal tropes and not doing anything innovative with them.

The 'powered people as underclass' idea is at least as old as the X-Men, when mutants became stand-ins for a variety of marginalized people in the late 20th century. SF and comics told allegorical stories about racism and classism through these fictional people, echoing similar themes in earlier written speculative fiction. Code 8 has nothing new to say in this regard and frankly seems disinterested in exploring that.

Instead, the story centers on Connor Reed (Robbie Amell) who's not only downcast for being powered, he's also the son of a powered criminal and his poor family can't afford treatment for the cancer that's visibly killing his mother. As desperate people will do, he falls in with a criminal gang and thing just go from bad to worse.

I found the movie overall depressing. Reed isn't exactly the typical "good guy among bad people". He's just less bad than one group of them, who are themselves less bad than the baddest bad guys. Even the cops aren't particularly admirable, showing themselves not only brutal tools of the oppressive state but fairly corrupt, willing to cut corners or even outright cheat to get what they want.

No one is so bad as to make the film unwatchable - they're just bad enough that I don't end up caring much about any of them. Connor's mother is probably the only good person in the film, but her role seems to be victim/motivation and although Kari Matchett does the best she can with the scenes she has, it's not enough to uplift the film as a whole.

Not entirely a waste of an afternoon, but not one I'd rewatch.