Colma: The Musical

There's a simple emotional acuity at the heart of this 2007 coming-of-age musical. True, at a poverty row budget of $15,000, it has the production values of a direct-to-hotel porn movie, but first-time director Richard Wong and first-time screenwriter, songwriter and co-lead H.P. Mendoza manage to make something substantive from the tired premise of three close friends just out of high school and still reeling from painful romantic breakups and experiencing the social alienation that makes their respective roads to self-discovery bumpy ones. The acting feels stilted and the music rather derivative, but the film somehow makes it to the finish line through its honesty about how life is for social outcasts living in San Francisco's suburban necropolis. It's all the more forgivable for the enthusiastic effort that shows.

Shot on digital video in the real town of Colma, the movie opens with the three leads singing the "Rent"-inspired rave-up, "Colma Stays", which describes the anonymous small town with clever imagery. Lanky Jake Moreno plays Billy, the most inchoate of the trio, an aspiring actor who not only lands a sales job at the mall (Serramonte for all you SF locals) but also a supporting role in a local community theater production. He can't seem to get over his ex-girlfriend much to the chagrin of not only a smitten fellow actress but also close pal Maribel. With a cheery spark masking an uncertain melancholy, the cherubic L.A. Renigen makes party girl Maribel the earthbound glue holding the trio together just barely. Her shining moment comes with "Crash the Party", a dead ringer for Blondie's "Dreamin'", preceded by the film's funniest moment, a frozen-stare purchase of alcohol with fake IDs similar to the liquor store scene in "Superbad".

The most challenged and challenging character is Rodel, played with studied deadpan by Mendoza. Rodel is a gay poet and slacker, closeted from his traditional Filipino father and increasingly jealous of Billy's ability to move on with his life. He provides the film's most painfully realistic moments, as well as the most lacerating lines. Yet, his plaintive rendition of "One Day (Pt. 2)" provides genuine heart to the story's climactic moment. Not everything is wondrous. Moreno's nasal vocals, which make him sound like Bert on "Sesame Street", get wearing for the repetitive monotone. The barroom shanty scene runs too long, especially in ¾ time, and the "Deadwalking" duet between Renigen and Mendoza is marred by the arty Bergmanesque intrusion of ghostly couples dancing in the cemetery. The 2007 DVD offers a few surprising extras given the film's low budget - an infectious and insightful commentary track from Wong and Mendoza and fifteen minutes of deleted and extended scenes that were wisely excised from the final cut. Definitely a worthy first effort.

"Colma: The Musical" is now my all-time favorite film. It is about 3 friends fresh out of high school who have to figure out what to do next now that the structure of school is gone. The characters all ring true and the music is completely catchy. You will be humming along to the songs and have them stuck in your head for days after you hear them. On top of that the photography is fantastic. For a film made on a shoestring budget it is a huge achievement to have a film that looks this good and is so technically sound. I have seen plenty of low budget films over the years and you can tell that those films had to cut corners, but Colma looks and sounds like a much more expensive production. The performances of the leads are all fantastic. As the other review said the characters all have their flaws which is what makes them so three dimensional and gives the film its realism. See this film if you can, you will love it!

'Colma the Musical' is all about a trio of friends, 1 actor, 1 gay would-be poet, and their female friend (fag hag is a good word) and their growing up and becoming distant from the suburb they live in, and from each other. This is a really nice piece, as it sure hits home how friends can be fabulous one day, and the next, you're like, 'eh, get away from me'. The performances in this one were pretty great. The actor type guy was CUTE *ahem, sorry*, and wished the gay poet guy and the actor guy could have traded roles. JUST BECAUSE I WANTED TO HAVE FANTASIES ABOUT HIM. (ahem, sorry (cough) There were some great songs in this one too! I still can remember several, even after the screening I went to, well over a month ago.

My main problem is that the film looked the budget (eg not very much) in many shots.) I guess a lot was saved for the music and choreography first! That's all right I guess, because the movie does have some great ideas about turning the musical on it's head!

well i went not knowing what this movie was about, or even 'what' Colma was! wow was i surprised, this movie was very well done for low budget. the writing witty and funny, also moving at times. The acting great, the music was real good too had me tapping my feet ;o) the musical numbers were well choreographed with some great touches. I think that Mendoza did a great job and i am looking forward to more from him. i loved L.A Renigan! she rocks. Please go and support this movie it really deserves it! I gave this movie 10 out of 10.. not because it was one of the best .. but because so much effort must have gone into the making of it, on such a low budget.

Flawed, certainly, but a bracing and energetic evocation of disaffected youth, and one of the most assured live-action musicals of the decade. This study of three young friends trying to escape dead-end futures in a dispiriting San Francisco suburb tracks along the same themes as, say, the Broadway musicals "Spring Awakening" and "American Idiot," but it's much less monotonous about conveying its theme of oh-I'm-so-young-and-sad-nobody-understands- me. And the soundtrack is varied and clever, the best musical moment being the "Cupid" number, the closest thing we'll get in 2006 to a great production number. Jake Moreno isn't the greatest actor, and the cinematography is muddy, and the idea that these three are living among the dead isn't sufficiently developed--we don't know how literally to take it. But writer-songwriter-actor H.P. Mendoza is clearly a very, very talented young man, and he catches familiar themes of youthful angst in fresh ways. And L.A. Renigen is a completely convincing wonderful-best-friend. All three kids are persuasively made up of good and bad traits, and we keep rooting for them even when they screw up. Made for nothing, it's an invigorating little movie, and at the end, when the credits thank "the town of Colma," you do get the impression that the whole town rallied behind these gifted young people to make their dreams come true. It's a nice feeling.