ironhorse_iv First-time director Richard Wong and first-time screenwriter, songwriter and co-lead H.P. Mendoza manage to make a great low-budget coming to age musical that is better than a lot of the big Broadway musicals. The movie follows three close friends on their journey from high school to their journey to self-discovery. The movie opens with the song 'Colma Stays', which describes the small town as nowhere ville. It's even funnier when you had live there, like me, but Colma is nowhere like 'small town'. It's pretty much now connected to Daly City, and South San Francisco. It's does change. It's only 20 minutes away from San Francisco, but the filmmakers made it seem like it's Colma is far from nowhere cool and there isn't anything to do. It's no way, cut off from the world. Still, there is more dead people than alive people in Colma. Anybody who is a Bay Area local who live South Bay will appreciate the inside jokes, but the movie is a bit limited due to that reason. The only people that can related to the film is a small group of people that live near or close by of the town of Colma. Billy (Jake Moreno) is the an aspiring actor who can't get over his ex-girlfriend, while not seeing that a fellow actress Tara (Sigrid Sutter) is smitten with him as well as his close pal Maribel. (L.A Renigen). Maribel seems the character that rarely has much going for her, besides partying. She's not that interesting of a character. She's a bit annoying, and snobby. The only highlight of the film was her singing 'Crash the Party' which is awesome non cut one take musical number. Not only is it, a great song that sounds similar to Blondie 'Dreamin', but the way they film it is amazing how they did without one mistake. While, Maribel has barely a character, Rodel (H.P Mendoza) has too much of it. Rodel is a gay slacker, who get beaten by his traditional Filipino father and increasingly jealous of Billy's ability to move on with his life. I love how the camera puts a black line between them in the laundry scene, making two boxes. He always complaining, yelling, making fun or in negative mood. It's makes you wonder why the other people even hang out with him. Seeing how he wrote the screenplay, the story follows way too much of him. Sadly, he can not sing as well. It felt repetitive monotone. Honestly, none of the actors can sing that well, but H.P Mendoza is pretty awful. I do like H.P Mendoza making fun of people that party way too much with the song. "Could We Get Any Older". Thank you, Mendoza. I wish I had the guts to say that to certain people in my life. I love the fact that the characters define their relationships and express their feelings almost entirely through song. Other songs that were pretty good are 'Tara', and "Goodbye Cupid or Goodbye Stupid'. 'Goodbye Cupid' was pretty funny drunk bar song. I do like the Hulk Hogan look a like guy at the bar. It's weird in a way, that everybody there, sounds like a Muppet character there. 'Deadwalking' was a interesting song with people dancing over people's graves. It's a beautiful song, but it's seems kinda disrespectful for those people who were buried there to be filming a musical there. It's does show what Colma is known for. I don't like "One Day' and 'Mature', it's just sounds like any slow normal karaoke song. The acting isn't that good. The characters can be pretty obnoxious and unlikeable. Still, it was funny how mean-spirited they can be. The language can be a bit harsh. Not all the locations in Colma: The Musical were in Colma. The Theater was located in San Francisco Mission Distract. The Cafe scene was on Ingleside neighborhood in SF. The Lincoln Park Market is in Clement St, San Francisco, CA. where they get fake IDS. It's was kinda funny, in a way, because in 2012, the place was busted for lottery fraud. I kinda wish they use more of Colma. Colma: the Musical is a great watch, for fans of musicals, or people that know the area. Even if you're not from Colma, you should give it a try.

Spuzzlightyear '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!

IamGel821 Colma is a suburb of San Francisco where the dead outnumber the living. That's the running joke anyway. Known for its grave sites and "Daly City fog", Colma is the foundation for director Richard Wong's feature film debut, aptly titled "Colma: The Musical." Written by the talented H.M. Mendoza (who also supplies his talents to the songs, score and lead character), "Colma: The Musical" is a refreshing, funny and poignant independent musical ("independent musical" - is this the first?). It's amazing how Colma's entertainment value equals that of classic Hollywood musicals seeing as how it's missing all the elements that made those classics great. Production design, lavish costumes, an epic story and intricate choreographed dance numbers are nowhere to be found. What it lacks from the classics, it makes up in creating a new type of musical. A musical of simplicity, where the story is relatable, the characters real, the direction artistic without being artsy and, most importantly to a musical, the songs memorable.The story of "Colma: The Musical" focuses on three friends trying to figure out life after high school. Billy, a "thezpian", is torn between two things: his new, going-nowhere job that he "really needs for something big" and his aspiring acting career; and new possibilities with "girl's name that's always on his mind" and his ex who he can't quite get over. Rodel is a poet trying to find "his happy place" after a break up with his boyfriend and a turbulent change in his already strained relationship with his father. His thoughts he writes on scraps of paper and his friends are the only things that keep him going. Maribel is the centered one of the three; the glue, really, that is holding the friendship. She's just trying to find ways to live out her youth – to party, drink and get laid – as herself.As in real life, reality takes its aim on these three friends and challenges the staying power of their friendship. As not in real life (and sadly why not), it all happens while they sing, sometimes in the most unlikely places and with the most unlikely of people. *SPOILER* (On top of alarming cars or in a bar with Hulk Hogan?) In essence, what Richard Wong and H.P. Mendoza has given us is a remarkable piece of film art. Film art's intention is to reflect back to us, like a mirror, things that we may not be able to see because we're to busy in our lives to see them. Colma represents "nothing and everything" in our past that is comfortable, secure and what made us happy at one point. We all have a Colma in our lives. Whether it is Somerset, NJ or Mikey, or high school memories, we've all been in a state of Colma: a state where we don't know what is anymore, yet we can't let go. And it's only us that can choose whether to stay in Colma or come out of Colma and into the unknown forward...closer towards "our happy place."

bostonvoc I only knew about H.P. Mendoza from his music. I didn't even know what he looked like. This movie blew my mind. If Ghost World were a musical, and They Might Be Giants helped out, you'd have Colma.It feels like no other musical I've ever seen. It has that alternative edge that a lot of other musicals claim to have. And I don't mean alternative like Nickelback. I mean like that alternative sound that's been alternative since the eighties.And the characters are so free and trapped at the same time. Every character has some major faults, but you can't help but like them all. Rent wishes it were this realistic.I swear, if you like They Might Be Giants, Cake, Presidents of the USA, and all of those bands like that, you will absolutely love Colma: The Musical.