New York Post Thanks to Dan for this information! TOO MANY COOKS By MEGAN TURNER ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Rating: January 25, 2002 -- AMERICAN ADOBO YET another film that explores the travails of a transplanted ethnic group using food as a metaphor, "American Adobo" is marinated in clichés and mawkish dialogue. The adobo of the title is the garlicky national dish of the Philippines, but the food gets put on the back burner as five libidinous American-Filipino friends stew in universal dilemmas of the heart. There's the closeted gay man who takes his traditionalist mother to see his dying lover, the vain socialite saddled with a philandering lover, an unhappily married newspaper editor who yearns to return to Manila and the studly womanizer awaiting results of an HIV test (Paolo Montalban, one of People's "50 Most Beautiful" of 1998). When they're not being shrill and melodramatic, there's a certain likability to many of the characters, particularly Tere (Cherry Pie Picache), the fortysomething wallflower who makes up for a lack of love in her life by cooking for her friends. But director Laurice Guillen is just a little too heavy-handed with the seasoning. Running time: 102 minutes. In English and Tagalog, with English subtitles. Rated R (sex, profanity). At the Village East, others.