Playing like a tense thriller reminiscent of the films of Michael Mann, Redlights plays up its atmosphere of uneasiness – that feeling that’s something’s up but you just can’t put your finger on what it is – to deliver a suspenseful look into the seedy underbelly of Cebu. Written and directed
Category: Reviews
The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
With a resume of movies like Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels; Snatch; and the Robert Downey Jr.-lead Sherlock Holmes series; director Guy Ritchie‘s name has become synonymous to sleek, stylish, hyper-kinetic action containing quick wit and smart plotting. Unfortunately, it is this last part, “smart plotting,” that the Man from U.N.C.L.E. lacks. Telling the
Wawa
If you come in to Angelie Mae Macalanda’s short film Wawa, expect anything but the myth of Bernardo Carpio enduring two mountains apart or the enkantada who entrances unsuspecting male tourists. The heart of the film, while it dwells in darkness, is something far more familiar to us—perhaps all too vividly—than folklore. Its
Pusong Bato
When you are told that the premise of the film you are about to watch revolves around a has-been starlet who falls in love with a rock – yes, that unassuming, solidified piece of merged minerals you find everywhere – you can either cringe at its ridiculousness, or be excited
Papetir
Beneath Papetir‘s exterior of outdated editing and its just basic lack of directorial style, lies glimmers of an interesting premise not fully utilized. Papetir is the story of King (played by real-life puppeteer Ruther Urquia), a children’s party ventriloquist, who during one of his shows gets derailed mid-skit as he confronts his
Sanctissima
Sanctissima is easily the best amongst the the other short films it screened alongside with, as part of Cinemalaya’s Shorts A block. This is not to say that the short is perfect. The film has many good points as it delivers its promise of very Filipino barrio-set horror. Its flaws
Coming Home
Established on an enthralling trustworthy backdrop of Mao-era communism where exhibiting of industrial, banking and commercial nationalization is perceptible. Swathed with political milieu and narrating the dealings of Cultural Revolution. Coming Home depicts a tear-jerking spectacle of everyday lives in the midst of crisis where essential principles are under siege. The
Modern Robin Hoods are ‘Plastic’
From the shelves of Julian Gilbey (A Lonely Place to Die) comes a conspicuous and clever movie about a gang of 20-year olds, dazzling bad-boy frolics with sprinkle of action sets the extreme robbery of their lives. “Plastic”, a film with “Ocean’s Eleven meets Italian Job” formula but with laughable
‘Attack on Titan’ to devour Philippine box-office
As the last stronghold of mortality defends its loss from the mind-numbing naked giants who eats people to exist; Hajime Isayama’s famous manga-anime “Shingeki no Kyojin” is set to devour box office records as it invades the Philippines. Notably known as “Attack on Titan” is a big hit in Japan
Fantastic Four
Warning: Mild (as in, Johnson’s Baby Shampoo-level mild) spoilers ahead. The best way to describe Fantastic Four is that it’s like reading 2/3 of a good book then going to Wikipedia to see how the last 1/3 ends. The movie spends a lot of time building up their characters in the first two acts,
Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation
After nearly three years since its stellar Ghost Protocol, the Mission: Impossible franchise comes back with its latest, Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, and the stakes are never the higher, both for the franchise, and its lead super agent, Ethan Hunt, played by the indefatigable and unstoppable Tom Cruise. For
Mr Holmes (2015)
MR. HOLMES opens to a soft, glowing view of the English countryside rather than the gloomy mood of Baker Street in London from where the popular detective resides. The film is based on a novel by Mitch Cullin called ‘A Slight Trick of the Mind’ eighty-eight years after Sherlock’s final
The Gallows
Let me begin by saying that, despite it being chockablock of streak after streak of uninspired features, I maintain my belief on The Found-Footage Horror. There is no experience like one’s first encounter with The Blair Witch Project, considered (rather reflexively) the first found-footage horror film. In the space of
Chain Mail
The premise of Chain Mail, the new film from Viva Films Adolf Alix Jr., is problematic: a cursed chain e-mail is being looped around, terrorizing a group of teenagers who think they know better by ignoring it. From the outset—given how social media is becoming imprinted on our daily lives and
Cure
The serial killer in Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s 1997 film Cure does not fit the description cinematic representations typically associate his likes. Mr. Mamiya (Masato Hagiwara) is encased in a fragile frame, scrawny, and is almost always flushed in daze. If it isn’t for the film’s first scene—a white-collar working man burgeons
Sex Ed
While the film’s advocacy is refreshingly optimistic and sincere, ‘Sex Ed’ fails to build up a narrative that can powerfully convey it.
Ant-Man
“It was never just a heist.” And in those words, Paul Rudd‘s Scott Lang captures in a nutshell what Ant-Man is as a movie. Tonally, Ant-Man fits very well in the tradition of Hollywood heist films, it has all the clichés – it’s fast-paced, thrilling, and quirkily comedic. At the same time
Gut
Tom (Jason Vail) lives a routine for a life. Every day he wakes up, jogs, then meets his wife and daughter for breakfast. His days are filled mainly with office tasks, exhaustedly carrying on with a spent relationship with his childhood best friend Dan (Nicolas Wilder) who works in a cubicle next
Ex Machina
Finally, the dark deft sci-fi writer Alex Garland directs his own dark deft sci-fi movie, and it feels like Stanley Kubrick’s sequel of Her. Sleek, heady and visceral, the psychological thriller Ex Machina exposes people’s unarticulated anxiety about the potential and power of the rapidly evolving technology we use today.
The Territory
Russian novels are often lengthy and are a bit tricky to adapt on screen. Looking at the trailer set for Alexander Melnik’s The Territory, it is easy to be intrigued by what the lengths and heights it took to capture each landscapes set for the film. Based on a novel by
Son of Mine
Limburg, in the south of Netherlands, is the location of Remy van Heugten’s feature film “Gluckauf” (Eng. title: “Son of Mine”). As an ode to the province’s former mining industry, he named the film after a phrase that all miners used to say, which means “to go up” or to
Filosofi Kopi
There’s so much to tell in a single cup of coffee. All the love and effort made in preparing it, the trade, the hard work every coffee farmer puts in harvesting these dark, aromatic beans; and the time and effort our baristas put in whipping up the “perfect” coffee. But
The End Of Love
What is it that we know about love? This is the question that begs to be known in Hsu Li Da’s second feature film The End of Love. We follow the lives of four contemporary couples at the beginning and or at the brink of their love lives. The key
Poltergeist
In the whole, the original “Poltergeist” film is about suburban chaos—an almost-palpable, truly American dread that has the film’s creators, Spielberg and Hooper, jump in on a cutesy little feud on who’s-who to stake claim on a nice minute of Joe Dante glory. (I’m on team Spielberg, just to set things
An Kubo sa Kawayanan
The new film from Alvin Yapan is introduced as a “small film with big ambitions.” Twice I have heard of this:the first time from his actress Agot Asidro presenting his 2013 film Mga Anino ng Kahapon; and again from him last night at the Gala Screening of his WPFF entry An
