There are projects that beyond their flaws you’ve got to praise for brazenness, the amount of love put into their creation. There’s this air of faith, of passion, that permeates all aspects, smoothening out whatever rough patches the material may have. Ang Larawan is this sort of project. Ang Larawan,
Category: Reviews
Smaller and Smaller Circles
Serial, Making a Murderer, The Keepers, deep dives that have sprung forth from the recent death of Charles Manson; a jarring insight commonly seen in this renaissance of the true crime genre is that it adds another layer to how we look at crime and the so-called monsters that commit
Call Me By Your Name
In “The Heptaméron”, Marguerite of Navarre asks the question: is it better to speak or to die? It’s a question that cradles us back to that thrilling, self-destructive, sweat-leaking-out-of-our-palms moment of professing our yearning for someone. Nevermind that it was merely a “special friendship”, which means everything and nothing at the same time.
Changing Partners
In the first minutes of Changing Partners, Agot Isidro’s Alex (don’t be confused, there’ll be two Alex’s here — that’s kind of the concept of the whole film) expresses her excitement over watching the new season of her favorite prime-time musical soap opera. Her much younger boyfriend Cris (Sandino Martin, one
Nervous Translation
People often say “see the world through the eyes of a child,” acting as if these words are the remedy to cynicism. Somehow this phrase is charged with what we imagine childhood to be: innocence, authenticity, joy and tears (somehow our emotions back then feel purer), wonder, etc. And yet
Paki
About two-thirds into Giancarlo Abrahan’s sophomore feature Paki, almost the whole of its ensemble start to gather around a table for a meal. This is the first time the family’s matriarch Alejandra (acted to a tee by Dexter Doria) will face once again her then not yet present and newly estranged
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
In social psychology, there’s this concept known as moral self-licensing. Moral self-licensing is what we call the tendency of man to succeed an act of goodness with something we can, in simple terms, label as “bad.” In an episode of Malcolm Gladwell’s satiating podcast Revisionist History (which I strongly urge
Thor: Ragnarok
Every so often, Marvel would release a collection of comics known as the ‘What If’ series, in which a cosmic being named The Watcher peers into a darker, oftentimes wackier, alternate universe. Some notable stories include What If The Punisher Became Captain America, What If The Fantastic Four Had Not Gained
2017 Viddsee Juree Awards Top 10 Finalists Announced
Fresh, innovative and inspiring stories have been chosen to vie for top honors at the Viddsee Juree Philippines, a festival of short films that aim to celebrate and support filmmaker communities in Asia. The nominated films are by upcoming talents from different schools such as the University of the Philippines,
Neomanila: Earned Redeption Failure
Warning: Full spoilers below. Neomanila has the uncanny ability to disorient. The film initially posits that in the underbellies of Manila, its inhabitants learn how to hold on to whatever light they can manage to get their hands on. It makes its audience believe that optimism is its endgame, that it
The Chanters
There’s a certain nostalgia that James Mayo’s The Chanters exudes even though set in the present, with social media frenzy playing a part in its story. The film evokes simpler times — times when it was commonplace for neighbors to gather around a shared TV screen after dinner just to catch the
Loving Vincent
There’s this scene from the Doctor Who episode “Vincent and The Doctor” back in 2010 where the titular doctor takes Vincent Van Gogh himself to modern day Paris to visit one of the exhibits in his name. Van Gogh, the epitome of the tortured artist, stands bystander as the curator
Kingsman: The Golden Circle
An aggressively bonkers espionage film, Kingsman: The Golden Circle, has breached into comic book territory by amplifying its level of outrageousness in this sequel. The main attraction remains to be its bombastic action designed for viewers with an attention span of a Boomerang app (the delirious cab chase at the
Blade Runner 2049
Let’s set expectations first. Full disclosure, I am in love with the original Blade Runner. It’s up there with Oldboy, Pan’s Labyrinth, and Fight Club (I was a hormonal teenager) in the list of films that changed my life. Given my adoration (and of course, Blade Runner 2049 being a sequel
Respeto: The Futility of Resignation
Warning: Full spoilers below. There’s a mislead inherent to Treb Monterras II’s Respeto. By its sheer inclusion of the rap battle subculture — one whose foundation in itself is competition — there’s the immediate perception that it falls under the underdog sports movie genre. But instead of following tropes akin
mother!
There’s this scene in Ex Machina where Domhnall Gleeson explains to Alicia Vikander’s Ava the allegory of Mary’s Room. He tells the story of how Mary, a scientist, knows everything that’s possible to know about color — spectrums, theories, etc. She though lives, as well as was born and raised,
Logan Lucky
It’s interesting to see how after a sort-of drought in the heist genre, we get two quality entries this year with Edgar Wright’s Baby Driver and — the brought-back-from-retirement — Steven Soderbergh’s Logan Lucky. Both are stylized takes on the classic genre: featuring smart quirky dialogue, charming leads, and a
It
There is a certain kick in watching gushes of blood, split-second glimpses of monsters, and jump scares accompanied by irreverent denotations of sound and music – as it is the collective appeal of horror films. It also allows us a breather, whether in a scene or two following a scare,
Death Note
Adaptations are a tricky business. There’s much to consider. At one end, originality must be injected to make the familiar unfamiliar (well, any self-respecting creative would feel the need to do so). On the other hand, one can’t stray too far or risk being accused of dishonoring the source material.
Birdshot: An Allegory of Paradise Lost
Warning: Full spoilers below. For the past three days I’ve been thinking about what part of Birdshot leaves me so unsettled, restless with a feeling of dread hovering above. Just like a gumshoe with an inkling he’s obsessesing over, I’ve been thinking, re-watching the film, trying to get a hold of
Ang Manananggal sa Unit 23B
There’s something inherently gothic in the pairing of romance and the supernatural — that notion of the taboo, the alienation that results from the “forbiddenness” of an affair, “you and me against the world.” There’s an idealistic purity that comes out from this subgenre of love; funny how it is
Baconaua
As dawn starts to creep in the horizon, we see the silhouette of Divina (Elora Españo), with a spear on her hands, standing in a the sea waist-deep. She’s sizing up the water, cautious not to make any unnecessary commotion. But no amount of concentration can make this a day
Kiko Boksingero
Family dramas often have the dire need to verbalize emotions via heavy-handed dramatic confrontations. Thop Nazareno‘s coming-of-age drama Kiko Boksingero spares its audience of this embarrassing rehash and instead sustains a light tone all throughout. The result remains to be a fully-fleshed earnest story efficiently utilizing its modest screen time.
Baby Driver
Baby Driver opens with car chase perfectly synced to “Bellbottoms” by The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. We see the titular Baby (Ansel Elgort) align every move to the music — timing a heist to the song’s bluesy riff, flooring the pedal as the same song explodes into a cacophony of frantic garage
Dunkirk
The beach is cinema’s favorite battlefield. Muddy trenches are best left for exposition. And once you’ve seen a desolate, run-down town, you’ve seen them all. But the shorelines are where war has been depicted at its best. And therefore its worst. In Normandy, wave after wave of American forces were
