Arrival, in a way, is the anti-thesis of your standard, run-of-the-mill, alien invasion movie. The extraterrestrials here don’t enter earth’s atmosphere with a bang — there are no explosions to herald their (pun not intended) arrival— they do so with a whimper and that’s just what makes their presence all
Category: Reviews
Seklusyon
A take on battling one’s inner demons, Seklusyon is Erik Matti‘s return to cinema’s most difficult genre to pull off: horror. It requires the utilization of its various resources – sound, editing, cinematography, and most of all, story – with utmost precision. In this regard, it follows that any attempt
A Monster Calls
A Monster Calls or as I’d like to call it “Me, Groot, and the Dying Girl.” A simple story told in a poignant manner; A Monster Calls affects you. Even without a personal reference to a dearly beloved succumbing to illness, I assure you that tears will be shed and hearts will
Doctor Strange
Doctor Strange is deliciously exotic: a fresh aberration from Marvel’s line-up of calculated brawn and brawl. Directed by Scott Derrickson, the film delves into a mystical multiverse, of space-time continuums, and magic wielded from ancient mythos – quite an unlikely sojourn for neurosurgeon Dr. Stephen Strange, the movie’s titular man
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children
[dropcap size=big]W[/dropcap]hen I first encountered a Tim Burton film, The Nightmare Before Christmas, wonder and unease stayed with me as the credits rolled. As a kid who only knew the world in dichotomies, watching a film that blended darkness and humor and spectacular peculiarities was an experience. Later did I found
Here’s our review coverage of the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival
Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) 2016 kicked off last September 8th and ran for 11 days thru the 18th. The largest film festival in North America hosted more than 1,200 screenings of the 296 films and attracted over hundred thousands of audiences in the busy festival village. It was an
Blair Witch
Man’s search for the unknown is a journey of risks in unraveling shapeless mysteries, but ultimately is a conquest directed to the self. Disclaimer: At the tail end of this review is a minor spoiler-cum-interpretation. Many of world’s literature source from this need for discovery. Likewise, many artists want to
Sully
Sully opens with Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger (Tom Hanks) having a PTSD-induced, 9/11-reminiscent vision of a plane crashing into a Manhattan skyscraper. This is the “what-if” scenario that haunts the titular hero after successfully landing the engine-blown Flight 1549 on the chilly Hudson River, and miraculously saving all 155 souls
Tuos
Derick Cabrido’s ‘Tuos’ evinces an awe-inspiring tension between its weighty subject; the emotional manipulation of accepting and rejecting the responsibility of a ‘binukot’ practice and the sophisticated animation of ‘Sugidanon: Tikum Kadlum,’ this creative fissure works in the film’s favor which strengthens its artistic qualities. Drawing from its cultural aspect
Mechanic: Resurrection
Watching this film without having seen the trailer made me ask these following questions: Is this the film where Statham is a no-questions-asked transporter of precarious things? Or maybe this is the crazy Statham film where he needs to constantly keep his adrenaline flowing either by getting into fights or
Train to Busan
Nothing turns me off more than when zombie films gradually derail from character development and fall into the trap of gorefests and amusement killing just for the sake of it. Train to Busan, however, restores my faith in the sub-genre as director Yeon Sang-ho does not treat his characters as
The Secret Life of Pets
A Toy Story for pets. There, I’ve gotten it out of the way – the classic Disney film that every critic will mention in reviewing Yarrow Cheney’s and Chris Renaud’s The Secret Life of Pets. Perhaps cracking early the plot resemblance spoiled my high hopes for this film. We have
Ben-Hur
Concept-wise, this strangely-refreshing interweave of Ben-Hur’s story to Jesus’ life has the potential to work out just fine. Director Timur Bekmambetov (Wanted, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter) acknowledges the pressure of living up to the 1959 Academy-Award winning classic by starting the film with a flash-forward of the iconic chariot scene,
The BFG
The odd sight of BFG’s “frobscottle” – a green fizzy drink where the bubbles go down instead of up, speaks to the tonal dissonance that normally shouldn’t work in this feature film. From the get go, The BFG begins like a classic, possibly dark, tale set in the cobbled streets
Jason Bourne
Matt Damon has said in his previous interview, “We have ridden that horse [Bourne series] as far as we can. So, if there’s going to be another one, then it would have to be a complete reconfiguration.” Hence, upon seeing Jason Bourne and realizing that there’s no story here that
Kusina
Something feels right about seeing Judy Ann Santos-Agoncillo on screen. Kusina (Eng. title: Her Kitchen) opens with her giving a smile, and her presence alone commands attention; immediately we are drawn in. We don’t see her again until much later, and while the scenes without her work adequately, the film
Lando at Bugoy
I am left with ambivalence upon learning in the credits roll that Lando at Bugoy is actually inspired by a real-life story. Does that supposed to elevate this film when it also happens to reinforce the silent opinion that the straightforward execution makes it look like it’s something you can
Mercury Is Mine
The defining trait of Jason Paul Laxamana’s Mercury Is Mine is its forthright craziness. Never has madness been beckoned with this much vigor; it’s reckless, relentless, and completely unsound of mind. The film opens with the title character, played by Bret Jackson, a young American, who, in the scene, finally
I America
I America, the new film from Ivan Payawal, is by no means a completely redemptive work. It is, instead, a hand-holding piece that argues the unfortunate failure of last year’s The Comeback is merely an unfortunate setback. And with his new film, the young director, at the very least, makes
Pamilya Ordinaryo
The everyday routine of a Filipino family is founded on endurance and survival: surviving the traffic during rush hours, and surviving to make good on their respective jobs; and enduring the heat, the exhaustion, and the every struggle to make ends meet. That is of course unless you are privileged
Suicide Squad
It’s all crazy pretty,” remarks one of the armed men. Harley Quinn smiles ominously nearby, trapped inside her cell. And this writer wonders whether the same can be said for the entirety of Suicide Squad, directed by David Ayer, and D.C.’s latest theatrical effort to outdo the ever-expanding Marvel Cinematic
Ignacio De Loyola
The most earnest moment in Ignacio De Loyola comes from a scene where the eponymous saint asks a prostitute to visualize God sat on an empty chair and think of the things that He would say to her. She replies with:, “He doesn’t care who I was or where I’ve
Ghostbusters
Upon release of the allegedly “lousy” trailer of Paul Feig’s gender-bender reboot of the 1984 classic, Ghostbusters, netizens immediately imagined numerous ways how it could go wrong. Sure enough, this controversy is addressed during the film with a misogynistic, break-the-fourth-wall YouTube comment to a ghost footage, “Ain’t no bitches gonna
Eye In The Sky
How many calls does it take to release a single hellfire missile? How many approvals does it take to sanction the potential death of an innocent in order to kill high-profile terrorists and therefore prevent a terrorist attack from happening? For an average citizen, all these logistics seem to be
Star Trek Beyond
Upon the launch of the first trailer for Star Trek Beyond – a fast and furious (sorry) ninety-five seconds, frantically scored to Sabotage by the Beastie Boys – the Internet did what it did best: it overreacted. The general concern was that JJ Abrams’ iterations of the beloved franchise
