It’s a tried and tested formula for horror movies: the “be careful what you wish for.” The trope itself carries a pathos to it. Its whole conceit, taking one’s heart’s desire then flipping it to be a great source of dread. The irony, the thought of chasing desire not only
Category: Theatrical Release
Eeerie: Paved with good intentions
“The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” I am reminded of these lines in thinking of a throughline for the Mikhail Red-directed horror film Eerie. Storywise, the film delivers commentary on how our institutions and internalized preconceptions can be the barriers preventing us from helping those with mental
Ulan Review: Here Comes The Rain Again
When the teasers and trailer popped up a few months ago, it stirred the internet and television viewers’ expectations: is it a supernatural horror film? Is it a love story? Not knowing what it is about also had us formulating theories and creating stories in our heads. Nevertheless, this film
Alone/Together Review: An Ode to Dreams
What does it mean to live in the 21st Century? This is perhaps the thought bubble that Antoinette Jadaone’s Alone/Together stars Enrique Gil and Liza Soberano ponders as they position themselves as Tin and Raf, sitting on an infamous bench in UP Diliman, under those history-rich trees, looking over the
Bad Times at the El Royale, Hell is Other People
“Hell is other people.” Often quoted, frequently misrepresented, the phrase which originated from philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit—a play about three people trapped in a single room for all eternity—has been a favorite way to describe the inherent toxicity of relationships. Sarte though has long clarified that what he meant by
Review: EXES BAGGAGE (2018), A Man and A Woman Walk into a Bar…
Warning: Full spoilers follow. Tell me if you’ve heard this one before. A man and a woman walk into a bar They loved each other once. Each had baggage they couldn’t get over. Like a cigarette half-smoked and a song half-played, their relationship — like so many others —
GOYO: ANG BATANG HENERAL, Reversing the Hero’s Journey
Warning: Full spoilers…but come on, it’s a biopic! Are spoilers even possible?!? In the Philippines, we are taught to worship heroes from a young age. In primary school, we are made to memorize single-line descriptions of what to remember our national heroes by — highlights, monickers, basically their greatest traits.
Review: SALVAGE, a Genre Exercise in Subversion
Warning: Full spoilers ahead. “Te, kailangan ba kitang isama sa frame?” [“Sister, do I have to include you in the frame?”] Barbie (Barbie Capacio), the make-up artist, asks between screams, as she struggles to operate a camera while running for dear life. Out of context, this sentence feels innocuous, dormant. But writer-director Sherad Anthony Sanchez uses
“DEADPOOL 2” Raises a Middle Finger to a Supersaturated Genre
It is a marvel how 20th Century Fox, despite (or because of) its limited ownership, have recently conjured a more well-realized oeuvre, raging against its saturated but more financially successful counterpart, Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe. Beginning with 2011’s X-Men: First Class, the production company brought in year after year
“READY PLAYER ONE,” submitting yourself to The Matrix has never been this fun
Upon exiting the theater after Ready Player One, my immediate takeaway was that “they don’t make films like this anymore.” Based on the 2011 novel by Ernest Cline, Ready Player One takes place in the near-future of 2045, a dystopian landscape where the earth has become ridden by global warming,
“CITIZEN JAKE” is a wake-up call for both the asleep and woke
Often a trope in movies is when a hermitic, wise — often, cranky — veteran is brought out of retirement to school the youth when the times have turned most trying (especially when the villains they once faced in the past have re-emerged from the ether). Obi-Wan did it with
“RED SPARROW” like its protagonist is calculated, brutal, and frustrating
By the end of its 2 hours and 20 minutes runtime, I was quite confused what to make of Francis Lawrence’s Red Sparrow. In terms of quality, just like the world of spycraft, it dwells in the gray in-betweens of good and bad. And like its titular sparrow, it’s calculated, violent,
“THE POST” is a film of the present that happens to be set in the past
Let me be as transparent as possible here. I kind of have a hard time distancing myself enough to give an unbiased (well, all reviews have a bit of bias, so I guess a more “less-unbiased”) review of The Post. See, two months back, I quit my old corporate job to
“DARKEST HOUR” inspires but exists only in the moment
Full disclosure, I had a ton of apprehensions before going into Joe Wright’s Darkest Hour. For one, this Oscars season, it seemed to be the film that most obviously fit the tired “Oscar bait” formula (come on, it’s a prestige drama-biopic with a respected character actor fully inhabiting one of
“THE GREATEST SHOWMAN”, how can something so wrong feel so right
As Hugh Jackman’s P.T. Barnum starts selling the idea that using exaggerations, myths, and tall-tales as thinly-disguised truths are admirable, truth be damned, I couldn’t help but think about the “meta-ness” of it all. It’s as if Barnum was directly addressing the audience, telling us to indulge in the spectacle,
Ferdinand
Warning: Mild spoilers follow. Based on the classic children’s book by Munro Leaf “The Story of Ferdinand,” Ferdinand follows a bull who favors flowers and friendship over fighting—unusual for an animal traditionally seen as a pawn and symbol for aggression and hostility. Funny, sweet and relatable, the story relays powerful
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
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
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
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,
