For a movie that’s basically about being stranded, all alone, in a desolate planet where everything can kill you, The Martian, ironically leaves its audience very alive and inspired largely due to its beautiful and exciting setting, greatly charismatic lead performance, and its overall hopeful story about humanity. Written by Drew Goddard (The Cabin in
Tag: FPR Recommends
Heneral Luna
Amidst pacing problems, Heneral Luna manages to tell a compelling story – allegorical and timely to present day – supported by a fantastic script, an impassioned score, and inspired cinematography. At first glance, one might mistake Heneral Luna as your run-of-the-mill historical biopic that showcases a hero of yore whose bravery and passion unite
Trainwreck
Judd Apatow’s latest flick delivers laughs, tears and often engaging anti-romantic banter. Needless to say, an eye-turning performance from comedienne (and co-creator) Amy Schumer. Trainwreck is almost arguably any millennial’s description of a phase in their lives. In the movie we see Schumer play Amy, a “work hard, play hard”
The Gift
Don’t let its seemingly formulaic premise deceive you, The Gift plays with convention to deliver a smart, suspenseful, and expertly-crafted psychological thriller. The Gift starts out like pretty much any well-off-couple-moves-into-a-new-house-and-get-a-stalker story. Simon and Robyn (played by Jason Bateman and Rebecca Hall respectively) move to Los Angeles because of a fancy new job
Inside Out
Inside Out opens in Philippine cinemas this August 19 nationwide.
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
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
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
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.
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
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
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
Mad Max: Fury Road
Madder than mad Leave it to George Miller to amp up the action and insanity (no pun intended) for the fourth installment of his high octane franchise. Mad Max: Fury Road does not disappoint. Coming in second to Pitch Perfect 2, this action film raked in $109 million on its
Predestination
The facade of every time travel movie is that they force our minds into the pseudo-problem of the free will. It is always man’s biggest query to solve the very reason of our existence, whether we have full autonomy of our actions or some things are just inevitable since they are
Mariquina
Jerrold Tarog’s ingenious work in last year’s Cinemalaya-entry Sana Dati distinguishes him as a man of fine, filmic talent: his film, closing the famed Camera Trilogy (sided with Confessional and Mangatyanan), is about acceptance and closure; yet it goes in all sorts of direction, transforming a simple romantic tale into
