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
Tag: Reviews
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
Ode to My Father
Every war has never found its absolution; its damages lifelong. We hear stories from the past generations of their harrowing experiences, and we can only vicariously grasp them. Ode to My Father also seeks to make its audiences understand what it was like in the perspective of an everyday man,
Jurassic World
Nothing is ever enough. This is the recurrent theme that stealthily preys and camouflages within the greenery of Isla Nublar’s revamped premises in Costa Rica, successfully housing its engineered Triassic-Cretaceous inhabitants into a high-tech amusement park called “Jurassic World,” a twenty-two-year far cry from the tragedy that happened in
You’re Still the One
True love doesn’t expire The course of true love never did run smooth. – William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream Romantic dramas and comedies drive in the audience because they are the most relatable to the escapists, the dreamers and the realists. After all, love is the universal language. In
Always Watching: A Marble Hornets Story
You’ve seen one. You’ve seen them all. Always Watching: A Marble Hornets Story is an off-universe tale from the Youtube series Marble Hornets, which is then based on the Internet-borne concept Slenderman. This horror entity is a tall faceless Caucasian donning a black suit, only visible via cameras or digital
The Age of Adaline
The Curious Case of Adaline Bowman For some people, the span of time between now and when their umbilical cord was cut, is a trivial matter. While for a handsome few, age is they’re be-all and end-all. The oldest living persons are even recognized through newsbytes, commendations and even pilgrimages.
Tomorrowland
Dreams exist outside our reality You may say I’m a dreamer but I’m not the only one. – John Lennon, Imagine EXPECTATIONS | A dream takes shape Imagine a place where nothing’s impossible. Disney promises us of a breathtaking action-adventure with Tomorrowland. Even before the film came to existence, what
Binhi
Embryonic dormancy Seeds take time to burst out of their coats, push off the overlying soil on top, and be christened as the plant they ought out to be. Binhi (The Seed) takes your patience to establish its suspense through slightly jittery long-take tracking shots, which unfortunately frequently end with
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
The Last: Naruto the Movie
Bearing the title of The Last: Naruto the Movie, the animated film brings in high expectations especially for avid readers of the manga. After all, this is the first theatrical film to be rendered canon, or as an official part of Masashi Kishimoto‘s Naruto. (For full disclosure, I watched the
Para Sa Hopeless Romantic
Hope falters Why do we write? We write to express ideas. We write to amplify the voice of the unheard. We write to mend our broken selves. Heavily based on her ill-fated love with Nikko (James Reid) during their high school years, the main protagonist, Becca (Nadine Lustre), pens a
Lost River
The most evocative image in Ryan Gosling‘s Lost River is midway its hyper-saturated nightmare, when Billy (Christina Hendricks), to the sick delight of a sizable audience, slices off the skin of her face. She traces the outlines of skin the incision has left, touches the flesh irrevocably exposed, all to an almost grinning composure—like
It Follows
David Robert Mitchell‘s It Follows is a nightmarish vision executed in glorious mumblecore perfection. Dare we say it, this little, ambiguous horror flick could very well end up as a cult classic because it did so many things right and exceeded viewers’ expectations. Its initial release at the 2014 Film Festival
Avengers: Age of Ultron
Plucking the strings of Avengers, Ultron and the MCU Avengers: Age of Ultron by the numbers: 10 main characters. 142 minutes. 11th film over-all. 3rd superhero team-up film of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. 1st of 3 planned sequels to 2012’s The Avengers. It makes you younger soft tab cialis will
Get Hard
There has never been a more intentionally offensive and crude buddy comedy in recent memory than Etan Cohen’s Get Hard. Will Ferrell and Kevin Hart are two of the most bankable working Hollywood comedians as of late. Though the former has been in countless movies for much longer than the
Unfriended
Skype-ing with friends will never be the same again after you see Levan Gabriadze’s techno-horror film ‘Unfriended’.
Furious 7
More furious than fast, ‘Furious 7’ presents itself as more than just high-speed chases and heists, yet still mechanical, as the franchise has always been.
Insurgent
An attempt to make a faithful adaptation while still making a mark against the influx of recent dystopian YA adaptations proves unsuccessful for Insurgent.
FESTIVAL REPORT: Sinag Maynila 2015
Currently running across seven SM cinemas around Metro Manila, Sinag Maynila stays true to its promise of offering “Pelikulang Pinoy, Pusong Pinoy” with five creative and socially relevant films: Paul Sta. Ana‘s Balut Country, about the story of a man undecided what to do with the duck farm business left
Cinderella
Cinderella updates the Walt Disney animated classic this 2015, six and a half decades since the classic animation was released, with an expected elegant production and well-integrated extra dimensions to its characters, which have been previously derided for promoting stereotype passive lasses or damsels-in-distress. The story is inherently the same,
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
Big Eyes
Bilateral macro-ophthalmia, a clinical condition for big eyes or specifically, larger eyeballs, is a rarity. It is often part of a systemic condition. A more common finding would be exophthalmos, defined by Dorland’s Medical Dictionary as the abnormal protrusion of the eyeball. It is the appearance of enlargement of the
