Our first ever “Review of a Review” focuses the best parts of one of the longest Filipino film blogs, ever.
Tuesday, April 5, 2005. At a time when a blog meant that one must own an online journal where thoughts flourished more than a cream-themed IG. If one must own a theme, it must come across as unique and unfiltered. But mind you, this was also a time when the attention span of “netizens” were more than 5 seconds, and so a lengthy blog post would warrant a thousand likes and subscribes on Blogger or Friendster or on the now-defunct Multiply. Youtube was such a miss, that it was almost a forgotten idea, only to be conquered by press people and Broadcast or Mass Communication students who had the need to share their homemade thesis to other students. Not by then-interns and would-be doctors who would carefully craft a nook that would be a bite-sized, clear and concise haven of film reviews to be soon divulged by a plethora of copy-paste hungry film students who need to pass their thesis in film and would need the resource of the internet to access these hard to find films with an accompanied review from their homegrown country.
And so, Tuesday, April 5, 2005 birthed one of the longest Filipino film blogs ever called Present Confusion. Fifteen years later, we onboard one of the greatest film reviewers of all time, who quite discreetly wouldn’t admit this, but has always graced us with reviews of the best and the awful. From Star Trek to Mystica, here are a collection of thoughts that we have, in honor of PC’s fifteenth year:
Jim Paranal on Present Confusion
Princess Kinoc on Echoserang Frog
Here are some essential reviews to revisit (click on the titles to visit the original post):
As a fan of Asian Cinema, John has reviewed one of the essential views of the early 00s, the Super Sentai series was highly regarded by fans as one of the best to represent the new era of the tokusatsu genre in the millennium. In true Tawasil fashion, he provides us a bit of the plot in the review but offers a simplistic critic of the series, one that would allow audiences of the genre to expect more when viewed.
2. The Prelude to one of his best viewed video essays for Never Not Love You
“It’s all done without the usual histrionics we’re used to when watching mainstream romantic films, and for once this is a film that the JaDine love team deserves, as it pushes their talents to the limit. Nadine Lustre in particular shines, especially in the last few moments of the film where emotions are communicated through silence rather than words.”
In this review of Antoinette Jadaone’s Never Not Love You, we read more of simple nuanced conflicts that Jadaone aimed to portray, seemlessly breaking down the idea of loveteams as a candy-colored material, down to the raw, groundbreaking economically-political conflicts that can take a couple out of the romance bit in agonizing detail.
Watch the video essay, in honor of Present Confusion’s 15th year here:
It would be difficult not to appreciate Present Confusion’s dedicated analysis towards Querido. This show within a show of epic proportions requires to be dissected in FIVE parts. We encourage you to read these first before delving into watching the film in its entirety here:
