Author: Wanggo Gallaga

REVIEW: The first two episodes of ‘The Mandalorian’ season 3 is building momentum for something grand

It’s been almost two years since the release of season two of The Mandalorian and so much has happened since then. A range of other Star Wars shows have premiered on Disney+ but I never caught up. I did enjoy ‘The Mandalorian’ though so being able to see the first two episodes quickly reminded me what I love most about the show. Even with all the time that passed, it’s important to note that the only two characters you really have to remember are The Mandalorian bounty hunter Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) and his ward, Grogu. Their relationship is the heart of the show and that’s all you need to know. What I also love about ‘The Mandalorian’ is how showrunner Jon Favreau sticks to the space western genre.

Westerns are not just about cowboys and Native Americans. It’s the frontier lands and it’s about the beginnings of civilization. Away from the big cities, in the wild, wild west, might makes right and the law is just an abstract thing. What Favreau does is to take the essential thematic elements of a western and infuse it into the narrative structure of ‘The Mandalorian.’ He does this with terrific effect. It’s one part commentary on the fringes of society, far away from the eyes of authority but it’s also a fun adventure into the unknown reaches of the Star Wars universe.

Photo courtesy of Disney+ Philippines

By the start of the third season, we discover that Grogu has decided to stay with Din Djarin (which apparently is a choice that was made in an episode of ‘The Book of Bobba Fett,’ which I did not see) and are now on a task to redeem Din Djarin in the eyes of The Mandalorians, as he has broken from the Creed when he took off his helmet last season. Despite the show being about the frontier lands of the Star Wars universe, outside the reach of The New Republic, and the people at the fringes of this galactic society, the first two episodes of the third season seem to be exploring the roots of Mandalorian culture and the importance of the Creed, their way of life.

There is a profound existentialism that is being teased in the first two episodes as Din Djarin is determined to rejoin his people by bathing in the waters of an underground lake in his homeworld. On the flip side, Bo Katan (Katee Sackhoff) joins the cast and contrasts Din Djarin’s faith by being cynical about the Mandalorian code. As a royal who saw Mandalore at its greatness (before its ruin), she is disillusioned and cynical. These two forces are at full display in the first two episodes and signal an interesting philosophical debate that may unfold during this whole season.

Photo courtesy of Disney+ Philippines

After all, the first two seasons have been about exploring the world of the show and how lawlessness looks in this universe. Now, the show goes deeper and looks inwards into the beliefs that give these characters a sense of purpose. Now, the mantra the Mandalorians always recite – “This is the way” – holds much more weight. It’s become a promise of what’s to come in this season and I’m all for it.

The show is moving at a very quick pace. The first episode seems inconsequential, a random trip that leads to no real story event other than to revisit some old characters, but quickly we arrive at Mandalore by the second episode and what transpires there is a figurative renewal of faith for the two characters in opposition. By the end of the second episode, I still don’t know where this show is moving towards but it feels so much bigger than before, as if it is alluding to something grand and I’m all for it.

Photo courtesy of Disney+ Philippines

What makes ‘The Mandalorian’ so enjoyable is the free-and-easy storytelling and the dynamic characters. It’s a fun show that prefers to show us in broad strokes a world that is outside the reach of authority. There’s a lot of humanity tucked away in the images of pirates and mercenaries. Now that Din Djarin and Grogu’s relationship is secured, it is time to broaden that world and, at the same time, deepen it and if it moves along its steady pace as earlier seasons, then we are in for another fun ride.

My Rating:

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The Mandalorian season 3 has released its first episode on Disney+ with new episodes dropping every week.

March 3, 2023
REVIEW: The irreverent and hilarious ‘Walang Aray’ is the perfect return of PETA to live theater

After PETA’s two-year break from live theater, they return with a bombastic show that is meant to celebrate the joys of the theatrical experience. Walang Aray is, as playwright Rody Vera calls it, “a tribute and a spoof’ to the Severino Reyes zarzuela ‘Walang Sugat.’ It is an irreverent show that takes the form of the zarzuela and the plot of ‘Walang Sugat’ and infuses with modern sensibilities for a hilarious romp that pokes fun at our history, and invariably ourselves, while utilizing the best of Filipino humor.

Photo courtesy of PETA

Directed by Ian Segarra, ‘Walang Aray’ is set in colonial era Philippines where two lovers, the zarzuela star Julia and her freedom-loving paramour Tenyong, find themselves separated by the circumstances of the times. Tenyong’s parents perish at the hands of the cruel friars while Julia’s mother, Juana, wants her daughter to be married to Miguel, one of the country’s most eligible bachelors. But the love triangle of this story is not between Julia, Tenyong, and Miguel, but between Julia, Tenyong, the revolution as Tenyong leaves to join the Katipuneros and Julia must fend off the advances of Miguel.

Photo courtesy of PETA

But from the opening number, which is a song sung by three women (two women and one man in drag, to be precise) about how they have to sing the opening number because the star of the show is missing. It’s hilarious and funny and gets the energy going. It tells us exactly what we are to expect and that nothing is going to unfold like a regular zarzuela. Sure, the play is set during the revolution but it’s never heavy-handed in its portrayal of it; the play recognises some of the country’s ills that wonderfully reflect current issues as well (autocracy, a failure in governance, etc) but it takes a light-hearted approach to it all. As cruel as the friars may be, they are still fans of Julia (which can sometimes reflect current-day fandoms; the effect is hilarious). There are moments when the show would even break to endorse a real sponsor of the show and these breaks just reinforce the joyous nature of the show.

At the heart of it is Julia, played by Alexa Ilacad in the show I saw, and she just imbibes this character. She flits from scene to scene effortlessly and nails every song. Julia is infused with modern lingo and Ilacad throws these punchlines so seamlessly that it really helps sell it. Her alternates are Marynor Madamesila and Shaira Opsimar. On the flip side, Tenyong is played by KD Estrada (with alternates Gio Gahol and Jon Abella), who seems like he is still feeling his way around the stage. But when he’s paired up with Ilacad, there is magic there. Their chemistry fills that stage and their harmonies are quite gorgeous. Hilariously, the character of Tenyong disappears in most of the second act, as he is with the Katipuneros, and it really becomes Julia’s play through and through.

Photo courtesy of PETA

While Miguel (a hilarious Jarred Jaicten with alternate Bene Manois) makes his advances, the real third party in this is the pressing revolution that is causing Julia a lot of stress. As her planned marriage to Miguel looms near, Julia is forced to push her hand and most of the second act becomes a showcase for the other characters of the play. At some point, it’s a revue more than a full-on show and we don’t mind because each part is full of laughs and great singing.

The only unfortunate thing about the show is that it’s staged to favor only those on the center of the audience. This is the first PETA show I saw on the side where I felt that I was missing out on the show. The choreography, the blocking, the tableaus, and the set design make it hard for those sitting in the sides to see all that’s happening in the story and I wish it was directed more outward so that we were all included into the fun. Also, there’s a joke near the end where a character’s coming out is used as a punchline. While I understand that it may work thematically with the mindframe of a zarzuela, I really wish that homosexuality wouldn’t be used as a punchline in future productions.

Photo courtesy of PETA

But aside from these little issues, ‘Walang Aray’ is just such a joy to watch. The original songs by Rody Vera and Vince Lim are wonderful (and a great argument against jukebox musicals). There are lots of laugh-out-loud moments and even its deus ex machina ending feels earned and warranted when you realize how irreverent the play has been all-throughout. Lots of spirited performances by Ilacad, and the ensemble (with other standouts including Kiki Baento as Julia’s companion Monica, Johnnie Moran as the wickedly funny Padre Alfaro, and Neomi Gonzales as Juana).

Photo courtesy of PETA

Coming from its 2-year break, it’s great for PETA to be back with something fun and funny and irreverent. ‘Walang Aray’ and its unapologetic happy-ending is so in tune with how today’s world just wants happy endings at whatever cost. Even in that little concept, they are on point.

My Rating:

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Walang Aray runs at the PETA Theater Center until May 14. Buy your tickets here.

February 28, 2023
REVIEW: Splendid performances elevate ‘The Whale’ from its many flaws

Based on the play by Samuel D. Hunter, The Whale is the story of an extremely overweight gay man, whose condition has put his life at risk and he hopes to reconcile with his estranged daughter before he passes on. I haven’t seen the play myself, but watching director Darren Aronofsky’s film adaptation, I can already imagine it on stage. It is a story told within a single setting and the main character, Charlie, is so overweight that he struggles to move around his own home. I can even imagine that Charlie wouldn’t have to leave his couch (though a review I’ve read states that the play does involve Charlie getting up from the couch and showing the difficulties and challenges his massive frame sets before him). Even the narrative and the way by which it unfolds is very theatrical: characters come to visit Charlie and when they interact, more and more of the backstory is revealed – how Charlie got this big, why is his relationship with his daughter so fractured, and so on – and the information begins to collide and push us towards a climax.

I can imagine how powerful this would be on stage. Charlie’s story involves a past lover, his thoughts on religion and faith, his dedication as an English teacher, and his messy relationships with his ex-wife and daughter. It’s a powerful character study and it’s quite riveting to watch the different characters engage with each other. ‘The Whale’ has excellent actors on deck, which creates electricity in every scene. Brendan Fraser is incredible as Charlie. It’s a very physical role where every movement causes discomfort or pain. He is very aware of his condition – and the danger his body is in shutting down at any moment – and it fuels his need for some form of reconciliation with Ellie, played by Sadie Sink. Sink is a far better actor than she shows here in this film. She’s playing Ellie a little too big and too dramatic and isn’t giving us a range of emotions that she’s shown us she could do in her work in ‘Stranger Things.’ It’s not a nuanced performance that we’ve come to know of her. That nuance is delivered by Fraser, Hong Chau, and Samantha Morton.

Chau plays Liz, Charlie’s only friend and a nurse, whose tough exterior and overprotective attitude regarding her friend creates some very powerful warm moments. Chau balances the concern and the love that a best friend carries and we can see all the history of these two characters in the way she deals with Fraser. As the story unfolds and we understand the full extent of their relationship, we see the brilliant tapestry of emotions Hong Chau weaves into her character and it’s no wonder she was nominated for the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. Samantha Morton, on the other hand, plays Mary, Charlie’s ex-wife. She’s got one long scene but the emotional peaks and valleys she crosses also betrays her character’s long history with Fraser’s Charlie. Things are said for the first time ever and it feels so spontaneous and real.

It’s the performances that really elevate the movie. Watching Fraser and Chau and Morton and Sink (and Ty Simpkins as Thomas, a missionary from the New Life Church) play out these pivotal moments in Charlie’s life at this period in time allows it to reach a crescendo that had me in tears. I was crying and I was shocked because there was so many things I was resisting against in this movie.

My first resistance was in the way by which Aronofsky captured Charlie’s obesity. There was no space for compassion in his camera work. We were made sure that we would see all of Charlie’s folds and layers. We were meant to ogle at every part of his body. There was no dignity at all and it felt very uncomfortable. The first few times was enough but the fact that the film does this throughout the 117 minute running time felt like we were meant to cast judgment on his obesity. As a play, there’s a distance that is created by the stage and the audience, but in film, the camera can get close and Aronofsky brings that camera really close and instead of being compassionate, I felt I was made to feel pity for Charlie.

And maybe the play had more of a story involved but Charlie has an obsession of “the truth” in the essays of his students of his persuasive writing class. There is a running thread about how there’s so much “b#llsh!t in the world right now” and “no one says the truth” but never does this adaptation ever explain his attachment to honesty. It’s such a powerful story point at the end but it never really feels connected to all the other parts of the film – not it’s underdeveloped thoughts on religion and faith, nor its discussion on grief and depression, nor on forgiveness and redemption – so when the finale hits, I’m crying because the performances are so strong but it feels sort of empty.

On the surface, ‘The Whale’ can seem like it broaches so many important themes such as mental health, grief, discrimination and homophobia, and so on and you can be brought in by the strength of the performances of the cast, but when it is all said and done, it never really gets to say anything conclusive about the themes it opens up. Fraser could win the Oscar, and he would deserve it, but it’s quite clear why the film was only nominated for its two performances and make-up and hairstyling; because those are the only aspects of the film that really stick.

My Rating:

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The Whale is now showing in cinemas nationwide. Buy your tickets here.

February 22, 2023
A Lovely Illusion: a review of ‘Empire of Light’

There’s a line in the film Empire of Light that talks about how shooting films on film cameras work. That a movie, made in this older format, is basically 24 still shots in a frame, and in between each frame is a dark gap, a “darkness” as the character Norman (played by Toby Jones) calls it. He says, “there’s a little flaw in our optic nerve so if I run the film at 24 frames per second you don’t see the darkness… viewing static images in succession creates an illusion of motion, an illusion of life…” This line encapsulates exactly the entirety of this whole movie’s atmosphere and structure.

It’s an illusion, really. The whole movie is just snapshots of these characters’ lives through a particular moment in time and while it never really gets deep down and dirty in the particulars, it merely leaves us with impressions of their troubles and life challenges. What we are left with is the illusion of motion and of life.

Director Sam Mendes takes the magnificently versatile and dynamic Olivia Colman and a very charming and impressive Michael Ward into a narrative set in a cinema in 1981 Margate, England. Colman plays Hillary, the duty manager of the Empire cinema, who is suffering from mental health issues and Ward plays Stephen, a young man who can’t get into college and must battle racism every day in a Margaret Thatcher-era Britain. The two find themselves at a particularly unstable time in both of their lives and keep each other from going under. Their love story is just one of many little themes that play out in ‘Empire of Light’ that gives the story something to move it forward but it’s not really the whole gist of it.

Because the movie is also about mental health and the way Hillary seems to lack any real support from the government but it’s also about the racism that Stephen experiences on a daily basis during this time. The film is also a love story to movies and the glory of watching in the cinema and it’s about the changing landscape of society as the world moves forward. It’s not just a love story but a lot of little things that don’t really amount to any sort of bigger meaning except that life is really just a mix and match of different little challenges that we face. It’s never as clear-cut and precise as a movie, which is why we love the medium so much. Movies make sense out of the randomness of life and, interestingly enough, ‘Empire of Light’ prefers to remain distant and cold from all the things that would have made the story the stuff of cinema.

While Colman and Ward deliver strong performances, the movie is also amplified by Director of Photography Roger Deakin’s masterful use of light and composition. The way each moment is punctuated by a change in the lighting, whether the day shifts into dusk, or when lighting fixtures are switched on and create a radiance that fills up the screen, it’s a showcase of the genius of Deakins and is reason to watch the film.

Also doing a lot of heavy lifting is the tender musical score of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. While Colman and Ward are bringing life to the scenes and Deakins frames it beautifully as an image, Reznor and Ross allow the scenes to breathe. The melodies they build upon each scene just highlight the humanity in these moments.

What Sam Mendes puts together may not be enjoyable to most. In fact, a lot of critics have remarked on the lack of narrative depth to the piece by failing to really go deep into his character’s inner worlds and struggles. I, on the other hand, enjoyed the distance that he takes and how less like a movie it is and more like viewing someone from outside their realm of experience. Instead, the movies in ‘Empire of Light’ will have that sort of effect on people (and even the characters of the film) but the movie itself will be the opposite of it. It’s an illusion and I appreciate the poetry of that.

My Rating:

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Empire of Light is now showing in cinemas nationwide. Buy your tickets here.

February 16, 2023
REVIEW: While a lot of fun, ‘Ant-man and the Wasp: Quantumania’ lacks an emotional punch to make it memorable

Despite the fact that one has to shrink to enter the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Quantum Realm, everything about Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania is large in proportion and scale. The movie throws a relatively simple adventure story at its heroes in the aforementioned location and then proceeds to delve into the backstory of two characters, namely the original Wasp, Janet Van Dyne (played by Michelle Pfeiffer) and the film’s villain, Kang (played by Jonathan Majors). If one were to really look into the narrative structure of ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,’ while we are following Scott Lang’s perspective (played by Paul Rudd), the ones with any real emotional depth and character work are those played by Pfeiffer and Majors. In fact, the film would have been more honest if it was called ‘Kang and the Wasp: Quantumania.’

The issue is that Scott Lang’s Ant-Man is not a very complex character. All he ever wanted was to go legit after his stint in prison and to have a relationship with his daughter Cassie (played by Kathryn Newton in this movie). Now, in his third movie (fifth if you include his appearances in ‘Captain America: Civil War’ and ‘Avengers: Endgame’), Lang has gotten all that he could ever want: a family and redemption from his past. After all, he helped save the world as an Avenger.

With nowhere to go character-wise, the movie tries to create a sort of friction between him and Cassie. He has missed out on so much time and they seem to be on opposite ends of things: he wants her to grow up safe and “normal” while she wants to help people. We even begin the film with her in jail for having been at a protest. Their relationship, throughout the movie, is tested by Scott Lang’s preference for a quieter life while Cassie is in a rush to change the world. It’s never strong enough or deep enough to push the story forward, though.

Photo: Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania trailer

Instead, as the five protagonists – Scott Lang, Cassie, Hope Van Dyne (played by Evangeline Lilly), Janet Van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer), Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) – find themselves in the Quantum Realm, we learn more about Janet and the mysterious Kang and the story really revolves around the both of them.

Photo: Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania trailer

While we discover Kang’s backstory (as a villain) and Janet’s life in the Quantum Realm, which makes up most of the movie, as the film reaches its climax, what is missing are key narrative relationships that are completely left underdeveloped. For the ending to hit with any sort of emotional depth, we needed to see them build more of Scott and Cassie’s storyline (than the surface-level father-daughter disagreement), Hope and Janet (their storyline is left to one or two lines of dialogue and then left at that), and Scott and Hope. ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’ relies heavily on these three relationships for the movie to have any sort of emotional weight but they are only lightly explored, if at all. There are choices near the end that hinge on their dynamics but it doesn’t land its punches because the film hardly spends time on it.

In fact, Hope makes a big choice near the end of the film and its crux is her feelings for Scott that are never reinforced in this movie. It is just something we take for granted.

Photo: Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania trailer

Instead, we are being brought into the world of the Quantum Realm, a green-screen, CGI-heavy world that needs exploring as well. They introduce new characters from that world as well but none are given enough screen time or story beats to be interesting. The CGI world can be very distracting, and in my opinion, it is only Michelle Pfeiffer who never ever feels swallowed by all that special effects. She’s such a presence that she is unfazed at all by the sheer excessiveness of it all.

Photo: Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania trailer

While the story is low on emotional punch, there are moments of pure comic book enjoyment. A whole sequence (hinted at in the trailer) of Ant-Man in the middle of a “probability storm” has him interacting with hundreds and thousands of different Ant-Mans. It is such a huge scene that director Peyton Reed creates marvelous visuals with that imagery. In a way, it resembles an army of ants and the meta-ness of that is quite thrilling,

So while ‘Ant-man and the Wasp: Quantumania’ is an enjoyable movie – a good number of action sequences, a big, new world to discover, and a lot of nice thrilling super-hero moments, and funny one-liners – the movie feels hollow by the end of it all. After the movie ended, I felt more interested in Kang and Janet Van Dyne than I did about the two heroes whose names are on the title.

Photo: Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania trailer

After the nth comic book movie after the past decade of comic book movies, they really need to do more to keep this interesting. I’m excited for Jonathan Majors as he is such an exciting talent but there’s nothing else to really hold on to. Just another movie in the larger scheme of the MCU.

My Rating:

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Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania is now showing in cinemas nationwide. Buy your tickets here.

February 15, 2023
What Women Want: A Review of ‘Magic Mike’s Last Dance’

Magic Mike’s Last Dance opens with a narration that immediately sets it up as a modern fairytale. The narration, from the voice of a politically conscious precocious British teenager (Jemelia George), manages to contextualise dance in its function in early civilization and then proceeds to turn it into a punchline that takes us from the history of dance to Mike Lane’s (Channing Tatum) inability to protect himself from financial woes. As it is, Mike is broke at the start of the film, his business didn’t survive the effects of the pandemic and he’s now working as a bartender for a charity event hosted by a rich socialite with marital problems, Maxandra Mendoza (Salma Hayek).

In less than what feels like five minutes, we get that these two people are in the same boat emotionally – though not economically, as Maxandra is filthy rich – and a sort of indecent proposal (though done in the most charming way as only Hollywood can make it seem) leads to the first of many strip tease dances that the franchise is known for. Channing Tatum is in fine form and Salma Hayek matches every hip thrust from him with an expression that reveals her character’s inner ecstasy. She is transformed and Maxandra has an idea.

Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

She whisks Mike away on the promise of a large amount of money to help her on an endeavor that is personal to her on so many levels. Maxandra is in the midst of a divorce and while the paperwork is being processed, she decides to revolutionize one of the theaters her husband owns, which is under her control by the messy legalities of their prenuptial agreement. The current play is referenced as a traditional (i.e. “boring”) period piece that simplifies the issues of women’s troubles as having to choose between love and money. Bothered by this simple dichotomy of the totality to women’s choices, Maxandra wants Mike to produce, choreograph, and envision a show that can break down this troubling social ill. She wants to produce a strip tease dance show that somehow encapsulates everything that a woman truly desires.

Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

In the process of coming up with the show – naturally, Mike and Maxandra must navigate the complex (or is it) feelings that are stirring up inside of them – but by articulating what the show is about, they have managed to do what the last two Magic Mike movies were not able to do (for me, anyway). The first two installments of the series put the focus on the men’s bodies and what they can do with it. It was about sex and sexiness. It put men and men’s virility and passion at the forefront. What ‘Magic Mike’s Last Dance’ does is flip the perspective and make each dance about the women and what women want. Surprisingly, in this strip tease dances, it’s not about the men but about the fantasy of women: about how women want more than just what society has given them to choose from.

Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

I never really understood the appeal of these kinds of shows (and that’s funny as I’m a gay man, so I understood it in my head but it never really hit me in that same way) but because of this movie, I finally understood the appeal. There are lines of dialogue that remark about how something like this can be a sort of expression for female freedom and liberty and at first I thought it was a stretch and then, as Hannah, the actress in the original play who manages to score a role in the new show (and is played with such verve and vibrancy by Juliette Motamed), plays a sort of Master of Ceremonies articulates and contextualise each number, the show goes beyond the cheap thrills of men’s bodies and gyrating movements but manages to touch upon something even more profound: what women really want.

Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

And with that as the focus of the film, the whole movie hinges on Salma Hayek’s performance and not Channing Tatum’s. Because if this show is about freeing women from the oppressive social constructs the patriarchy has put upon them, then her character is the symbol of this. Hayek manages a rhythm to Maxandra as she jumps back and forth from moments of hysteria to a fierce and confrontational mode. She’s funny but she’s not playing for laughs. Instead, she’s playing a woman untethered by her situation: a rich woman who has all the money in the world but is powerless in her marriage and her social standing. She feels trapped by the things that make her “powerful” in appearance and she wants freedom but it could cost her everything. Salma Hayek taps into this in such a primal way that her work is astounding without being a caricature. It’s unhinged but it feels honest.

Tatum, on the other hand, is in a comfortable space. He’s done amazingly well as the regular joe and he breezes through this character effortlessly. Standing out alongside the two leads is Juliette Motamed, who easily can take the spotlight in her every scene, and the precocious narrator of the story, Jemelia George, who is revealed to be Maxandra’s daughter.

Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

At its core, this is a love story and, at first, it’s metaphorical: it’s the show the leads are producing, but later it becomes literal but it needs to be mediated and it is done through the dancing. And there’s a lot of it. What Steven Soderbergh does is connect the love story, the need for women’s freedom from societal restraints to dancing, and how dancing communicates this and embodies this. Yes, the last 30 minutes of the movie is one big dance number but each movement, and every choreography has been articulated and contextualised by the film’s narrative that it is part of the story.

I wasn’t expecting to enjoy myself in this movie but I did so, and by a whole lot.

My Rating:

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Magic Mike’s Last Dance is now showing in cinemas nationwide. Buy your tickets here.

February 8, 2023
REVIEW: Queer Representation is Front and Center of ‘Knock at the Cabin’

There’s an old-school simplicity to M. Night Shyamalan’s Knock at the Cabin, a film he co-wrote with Steve Desmond and Michael Sherman (and based on the novel of the same name by Paul Tremblay). Even at the opening credits, he uses the old logo of Universal Pictures and uses an old-style font and presentation of the opening credits. With further reading, he even used 90s-era lenses to give the film “an old-school thriller look.” And what you see in the trailer is exactly what this movie is about: a family is taken hostage by four strangers in a cabin in the woods, with the hopes that the family will choose one member to sacrifice to stop the apocalypse.

It’s as simple as it sounds, with a bit of dipping into the psychological thriller genre as it questions the veracity of the four strangers’ claim that the fate of the world rests upon the sacrifice of this one family. Most of the 110-minute running time is spent on that premise. While the film’s plot revolves around this conundrum – does the family believe them or not and can they escape from this situation unharmed or not? – it does go into flashbacks to create an emotional throughline for the family that serves to complicate things.

Because what contrasts that old-school simplicity of this simple narrative is the fact that the family is that of queer parents (two gay dads) and is multi-racial, as their daughter was adopted in Asia.

And it is in this character design setup where the film finds its profundity.

Photo: Knock at the Cabin trailer

It’s not often that we see the main characters of a commercial psychological thriller to be led by gay parents. There was even an impulse that I had to fight back to question the sincerity of the choice. “Was it a checklist for progressive identity politics?” This is what happens when there’s not enough positive representation for the queer community that anything of the sort done in such a mainstream release is met with suspicion. Why can’t gay parents be the protagonists of any movie – regardless of genre?

And that the issues surrounding gay people and gay parents are at the crux of ‘Knock at the Cabin.’ As the film shifts to flashbacks to round out the history of this couple – Andrew and Eric played by Ben Aldridge and Jonathan Groff – we see the cruelty of asking any member of such a persecuted minority like the queer community to sacrifice a member of their chosen family for the sake of the world.

Photo: Knock at the Cabin trailer

What makes it even more cruel is the fact that the apocalypse might not even hinge on their sacrifice and that these four strangers – led by the gentle giant Leonard, played by a transformed Dave Bautista – may just be psychotic or part of some strange and dangerous cult.

The film never goes into the easy scares and all the tension is predicated upon that premise: does the fate of the world hang in their sacrifice? Are these four strangers really telling the truth about their visions or are they crazy and out of their minds? And if it is the former, how does one even begin to make that decision?

Photo: Knock at the Cabin trailer

There’s a lot of earnestness in the performances with incredible performances by Bautista, Groff, Aldridge and Kristen Cui, who plays the young daughter Wen, and Nikki Amuka-Bird, who plays one of Leonard’s associates. Always, there are very human moments presented by the four strangers that push the boundaries of what you can believe and then you must bear witness to what they are able to do for the family to make that choice.

Within this whole narrative, the issues of the queer community are really put into an emotional grinder (pun intended). For all the persecution and hate that they have taken for years, if the fate of the world was left to us having to make another sacrifice, would we do it? Would Andrew and Eric and Wen?

Photo: Knock at the Cabin trailer

Shyamalan is in fine form here with his camera going in really close to his actor’s faces as if their humanity (and maybe even their sanity) is in full view. He focuses on the little details of each moment while at the same time moving the camera away from all the gruesome acts of violence. It’s all implied rather than the focus. It’s as if he doesn’t want us to get distracted by the choice, whether it is real or not.

There are no surprise twists here as one would expect from a Shyamalan film. The story reaches its resolution as best as it could but one thing is certain: it’s so wonderful to see gay parents at the center of this story and how their love is depicted as universal. The film never questions it and this movie is out there.

I hope more movies present queer characters as smoothly as this so that I’ll never have to be suspicious again.

My Rating:

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Knock at the Cabin is now showing in cinemas nationwide. Buy your tickets here.

February 1, 2023
REVIEW: ‘Babylon’ and the wild, crazy, over-the-top love (and hate) letter to Hollywood

Damien Chazelle seems to have directed and co-written a companion piece to his highly celebrated and award-winning movie ‘La La Land’ with his latest offering, Babylon. While ‘La La Land’ explores and navigates through the idealism and hopes of a couple trying to make it big in Hollywood and the music industry in Los Angeles as it comes crashing into reality, ‘Babylon’ feels more like a celebration and a condemnation of that same world. While ‘La La Land’ is tempered and controlled, ‘Babylon’ is wild and excessive, given to moments of grand spectacle and reveling in the chaos of its narrative. While ‘La La Land’ is personal and intimate, ‘Babylon’ brushes with big strokes and can feel very cold and uncaring.

Set during the time in Hollywood when the innovation of sound movies (also known as ‘The Talkies’) had come crashing in on the silent film era, ‘Babylon’ is the story of several characters who try to find their footing in the changing landscape of entertainment. They range from the experienced silent film actor Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt), to the self-proclaimed star Nellie LaRoy (a bombastic Margot Robbie), a Mexican film assistant with big dreams named Manny (that arresting Diego Calva), the established gossip columnist Elinor St. John (by a riveting Jean Smart), a jazz trumpet player named Sydney (Jovan Adepo), and a Chinese American cabaret singer and title writer for films, Lady Fay Zhu (played wonderfully by Li Jun Li). These six (and a whole lot more) come crashing into each other in what is supposed to be both a fairy tale and a cautionary one at the same time.

Photo: Paramount Pictures International

Not only is the cast huge, Chazelle goes on overdrive, trying to out-Baz Lurhmann in grand spectacles by filling his camera frames with a mass of people in the throes of chaotic frenzy. The movie is over three hours long (188 minutes, approximately) and the first act alone is a 40-minute party scene where Chazelle introduces all the characters. There’s a huge orgy – graphic nudity, an overabundance of drug taking, and a lot of dancing – which is to set the tone of the film regarding Hollywood’s excesses. The whole sequence is just an exercise in indulgence (both thematically and filmmaking-wise). But amidst this madness, there is a very interesting, very human moment that occurs: when Manny and Nellie meet and in a cocaine-driven scene end up talking about their hopes and dreams and their love for Hollywood and what the movies mean to people. It’s a very strong scene that manages to nicely contrast the wild debauchery outside their room.

Photo: Paramount Pictures International

From that first meeting, we discover Manny and Nellie’s rising through the ranks, we get a full 360-degree view of the madness of movie-making, from Jack Conrad’s multiple marriages and the inevitable decline of his career, we see Sydney find success, and then face the brutal fact of racism (in the most painful of ways), and Lady Fay, a lesbian, meets the pushback of conservative voices in the latter part of Hollywood’s evolution. And in the center of this is the rise and fall of Manny and Nellie, whose love for this world is not enough to surmount the obstacles ahead.

Photo: Paramount Pictures International

Throughout its running time, ‘Babylon’ is excessive and big. It can get exhausting but it is filled with moments of hilarity and large-scale cinematic moments that would wow anybody. It’s so extra in everything that when it does slow down and quiet down, those moments become so golden. These are most noticeable in Manny’s scenes of self-reflection and a brilliantly written and acted scene between Brad Pitt and Jean Smart as the fading actor goes head-to-head with the columnist on the power and price of fame and glory and immortality.

Photo: Paramount Pictures International

Without a doubt, there’s a lot of love about the industry in ‘Babylon’ but there’s also a lot of hate. What the film lacks is some underlying message that can somehow take all this chaos and bring it to a proper catharsis. The ending attempts at a ‘Cinema Paradiso’ sort of poignancy but the madness and the horrible parts of the film tend to float to the surface and overshadow the good. The ending doesn’t feel as cathartic or as powerful as it is intended because, in the process of going hyper-real and crazy throughout the film, the love and the humanity of it are completely stamped out by the finale.

Magnificent performances from the cast and Justin Hurwitz did a brilliant job with the musical score but while Chazelle was filling up his screen with a spectacle, he failed to land the emotional punch. It’s enjoyable but you have to have the stomach for it.

My Rating:

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Babylon opens in cinemas nationwide on February 1. Buy your tickets here.

January 30, 2023
REVIEW: The deceptively poignant ‘A Man Called Otto’ hits all the right emotional notes

There’s something formulaic and expected from A Man Called Otto. The Tom Hanks-led movie operates in that arena of awards-bait feel-good dramas that put the very likable actor into the role of a lovable, angry old man. It’s based on a Swedish film, the 2015 film ‘A Man Called Ove,’ which was based on the Swedish novel of the same name by Fredrick Backman. It’s the story of a grumpy old man, Otto, who oversees the cleanliness and order of his community with a gruff and hostile exterior. He’s strict with everybody and he doesn’t have the time nor the patience to be warm.

But what Otto is hiding is an overwhelming sense of grief. Early on in the film, it is established that Otto is grieving over the loss of his wife Sonya. So deep are these feelings that he makes an attempt at killing himself but he gets distracted by things that need his attention, and by the appearance of new neighbours: Marisol (the charming Mariana Trevino) and her family.

From that premise alone, you can already tell where the film is going to move towards and it doesn’t disappoint. Otto’s community is filled with vibrant and distinct people who annoy him at every turn (though, they are just being themselves) and while everyone has grown accustomed to Otto’s curmudgeon persona, Marisol is not so easily deterred. The Hispanic Marisol must’ve grown up in a large family and close relations with her neighbors from where she’s from and she carries that with her. She carves a space for herself in Otto’s life and both characters change and grow due to this.

By all accounts, ‘A Man Called Otto’ unfolds and feels like Oscar-bait. Tom Hanks shakes off his nice guy image to play the gruff old man and it doesn’t have the magic of any of his older work. Much like his character from his last film ‘Elvis,’ it feels put on, every grunt feels rehearsed or placed. It’s a performance rather than a lived experience. I was so resistant to the whole thing until halfway through the film, I started to feel things about these people and these characters.

There’s an insidious way by which director Marc Forster turns this little community into something so wonderfully universal that it gets under your skin. There are wonderful moments of cinematography and editing where Otto interacts with the memories he has of his wife – Forster manages to show how grief is such a present thing – and how all the little things about Otto’s day-to-day, his routine, and his daily rounds betrays his need to hold on to something. It’s in the little things; the little moments that happen every day that add up into a life and the film presents this in such a subtle and undramatic way.

Halfway through the film, I was surprised at how I was reacting. I was getting goosebumps and I was getting invested in the story and, at several important story beats, I found myself fighting back tears. The film doesn’t pretend to be anything it isn’t, but it is done with such love and tenderness and it is filled with such beautiful humanity that it really got me tender and vulnerable.

‘A Man Called Otto’ is a lot of things. It’s about grief and pain and trying to find a reason to continue on after you’ve lost your original reason for living. It’s about community and how we really have to take care of each other. It’s about family – the ones we choose for ourselves – and it’s about growing up and growing old and realising that you are never, ever really alone.

There is nothing that happens in this movie that I wasn’t expecting but it still hit me so hard. The way it was unapologetically what it was as a film; I let my guard down thinking it was just one of the same usual feel-good movies that I was not prepared by how hard I would be hit by the film’s third act.

‘A Man Called Otto’ is a deceptively beautiful movie blossoming with humanity. Bring tissues.

My Rating:

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A Man Called Otto opens in cinemas nationwide on January 25. Buy your tickets here.

January 18, 2023
Customize Coron: a hassle-free adventure to one of the most beautiful beach destinations in the country

There isn’t enough being said about Coron, Palawan. In an archipelago of over 7000 islands, our country is blessed with many gorgeous beaches but the islands of Coron are probably some of the best beaches you can go to locally. With travel restrictions loosening up, the island of Coron is seeing the return of tourists. All we needed was to show our vaccine cards and we were allowed to go straight into our Coron adventure from the airport.

Kayangan Lake

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Travel Itinerary: Coron, Palawan

The thing about Coron is its close proximity to over 50 islets and you will have to take a boat to visit the different tourist spots and beaches around the area. From a previous trip (pre-pandemic) I had in Coron, we had to book a boat separately at the port to go and visit Kayangan Lake or the Twin Lagoon or Siete Pecados. Because of the protocols from the coast guard, you would usually leave by 9 am and you’d get to all the beaches and diving sites at the same time as everyone else.

But on this most recent trip, we booked at Casa Fidelis, a gorgeous forest resort away from the hustle and bustle. What separates Casa Fidelis from other resorts is that you can customize your Coron trip with them, as they provide meals and boat rides for your entire stay. You don’t have to book the boats separately, everything is handled by Casa Fidelis for you – including meals.

Casa Fidelis at night.

For our trip, we had a jam-packed 5-day, 4-night adventure. On our first day, we visited one of the calm and quiet beaches around the area as we had just arrived at the airport. On our second day, we had a jam-packed day as we visited Kayangan Lake, Twin Lagoon, Barracuda Lake, Banol Beach, Siete Pecados, and Maquinit Hot Springs. Our third day had us take a trip to Pass Island, where we slept overnight under a blanket of stars before heading out to Black Island and Dibutanay Island. And for our last day, we decided to stay in the resort, swim at their pool and relax until it was time for our flight.

The Cave at Black Island

I was with my friends who are active and energetic and so they wanted such an itinerary. All of this was arranged through Casa Fidelis. They picked us up from the airport and, as they have their own boat and their own separate port, they can leave earlier than 9 am so, on our second day, we were able to get to Kayangan Lake by 7am before any other tourists were there. We had the whole place to ourselves!

We also had lots of fun eating delicious meals on the boat on our way from one island to the next.

Lunch at Banol Beach.

That’s what’s great about this trip, it was completely customized to the experience that we wanted. This group wanted to make the most of our trip. If I had been with my other set of friends, we might have requested for less destinations per day and maybe added more cultural side trips – like a visit to the St. Augustine Parish Church or a visit to Culion island – or we could have stayed in Casa Fidelis on our third day just to relax and enjoy a trek in their forest. There’s no signal at the resort so you have no choice but to go on full vacation mode, which can be such a blessing, surprisingly.

Having their own boat and port is such a blessing because it meant we can go wherever we wanted and at whatever time was convenient for us. Since we didn’t mind sleeping early and waking up early, we were able to make the long boat trip to Pass Island so we could see the gorgeous sky filled with stars at night. I thought the sand of Banol beach was some of the finest I have encountered, but there’s nothing like the sheer beauty of Black Island and the fine white sand there.

Pass Island (Photo by Mark Lim)

Because the trip is completely customized, the price range adjusts depending on the itinerary and the size of the group. We were a group of ten, staying for 5 days and 4 nights, and we had a jam-packed itinerary so we were charged a little over 7k per person per day (exclusive of airfare and entrance fees to the various destinations).

When you consider how much we were able to do and that all the food and transportation were covered, it was quite a steal. The resort itself is large, comfy, and filled with the comforts of a great resort – hot water, A/C, comfortable beds – and they even have life vests and snorkeling gear.

Coron is really a place that everyone has got to go to and as tourism is beginning to pick up now, it’s really the time to book a flight and experience it before the large influx of tourists comes. Coron can be overwhelming and complicated but you can simplify your life and customize your trip before you even go by booking at Casa Fidelis. They’ll take care of everything the moment you land on Busuanga Airport.

January 16, 2023