Author: Wanggo Gallaga

Power and Struggle: a review of ‘Triangle of Sadness’

Bold and in-your-face, Ruben Ostlund’s satirical black comedy ‘Triangle of Sadness’ goes all out in depicting the absurdity of the excesses of the rich and affluent while building a biting commentary on class inequality and the distribution of wealth and power. The film is not afraid to get didactic as characters have extended dialogues (and monologues) regarding gender norms and a drunken battle of words between a Marxist captain of a 250 million dollar yacht (played by Woody Harrelson) and a Russian capitalist oligarch (played by Zlatco Buric) while the aforementioned yacht is being bombarded by a storm and threatens to capsize. Everything is then turned on its head by its revelatory third act that binds everything together. It’s a tonal challenge to maintain the dark and (oftentimes vulgar) satire for its 149-minute running time, but the imagery along with the excellent performances keep you on your seats and eyes transfixed to the screen.

‘Triangle of Sadness’ is not a conventional movie by any sense of the word. From the get-go, the satire hits hard as the film explores and pokes fun at all its characters. To ground us to a storyline, we follow the model and influencer couple Carl and Yaya (played by Harris Dickinson and the late Charlbi Dean, respectively), as they navigate the power struggles within their own relationship as they are invited to join a cruise (for free) on a yacht for the extremely wealthy. Through Carl and Yaya, we are introduced to the other guests onboard like Russian capitalist oligarch Dimitry; Therese (Iris Berben), a woman who suffered a stroke and can only utter one phrase in German; Jarmo (Henrik Dorsin), a lonely tech millionaire; an old couple, who made their fortune selling weapons; and the rest.

Photo from ‘Triangle of Sadness’ trailer

On the yacht, the rich engage in their most indulgent of whims and the hapless crew must cater to their every desire. Led by Paula (Vicki Berlin), the crew and staff work tirelessly to ensure the guests get everything they want and desire, even if those desires run contrary to the rules or the safety of the ship.

For over an hour and a half, we are presented with a vast display of absurd requests and acts of great entitlement and privilege from the wealthy class. It’s writer and director Ruben Ostlund’s way for us to set a moral line before he turns everything over its head.

Past the halfway point of the film, the narrative finally reaches its inciting incident and a storm crashes into the ship sending the whole yacht into a frenzy. It’s a well-executed scene as the whole ship tosses and turns. People get sick. They vomit and defecate everywhere. They lose their balance and stumble and fall. Visually, it’s a reprisal of what we just saw unfold in the first hour and a half. It’s brutal and grotesque but also weirdly humorous.

Photo from ‘Triangle of Sadness’ trailer

But the movie doesn’t end there. The third act is an entirely different movie altogether where the structures in place have been overturned and the rules of the game have changed. This is when Abigail (played with great power and nuance by Dolly De Leon), a toilet manager on the yacht, finds her footing in the circumstances that follow and puts her in a position of power that continues Ostlund’s criticism of society and the way things are.

Throughout the storm sequence, Harrelson’s captain and Buric’s Dimitry drunkenly argue over the ideologies of Marxism and capitalism and all of this now is evidently played out in the third act. Everything that was deemed important in the first two acts have been stripped away. It is in the way people change and how relationships shift and turn in the third act that we can see what it is that Ostlund is trying to do and what he is commenting on.

Photo from ‘Triangle of Sadness’ trailer

Almost invisible in the first two acts, Dolly De Leon’s Abigail takes center stage and the Marxist ideologies start to come to the fore. This movie is all about power and the struggles that come with navigating its complexities. It begins first with Carl and Yaya’s relationships and the expectations of gender roles then branches out to the yacht with all the excesses of the extremely wealthy and their absurd whims. Finally, when you take away all the frills and the luxuries that don’t really matter in the day-to-day of things, priorities shift and new power structures are formed.

Photo from ‘Triangle of Sadness’ trailer

Ostlund’s ‘Triangle of Sadness’ has a way of demonizing and villainizing all the characters who have power. With an ending that is filled to the brim with irony and a final insult to the characters in the film, ‘Triangle of Sadness’ offers us no real solution or catharsis for what we just witnessed because we are being asked how complicit we are to the systems that are in place that makes these inequalities so blatant. To laugh at this (and it is funny) is to recognise the truth of what the film is saying. And we have done nothing.

My Rating:

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Triangle of Sadness is now showing in cinemas nationwide. Buy your tickets here.

November 30, 2022
A Daring Cinematic Feast: a review of ‘Bones and All’

It is in the merging of so many different genres – coming-of-age, horror, romance, and the road trip movie – that ‘Bones and All’ manages to find a space where its frightening premise can find solid ground. After all, this is essentially a love story about two cannibals and director Luca Guadignino treats them as ordinary and as complex as any other human being. He treats their love and their love story with just as much tenderness and care as if they weren’t troubled by the fact that they have to eat human flesh every now and then.

Based on the novel of the same name by Camille DeAngelis and from a script by David Kaiganich, ‘Bones and All’ never tries to explain our two lead characters’ dietary proclivities. There is a whole world and mythology that surrounds them but the film never makes it about them being – what our lead character later learns – what are known as “eaters.” We follow the story of Maren (played by Taylor Russell) as another incident causes her father and herself to leave town once again. As she is abandoned by her father and left with a cassette tape (the film is set in the 80s in rural America) narrating what he knows about her and “her condition,” she sets out to find her missing mother in a road trip of self-discovery and love.

Photo from ‘Bones and All’ Twitter

She meets another eater called Sully, played by Mark Rylance, and then later Timothee Chalamet’s Lee, who Maren finds attractive. Through these two interactions (and a few more as the movie progresses) Maren begins to understand what it means to be an eater and must now navigate growing up alone and different from everyone else.

Except she’s not alone, because Lee has asked her to stay and the two go cross-country to find Maren’s mom. In the dark, lonely, and scary world of being an eater, Maren and Lee find solace and comfort in each other.

Except they eat people.

Photo from ‘Bones and All’ Twitter

Beautifully shot by Arseni Khachaturan and with a dynamic score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, ‘Bones and All’ manages to shift between tender moments of vulnerability and the frightening brutality of their hunger. Guadagnino is completely unafraid to present a confessional scene about eating someone as a tender and fragile moment for Lee, with Reznor and Ross’ musical score playing it as a sweet romantic moment for Lee and Maren to become more deeply bonded. There are scenes of utter tenderness where both Russell and Chalamet are drenched in blood. It’s incredible the dynamics that are going on in this movie. Guadagnino proves that love is so universal that we can relate to a young couple finding safety and comfort in each other even if they are man-eating cannibals. We even end up rooting for them somehow.

Symbolically, you could take this eater couple as a metaphor for any sort of othering: the fact that they are a mixed race couple, outliers or misfits, you can even turn it into a metaphor for queer relationships, or any sort of undesirable coupling (based on the majority) and the film can be a discussion point about the humanity that can be found between any two people who have genuinely found love. It can be a metaphor for children and teens that are abandoned by their parents who have to fend for themselves and must navigate the world alone with no real moral compass to tell them what is right or wrong.

Photo from ‘Bones and All’ Twitter

I prefer to take it exactly for what it is: it’s a love story about two people who eat people. A new race of beings, maybe an evolutionary step, who knows? And the film is the tragic love story of these young eaters, who want to build a life together despite their difference in appetite from the rest of society. It’s strange and weird and even grotesque at some point but in the way that it is shot and presented and performed, it’s just so beautiful and strangely touching and moving.

Russell, Chalamet, and Rylance all deliver such textured and nuanced work. These characters feel lived-in and never feel hokey. There are even scene-stealing moments from Michael Stuhlbarg and Chloe Sevigny.

Photo from ‘Bones and All’ Twitter

There’s so much to digest (pun intended) in ‘Bones and All.’ There are so many ways to interpret it but for some reason, I feel most comfortable taking it for face value. The sheer confidence of Guadagnino and his cast and crew to present this film without any sentimentality or camp makes it brimming with humanity that runs counter to dark and brutal imagery. It’s a cinematic feast that you can chew on for days and still find something to ruminate on and feel through.

My Rating:

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Bones and All is now showing in cinemas nationwide. Buy your tickets here.

November 23, 2022
The Emotional Impact of Cold-Hard Facts: a review of ‘She Said’

I came into the cinema without any knowledge on what She Said would be about. All I knew before coming in was that it was a movie about investigative journalism with Carey Mulligan as one of the leads, who is also gaining a lot of attention for her performance. What threw me for a loop was that the film was based on real events, and ‘She Said’ is the story of Jodi Kantor (played by Zoe Kazan) and Megan Twohey (Carey Mulligan), the two journalists of The New York Times who investigated and published the article on Harvey Weinstein’s history of abuse and sexual misconducted that sparked the #MeToo movement back in 2017.

The film opens strong with Mulligan as Twohey and how she goes head-to-head with then-presidential candidate Donald Trump prior to the 2016 election. She breaks the story on Trump’s misconduct with women and how, despite the reports, Trump still manages to win the election and Twohey’s world starts to get tougher as she and her source receives death threats and the like.

Five months later and we then follow Kazan playing Jodi Kantor who is following up on a story that she picked up about sexual abuse and workplace harassment in Hollywood. As she begins following the threads of the story, it begins to resemble the Harvey Weinstein incident and she calls on Twohey to help her put the story together.

Photo from ‘She Said’ trailer

What is absolutely incredible about director Maria Schrader’s coverage of this story is how devoid of drama it is. Except for one scene that feels scripted and manipulative, a scene between Twohey and Kantor in the middle of the film where they ask each other if they wished they didn’t go through with this story, the rest of ‘She Said’ is just dealing with the facts of the case and the process by which the two journalists and their editorial board at The New York Times went about putting the story together.

Photo from ‘She Said’ trailer

If you remember strongly the Harvey Weinstein case, celebrities and actresses like Rose McGowan, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Ashley Judd were names that were being tossed around this investigation. The film doesn’t shy away from this, representing the real people of this story from Trump, Paltrow, and McGowan to phone conversations with actors who sound very much like the people they are portraying and Ashley Judd, who appears on screen as herself. Part of the stripping down of the film’s dramatic flair, director Maria Schrader keeps most of the real-world stars as voices on a recording or on a telephone and minimizes their close-ups when they do show up (as they did with Ashley Judd). With very little tricky camera work, ‘She Said’ is focused entirely on the stories of these women, especially the women working behind the scenes, whose lives were destroyed by their interactions and engagements with Weinstein.

Photo from ‘She Said’ trailer

Except for one story, almost all the recounting of the acts of abuse and sexual misconduct were told by the actor portraying these women with no flashbacks or cutaways. It’s almost as if these are testimonials and we have to listen to them like a jury. Of the many performances of these testimonials, it is the ones by Jennifer Ehle as Laura Madden, and a spectacularly riveting monologue by Samantha Morton as Zelda Perkins that really shows the power of truth spoken aloud without the need of additional flourishes.

Schrader and screenwriter Rebecca Lenkiewicz (based on the book by Kantor and Twohey) go through the details of the two journalists’ challenges on being able to gather the evidence needed to publish their story. Through every step of their investigation, they uncover horrendous systems in place that protect men in power and silence women. Devoid of over-dramatizing scenes and story points, ‘She Said’ can seem clinical, antiseptic but the cold-hard facts of what is uncovered creates the drama on its own. I was sitting in the cinema wringing my hands and getting angrier with every new testimonial.

Who knew that facts alone could be so emotionally charged?

Photo from ‘She Said’ trailer

Very much like ‘Spotlight,’ this movie revels in the process of investigative journalism. It’s the process, not the emotions nor even the case itself, that ignites the energy of the film and amplifies its theme. What Schrader and Lenkiewicz does, to push the humanity just a bit without going too over-the-top, is to frame both Twohey and Kantor not just as courageous and determined journalists, but also as empathetic women and dedicated mothers as well. It’s these little details – from juggling parenthood and career and the way with which these women empathize with their subjects – that really underscore the issues of this film.

We know this story and we’ve read it in the news. We’ve seen how it ends but seeing the process of it, the details of the investigation, clearly defines our world for the misogynistic and patriarchal world that it was (and still is).

I hope more and more people get to see this film.

My Rating:

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She Said is now showing in cinemas nationwide. Buy your tickets here.

November 23, 2022
Only Two Episodes of the Bite-sized Disney Plus Animated Series ‘Zootopia+’ Actually Hits but It Hits Hard

As Disney+ finally opens its doors to the Philippines, there’s going to be a rush to catch up on all the movies and shows and specials that have not been available to us for years now. They have all types from Disney classics to their latest animated features, to the movies and tv series of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, or if you are a fan of the Star Wars franchise, that will be made available to you too. They even have exclusive Kdramas on the platform like ‘Snowdrop,’ ‘Soundtrack #1,’ and the special ‘In the Soop: Friendcation.’

What might be missed in all this hustle and bustle is a bite-sized 6-episode animated limited series called ‘Zootopia+.’ Based on characters from the 2016 animated film ‘Zootopia,’ the short series (each episode runs only for 7 to 9 minutes long) is set during the events of the movie, showcasing the lives of the different characters – from the arctic shrews, to the weasel that the protagonist Judy catches in the film, to the famous sloth civil servant, and even Gazelle’s dancers – that sort of amplifies the world of ‘Zootopia’ and make it bigger.

It’s an interesting concept as the world of the movie is completely big and new and it could do with a little more exploration. Like many of Disney’s animated films, this series boasts of incredible animation and effects. The world of ‘Zootopia’ is filled with so much texture from the different kinds of animals and their fur and hide (or skin). It really depends on the animal. The amount of work that is put into each individual episode is quite incredible. Even at an average of 8 minutes per episode, it shows the kind of dedication they have to the material.

Unfortunately, not all of the six episodes reach a sort of satisfying conclusion that gives them any sort of weight that endears us to the world nor does it make any interesting dissection of society and culture that the movie does.

Photo from ‘Zootopia’ trailer

Four of the six episodes are centered on a single gimmick or novelty that they bleed dry for the entire short duration of the episode. The first is a frenetic, over-the-top chase sequence between Judy’s parents and one of Judy’s younger siblings who has gotten away from them. It has a cute way of highlighting a married couple who are so supportive of each other but other than that, it really does nothing to make the world feel bigger. In fact, the whole length of the short episode manages to make the world of ‘Zootopia’ feel smaller by how it dramatizes the distance between Judy’s hometown and the city of Zootopia.

There’s a story involving Gazelle and a talent contest that is looking for new back-up dancers and it is just a single punchline that you see coming from a mile away. Another episode is of the sloth, Flash, as a dinner guest in a restaurant and it’s the longest episode at 9 minutes and it goes exactly how you imagine it to. There’s a musical episode with Duke, the Weasel, but while it does touch upon the tempting world of petty crimes, it doesn’t say much and in fact makes light of how difficult it is to find redemption.

Photo from ‘Zootopia’ trailer

There are only two episodes that I felt actually made the world feel bigger, and both these episodes are working on two different frameworks altogether.

One episode features Fru Fru, the arctic shrew is part of a television show called ‘The Real Rodents of Rodentia.’ The show is done ala-’The Real Housewives’ and the whole episode parodies the shooting style, the testimonials and confessionals, and even the shallowness of the reality show. It’s a brilliant little gimmick that’s perfectly played out in 7 minutes but what makes it interesting is how it subverts the form – the reality show – and uses it to talk about something deeper and meaningful; something that relates to the themes found in the original movie. Aside from the gimmick, it’s able to add something to the world and to the lore.

Photo from ‘Zootopia’ trailer

On the other side of that coin, the episode involving Mr. Big, the shrew that acts like The Godfather. Taking its cues from the movie ‘The Godfather,’ it shows us a bit of Zootopia history, and of how Rodentia came to be. It’s a wonderful episode that talks about community and the struggles that the smaller animals in Zootopia face in a city filled with animals of different sizes. This episode makes the world of Zootopia bigger (ironically) by showing us the hierarchies of the city and how these are overcome by a spirit of community. It’s something that relates strongly to the movie but it also opens up the world in many interesting ways.

So, while most of the episodes are really light and forgettable one-joke narratives, the proof of the concept works wonderfully in two of the episodes. While the other four merely serve as distracting content, the two episodes that matter really serve as viable companion pieces that can continue to deepen the world of the 2016 movie.

My Rating:

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Zootopia+ is now streaming on Disney+.

November 21, 2022
Exclusive: The Cast of the K-Drama ‘Curtain Call’ on Amazon Prime Video chat about their hit show

Premiering last October 31, the Korean drama ‘Curtain Call’ premiered on KBS2 to extremely high ratings (streamed in Asia exclusively through Amazon Prime Video). Boasting of a stellar cast that includes Kang Ha Neul (‘When the Camellia Blooms’ and ‘Insider’), Ha Ji Won (‘Empress Ki,’ ‘Secret Garden’), Go Doo Shim (‘Our Blues,’ ‘My Mister’), Jung Ji-So (‘Parasite,’ ‘Doom at Your Service’), and Noh Sang-hyun (‘Pachinko’), the drama has the sheen of a prestige television show with a grand scale and dramatic scope. Four episodes have aired so far but already it is highlighting the cast’s incredible performances and the sweeping vision of its director and writer, Yoon Sang-ho and Jo Sung-geol, respectively.

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‘Curtain Call’ is the story of an aging matriarch, Ja Geum-soon (Go Doo Shim), who fled from North Korea and was separated from her husband and son. In South Korea, she started a new life and built a successful chain of hotels with a new family but now at the twilight of her years and terminally ill, she misses the family she was separated from during the Korean war. Her trusted aide, Jeong Sang-cheol (played by Sung Dong Il, of ‘Reply 1988’) tracks down her family in North Korea only to discover her last living relative in that side of the world is her grandson, Ri Moon-sung (Noh Sang-hyun), who may be a gangster.

To give Ja Geum-soon one last moment of happiness before she passes, he hires an unknown, struggling theater actor played by Kang Ha Neul to impersonate her grandson. It’s a story about a family torn apart by circumstance and how the presence of a lie can bring so much joy to Ja Geum-soon and her granddaughter Park Se-yeon (Ha Ji Won) but also may cause as much pain if discovered.

Ha Ji-Won and Kang Ha-Neul in ‘Curtain Call’

From the first episode alone, the drama takes a grand approach to the story, beginning with a flashback of the Korean War, when Ja Geum-soon is separated from her husband and baby. It’s a massive scene, an exodus of an entire town that feels reminiscent of ‘Dunkirk’ or even ‘Miss Saigon.’ And then, in the present day, everything about Hotel Nakwon, the hotel chain she built from scratch, is luxurious and elegant. Her grandchildren, though, feel very differently about the hotel and war between the siblings is brewing.

The show is character-driven as much as it is centered around the deception of Ja Geum-soon’s aide. Will they discover that Ri Moon-sung who visits them is really an actor? What about the real grandson? How will the grandchildren react at the discovery of the lie? The story is Shakespearean in its complexity and there’s even a melodramatic aspect to it that can lean towards the excessive and campy, if the show isn’t too careful. But the performances are great and the show is so well-executed that it is hitting all its marks.

To promote the show, four of their cast – Kang Ha Neul, Ha Ji Won, Noh Sang-hyun, and Jung Ji-so, who plays another actress pretending to be Kang Ha Neul’s wife – gathered together to answer questions online from the press from all over Southeast Asia. The four actors were comfortable with each other, laughing and throwing jokes back and forth.

Here is an excerpt of their interview with the press:

Question: After reading the script, what impressed you the most and made you decide to join this drama?

Kang Ha-neul: I think a lot of people will feel the same way. The theme was really unique, and the script was something you don’t come across often. How will things pan out? I thought, reading, but as I followed the script, I was able to understand its flow and was naturally drawn to the story.

Ha Ji-won: Myself as well, when I read the script I felt it was very refreshing, as well as how the story is structured. It also got me wondering about what I would do if the same thing happened to me. I felt like it would be very fun.

Is there any message that you would like to convey to the audiences from this series?

Ha Ji-won: So my character believes Jae-heon is the real Mun-seong, so she is happy to welcome her little brother into the family. They grow close together as if they were an actual family. At one point, however, she realizes that Jae-heon is not her real brother, and she meets her real brother. And that got me thinking about what is real and what is not real. What constitutes real love? Do you have to be related by blood to be called a family and offer familial love? I came to think that anyone can be family. In life, we are stuck with the binary mindset of real and fake, so this was a food for thought for me. It was really strange actually, we (pointing to Sang-hyun) shot the scene together recently, and even though he actually is Se-yeon’s real brother, I was intimidated.

Ha Ji-won

Noh Sang-hyun: Really? You laughed a lot.

Ha Ji-won: Me? No way! I was intimidated. He was staring straight at me as I entered the room. I called his name out, “Ri Mun-seong!” and he gave me an intimidating look, so I said nevermind.

Kang Ha-neul: That’s a good message. So, what is real and what is fake. Is that even a concept that exists?

Kang Ha-neul

One of the most interesting elements of Yoo Jae-heon’s character is the use of a North Korean accent. However, there is another layer of Jae-heon being a South Korean actor that pretends to be a North Korean person too. How does this affect the way you design and interpret the character’s accent and can you tell us more about the process?

Kang Ha-neul: I’ve never actually learned how to speak with a North Korean accent before. I had an instructor teach me who provided me with recordings of the lines. Sticking too strictly to an authentic North Korean accent in a way washed out the original meaning and intention of the script. So I talked with the director and the instructor to polish and finetune the accents to melt with the show and include words that are more familiar.

Noh Sang-hyun: I also got recordings of my lines read out with a North Korean accent. The instructor was on the set with us as well when we were shooting. It was the same process Ha-neul explained. Speaking with a very traditional North Korean accent interfered with expressing the emotions, so we did some editing and adjusting.

Noh Sang-Hyun

For Ha Ji Won, what is the biggest challenge in this role compared to your previous work?

Ha Ji-won: I wanted to show a more mature side. I wanted to portray my character as a person with a wise perspective to the viewers of this show. There are a lot of well-off and affluent TV show characters that we have seen already, so I wanted to show a different side to the generic “rich” character with added wisdom and maturity, so I talked about that with our writer and director as well to emphasize those points. My acting used to be centered around characters, but this time I’ve taken on a rather plain role, with a focus on maturity.

For Jung Ji-so, I’ve seen your work in Parasite and Doom at Your Service and you did wonderfully well in both performances. How do you manage to play two very different kinds of roles so effectively? What approach did you take for your character in Curtain Call?

Jung Ji-so: Every time I read different scripts, I feel different things, meaning that I put on a unique lens through which I want to portray my character. My interpretation, as I’m reading the script, allows me to discover a new character, so I want to portray that uniqueness in my performance too. I want to make sure that shows in my acting, which I think gives me my uniqueness.

Jung Ji-So

Curtain Call is a star-studded series, so we as a viewer expect a lot from this show. What do you think viewers should focus more on in this series?

Jung Ji-so: One thing that strikes my mind is, the viewers will have fun if they pay attention to the momentary thoughts that cross their mind as they are watching our show. There should be a lot of random thoughts that pop up in their head.

‘Curtain Call’ is available on streaming via Amazon Prime Video and airs every Monday and Tuesday.

November 21, 2022
The King is Gone, Long Live the Black Panther: A Review of ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’

‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’ is a movie about loss and grieving. The loss of Chadwick Boseman’s T’Challa feels, in the movie’s reality, like the loss of a certain sense of nobility and grace that lit up this corner of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Wakanda is grieving. This movie is grieving and it is ambitious in how it takes all that grief and turns it into this epic movie about moving forward from loss, a movie about leaders and rulers of superpowered nations during this dark and turbulent era of human civilization.

Make no mistake, ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’ still continues its dialogue about imperialism and the threat of colonialism but this time pushes it forward about discussing the concept of retaliation.

Running at 161 minutes, almost three hours long, the film’s first two hours is an exploration of the fictional kingdom of Wakanda at a state of loss. T’Challa has passed and his mother Queen Ramonda (played with such a commanding presence by Angela Basset) has reclaimed the throne in the absence of a ruler. His sister Shuri (played by Letitia Wright) is dealing with her grief by turning towards her technology. As Queen, Ramonda must push back against other countries, who want access to Vibranium, the precious resource that has made Wakanda into the advanced nation that it is in that world. Shuri, on the other hand, must rationalize how all her intelligence and affinity to science were not able to save her brother’s life.

Photo: Marvel Studios

In the middle of all of this, the search for Vibranium outside of Wakanda goes into full swing and what it uncovers is another nation altogether with access to the precious mineral, one that is just beneath the surface and equal to (or maybe even more powerful) than Wakanda in strength. This is the nation of Talocan, under the rule of Namor (played with great duality by Tenoch Huerta) and he has kept his underwater nation secret for hundreds of years and this sudden global interest in Vibranium has forced Namor’s hand.

In 161 minutes, the film must deal with the state of Wakanda without a Black Panther and the pressure from other nations to gain access to Vibranium, but it also introduces us to the enigmatic Namor and the nation of Talocan and how they deal with Wakanda, the only country that shares their fears and anxieties. The film also has to introduce a new character, Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne), a brilliant young scientist who is a parallel to Shuri’s story in every way, and Shuri’s own way of reconciling her loss.

Photo: Black Panther: Wakanda Forever trailer

What unfolds is an epic-scale story about rulers and superpowered nations and how the choices of one person can lead to the ruin of so many. As seen in the trailer, the film leads up to a battle (let me say this: it’s not just a battle, it’s a war) that shapes and molds the return of a new Black Panther and what it means to protect a powerful nation.

Pervading through every scene is a commentary on imperialist states like America and France, bringing to mind their imperialist history and the pressure that they (and other world leaders) are pressing on Ramonda, Wakanda, and inadvertently Talocan, the dialogue regarding colonialism returns. What are other nations to do in the face of such pressure?

Photo: Black Panther: Wakanda Forever trailer

This is not just a superhero movie. Just like the previous film before this sequel, this is an image of fighting back against colonial power (it’s no accident that Talocan, which was called Atlantis in the comics, was inspired and based on Meso-American culture; they speak the Mayan language and interpolate Meso-American design and culture) and it is also a character study. Shuri, Ramonda, M’Baku (Winston Duke, who does an amazing job of adding more layers into his character), Okoye (Danai Gurira, who is given enough screen time and narrative elements to add new dimensions to Okoye), and Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o, whose presence adds a profound depth to the story) all must deal with their grief and use the superhero narrative as a means to channel that anger somewhere.

It’s when the film reverts back to its comic book genre that it slows down and unravels. There is a mighty battle scene at the end that feels like it is a necessary item on a checklist for MCU movies that can undermine the heaviness of the themes of the film. It would have worked better had the film been PG-13 (or even R-13) so that the violence can be justified by how much stronger it could amplify the geopolitical ramifications of these two nations coming to war.

Photo: Marvel Studios

This is a dark film with dark themes and it could have really dug itself into that mold more (and there would have been an appropriate space for it) if it didn’t have to be so family-friendly.

Its ties to the MCU is what holds back Ryan Coogler’s vision and ambition of channeling the loss of such a figure like the fictional T’Challa (or the real-life Chadwick Boseman) into a commentary about how dark and greedy this world has become and how one moves forward from it.

Nevertheless, as MCU films go, ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’ is another testimony that superhero films can, every now and then, feel important and relevant. It is proof that you can step out of the formula and still deliver something that is mainstream and enjoyable.

My Rating:

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Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is now showing in cinemas nationwide. Buy your tickets here.

November 9, 2022
Whimsical and campy, ‘The School for Good and Evil’ subverts fairy tale narratives and ask you to question deeper

‘The School for Good and Evil’ presents itself as a fairy tale, complete with a narrator (by no less than Cate Blanchett), magic and mystical creatures, and an adventure centered on true love and friendship. It even goes as far as creating a world where fairy tales are true and that the stories are crafted in a mystical land where students are taught how to be good or evil so that they can create new stories to inspire the world.

While the film, directed by Paul Feig and co-written by Feig and David Magee (based on the book series of the same name by Soman Chainani), is filled to the brim with CGI-heavy moments of sword and sorcery and high fantasy, it also carries a tone that is whimsical, tongue-in-cheek even. It feels purposefully light-weight in its presentation, as if it doesn’t take itself too seriously, which may have been problematic if seen in the cinemas but watching it at home on Netflix gives it the right tonal atmosphere.

Photo: Netflix

After all, there’s never really any sense of danger to the film. The two protagonists, the best friends Sophie and Agatha (Sophia Anne Caruso and Sofia Wylie, respectively), live as outcasts in the village of Gavaldon. Touted as a witch, Agatha is almost attacked in an alleyway but is rescued by her best friend, who lives in a chaotic home with a stepmother who cares not for her and a father oblivious to her troubles. Reminiscent of other fairy tales like Cinderella for Sophie’s home environment or the fact that the two young girls like to frequent a bookshop that’s reminiscent of Belle in ‘Beauty and the Beast.’

When Sophie makes a wish to be a student in the School for Good and Evil, she and Agatha end up there and find themselves in quite a quandary: Sophie, who wishes to be a princess, is left at the School for Evil while Agatha, who didn’t want to go in the first place, is placed in the School for Good. The depictions of good and evil are very one-dimensional. They have uglification classes for the school of evil and, in the school for good, they have classes for beauty, which involves smiling and how to use it as a weapon.

Photo: Netflix

It is actually quite contrived if it weren’t for Agatha’s suspicion that something is amiss. Feig is not afraid to lay it all on thick, with big stars as the professors such as Charlize Theron as Lady Lesso, the dean of the School for Evil, and Kerry Washington as Professor Dovey, the dean of the School for Good. The two big stars, as well as Michelle Yeoh in a smaller role yet manages to pop in every scene she’s in, seem to understand the campy tone of the whole film. They are in on the joke and are having a lot of fun in the process and it amplifies the campy mood of ‘The School for Good and Evil’ but it also underscores Agatha’s complaints about the world.

Because as light and as frivolous as ‘The School for Good and Evil’ can be, it manages to question the morality of this world, the one-dimensional look into the binary of good and bad. In the process, it manages to serve as a sort of criticism against performative acts of goodness and questions deeper into how things are. It subverts the ideas of fairy tales and opens up doors to understanding the gray areas.

Photo: Netflix

While big stars like Theron, Washington, Yeoh, and Laurence Fishburne are having fun playing whimsical, it is Caruso and Wylie who are pushing the deeper thoughts of the story forward. Caruso is delightful as her portrayal of Sophie is one of utter belief in the ideology of the world of fairy tales while Wylie is the opposite, questioning everything and fighting against the facade of the things in front of her. Their chemistry grounds the film because it’s their friendship that is at the center of it all.

Yes, it’s light and easy and doesn’t take itself seriously. But that is what makes it enjoyable. It’s like a refreshing antithesis to the Harry Potter series and the seriousness of its later releases. It’s perfect for younger audiences and it’s not something I wouldn’t mind seeing more of in the future.

My Rating:

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The School for Good and Evil is now streaming on Netflix.

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October 24, 2022
MOVIE REVIEW: ‘Black Adam’ and a case for the superhero antihero film

I’m very tired of the antihero storylines. With the current global crises and seeing the world the way it is now – with an ongoing war in the Ukraine and populist presidents winning elections in so many countries – I feel that the antihero narrative in commercial and mainstream movies needs to take a step back as we need to somehow revitalize our sense of idealism and optimism. I would prefer to leave my thoughts on nihilism and cynicism to independent films. In these very challenging times, I don’t want to cheer for antiheroes in a big-budget blockbuster superhero movie.

This is why I was very skeptical after seeing the trailer of Black Adam. To take one of the most charismatic superstars like Dwayne Johnson and dress him up as (from the little I know about the Shazam comics) the villain Black Adam made me very resistant to seeing this film.

To my utter surprise, there’s a whole lot in ‘Black Adam’ that I really enjoyed. There are camp moments in the film – take note of a wonderful, short homage to a Spaghetti Western and the over-the-top super-heroic battles across the fictional city of Kahndaq – that are really the highlights of this movie. When the film leans into its comic book genre, the film is so enjoyable. Director Jaume Collet-Serra makes full use of long shots that helps create a feeling of scale for the sheer, immense power that the character Black Adam possesses. He also uses freeze frames, extreme close-ups, and other heavy special effects moments that for some reason remind me of Zack Snyder’s ‘300’ but done better because he doesn’t take it too seriously.

Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

It’s this camp aesthetic that really works in this film because the power levels of Black Adam are just through the roof. So when it makes attempts at seriousness – the relationship between a teenager named Amon (Bodhi Sabongui) and his mother Adrianna (Sarah Shahi), who awakens Black Adam from his slumber and Amon and Black Adam himself – are the weakest moments of the film. It doesn’t help that Sabongui is not the best and most engaging of actors but the characterisation of Amon runs contrary to the other aspect of the film that I really enjoyed.

Amon (and consequently the way Sabongui portrays him) feels very Americanized despite coming from Kahndaq, a fictional city of what appears to be of middle eastern origins (though the comics has Black Adam being of Egyptian origin). The film depicts Kahndaq as a city taken over by a criminal gang called The Intergang. And while the visual imagery is that of a war-torn middle eastern city, the people of Kahndaq speak English (with an accent) and Amon is very Americanized (as seen when his bag opens and you can see he grew up reading comic books of Wonder Woman and Superman).

Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

While Black Adam resurfaces and begins to wreak havoc in Kahndaq, he speaks the languageof Kahndaq, that I can’t decipher, maybe Egyptian at the start but then quickly speaks in English despite having been asleep for 5000 years. There’s an underlying story of colonization and liberty that is at the undercurrent of this film. As Black Adam appears to be a global threat because of his power, members of the Justice Society fly to Kahndaq to stop him. This creates a wonderful discussion on the ideals of moral authority. Adrianna defends Black Adam, who has begun to take out the Intergang while protecting Amon, and throws back at Hawkman and Dr. Fate of the Justice Society and asks them where were they when the Intergang took their city and enslaved their people.

Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

The politics of this situation – is Black Adam good or bad, are his methods right or wrong (he is from a different time afterall and his ideas of justice are shaped by that), and what right does the Justice Society have to fly into whatever situation they deem is a threat but ignore other global calamities such as the taking of Kahndaq – creates a gray area that the film sort of explores (that very few other superhero films ever get to do like ‘Captain America: Winter Soldier’ and ‘Captain America: Civil War’). For these discussions alone – and not painting the Justice Society immediately as the good guys – makes ‘Black Adam’ refreshing and different and new.

Yes, he is an antihero and while the methods and morality that he uses are questionable, it is contextualized by the individual situation of Kahndaq and Black Adam’s own history. I was not expecting this at all and it made the film quite enjoyable for me. It’s not afraid to stay in the gray areas and if it leaned in more into its campy side, I think it would have balanced everything out completely.

Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

But for a comic book movie, I got plenty of great superhero battles (the visualization of Dr. Fate and Cyclone is just wonderful and thrilling to see on IMAX) and I got to see Dwayne Johnson evoke his charm without relying too much on dialogue. He’s using a completely different skill set here.

Don’t be bogged down by the weakness of its extended opening exposition. When Black Adam makes his first appearance, it’s all uphill from there. Enjoy the excessiveness and indulgences of the film, which is the campy aesthetic I wish it leaned into more heavily. There’s a lot to enjoy here, and most especially the mid-credit end scene. It got the most cheers and with good reason.

My Rating:

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Black Adam is now showing in cinemas nationwide. Buy your tickets here.

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October 20, 2022
MOVIE REVIEW: More a manifesto than a movie, ‘Amsterdam’ struggles for cohesion despite its glorious cast

I was charmed by ‘Silver Linings Playbook’ and was totally floored by ‘American Hustle’ and so I’m very interested in David O. Russell’s work before I found out about his controversial working habits and problematic personal life. Despite what I know of David O. Russell behind the camera, when I saw the cast list for this latest film ‘Amsterdam,’ I was very much intrigued by the movie. I’d watch anything with Margot Robbie or Christian Bale and then you add Anna Taylor-Joy, Zoe Saldana, and Robert De Niro to the list and it’s just too good to pass up.

The film opens with a tongue-in-cheek mention that the events of the movie “actually happened” and the story brings us to America in 1933 where we are introduced to Christian Bale’s one-eyed doctor and veteran of World War I Burt Berendsen and his best friend, lawyer and also WWI veteran Harold Woodsman, played by John David Washington. Burt lives in his clinic where he tends to the medical needs of war veterans and provides plastic surgery and prosthetics to cover their scars and wounds from battle. Burt meets with Harold to meet a client played by Taylor Swift. She wants Burt to perform an autopsy on her father, a retired general who is suspected of having been murdered instead of dying by natural causes as was reported.

Photo: 20th Century Studios

What unfolds is a grand conspiracy that touches upon fascism, racial discrimination, and big business. Kept light, at times almost dream-like, and an uneven touch of whimsy, ‘Amsterdam’ tries to draw out the mystery of the murder and the grandness of the conspiracy as much as it can while introducing an ever-expanding cast that includes Margot Robbie, as a French nurse that the two friends meet during WWI, Zoe Saldana, a forensic nurse, Rami Malek and Anna Taylor-Joy, who play a couple in high society that may help the two friends escape the trouble they have found themselves in, Andrea Riseborough, who plays Burt’s estranged wife, and Robert De Niro, who plays a retired general, whose connection to the deceased general may hold a clue to what is going on.

It’s actually hard to keep track of the film’s direction as, right at the midst of the premise opening up, we are then thrown into a flashback of WWI, the time when Burt is assigned to an all-black regiment of the US and meets Harold and then later, Margot Robbie’s Valerie. Broken by their injuries from the war, the three take a trip to Amsterdam where they live a life that is meant to evoke some idea of liberty – a place where they are not judged for how they live or love and are free from the ravages of war and the societal restrictions of 1918 America.

Photo: 20th Century Studios

And then it goes back into the present to continue on with the conspiracy while also juggling Burt’s own marital issues with his wife and her disapproving family and war veteran gala that Burt and Harold are very keen to stage and produce.

By keeping it humorous and odd, it gives all the star-studded cast so much room to really play and have fun with their roles – most especially for Robbie and Taylor-Joy, who seem to have a blast with their characters – but at the same time, none of the emotional beats of the film really end up landing where they should. The love story between Harold and Valerie doesn’t seem as intense or as inevitable as the story positions it, and the impending danger that the conspiracy is foreshadowing doesn’t provide any real sense of urgency.

Photo: 20th Century Studios

What happens is that we are flitting along to every scene and just watching the cast have a ball with their eccentric situations. When the elements of fascism start to play out, the idea of the Amsterdam scene becomes the counterpoint now to everything that fascism is against – that liberty and freedom to live and love the way you want – becomes the central theme of the film. By not taking any of it seriously, the film ends up not really saying much.

In fact, there’s a heavy use of narration from its three main cast and then a long-winded narration by Burt at the very end, there’s a feeling that ‘Amsterdam’ and its anti-fascist messages are more of the director’s manifesto than it is an actual movie with a grounded, solid story. And I use purposefully use the word “grounded” because after watching the movie, I did a little Google search and discovered from an article by the LA Times, that a journalist who did research and wrote a book about the events that are alluded to in the film said that “only 10% of what happens in this movie is based on fact.” He said everything else is fiction.

Photo: 20th Century Studios

While there are some really amusing moments in the movie, some that actually got me laughing out loud, and the spectacular performances from the star-studded cast, I ended up leaving the theater wondering what it was that I just saw and if there was anything deeper to this film than the monologue at the end that sort of spoon feeds the film’s message.

This is not the work of David O. Russell, who I have come to admire from the energy and urgency that he was able to infuse into ‘American Hustle.’ Sure, ‘Amsterdam’ is pretty to look at but that’s about it.

My Rating:

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Amsterdam is now showing in cinemas nationwide.

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October 13, 2022
MOVIE REVIEW: The Surprising Non-Western Position of ‘Ticket to Paradise’

‘Ticket to Paradise’ has all the narrative beats, tone, and vibe reminiscent of an early 2000s rom-com, an area with which one of the lead stars, Julia Roberts, is a master of. In fact, if this was made in the 90s, Julia Roberts would have played the daughter and not the mom and it would completely make sense. But it’s now 2022 and Julia Roberts is now playing the mom and there’s a sort of full circle that’s happening here. ‘Ticket to Paradise,’ afterall, is a classic family, generational romantic comedy about divorced parents who fly to Bali to sabotage their daughter’s wedding.

The first thirty or forty minutes of the film was a little difficult for me to get into: we know very little about the characters except that Julia Robert’s Georgia Cotton and George Clooney’s David Cotton are divorced and hate each other. They even choose to live in different parts of America just to ensure they don’t accidentally bump into each other but still do for their daughter Lily, played by Kaitlyn Dever. After her graduation from law school, Lily and her best friend Wren (played by Billie Lourd) take a trip to Bali and 37 days later, Georgia and David are rushing to Bali to stop Lily from marrying a man she met on the island.

Photo: Universal Pictures

Within the first ten minutes, the premise of the story as written above plays out and while Georgia and David’s relationship is firmly established, we know very little about Lily. We are immediately positioned, as the audience, to think that Georgia and David’s calls for a truce just to work together to sabotage their daughter’s wedding is cute or funny. Naturally, my instincts are also against the wedding because my natural inclination is to believe another white, western girl falls in love with a Balinese man (though Maxime Bouttier, who plays Gede, is very charming) and drops her privileged life for an exotic adventure in Asia. It also doesn’t help that the constant bickering of Georgia and David highlights toxic masculine behaviour – interrupting Georgia as she speaks, claiming ownership of ideas that Georgia just mentions, etc – that despite all of Clooney’s charms, it really irks me that his character is the typical toxic man.

Photo: Universal Pictures

Everything about the premise of the first thirty minutes just speaks of Western, imperialist attitudes that had me resisting the movie from the get-go. I didn’t like David nor did I have a good impression of Lily and I was so scared that they were going to make Bali feel exotic and fetishize it; turn the culture and their customs into a joke.

But the moment the movie is in full swing, as Georgia and David begin to put their plans of sabotaging the wedding into action, I started to notice something quite surprising and refreshing. The way ‘Ticket to Paradise’ frames the Balinese culture was done with so much love and respect. Never did they make a joke out of anything that represented Balinese. In fact, as the narrative unfolds, it positions the Balinese culture as sort of superior to western ideals as represented by both Georgia and David. The concept of the tight-knit Asian family is put in full display which perfectly contrasts the lack of communication between David, Georgia, and Lily. Lily’s own decision to live in Bali stems from a need to harmonize with herself and she can do this in the island with Gede and it reflects back on David and Georgia’s own failures in their relationship, which is saddled with the pressures of western ideas of success.

Photo: Universal Pictures

There’s even a subtle touch of the use of the Balinese language. Every time Georgia and David are in a scene and people speak in Indonesian, there are no subtitles. There’s only one scene where this happens but it is used narratively to underline David’s mistake. Another scene involves Gede and his parents having a discussion about the wedding but there are no Americans in the scene and what they talk about, once again, shows off the beautiful family relationship of this Balinese family.

Photo: Universal Pictures

Never in the movie do I feel that there is a joke being made at the expense of the Asians. In fact, the movie subversively puts forward the notion that Georgia and David are the villains of the film despite its tone and genre. The bait and switch occurs because Georgia and David are played by Julia Roberts and George Clooney, both huge global superstars. Of course, coming in you’d think they were the heroes of the story. That mere fact is why I was resisting the film at the start but the moment the true nature of the movie was revealed, I began to enjoy it.

It’s a classic family romantic comedy with a lot of important things to say – about marriage and parenting and life – and it surprised me at how it positions the Balinese culture as something ideal, if not more ideal, than those of western values.

My Rating:

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Ticket to Paradise is now showing in cinemas nationwide. Buy your tickets here.

October 6, 2022