Tag: movie review

Movie Review — The Sound of Change: A Review of ‘A Complete Unknown’

Early in the Bob Dylan biopic ‘A Complete Unknown,’ Pete Seeger (played by a charismatic Edward Norton) says that “a good song can change the world.” As I’m watching the film, it’s not just the world that changes. I cued in on the way this movie is about how Bob Dylan (played by Timothee Chalamet) and his music changes everyone around him and, at some point, even himself. The power of his music gives him fame and fortune and this changes him and pushes him to evolve and transform both musically and as a person. This leads up to a famous performance at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965 wherein he is booed and jeered by his folk fans while bringing in a new, younger audience by changing his sound to include electric instruments.

Directed by James Mangold and written by Mangold and Jay Cocks (based on the book ‘Dylan Goes Electric! by Elijah Wald), ‘A Complete Unknown’ chronicles the time of Bob Dylan from 1961 to 1965. A young Bob Dylan travels to New Jersey to visit his idol, folk singer Woody Guthrie (Scott McNairy), at the hospital. There he meets Pete Seeger and when he plays a song for the two folk singers, he impresses them so much that Seeger offers him a place to stay and helps introduce him to the New York folk scene.

In the whirl of it all, he impresses studio executives from CBS Records who sign him up, catches the eye of folk singer Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro), while dating Sylvie (Elle Fanning), a young artist who frequents the folk scene. His meteoric rise to fame finds him becoming pen pals with Johnny Cash (Boyd Holbrook), being recognized anywhere and everywhere, having affairs, and feeling trapped and imprisoned by his contract and his connection to the folk music scene. His need to evolve, to grow leads him to explore a larger, bigger sound, which threatens to turn away his most ardent fans who love his folk music.

Timothée Chalamet in A COMPLETE UNKNOWN. Photo by Macall Polay, Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures. © 2024 Searchlight Pictures All Rights Reserved.

Mangold keeps the story focused in keeping Dylan an enigmatic character and hints at a backstory that is far different from the persona he is trying to project. In fact, it’s a continuing reason for his and Sylvie’s strained relationship: the fact that he is an unknown entity to her. He shares nothing of his past – and in the film, never really does – and this adds to the tension to their relationship. The executives and fans only love him for his music and his success that they don’t care to ask the important questions and when he begins his affair with Baez, she too is attracted to the genius of his songwriter and his mysterious character. But her close proximity to Dylan gives her clarity and perspective, and she even rebukes him.

Elle Fanning and Timothée Chalamet in A COMPLETE UNKNOWN. Photo Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures. © 2024 Searchlight Pictures All Rights Reserved.

No, the film does not try to humanize Dylan but turns him into a fable of any man or woman who has a dream of making it big in the music industry and discovering that fame and fortune can be a prison. The film is careful to show the political unrest of the era – the assassination of JFK and Martin Luther King are mentioned – and this backdrop of America in flux runs parallel to Dylan’s need to grow. His politically charged songs need larger breath and a bigger sound. But expectations are holding back and holding him down.

Timothée Chalamet and Monica Barbaro in A COMPLETE UNKNOWN. Photo Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures. © 2024 Searchlight Pictures All Rights Reserved.

Chalamet is wonderful, as always. I’m not the biggest fan of his off-camera persona but he always gets lost in a role and I’m not surprised he won the Screen Actors Guild Award for this performance. Not only is he inhabiting Bob Dylan’s persona but he’s playing his instruments live and singing the hell out of Bob Dylan’s songs.

His magnetic performance keeps you glued to the screen even as the film refuses to show us Dylan’s inner world. Chalamet does all of this with the flourishes behind his eyes. In fact, Chalamet, Barbaro, Norton, and Holbrook all perform their instruments and sing live and it captures a time I’m very familiar with because these are the songs of my father, and he played them all the time in his room. This is a world I knew quite a bit about from the stories of my dad and seeing it and the Chelsea Hotel and singing songs that were playing loudly when I was a kid takes me back.

Mangold doesn’t try to dazzle us with complex filmmaking. The camera is just there to capture the authenticity of the performances, allowing the script to do its job in showing us what change looks like: it’s rough and chaotic. Sometimes it strips down everything to rebuild upon the ashes. And as Bob Dylan sings (and as heard in the movie), “The times are a-Changin’.”

My Rating:

A Complete Unknown is now showing in cinemas. Check showtimes and buy your tickets here.

March 2, 2025
Movie Review — Balancing Horror and Whimsy, ‘Nosferatu’ Is a Stunning Work of Genius

A remake of the 1922 F. W. Murnau film ‘Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror,’ which is a loose adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel ‘Dracula,’ Robert Eggers ‘Nosferatu’ is a gorgeously filmed gothic horror that is exquisitely directed, balancing fear, sensuality, and whimsy in equal measure. With exceptional cinematography by Jarin Blaschke and delicate editing by Louise Ford, the film vacillates from beauty to horror seamlessly. As the original film is loosely based on Bram Stoker’s popular story, the narrative is very familiar but there are modern touches that creates a reflection of modern issues as well.

The film is set in the early 1800s in Germany, and a young woman, Ellen prays for some being to rid her of her loneliness. This call manages to awaken a dark, malevolent spirit who promises to be with her forever. We cut to much later, when Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp) is now married to Thomas (Nicholas Hoult). They love each other very much, their first scene together shows them incapable of separating, even if he is late for work.

4193_D015_00007_RC Lily-Rose Depp stars as Ellen Hutter in director Robert Eggers’ NOSFERATU, a Focus Features release. Credit: Aidan Monaghan / © 2024 FOCUS FEATURES LLC

NOSFERATU_FP_00238_R Nicholas Hoult stars as Thomas Hutter in director Robert Eggers’ NOSFERATU, a Focus Features release. Credit: Courtesy of Focus Features / © 2024 FOCUS FEATURES LLC

Thomas ends up at his office and his boss, Herr Knock (Simon McBurney), offers him an unusual opportunity. He requests that Thomas acts as solicitor to Count Orlok of the Carpathians, a whole 6-week travel away. He is to broker the sale of an old, decrepit mansion in Wisburg, where they live. If Thomas makes the journey, he will be given a huge bonus and a promotion at work. Ellen is against this, though, as she has been having dreams, but Thomas is insistent. Ellen stays with her rich friend Anna (Emma Corrin) and her husband, Friedrich (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) while Thomas makes the journey. But we all know that Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgard) is a vampire, and he holds Thomas captive in his castle while he makes his way to Wisburg to be closer to Ellen. The closer he gets; the more Ellen suffers manic fits and hallucinations. She is then introduced to a brilliant but ostracized doctor, Doctor Von Franz (Willem Dafoe), who is connects her mania with a dark, sinister evil approaching Wisburg.

NOSFERATU_FP_00130_R A carriage approaches Orlok’s castle in director Robert Eggers’ NOSFERATU, a Focus Features release. Credit: Courtesy of Focus Features / © 2024 FOCUS FEATURES LLC

Most of the plot points are very similar to that of ‘Dracula,’ so the story is nothing new. But what Eggers suffuses with his film is the highly erotic nature of Ellen’s connection to both Thomas and Count Orlok. The sound design of the film is exquisite, amplifying the hard intake and release of breaths that, in scenes where the characters are experiencing great stress, if you close your eyes, it could sound sexual in nature. Even when Count Orlok drains his victims of blood, he straddles over them, both writhing, that one cannot help but think of the erotic.

NOSFERATU_FP_00005_R Lily-Rose Depp stars as Ellen Hutter in director Robert Eggers’ NOSFERATU, a Focus Features release. Credit: Courtesy of Focus Features / © 2024 FOCUS FEATURES LLC

In Eggers’ ‘Nosferatu,’ Ellen is a victim but not of Count Orlok but by her own innocent call for companionship. Unaware of her own power, she sends out a prayer to the angels but instead conjures up a demon. Her own power leads her to have fits and seizures, marking her as an outcast, someone different and strange. Regarded as an oddity, it feels connected to her call for help and has led her to vulnerable to such a being like Count Orlok. Count Orlok then uses great wealth and power to corrupt the people around him – Herr Knock, for example – to extend his reach and access the vulnerable.

4193_D039_00268_R Willem Dafoe stars as Professor Albin Eberhart von Franz in director Robert Eggers’ NOSFERATU, a Focus Features release. Credit: Aidan Monaghan / © 2023 FOCUS FEATURES LLC

In other version of the Dracula story that I’ve seen, the emphasis had always been on the vampiric and supernatural nature of the demon. While Eggers is not above filling his film’s world with the supernatural and the occult, but the real-world metaphors rise to the surface and become painfully apparent. Count Orlok is a vampire in the movie, the metaphor stands of people in power who act as predators and gain access to the vulnerable by people who are eager to have a taste of that power and richness.

4193_D033_00258_R Nicholas Hoult stars as Thomas Hutter in director Robert Eggers’ NOSFERATU, a Focus Features release. Credit: Aidan Monaghan / © 2024 FOCUS FEATURES LLC

And while the composition, editing, production and costume design is exceptional, I love how ‘Nosferatu’ is not afraid to lean into its silliness and how the whole cast is fully committed to this world and seamlessly allowing themselves to fully imbibe the gothic horror and the camp that can come with it. By never taking itself too seriously, we see the work for what it is and marvel at each well-executed part while still enjoying the whole, which is completely familiar to us as well.

Eggers has shown from this and his previous films – ‘The Witch’ and ‘The Lighthouse’ – that he is truly a master of tone, creating horror and dread through gorgeous imagery, while unafraid to being both literary and flighty in equal measure.

My Rating:

Nosferatu is now showing in cinemas. Check showtimes and buy your tickets here.

February 28, 2025
Movie Review — ‘The Monkey’ Will Scare You, but It Will Also Make You Laugh

Because it is based on a 1980 short story by Stephen King and directed and written by Osgood Perkins who gave us such frightening movies like ‘Longlegs,’ I was quite pleasantly surprised that ‘The Monkey’ is as hilarious as it is creepy. The film takes great joy in the irony and the gruesome nature of the deaths that happen in the story. It takes a comic approach to make large-scale set ups that maximizes brutal scenes of accidental murder. Unlike ‘Longlegs’ where Perkins disturbs us with a slow build-up of tension and dread, ‘The Monkey’ is in-you-face with the violence. You know it’s coming, and the outrageousness of its execution and the extremity of its bloody effects are what makes you laugh. The horror is the idea of how and why it is happening.

At the heart of the story is the relationship of twin brothers, Hal and Bill Shelburn. The two couldn’t be more opposite of each other. Bill is a horrible bully and takes pride in torturing his younger brother. Hal is kinder, softer, and does not know how to fight back. Their father is missing all their lives and their mother takes a more care-free, free-spirited approach to raising her two boys. The twins do enjoy going over their father’s stuff as he happens to have been a hoarder and a collector of an eclectic items from all over the world. This includes a toy monkey that never goes away and, if you wind it up, ends up killing someone randomly in the most horrible of ways possible.

Traumatized by the first accidental killing, Hal realises the monkey is to blame somehow. He then tries to use the monkey to kill Bill but the monkey “doesn’t take requests.” The death sends the twins into a tragedy that forces them to throw away the toy down a well and have been estranged ever since.

BTS THE MONKEY Osgood Perkins and Theo James Courtesy of NEON

Now grown-up, Hal trying to live a quiet, peaceful life. The trauma of his experience with the monkey has left him isolated and introverted and will only see his son once a year, for his son’s safety. But on their visit, he is told his aunt is dead and he must reclaim her things and one of them is the monkey. Suddenly, Hal’s old hometown is experiencing a slew of outrageous accidental deaths, and he knows the monkey is loose and someone is winding him up.

THE MONKEY Courtesy of NEON

Through the narration of Hal, the film takes on a cynical and jaded look at the world that gives a world view that everyone is essentially mean and cruel. It seems that Hal is the only person who is trying to protect people, and this even puts a wedge between him and his son, Petey. Despite how bad things get, and how awful people turn out to be, Hal is desperately trying to stay sane and good.

THE MONKEY Courtesy of NEON

It’s quite an interesting little dark fable that is a refreshing take on the demonic toy narrative. By leaning into its humor, it finds a new one to be enjoyable. It’s still creepy – just the design of the toy monkey is enough to send shivers down your spine – and the way Perkins shoots the toy creates enough horror to amplify the terrifying thought that the world is filled with bad people.

THE MONKEY Courtesy of NEON

I’ve never been a big fan of Theo James as an actor, but he fits so well playing the double role of Hal and Bill, the older versions. Both characters are so different from each other and James manages to create a texture for both that suits the tone of the film so well. Playing the younger version, Christian Convery does an excellent job playing Hal but doesn’t let his Bill because as scary and as sinister as he could be. It’s such a joy to see Tatiana Maslany on the big screen. I’m a huge fan of her because of her work in ‘Orphan Black’ and playing the role of the twins’ mother allows a special place for both warmth and recklessness. She’s a bitter woman who is trying her best to save whatever love she still has for her kids. It’s such a nuanced performance that it helps ground the film despite its strangeness.

‘The Monkey’ is a fun little twist that I could use a bit more of these days. It’s nice to see a horror film have a lot of fun with its audience and its own self.

My Rating:

The Monkey is now showing in cinemas. Check showtimes and buy your tickets here.

February 26, 2025
Movie Review — ‘Ex Ex Lovers’ Nails Its Ending and Shows That the Marvin and Jolina Tandem Is as Magnetic as Ever

There is an unmistakable pandering nature to JP Habac’s ‘Ex Ex Lovers,’ a film that reunites the classic love team of Marvin Agustin and Jolina Magdangal back in the big screen. The undeniable chemistry of the leads is the foundation that keeps the film afloat despite how the film seems to cater to revisiting the same energy they have established in previous films, almost two decades ago, like ‘Labs Kita… Okey Ka Lang?’ If nostalgia is all it was going for, I suppose that’s fine. It would be a fluffy film and that’s okay but underneath it all is a gorgeous film about marriage and accountability, and beyond its nostalgic temperament, Agustin and Magdangal showcase a maturity that is something completely refreshing and new and it’s a potential that is only reached in the final act of the film.

The story is about Joy (Magdangal), a single mother whose daughter, SC (Loisa Andalio), has just been proposed to by her boyfriend Joey (Juan Karlos Labajo). Wary of their young age, Joy tries to dissuade her daughter from marrying so young. After all, her husband, Ced (Agustin), is nowhere to be found and has left Joy with taking care and raising SC all by herself. When SC insists that her mom flies to Malta to fetch Ced so he can walk her down the aisle, Joy has to revisit all the pain and resentment brought upon by her marriage to Ced, while he still carries all of his love for her since then. Joy tries to get Ced to agree to delaying the wedding while Ced has his own agenda into getting back together with Joy.

It’s the perfect rom-com premise but the film’s set up can be quite cruel. Because Magdangal is charming and has that quality to draw you in, you’re on her side when she talks about the hardships, she’s faced having to raise SC alone because Ced just went up and left them. When she gets to Malta, she finds a hardworking man who is apologetic but still treats her as if time hadn’t passed and life hadn’t come and gone. Agustin lets lose all the old 90s energy, acting cute and ends up making Ced annoying and downright insensitive. It’s played for comedy – everything from the shots to the direction of the acting, to the music – but from the audience’s seat, it’s just an uncomfortable moment. All of Joy’s misgivings are valid but neither Ced nor SC seems to care.

Image from Project 8 Projects FB

So much so that when Joy acts up and treats Joey unkindly, she’s really meant to look like the bad guy despite how everybody is expecting Joy to just go along with everything that they want. At some point, I was getting very angry for Joy.

It’s the perfect rom-com premise but the film’s set up can be quite cruel. Because Magdangal is charming and has that quality to draw you in, you’re on her side when she talks about the hardships, she’s faced having to raise SC alone because Ced just went up and left them. When she gets to Malta, she finds a hardworking man who is apologetic but still treats her as if time hadn’t passed and life hadn’t come and gone. Agustin lets lose all the old 90s energy, acting cute and ends up making Ced annoying and downright insensitive. It’s played for comedy – everything from the shots to the direction of the acting, to the music – but from the audience’s seat, it’s just an uncomfortable moment. All of Joy’s misgivings are valid but neither Ced nor SC seems to care.

So much so that when Joy acts up and treats Joey unkindly, she’s really meant to look like the bad guy despite how everybody is expecting Joy to just go along with everything that they want. At some point, I was getting very angry for Joy.

Image from Project 8 Projects FB

Then the film turns in the 3rd act of the film, when screenwriters Antonette Jadaone and Kristine Gabriel switches things around and gives Joy a chance to speak up. The whole movie abruptly shifts tone, and Magdangal and Agustin step up to the plate to play the grown up and mature characters that feels more honest to who they are today, and the film ends up tackling bigger themes that it could have been wrestling with earlier. Maybe the shift of tone allows for a bigger impact in the third act? I don’t know. But it sure made it difficult to get hooked in until the film started to take Joy’s side of the matter.

Because Marvin and Jolina are just oozing with charisma and talent. There’s no question about that. But in the film’s attempt to harken to the nostalgia and old-school charms, it made them feel childish and silly, which made their characters and the struggles they faced seem trivial when it’s not. When the film allows the two to grow up and be adults, the humor is still present, the chemistry is still palpable, but they are able to accomplish so much more, including some very powerful statements about divorce.

I found the whole first two acts quite messy and chaotic. It’s appeal to nostalgia undermined a beautiful movie that still managed to find center stage at its final act. One thing is certain, though: and that the power of Marvin and Jolina is enduring and could really use another go.

My Rating:

Ex Ex Lovers is now showing in cinemas. Check showtimes and buy your tickets here.

February 21, 2025
Movie Review — Life and Death in Full Bloom: A Review of ‘The Room Next Door’

A poignant meditation on death and life, ‘The Room Next Door’ is a daunting film that tackles the idea of euthanasia head-on. It is not a bombastic film filled with histrionics and unnecessary drama (though there are some scenes that lean into the melodrama but more on that later), the Pedro Almadovar directed and written movie, based on a novel by Sigrid Nunez called ‘What Are You Going Through’, is just a series of moments, of conversations between its two protagonists. Their lives are unfurled until a request, almost halfway through the film, turns everything into an ongoing negotiation.

Ingrid (Julianne Moore) is a successful author, who has written about her fear of death in her books. During a book signing event, she bumps into an old friend who tells her that another friend of theirs, Martha (Tilda Swinton) is struggling with stage 3 cervical cancer. Not having seen each other in a long time, Ingrid takes time out to visit Martha and the two reconnect and Ingrid becomes her closer friend in these trying times. She’s there as Martha experiences her worst and her best days during treatment and it’s a bond that allows Martha to make a request: she wants Ingrid to be in the room next door when she decides to kill herself with a suicide pill (hence the title).

The first half of the film is just the two of them talking, reconnecting, with Martha sharing her strongest memories of her past and shares why she is estranged from her daughter. The film shifts to flashbacks of these moments and, strangely enough, guided by the intricate music composed by Alberto Iglesias, the film takes on many genres. When Martha shares her story of how she met her daughter’s father, Fred, the film shifts into a period teen romance but when she continues to tell us how he returned from the Vietnam war, it becomes a drama about PTSD and letting go. The film shifts genres occasionally, made seamless by a shift in the pervasive musical score that grounds the film.

It shifts and transforms because Ingrid is torn by Martha’s request. She loves her friend, but she finds death “so unnatural.” The movie is anchored by Swinton and Moore’s incredible performances. Moore is constantly at the brink, trying to understand but also trying to be supportive and this struggle is so clear in her looks, gesture, posture, delivery of lines. Swinton, on the other hand, is a powerhouse, considering her character is frail and at the brink of death. The make-up and lighting make her look gaunt and her physicality is riddled with pain yet there is a vibrant spirit behind her who is trying to reclaim any sense of dignity she can muster before cancer takes it all away.

And through their navigation of this choice, Almadovar creates a wonderful little film about the wonders of life and the inevitability of death.

It’s a quiet film that is not afraid to get silly (one scene details what happens to Fred that feels like a scene out of a Isabel Allende novel, complete with the melodrama aesthetic) even in the face of death. While the narrative structure is solid and tight, the dialogue can feel stunted and read like its scripted and unnatural. I’m not sure if Almadovar is a fluent speaker of English or if he had a translator involved but even with Moore and Swinton at the helm, the dialogue can sometimes fall under the level of being trite or contrived. Yes, both characters are very literate (Martha is a war correspondent and is very well-read, loves Faulkner and Fitzgerald) but there are instances when the dialogue can get too pretty that it feels off.

But the visuals are exquisite. Even if it’s just two women talking, at times, Almadovar brings his camera really close to their faces, their inner worlds just bubbling under their faces. He then brings the camera back out to capture the two in a lush backdrop of nature when Martha and Ingrid take a vacation in a summer home 2 hours from the city. Life in full bloom while Martha is at her last steps and Ingrid is hoping for a change of heart.

‘The Room Next Door’ does not have the urgency or the passion of Almadovar’s older works which I love – ‘Talk to Her’ and ‘All About My Mother’ – but it has a tender heart that truly manages to capture in no uncertain terms the breadth of a human life. It’s a relatively quiet film that will charm you if you let it.

My Rating:

The Room Next Door is now showing in cinemas. Check showtimes and buy your tickets here.

February 19, 2025
Movie Review — Still Not His World: A Review of ‘Captain America: Brave New World’

I was actually excited for ‘Captain America: Brave New World.’ I really, really enjoyed ‘Falcon and the Winter Soldier’ on Disney+ and I personally believe that Anthony Mackie is the new Captain America. Yes, Chris Evans was amazing in that role. He will always be the original MCU Captain America, but time has moved on. And so should we. And I can’t believe that this is how I’m beginning a movie review because the politics and the emotions surrounding this movie is just out of this world. It is also a clear example of the power of the movies and the image.

Now with all that said, why is Harrison Ford as Thaddeus Ross stealing the movie from Anthony Mackie? It’s because unlike previous Captain America movies or in his own show, ‘Falcon and the Winter Soldier,’ our protagonist isn’t having a crisis of faith or identity. As Sam Wilson, the new Captain, he’s just out there trying to unravel a complex conspiracy that threatens the very leadership of his country. He’s trying to stop a world war, but he doesn’t have any conflict of self throughout this whole movie. The one who has this arc is Ford’s Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross. And I feel that it was such a great disservice to the character of Sam Wilson and the actor, Anthony Mackie.

(L-R): Prime Minister Ozaki (Takehiro Hira), Captain America/Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie), and President Thaddeus Ross (Harrison Ford) in Marvel Studios’ CAPTAIN AMERICA: BRAVE NEW WORLD. Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios. © 2024 MARVEL.

From Phase 2 onwards, we know that Sam Wilson and Thaddeus Ross are not in the best of terms. Ross has even put Wilson in the brig for joining Steve Rogers during the events of ‘Captain America: Civil War.’ Ideologically, they are not in the same team. But Sam is the captain now and Ross has just won the presidential election. He’s trying to create a legacy by brokering a treaty among other nations to cooperate in making full use of Celestial Island (the Celestial in the Indian Ocean, which formed during the events of the film ‘Eternals’). Wilson and Ross agree to work together but a failed assassination attempt at Ross by Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly) puts the two back in the opposition and Wilson must figure out what’s happening and who’s pulling the strings as Ross tries to keep the treaty from breaking down.

(L-R) The Falcon/Joaquin Torres (Danny Ramirez) and Captain America/Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) in Marvel Studios’ CAPTAIN AMERICA: BRAVE NEW WORLD. Photo by Eli Adé. © 2024 MARVEL.

The film introduces a whole new set of characters from Danny Ramirez’s Joaquin Torres, who takes over the mantle of Falcon. Ramirez is a breath of fresh air and gives the movie the comic-book energy the fill needs. He’s charming and draws you in and does a wonderful counterpoint to Mackie’s Wilson, who is carrying the burden a little too much. Giancarlo Esposito is always amazing, and he shows up as the assassin Sidewinder, who is more than a match for Captain America. It’s always fun to watch Esposito work and this is no exception. Shira Haas plays Ruth Bat-Seraph, a former black widow who is now the security officer of Ross, and plot-wise, acts as Ross’ muscle to face off Wilson and Torres when they must come at odds.

(L-R): Director Julius Onah, Xosha Roquemore, and Anthony Mackie behind the scenes of Marvel Studios’ CAPTAIN AMERICA: BRAVE NEW WORLD. Photo by Eli Adé. © 2024 MARVEL.

Directed by Julius Onah, there’s a sort of realism to the fight sequences (especially at the beginning) because it sorts of underlines that unlike the rest of the Avengers, Sam Wilson is a not super soldier. He gets tired. He gets badly hurt. And he’s not as fast. The film has its fair share of fight choreography, though the best parts are when both Captain America and the Falcon are in the air in a dog fight trying to stop two nations from killing each other. It’s pretty exciting. But that happens mid-way and all the stuff that happens after feels a little less thought-out. As seen on the trailer, we know that Ross turns into the Red Hulk, and then the film shows a ton of US military coming at him as if they think they can make a dent. It feels so counter intuitive. You have Captain America in the scene. It’s a hulk. Shouldn’t you just run? It doesn’t help that the film is known for its reshoots and you can see it in full glory in the final scenes. The CGI and the green screen effects look dodgy and rushed. It’s a far cry from the first half of the film where everything looked good (except for the folding of the wings).

(L-R) Captain America/Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie), Joaquin Torres/The Falcon (Danny Ramirez) and Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly) in Marvel Studios’ CAPTAIN AMERICA: BRAVE NEW WORLD. Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios. © 2024 MARVEL.

While I appreciated the attempt of the film to hold on to its thriller/intrigue tone, the person who is actually pulling the strings is a little to all-encompassing to accomplish what he has at this point in the film. You can say that Hydra did the same in ‘Captain America: Winter Soldier” but Hydra is an organization and they’ve been fully established in the first Captain America movie. While this is not an unknown character, what this character is able to do is equal to that level of far-reaching circumstances. It just felt so convenient.

Captain America/Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) in Marvel Studios’ CAPTAIN AMERICA: BRAVE NEW WORLD. Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios. © 2024 MARVEL.

The thing about it is that ‘Captain America: Brave New World’ is not a bad movie but it’s not a great one. I felt more invested in Ross’ story because Ford did such a good job with it and his character had the most character development. Everything Sam Wilson was problematizing on an individual, character-level he’d already managed in his own series. In the end, it felt like an episode of a tv show rather than a movie of its own. Steve Rogers had a crisis of faith and patriotism in his second and third movie. I guess I wanted the stakes to be that high for Sam Wilson too, because he deserves it. Mackie has earned that shield and we’ve seen him grow into it in his own show. I wish the movie pushed him further.

My Rating:

Captain America: Brave New World is now showing in cinemas. Check showtimes and buy your tickets here.

February 16, 2025
Movie Review — Someone Else’s Story: A review of ‘Gitling’

I missed ‘Gitling’ when it came out during Cinemalaya and all of its little pocket screenings around the metro and I’ve wanted to see it on the big screen. Fortunately, the film returns to the cinemas from February 5 to February 11 in Ayala Cinemas and FDCP Cinematheques around the country (take note that sometimes it’s labeled with its English title ‘Hyphen’). Written and directed by Jopy Arnaldo, ‘Gitling’ is a quiet, intimate film about two people in the midst of flux who come together for professional reasons but bond over the personal and in the process, find some form of resolution for their own issues.

Makoto Kanno (Ken Yamamura) is a Japanese film director who finds himself in Bacolod City to screen his film at a film festival. Jamie Lazaro (Gabby Padilla) is the local who is hired to act as his interpreter and translator for his new film. They bond over language and movies, they discuss Makoto’s film, which leads them to opening about their own troubles. Makoto is separated from his wife and some scenes show his awkward, strained phone conversations with his wife while Jamie just ended her engagement with her fiancé under difficult circumstances. One is trying to repair a broken relationship while the other is trying to unburden herself from the fallout of the breakup.

This is a story that can only be told in a movie because it’s told in five languages – Japanese, English, Filipino, Hiligaynon, and a made-up language that Jamie invented – and the subtitles play a big part in this, each translation coloured to signal what language is being used in what is being said. The two leads navigate their character’s feelings as they tiptoe around potentially difficult conversation topics jumping from Japanese and English, with Jamie having to shift to Filipino or Hiligaynon when she’s speaking to the world outside of their little intimate space, and later on, as Makoto begins to study and learn Jamie’s language, they speak to each other creating even more walls to shut them out from the world around them.

Arnaldo emphasizes this isolation by his exquisite use of extreme close-ups and his preference to shoot his characters from behind or at their profile. Makoto and Jamie are tearing away any sort of awkwardness by getting through the small talk and pushing deeper and deeper into who they are inside, vulnerable and bare, and Arnoldo, by way of Mycko David’s brilliant cinematography, pushes us away by focusing on their hands, the food they eat while talking, the back of Jamie’s neck, Makoto’s jawline, the blaze of the hot coals that grill their orders of chicken inasal. Arnaldo makes us voyeurs, trying to keep us away from this intimate moment that is entirely theirs to keep for themselves.

And here is where I find myself conflicted as I love the piece on an intellectual level. The performances of Gabby Padilla and Ken Yamamura are pitch perfect. It’s natural and nuanced and it feels so unscripted, so real and authentic. The script is verbose, wordy but these are two people who love language and are trying to connect, to talk about difficult things and finding the words to describe the wealth of emotions they have but also keeping some of it to themselves because this connection is creating complications. Then, at some point, the film that they are both working on, becomes the film that we are watching – the conceit of subtitles transcribing the subtext, the things unsaid on screen for the audience to mull over – and this whole exercise of the film in the film being somewhat the film we are watching. It’s an intellectual exercise that is so enjoyable to sink your teeth into.

But on an emotional level, I feel quite distant from the characters. Their stories, their struggle, I feel the film didn’t give me permission to enjoy it. Their release, their insights were kept at a distance from me. The film protected their safe space. It’s wonderful to take note of as an outsider but as someone watching a movie about healing and relationships, I felt like an intruder. It’s an interesting feeling to have while watching a film, especially one in the romantic drama genre. Beautifully shot, wonderfully acted, great direction, and excellent music by Emmanuel Aguila, ‘Gitling’ is an intelligent movie that made me feel like an unwanted visitor in someone else’s story. There are no easy answers in ‘Gitling’ and the film will make you work for the resolution for yourself but it’s done so beautifully that you should just give in.

My Rating:

Gitling (Hyphen) is now showing in cinemas. Check showtimes and buy your tickets here.

February 7, 2025
Movie Review — An Assault to the Senses, ‘Dark Nuns’ Is Bombastic Filmmaking but Lacking in Scares

Considering its stellar cast – Song Hye-kyo, Jeon Yeo-been, Lee Jin-wook, and a breakthrough performance from young star Moon Woo-jin – there’s a lot that feels missing in the horror film ‘Dark Nuns’ by director Kwon Hyeok-jae. The filmmaking is flashy: lots of extreme close-ups, quick cuts, loud sound design, and imagery that’s meant to be dark, vague, and disturbing. All this is great in the first twenty minutes of the film but as the film unfolds, it cannot substitute the lack of genuine scares or the absence of a stronger, compelling story.

Song Hye-kyo plays Sister Junia, an unordained nun who performs exorcisms for a sect within the Catholic Church. She is known as the “dark nun,” who is knowledgeable in all matters of demonic possession. It opens with her arriving at a home where a priest is struggling to exorcise a demon possessing a young boy named Hee-joon (Moon Woo-jin). We know she’s tough and experienced because she doesn’t go straight to the scene on her arrival. She first has a cigarette and bides her time before she makes her move. There she battles the demon and while she rescues the priest, she only manages to force the demon back into hiding. Hee-joon is transferred to a hospital where Sister Junia finds opposition from Father Paolo (Lee Jin-wook), a priest who is also a doctor, and he frowns upon exorcisms, insisting that these are psychological issues that can be fixed medically. Caught in-between is Father Paolo’s protege, Sister Michela (Jeon Yeo-been). Sister Michela is also a doctor and a nun, but she also has visions and has the potential to be a shaman

The two sisters must find common ground to save Hee-joon from the demon inside of him before… well, this is where the film becomes sketchy because it never really underlines the stakes. Yes, we know the child must be free of the possessing spirit, but the film muddles the cost. Will the child die? Will the demon – a personification of something called “the 12 manifestations,” an idea that is never really explored in depth – become more powerful after a certain point? What is this “12 manifestations” and does it have any effect on the world outside of this child?

The film skirts through most of the story elements. We know Sister Junia is not well, but we don’t know of her life before this. Sister Michela has an implied history with the supernatural, which seems to have caused someone’s suicide. But this is not fully explored either. Aside from saving the boy’s life, we don’t really know what this exorcism means for the two women, and it sort of diminishes the sense of accomplishment one may feel from this whole exercise.

The whole film, from the very opening scene, until it’s conclusion, is completely centered on this one possession. What is wonderful is how, on the orders to save this boy by “any means necessary,” Sister Junia employs shamans and include shamanistic rites to aid in the exorcism creates a wonderful intersection of cultures. Western prayers spoken in Latin (or is it Italian, I’m not sure) while the colorful, energetic rituals of Korean shamanism are playing in the foreground and in the background is such an exciting imagery that is at work.

But the film has no genuine scares. The boy is restrained, he’s shouting expletives and saying vulgar and disgusting things – with an excellent performance by Moon Woo-jin who delivers this with such commitment – while the two sisters are praying over him and demanding him to leave the body. It’s dramatic for the first 20 minutes or so but as the film progresses (and the film is almost two-hours long) it starts to get repetitive. And you start to realise that there’s no inherent danger here.

Despite it being a horror film that isn’t horrifying and with characters that I feel distant and indifferent towards, I do appreciate director Kwon Hyeok-jae’s approach to filming this religious aspect of the film. There’s no reverence or mystery to how he captures the Catholic faith. In fact, he’s not afraid to show the in-fighting within the sects and battles of ideology that is happening inside the church. All of the religious aspects of the film are really just decoration here, juxtaposed side-by-side with Korean shamanism, not favoring one over the other in an imagery sense, Kwon Hyeok-jae creates a battle not between a demon and religion but that of a demon and a human being, who just happened to be a nun. Sister Junia could have been a plain doctor or a shaman or a Filipina witch doctor and it would have been the same movie. The de-mystification of the Catholic faith feels refreshing and new. I wished the film just took less time trying to impress us with its mood shots and dramatics and explored a bit more of the characters to give us something to chew on.

My Rating:

Dark Nuns is now showing in cinemas. Check showtimes and buy your tickets here.

February 1, 2025
Movie Review — ‘Companion’ Succeeds with Its Expert Mix of Comedy and Thriller

I went into the cinema to watch the thriller ‘Companion’ without any knowledge about the film. I didn’t watch a trailer. I didn’t read any notes or reviews. All I know was that it was marketed as “from the creators of Barbarian,” which is one of my favourite films of 2022. ‘Barbarian’ was written and directed by Zach Cregger and he produced ‘Companion,’ which is directed and written by Drew Hancock. The film is a creepy thriller that is a refreshing take of the genre of films populated by films like ‘Don’t Worry Darling’ and ‘Blink Twice.’ Watching the trailer now that I’ve seen the movie, it’s safe for me to say that the film involves the power struggle between a woman and a man but is further complicated by the commodification of AI and the human form.

Sophie Thatcher is incredible as Iris, a woman who is going out of town for the weekend with her boyfriend Josh (Jack Quaid). They are going to a secluded mansion in the woods to spend a weekend with Josh’s friends. There she meets Eli (Harvey Guillen) and his boyfriend Patrick (Lukas Gage), Kat (Megan Suri), and her partner Sergey (Rupert Friend). Iris is not comfortable in that crowd, her attachment to Josh seems weak and laughable to Kat, and it triggers her anxiety and discomfort. But things turn chaotic and murderous when Iris inadvertently discovers that she is a companion robot and that Josh is not the man she thought he was.

Much like the uneven ‘Don’t Worry Darling’ and the brilliant ‘Blink Twice,’ ‘Companion’ explores how women are manipulated and controlled by men. But unlike both movies, ‘Companion’ finds its own voice by being whimsical, funny, irreverent, and takes pleasure in giving space for the woman in question – here, represented by a robot – to find her revenge. Unlike the other two movies mentioned that focuses on the depravity of the men who do these things and the imperative of women to fight for their freedom, ‘Companion’ is more geared towards entertaining us with the thoughts of getting back at the people who did this to her.

It is riding a wave of a political discourse that is fighting oppression with the same fire that has fueled the oppressors. This has the same tone as the eat-the-rich films that have sprouted in the past few years, but this film has set its sights on the men who abuse and dominate women. In this sense, the film feels related to even the recent MMFF film ‘Uninvited’ with the way that it stirs the audiences and gets them to cheer for Iris when she takes the reigns and fights back. The way that Hancock has maneuvered his plot, and his character development allows the audience to actually cheer when the tables are turned and the robot finds their power to enact their vengeance.

And that’s really the power of comedy to use humor to allow us to embrace darker themes and ideas. By making us laugh, we lower our guard and allow us to cheer for what is essential murder but allowing us to justify it by focusing on the heinous actions of the perpetrator. We leave the cinema entertained but the film has planted that seed that we will think harshly of anyone who will be caught doing these acts in real life. Hopefully, not murder, but we will take it seriously.

Thatcher is incredibly arresting as Iris. The nuance of her performance becomes even more apparent as we see her at the point of discovery that her life is a lie. Every look, every reaction is connected to her character being a sentient robot. The other stand out here is Guillen, whose comedic timing is pitch perfect.

Surprising at every turn. If you like bloody gore, violence, and female-driven movies, ‘Companion’ is the film to watch and it’s best to not see the trailer coming in. It’s best to be surprised.

My Rating:

Companion is now showing in cinemas. Check showtimes and buy your tickets here.

January 30, 2025
Movie Review — ‘A Real Pain’ Makes an Excellent Case for the Return of the Mid-Budget Dramas and Comedies

I genuinely miss the mid-range and small budget dramas and comedies like ‘Sideways’ or ‘The Holdovers.’ These are personal, intimate stories that’s completely character-driven and while the story feels contained, the writing and the performances expand the scope that makes it feel universal and authentic. This is where the Jesse Eisenberg written and directed film ‘A Real Pain’ falls under and it does so quite well.

On the surface, it’s about two Jewish cousins, polar opposites of each other, who travel to Poland to reconnect with their recently passed grandmother and with their heritage. They join a tourist group for a holocaust tour and in the process the cousins collide as their personalities clash and their histories are dug up and strung out for everyone to see. It’s funny but also painful and embarrassing at times but it’s also honest. But deep down, the film really is a study on mental health, but it also explores the burden and weight of the immigrant narrative, how the stories of their grandparents and the struggles they had in coming to America can sometimes spark a sense of responsibility and, in the other, a sense of guilt.

(From L-R): Kieran Culkin, Jennifer Gray, Jesse Eisenberg, Kurt Egyiawan, David Oreskes and Will Sharpe in A REAL PAIN. Photo Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures, © 2024 Searchlight Pictures All Rights Reserved.

While the film feels so far removed from our own experiences here in the Philippines, I got to see shades of these emotions bubbling over all my cousins and friends who are first generation immigrants to the United States, and even some in the second-generation. We may never have suffered the ranks of genocide the way that Jewish people have during World War II or the genocide that one of the characters in the film shared, as he was from Rwanda, but we Filipinos have also seen the horrors of war.

Jesse Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin in A REAL PAIN. Photo Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures, © 2024 Searchlight Pictures All Rights Reserved.

And this is the magic of Jesse Eisenberg’s script. The story is so rooted in the cousins – the anxious David (Jesse Eisenberg) and the charismatic but also destructive Benji (Kieran Culkin) – and their story and their connection to the holocaust but the way they interact with each other, the way that David is scared to call out Benji when he’s being rude or destructive and the way that Benji can’t help but be disappointed that his cousin did not grow up to be the person he thought he would be. These little dynamics of their relationship and the precision of Eisenberg and Culkin’s performances convey these nuances really remind us of our interactions with our family. We have siblings or cousins that are like this, and we tiptoe around them while others just bulldoze over us and it’s all out there for us to see in this lovely little film.

Kieran Culkin and Jesse Eisenberg in A REAL PAIN. Photo Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures. © 2024 Searchlight Pictures All Rights Reserved.

It’s wonderful to be in a dark, cold cinema and seeing these seemingly ordinary lives struggling through a life moment but seeing it on full screen. It’s so humanizing. This is the cinema that I miss. Sure, the blockbusters are fun. They are a feast for the eyes but as the studios release one big tentpole blockbuster after another, one sequel after the next, it all gets muddled and boring. But movies like ‘A Real Pain’ helps me get back to myself and to my own little issues and personal demons.

Jesse Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin on the set of A REAL PAIN. Photo by Agata Grzybowska, Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures, © 2024 Searchlight Pictures All Rights Reserved.

There’s no question as to why Culkin is nominated for Best Supporting Actor in the current award season rush, including winning the Golden Globe. It’s a bravura performance that truly encapsulates Benji’s issues. The film never openly states it but, from my experience, his manic followed by depressive and confrontational states is just representative of bi-polar disorder; as I’ve seen it in family members, friends, and even co-workers. Eisenberg has played this character before so we know he does it well but the rest of the cast – Jennifer Grey, Kurt Egyiawan, Liza Sadovy, Daniel Oreskes, and the ever-reliable Will Sharpe – help fill out this world and gives the two leads a space to really play out their character’s inner worlds.

Director Jesse Eisenberg on the set of A REAL PAIN. Photo Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures, © 2024 Searchlight Pictures All Rights Reserved.

I really want more movies like this to return to the cinemas rather than just immediately sending them over to streaming. These intimate; personal stories are elevated by putting them on the big screen. It reminds us of our humanity in the most surprising of ways.

My Rating:

A Real Pain is now showing in cinemas. Check showtimes and buy your tickets here.

January 30, 2025