Tag: movie review

MOVIE REVIEW: Cinemalaya XX: the mesmerizing ‘An Errand’ is a demanding arthouse cinema piece

I love and hate arthouse movies. I love them because, at their best, they really make you think, and they stay with you for a very long time; your mind comes back to them every now and then as you see vestiges of their truth in your own life every now and then. I remember films like ‘Under the Skin’ by Jonathan Glazer, ‘Upstream Color’ by Shane Caruth, Whammy Alcazaren’s ‘Islands,’ and Timmy Harn’s ‘Dog Days.’ I hate arthouse films because they really try my patience; by deviating heavily from the principles of traditional narratives, the stories of these movies meander aimlessly, implying maybe a thread of a larger tapestry but not really getting there until the end, if at all.

And Dominic Bekaert’s ‘An Errand’ is just such a film. At 83 minutes, the film is shorter than most full-length features these days, but the movie’s narrative sprawls out at a slow pace, much like the protagonist’s eponymous errand to fetch an expensive branded shirt and a can of pills from Manila to bring to his shady boss in Baguio. Moroy (Sid Lucero) is the driver to Art Acuna’s lawyer, an unnamed, hot-tempered man who is having an affair with a younger woman (Elora Espano). ‘An Errand’ zooms in on the tiny world of Moroy as he must deal being in an enclosed space (the lawyer’s car) with his boss and his mistress. When he’s with them, he hears their interactions, must live with it in his head, or if the lawyer is working, he picks up whatever bits and traces of it he (and us, as the audience) can piece together.

In-between, Moroy is hanging out at the driver’s waiting lounge, where he listens to the stories of other drivers and bodyguards, including the urban legend of Rex (Eric Kelly), a driver who makes a harsh realisation of his own boss, as told by Ben (Nanding Josef), a senior driver of an old woman, who seems to gamble a lot and has a lot of court cases.

All of these characters orbit around each other and create a dazzling tale of a world that may or may not be dark and sinister. Bekaert keeps his point-of-view small, only from within the purview of Moroy and Moroy hardly crosses the line. To amplify this, Bekaert keeps his framing tight and cluttered. He either composes each shot with Moroy and the other characters trapped within a confined space (a car, the driver’s waiting lounge) and when he does expand the view, he leaves very little space for the characters to move around (like in one scene when Moroy delivers a bag to the lawyer, he has to walk around a swimming pool that occupies 80% of the frame). This excellent use of mis-en-scene, coupled with Michael Benedicto’s musical score underlines the film’s eerie meditation of the lives of people on the periphery of power.

Images from Cinemalaya – An Errand

There are set ups here for classic tropes – does the driver make a move for the mistress, does the driver turn to the police with what little he knows, is the driver an undercover cop or a man with an axe to grind – but the film never turns there. It plays with our understanding of this dramatic situation, of these characters, of our imagined understanding of this milieu and shakes us up.

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Because as much as we’d like to put meaning behind the mistress’ gift of a branded Mona Lisa shirt to her lawyer boyfriend, as much as we want to believe that Moroy’s errand back to Manila – the very cause of this seemingly abrupt existential crisis – nothing really does, as arthouse films often do.

There’s no catharsis here; no sudden revelations; no grand epiphany about the nature of this sick and twisted world. The audience’s desire for something to happen might be the point to the exercise. And the moment the legend somehow merges with the mundane world of Moroy, it does not give us the ending we are craving for, but it allows our imaginations to spark and dream for change.

And for an arthouse film, this is just what it is supposed to do. It’s exactly the kind of film I was hoping to see in Cinemalaya.

My Rating:

An Errand is now showing! Check showtimes and buy tickets here.

This year, don’t miss Cinemalaya Bente: Loob, Lalim, Lakas happening from August 2-11, 2024! Witness another stellar lineup of Filipino stories that will move you and showcase the brilliance of Philippine cinema. Follow the Cultural Center of the Philippines and Cinemalaya for updates!

August 6, 2024
MOVIE REVIEW: Jackman shines again in ‘Deadpool & Wolverine,’ which manages an emotional punch despite more of the same

If you’re a fan of the Deadpool character and Ryan Reynolds’ brand of comedy, then this movie is really right up your alley. Because director Shawn Levy and his pool of writers – there are five of them, including Reynolds himself – makes sure there’s a lot of vulgar jokes, sexual innuendos, blood, gore, unnecessary violence, and, of course, the breaking of the fourth wall, meta commentary that the franchise of ‘Deadpool’ has become synonymous with. With the character finally joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Reynolds, Levy, and the rest of the crew could not wait to take shots at their new studio and openly discuss the gravity of it all.

It’s so in-your-face that it feels like the movie’s plot was just hurriedly made up so that they can set up these gags and moments for the meta jokes to come in. I’m really not the audience for this. It feels more like a comedy sketch show than a movie and I don’t have the sense of humor to enjoy a fully choreographed fight scene where Deadpool fights an army of people and making moves that are all sexually coded while dancing to NSYNC’s ‘Bye Bye Bye.’ Yes, we get it, he has a depraved sense of humor. We saw this in the first two movies, what else is there to show?

‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ overextends its opening in an exposition-heavy act one, which they try to keep energetic by throwing in as much jokes as they can, to set up a quest for Deadpool to visit alternate timelines to find a Logan, a Wolverine, to save his timeline from fading into nothing. A man from the Time Variant Authority (introduced in the Disney+ show ‘Loki’) called Mr. Paradox (Matthew Macfadyen) offers him a chance to enter the “sacred timeline” where the Avengers can be found but he would have to let his universe die. In a bid to save the friends he has made in the past two movies, Deadpool takes a machine that allows him to travel dimensions to look for a Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), who is a being so important it can hold a universe together. Deadpool’s universe is dying because Logan died during the film of the same name, ‘Logan.’ Without him, that universe is set to become nothing.

In the search for a Wolverine, the film manages to showcase Jackman in multiple versions of the character from different eras of the comics. It’s a fan service moment that actually works – because knowing what we know about the MCU – this may be Jackman’s last time to play that character and it’s nice to see him in all the versions; even though Reynolds keeps teasing that the MCU will have him play the character “until he’s 90.”

When Deadpool finally finds a Logan who he can bring him back with him, he is told that the Wolverine that he brought was “the worst one in all the multiverses.” Mr. Paradox then sends both Deadpool and Wolverine into the Void, a place where all variants find themselves before they are reduced into nothing. Deadpool and Logan then face it off in a long battle that plays for the brutality and the gore that one can conjure up between two characters who regenerate instantaneously. After a while, the pointlessness of the match up becomes very apparent. It’s then the film shows the two protagonists that there is a way-out of The Void.

Here is when the film gets interesting. Because The Void is the place where all the unnecessary variants and storylines have come to be erased and the film subverts its own narrative by being a love letter to all the superhero movies that 20th Century Fox made before the Disney acquisition. Act two of ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ finds space for certain characters (and the actors who played them) a chance for one last moment before they completely bow out.

This is what highlights what I didn’t like about the film. Because everything that the subverted narrative does is wonderful. The characters that are brought back – and even some that never made it to production – have a chance to remind us of the potential and the promise that each of these characters had when they first showed up in our screens. It’s an emotional hit that is even amplified by the way by which Jackman navigates his character, playing off a version of the character he immortalized, that is lacking in a narrative that he got to play out in different films. When the camera is on Jackman and the storyline, the film feels important, like it has something to say.

But every time it goes to Deadpool, the film has to stop to give him more time to be what he has been for the past two movies. If it’s your humor, great, but it brings nothing to the table and it is just more of the same.

Luckily, Jackman, Macfadyen, and Emma Corrin as Casandra Nova, give the film the gravitas that it needed to sell the emotional point that makes all the jokes worth telling. There are actually more out there but I don’t want to spoil it.

The issue of irreverence is that the film is only irreverent in the way that it makes fun of itself and comic book movies. But it’s never really irreverent in the ways that matter. Deadpool is still a hero – no matter how many times he tries to say that he’s not – and no number of dirty jokes, sexual innuendos, and gratuitous violence will give the Deadpool franchise any real danger or unpredictability. It can only be as irreverent as Deadpool knowing that Ryan Reynolds is playing him. But to really break from formulaic narrative structures, acceptable moral codes, and capitalist inclinations for nostalgia and sentimentality, ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ doesn’t offer much in that department. In fact, the whole franchise never really did.

My Rating:

Deadpool & Wolverine is now showing! Check showtimes and buy tickets here.

July 31, 2024
MOVIE REVIEW: Unapologetically mainstream, ‘Twisters’ is still a fun ride

As big-budget mainstream movies go, ‘Twisters’ has everything going for it. A disaster movie that goes bigger than its predecessor, it’s got two engaging leads – Daisy Edgar-Jones and Glen Powell – a terrifying natural disaster that lends well to cinema, the budget to make it all work, and a director who knows how to balance the tone so that it delivers just the right amount of cheese while still highlighting the very human element that is at the center of any cataclysm.

‘Twisters’ is about Kate Carter (Daisy Edgar-Jones), who suffers a terrible tragedy while doing research on how to decrease a tornado’s intensity. She’s portrayed as someone who is just naturally gifted with an instinct for the weather, but that tragedy has left her at a desk job in New York as a meteorologist. She’s asked to come back to her home state of Oklahoma when an old friend wants to continue the research with cutting edge technology. He needs her to help them find the tornados.

Kate Carter (Daisy Edgar-Jones)

As she returns to Oklahoma, she finds herself in the middle of an unprecedented event: a tornado season that is sprouting twisters almost on a daily basis. Kate is surprised to see that the present day is filled with tornado-chasers, including the self-possessed media celebrity Tyler Owens, who chases after tornados and streams it live on the internet.

Tyler Owens (Glen Powell)

For Tyler, he’s smitten by her and later on, intrigued by her knowledge of the weather. But she’s pegged him as a clout chaser of the worst kind and has nothing to do with him. Their rivalry leads them to clash and then later bond. Revelations are revealed that forces Kate to face her tragic past while a major storm is about to happen that threatens to turn everything upside and inside out.

‘Twisters’ is fast-paced and sometimes in a rush to push characters forward without really taking its time to establish stronger motivations. It’s the rhythm and speed of a commercial film. It wants to get us straight into the action and watch the sparks fly between Kate and Tyler.

What’s great about Lee Isaac Chung’s direction (from a screenplay by Mark L. Smith) is that he never really highlights the blossoming romance between the two lead characters. It’s there but it’s not angling for center stage. Chung is more focused on Kate’s own complex emotions regarding the tornadoes while trying to deconstruct the idea of Tyler Owens’ own interest as a twister-chasing internet celebrity. For the most part, it’s Tyler who is actively chasing Kate, but she has demons to face.

And then, Chung and Smith also manage to bring us to the human side of things: the destruction that’s caused by such a meteorological event. It attempts to bring up the ugliness of capitalism in a predictable manner but doesn’t delve too much into it so as to tip the balance and keeps the film straight into the spectacle of the tornadoes themselves. While Powell and Edgar-Jones are remarkable, watching them work is a joy, but the true stars here are the CGI effects of the twisters and the action sequences that involve them.

The film treats these weather phenomena like Godzilla—they are monstrous and beautiful at the same time. The fascination these characters have with them become clear the moment you see it in your comfortable cinema seats. To watch them throw themselves at it, whether it’s for the likes or for research, the experience is quite enjoyable.

(from left) Kate (Daisy Edgar-Jones), Javi (Anthony Ramos), and Tyler (Glen Powell), in Twisters directed by Lee Isaac Chung-min

The climax is insane but the science that provides a solution is sketchy, at best (and with further reading on the internet, is quite improbable), but it looks great on screen. And while I’m not expecting a deep story from a movie about tornado-chasers, I am a little frustrated of Hollywood’s fascination of making professional scientists and PhD holders stuffy and boring while untrained professionals with a lot of experience are treated as fun and just as good. I’m not saying it’s not possible, but it adds to a class division that is trite and overused and quite dangerous in this era of anti-intellectualism.

But outside of that, it’s a fun ride. I don’t know if I’ll remember much after weeks have passed but Edgar-Jones and Powell are in my radar and very excited to see what they come up with next.

My Rating:

Twisters is now showing! Check showtimes and buy tickets here.

July 27, 2024
MOVIE REVIEW: Frightening in refreshing ways, ‘Longlegs’ suffers from being genuinely scary and nothing else

Elegantly directed, writer and director Osgood Perkins makes full use of his technical prowess to make every frame of the horror film ‘Longlegs’ absolutely panic-inducing. With flashbacks done with a tight aspect ratio, completely cutting our view and trapping the subject of the camera in a tight frame, we feel that whatever is out there is right at the corner. Utilizing an over-dramatic score that punctuates the jump scares (sometimes even leading it), it makes the whole experience watching the movie so frightening that it is fun. When the film goes to present time, he bathes his scenes in darkness and shadows. There’s always a chance something is going to come out, and with the first opening jump scare catching us completely off guard at the start, we really feel vulnerable throughout this movie.

‘Longlegs’ is about a serial killer, who has been killing families for decades. Hunted by the FBI, Lee Harker, who may have psychic abilities, is put on the case as her abilities may open up new leads. She does but because her connection to the case is much stronger than anyone even realizes, even her.

LONGLEGS Maika Monroe Courtesy of NEON

Maika Monroe is excellent as Agent Lee. She’s guarded, extremely stiff, as if she’s about to burst at any time. She’s taciturn and not very good with people, but she does get some supernatural feeling when something is amiss. When put on the case of ‘Longlegs,’ her anxieties double. Her tenuous relationship with her mother (Alicia Witt), whom she has not seen in a long time, grounds her character to some level of humanity but the distance between them also betrays a darker secret that is lying in wait.

LONGLEGS Maika Monroe Courtesy of NEON

Nicolas Cage plays the titular Longlegs and the make-up and prosthetics makes him almost unrecognizable in a quick glance. It’s only later when Perkins finally gives him long close-ups that you realize it’s him underneath. But the glimpses we get tells us that he is fully committed to bringing out whatever frightening symbolisms his Longlegs can take. It’s a virtuoso performance from an unpredictable actor who has used his off-screen infamy to his advantage in these very off-kilter roles.

Playing out like a police procedural, we follow Lee Harker’s investigation into Longlegs while trying to decipher her strange visions and her undetermined connection to the case, though the savvier viewer will have figured it out quickly. The tale it tells is of a world gone crazy, depicting brutal violence committed by husbands to their families.

BTS2 LONGLEGS Osgood Perkins, Maika Monroe, Blair Underwood | Courtesy of NEON

As the film unfolds, it begins to allude heavily into the occult but never really brings religion into the mix. It’s evil for evil’s sake and we hope that Agent Lee Harker has the determination and the strength to see it through.

The film is filled with terrifying moments, when you know that Longlegs is just there, just in the darkness in the back of Osgood Perkins’ frame. When he takes a long shot, he always ensures there’s an open door or frame leading to another room just in the back. It always gives you the feeling something is going to come in. You’re always on your toes. If he does not have these eerie long shots, he gives you really tight shots that prohibits you from seeing an attack if one will come. The effect allows the audience to feel the paranoia Agent Lee is feeling and the effect is amazing.

BTS1 LONGLEGS Osgood Perkins DP Andres Arochi | Courtesy of NEON

But when it reaches its third act, that build-up of tension ends up in a third act exposition that kind of kills the energy before resuming for its big finale, which is good, but doesn’t have the same punch because the energy leading up to it was stalled. And at the end of the film, we’re left with the fun feeling of having been scared out of our wits but with nothing really to hold on to. It makes no commentary of the world around us. The satanistic imagery and symbolism does not outrightly figure in as a metaphor for anything real-world that grounds ‘Longlegs’ to anything significant. Despite its fantastic filmmaking techniques, the material in itself sorts of falls as just entertainment. It’s not a bad thing, but you kind of wish that it could punch up just a little bit since it did everything else right.

My Rating:

Longlegs is now showing! Check showtimes and buy tickets here.

July 27, 2024
MOVIE REVIEW: Filled with so much heart, ‘When This Is All Over’ is a great showcase for Juan Karlos’ range

‘When This is All Over’ brings us back to the start of the pandemic and the early days of the quarantine. It puts into focus one condominium and the disparity between the quarantine experience of both its wealthy residents and the working class folks who keep the building running. It harkens back to the time of people breaking protocols and their overall dismissive attitudes towards what appeared to be an inconvenience to what is depicted as their empty lives. In the middle of these two is The Guy, played by Juan Karlos, a resident but not entirely of the upper strata as its other inhabitants. He’s a drug dealer, trying to raise money so that he can leave the country to be with his mother in America, with her new family.

Director Kevin Mayuga doesn’t focus too much on the pandemic as it is merely the backdrop of The Guy’s obstacles to reuniting with his mom. He’s more involved with establishing the milieu of the upper class characters, whose point-of-view is that the pandemic is more of an annoyance that is stopping them from being able to party. The party scenes is where Mayuga gets to have fun, playing out each trip from weed to acid to shrooms in a way that totally warps the film’s world and highlights The Guy’s inability to face his reality.

While selling drugs to other residents in the same building, he discovers that one of the girls, Taylor (Chaye Mogg), has connections to the embassy and can fast track his visa application. He tries to impress her by suggesting a place where they can hold a party, something which Taylor is missing so much. The Guy found a route to the building’s rooftop while looking for a place to smoke and there he meets and befriends Rosemarie (Jorrybell Agoto), an admin staff, who also uses the rooftop to get some air and find some space.

For The Guy to deliver on his promise, he has to trick Rosemarie and get the keys to the rooftop so that Taylor and her friends can hold their party and relive their wild drunken lives as an escape from the pandemic.

Mayuga manages the balancing act between upper class frivolities and working class anxieties rather well. While Taylor and her friends (played by Noor Hooshmand, Renee Dominique, and Aaron Maniego) are obnoxious and wholly immoral at a hyper-real level, it works because Mayuga plays off the tone of his film like an urban fable. In opposition, he presents Rosemarie and the rest of the building staff (which includes Lottie Bie and Zara Loayan) as grounded and real. Juan Karlos, as The Guy, manages to shift and transform depending on who he is with with such ease that it shows off his great versatility and charm. He’s the fulcrum that makes this whole movie work. The Guy is not a bad guy, he’s just desperate to be with his mom, his loneliness and inability to really take care of himself is evident in many scenes in act one. We don’t approve of what he does but we understand where he is coming from.

It’s what really makes ‘When This Is All Over’ work. The story is simple and can even be predictable but it’s done with so much care and earnestness that it carries through. Sure, Taylor and her friends are made to be despicable people (though Dominique’s Nicole manages to show layers and nuance in both the writing and performance of the character) but Mayuga still manages to treat them with love and care. The dialogue, the sensibilities, the attitudes are all coming from an authentic place. It’s not meant to ridicule them but show their darkest side of that class. And by not going to deep among the working class characters, he keeps them from becoming romanticized and allows them to be human. Filtered through the point-of-view of The Guy, the horrible things he does to them just to appease the rich folk and get his visa becomes even more cruel and inhumane and the life lessons he will come to learn by the third act becomes earned.

While the film has so much heart and has quite a great number of comic moments that lands their jokes, ‘When This Is All Over’ suffers from a lack of urgency or energy. It is as if the stillness of the pandemic has seeped into the pacing of the film and everything just seems to move one step at a time rather than at a frenetic speed, which the story sort of calls for: the energy of the party scenes, the caper that transpires for the secret rave, or the confrontation scenes at the end. The film never really hits peaks when it can except for one pivotal moment that is a trippy animated moment of self-realisation that’s wonderfully done and excellently timed for the narrative. It excuses the lack of urgency from the rest of the movie.

Great performances and a wonderful beating heart right underneath, ‘When This Is All Over’ is a joy to watch and an interesting reminder of what we went through during the pandemic and how it changed us, for better or worse.

My Rating:

This year, don’t miss Cinemalaya Bente: Loob, Lalim, Lakas happening from August 2-11, 2024! Witness another stellar lineup of Filipino stories that will move you and showcase the brilliance of Philippine cinema. Follow the Cultural Center of the Philippines and Cinemalaya for updates!

July 17, 2024
MOVIE REVIEW: The Funny Thing About Truth and Lies: A Review of ‘Fly Me to the Moon’

Set in the late 1960s with the focus on America’s rush to put American astronauts on the moon to beat the Russians during the “space race,” ‘Fly Me to the Moon’ is a mainstream comedy starring Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum and directed by Greg Berlanti. While the film intends to be an inspiring tale about the interconnectedness of marketing and branding with scientific progress (which may not always align ideologically) and the gung-ho attitude of Americans in how they were able to inspire the world to reach for the stars, the film may also unintentionally become an interesting examination of America’s dangerous marriage to capitalism and its own sordid image of itself. If it was intentional, then bravo to the director and Rose Gilroy, the screenwriter, because ‘Fly Me to the Moon’ navigates the advantages and disadvantages of lies, misdirection, and the truth.

Tatum plays Cole Davis, a former astronaut who is head of the NASA program in-charge of sending astronauts into space. He’s a no-nonsense kind of guy who deeply loves his job and the people who work under him. But under then-President Nixon and the growing cost of the Vietnam war, NASA is trying to survive with a diminished budget and with a deadline that is looming perilously closer every day. Enter Kelly Jones, played by Scarlett Johansson, recruited by the mysterious Moe Berkus (Woody Harrelson) to use her expertise in marketing and PR to rebrand the NASA program and get people excited again for the space program.

Cole Davis (Channing Tatum) in FLY ME TO THE MOON.

The film manages its politics quite well. Jones is depicted as a woman who will always go where the money is but her assistant, played by Anna Garcia, is a progressive feminist who cautions against it, articulating the film’s politics that Nixon was bad, the Vietnam war was bad and that the methods employed by Jones throughout the film are also extremely objectionable.

Kelly Jones (Scarlett Johansson) in FLY ME TO THE MOON.

But as Jones’ methods for building the Apollo mission and NASA brand succeeds – even if she uses actors to play the engineers because they don’t do interviews, or commodifying every aspect of the space mission making statements that are not true – it really puts a question on whether little embellishments and lies are what it really takes to make people care about anything.

Lance (Jim Rash) and Kelly Jones (Scarlett Johansson) in FLY ME TO THE MOON.

The film makes fun of this. We are expected to laugh when Johansson, as Kelly Jones, convinces Tatum’s Cole Davis that the cereal marketing and branding helps even if the astronauts don’t really eat the products in real life; and we do laugh because Johansson is putting out all the charm and it works in this medium and Tatum serves as a wonderful counterpoint to her amoral marketing wiz. We laugh because we have heard and even know about “the truth in advertising” and to see it play out in this comedy where the results are beneficial to the main characters, especially the morally upright Cole Davis, that we forgive them and ride along.

Ruby Martin (Anna Garcia), Moe Berkus (Woody Harrelson), Kelly Jones (Scarlett Johansson), Lance Vespertine (Jim Rash) in FLY ME TO THE MOON.

In-between the hijinks and the gags, there’s a love story blooming between Kelly and Cole but there’s also a big secret that Kelly is trying to hide and, through this job, hopefully erase; and when the lies get too big to handle, the film leads us towards the filming of a fake lunar landing (which involves the always-funny Jim Rash as the director of this production) to ensure that the Americans will win the space race, whether they really did or not.

Cole Davis (Channing Tatum), Moe Berkus (Woody Harrelson) and Kelly Jones (Scarlett Johansson) in FLY ME TO THE MOON.

While the film harkens about the power and importance of the truth, of how the truth gives value to any concept or abstract idea, ‘Fly Me to the Moon’ ends up highlighting the way America has always tried to portray itself to the world, where it’s image of being “the greatest nation of the world” is built upon so many wrongs. In this film, it’s the Vietnam War.

Interestingly enough, when the film positions Moe Berkus as the antagonist, the best way to beat him is through deception. The film, while advocating for the power and importance of truth, cannot help but leverage the power of lies in solving so many problems and issues. Despite its moral shortcomings, though, the movie means well and it’s funny and well-paced and its cast does a marvelous job of selling us the fantasy. It’s a completely fictional story that uses historical facts as a basis for some of its plot points, but it is really out there to just give us a good time, and it does that. The music is strong, Johansson and Tatum are wonderful together and it sort of shows us the importance of being able to sell an idea. No great advancement can be done without money and the games behind the scenes are given special attention by the plot points of the film. If anything, the film further proves that STEM is nothing without the humanities and the liberal arts to give it any real value.

My Rating:

Fly Me to the Moon is now showing! Check showtimes and buy tickets here.

July 10, 2024
MOVIE REVIEW: Highlighting the Need to Scream: a review of ‘A Quiet Place: Day One’

I really felt that ‘A Quiet Place’ was a complete movie all on its own so when the sequel came out, I was very resistant to it. When I saw it, it was enjoyable but it’s been four years since its release and I barely remember anything about it. I still remember how ‘A Quiet Place’ made me feel, though, and quite a number of sequences from that movie. So, when I saw the trailer for ‘A Quiet Place: Day One,’ I wasn’t sure how to feel. Casting Lupita Nyong’o and Joseph Quinn and Alex Wolff definitely help but how does a prequel to the movie really help the lore? What new thing can they say about these aliens and this invasion that the first film didn’t tackle so beautifully already? I was very resistant to this movie.

To my utter surprise, the film directed and written by Michael Sarnoski (on a story by Sarnoski and John Krasinksi) finds completely new ground and takes the setting into a completely different direction. Set in the same universe as ‘A Quiet Place,’ the film happens at the time of when the hearing-dependent aliens arrive on Earth, with the film’s focus on what it calls “one of the noisiest cities in the world,” which is New York City.

Lupita Nyong’o as “Samira” in A Quiet Place: Day One from Paramount Pictures.

In this movie, we follow Lupita Nyong’o, who plays a cancer patient Sam, who is staying at a hospice. She has a service cat (named Frodo) and she is generally very bitter about life and her condition. She’s constantly lashing out, even at her nurse (Alex Wolff). On a trip to the city with other patients at the hospice, Sam finds herself in the middle of an alien invasion. As the world meets the horrors of this vicious, brutal alien species, the terminally ill Sam decides a different path than that of safety.

Lupita Nyong’o as “Samira” and Joseph Quinn as “Eric” in A Quiet Place: Day One from Paramount Pictures.

Surprisingly, ‘A Quiet Place: Day One’ ends up becoming a character study. What is a terminally ill person supposed to feel or strive for in an apocalyptic setting? Her outlook in life is already poor, and things just got worse. Nyong’o imbues Sam with a strong determination despite her calm and clear mind about her present reality. It makes her character so compelling, considering she’s not the nicest person in the world. Sam is in so much pain that she struggles even to walk without her medication. Her outlook is dim but now she’s being forced to keep quiet or else she’ll meet a violent end at the gaping maw of the alien species.

Alex Wolff as “Reuben” and Lupita Nyong’o as “Samira” in A Quiet Place: Day One from Paramount Pictures.

It’s from her perspective and that of Eric (Joseph Quinn), a man with anxiety, who follows her because of his attachment to Frodo. Together, they navigate the ruined city streets of New York – find their way underground and in empty buildings in an effort for Sam to reconnect with the things she’s lost because of her condition. Throughout this odyssey, the film highlights our own need for release, for catharsis. It is so wonderful dramatized in one scene that involves the rain. The ways by which Nyong’o and Quinn manage that scene completely removed all my hesitation for this prequel. Somehow, ‘A Quiet Place: Day One’ managed to contextualize the noise and the silence and our very own need for catharsis and release.

Djimon Hounsou as “Henri”, Lupita Nyong’o as “Samira” and Alex Wolff as “Reuben” in A Quiet Place: Day One from Paramount Pictures.

While the film has its beautiful, tender moments and a wonderful existential exploration of one’s mortality, the movie isn’t without its thrills and spills. There’s a lot of destruction here as the aliens rampage through the city and ravage most of the people onscreen. Part of the film’s DNA are the scenes when the scene goes completely silent and there’s only live sound of what is happening onscreen and the whole cinema just slips into silent attention. Our breaths are all held hoping that our silence will help the characters on screen. Tension is created as we see potential objects that can cause noise appear in sight. It’s a magical back and forth created by the film for the audience and it’s lovely.

Lupita Nyong’o as “Samira” in A Quiet Place: Day One from Paramount Pictures.

The film has one unnecessary jump scare, though, but other than that, everything else works marvelously for the narrative.While the film isn’t particularly profound, it is surprisingly touching and heart-warming. ‘A Quiet Place: Day One’ carves a space for itself to be a lovely story about one woman’s determination to taking charge of her life in a time of doom. It’s inspiring. It’s hopeful. It’s realistic. It’s a good time in the cinema.

My Rating:

A Quiet Place: Day One is now showing! Check showtimes and buy tickets here.

June 28, 2024
MOVIE REVIEW: Focused on the laughs, ‘Fruitcake’ forgets to land its punch

Comedy is a tricky genre to execute. The subjectivity of humor is one thing, but as the joke goes: “the secret to comedy is timing.” Joel Ferrer’s ‘Fruitcake’ is a big ensemble comedy with a great big cast – Joshua Garcia, Ria Atayde, KD Estrada, Victor Anastacio, Alex Diaz, Enchong Dee, Heaven Paralejo, Dominic Ochoa and so much more – and a big story of a group of people whose lives are at the crux of a great big change. There’s some inspiration taken from the three stanzas of the Eraserheads song of the same name (and you can tell because Yeng Constantino sings a cover at some point in the movie), and the film tries to present a myriad of characters who are struggling against the ebb and flow of life and the film tries to find the humor in these stories. And this is where it gets tricky because while some are a laughing matter, others are not, and the ways by which this film unfolds makes it a little difficult to find something that grounds all of this together.

Joshua Garcia plays Cardo, a young man who is going to Manila to work and to reunite with his ex-girlfriend Diane (Heaven Paralejo), who has gone ahead to study. But Diane has moved on and she’s now with an older man, Senator Sam (Dominic Ochoa), who is the target of some student activists Chad and Dax (Alex Diaz and Markus Peterson). Dax sells weed to Jolo and Jagson (KD Estrada and Noel Comia Jr) so that the two boys can get to hang with some rich girls. Jagson is the brother of Ospret (Victor Anastacio, who is working hard to support his brother and his father, who is suffering from dementia (or Alzheimer’s). While Jenny (Ria Atayde) has just discovered she got pregnant with her co-worker Poch (Empoy Marquez) after a one-night stand.

The stories themselves are loosely interconnected and the first trouble they have is finding a thematic line to jump from one story to the other. Since each character’s struggles are thematically different from any other character, there’s no real easy transition from one story to the next. Oftentimes, director Joel Ferrer stays too long on one character before moving to the next that it creates a disjointed rhythm to the movie.

And the way their stories get complicated are uneven but at some point, we are all made to find humor in them and then later, to take them seriously, which is hard balancing act to juggle. Jenny considers abortion and enters a debate with her brother Diego (Enchong Dee), who is a priest and is against it. Jolo freaks out because he’s scared that he’ll be caught with the weed he just bought while Chad and Dax get high, kiss, and freak out that they might be gay. Diane is in a relationship with an older man who is married while Ospret discovers all the work he’s doing has taken a dangerous toll on him.

Source: Cornerstone Studios FB

The film opens topics like abortion, homophobia, drug use, filial obligations, depression but never really gets deep into any of them to really give any satisfying exploration of these topics that are brought up. Some treatments can be a little uncomfortable like the way Chad and Dax deal with discovering that they may be gay. These are rich kids and activists and, if anything, they’d be the first to not sweat the possibility of being queer. As a teacher, most of my students are open to that possibility and they fit the demographic that Chad and Dax fall under. Of course, there are exceptions to the rules, but without any real sufficient backstory, their story ends up portraying gayness as something so awful without intending to.

On the flipside, Cardo’s story is the one with the least heavy stakes. It’s such a shame because Joshua Garcia really shines here as the probinsyano (where I feel that his thick probinsyano accent is used for comedy when a provincial accent isn’t really a funny thing?) with the big dream of getting back with his ex and working in an office in Manila. His charm shines through in every scene but the things they make him do just feels off. He brings a chicken to the MRT and it feels reductive.

The others who end up stealing the show are Victor Anastacio, Ria Atayde, and Enchone Dee. Anastacio manages to infuse Ospret’s world with pathos and the way his story shifts from comedic to dramatic is grounded by Anastacio’s great performance. It’s when he does these subtle jabs at his brother – when he’s not playing for comedy – that he elicits some of the funniest jokes in the movie. Atayde takes the typical story of a woman discovering she’s pregnant and elevates from being a stereotype and she has an interaction with Dee that is so well done and so well performed. It’s a scene in church when Jenny tells her brother she’s pregnant and he shifts from loving brother to strict priest and the interplay between the two cinematic gold.

Unfortunately, the film doesn’t manage to have that for each character and set-up. Sometimes, jokes are drawn out too long and could have ended earlier and snappier. Others don’t seem integrated too well into the story, so it feels like a gag that is out of place in the entirety of the movie. And when all is said and done, the film finds an inorganic way to put everyone in the MRT for a finale that feels forced and contrived. But humor is a tricky thing. Some people in the cinema where I was watching were laughing at jokes that I did not find funny (I even found some problematic) but the jokes I was laughing at were met with silence from the rest. At the end of the day, the film sets out to make us laugh but my biggest issue is that the movie is trying to say something too and it feels like the film was too busy making us laugh that it forgets to show more scenes that supported its ending message.

My Rating:

Fruitcake is now showing! Check showtimes and buy tickets here.

June 18, 2024
MOVIE REVIEW: Beautifully Familiar: a review of ‘How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies’

There’s a subtle, quiet quality to Pat Boonnitipat’s ‘How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies’ that allows its magic to seep in. It’s about the little details that its lead character, M, played by the exceptionally natural Putthipong Assaratanakul observes about his family while he tries to scam his grandmother for an inheritance. The film never puts the focus on the narrative conflict. It’s not just character-driven; the narrative highlights and amplifies the culture of these characters and puts it on display so that we can judge it the way that M does as his character comes to an awakening about people and family.

M is a college dropout and has failed to earn a living as a game streamer. His mother, Chew (Sarinrat Thomas), nags him about getting a job as he once bragged that he would give his mom an allowance from the earnings he’d make as a content creator. Penniless, he gets an idea from his cousin, Mui (Tontawan Tantivejakul), who has earned a huge house after spending most of her life taking care of her rich grandfather as his nurse. M then goes to his grandmother, Mengju or Amah (Usha Seamkhun) and moves in with her to take care of her after she suffers a fall and hurts her leg.

M discovers that living with his Amah is not easy. She has a rigid work ethic and she’s set in her ways. The generation gap is huge but when he discovers she has a severe medical condition and she might not have long to live, he pours in all he’s got in an effort to win her over and inherit her house.

But M has a lot of obstacles in his path. He has his uncles to contend with: Kiang (Sanya Kunakorn), who is the eldest and clearly Amah’s favourite, but he’s well-off and has a family of his own; and then there’s Soei (Pongsatorn Jongwilas), who is out of his luck, a bit of a drunk, and in-between jobs.

The movie is just a little above two hours, but you don’t feel the time pass because every little moment shared between M and Mengju are full of charm and heart. While M’s intentions are not the best, he’s genuine about taking good care of his Amah. The things that he notices about her and about his family opens up his eyes and the film show us this young man growing right on screen before us.

The film takes its time and builds the world of M and Mengju. As a Chinese-Thai family, they have customs and traditions that can be familiar to us Filipinos. The ways by which they hold family sacred and the way that these bonds have shifted in the younger generation, to which M belongs to, become points-of-interest that the film lets us peek into. We never feel excluded from this culture, from this world, from these characters. We are brought in and we are reminded of our own relationships with our own family members.

Source: SM Cinemas FB Page

The film manages to find humor in the looming death of one of its main characters and Assaratanakul gives a moving performance as a person who seeks to benefit from it but, as the story unfolds and his relationship with his grandmother deepens, he begins to resist it. Suddenly, the cluttered house where the two live loses its monetary value and the film’s narrative imbues all of the visuals with such striking heartwarming sentiment. Director Pat Boonnitipat directs the film with very little fanfare but brings his camera really close when he has to catch his characters in a thought and then brings it out for a full shot to show his characters against the backdrop of their surroundings to situate them in the larger scheme of things. With a beautiful score that allows the emotions to flow, Boonnitipat creates a rhythm to the movie that just lets life unfold. You never feel like anything is scripted or manipulated. The film just feels so real, allowing the familiarity of the story to just get under our skin so that when the film’s resolution hits, it hits us hard.

No one in the cinema I was in had a dry eye. We were all crying, touched by such a charming, heartfelt story about a young man coming to terms with growing up and realising the kind of decisions adults make that are never easy to understand but you do anyway because you love them. The film has such amazing restraint that it never leans into the dramatic. It never goes for histrionics. It keeps things subtle, everything just under the surface unless it absolutely must explode. It’s a touching film that transcends cultural boundaries because it understands that love and family relations is not a thing that needs to be translated.

My Rating:

How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies is now showing! Check showtimes here.

June 18, 2024
MOVIE REVIEW: ‘Inside Out 2’ is unafraid to grow up

It is absolutely incredible to me that Pixar could make an animated film about our emotions and what goes on in our heads that catered to both children and adults alike. ‘Inside Out’ was a monumental feat of imagination and excellent world-building and, to no surprise, the team of director Kelsey Mann and screenwriters Meg LaFauve and Dave Holstein were able to capture lightning once more because ‘Inside Out 2’ is just as powerful and moving as the first without losing any of the laughs and thrills that made the first one so endearing.

Riley is older now, a teenager, and that means puberty is going to hit her and it comes with new emotions. The original crew in Riley’s headquarters – Joy, Sadness, Disgust, Fear, and Anger – must make room now for Anxiety, Embarrassment, Envy, and Ennui. As a teen, Riley is experiencing great changes and when she and her two best friends, Bree and Grace, are invited to join a hockey camp, all these changes will come to a head as she starts to grow up and face the teenagers first major life hurdle: how to belong and fit in with society.

As Riley is growing up, the creative team behind ‘Inside Out 2’ worked to expand the world building started in the first movie. Now that she’s older, Riley is forming her core personality, which is made up of core memories that her emotions put into her consciousness. All of this comes into play as Joy and Anxiety battle it out for dominance over Riley’s big decisions now that she’s approaching high school and she has a chance to be friends with a cool upperclassman, who is also the best hockey player in her school.

BELIEF SYSTEM – In Disney and Pixar’s “Inside Out 2,” Riley’s Sense of Self is made up of all of her beliefs, each of which can be heard with the pluck of a string. Sadness (voice of Phyllis Smith) and Joy (voice of Amy Poehler) deliver key memories to this formative land. “Inside Out 2” releases only in theaters June 14, 2024. © 2024 Disney/Pixar. All Rights Reserved.

There’s an intricate way by which the Mann, LeFauve, and Holstein manage to work out the story that allows us to see how our minds react (or reacted, when we were that age) to the world around us and how these actions have serious repercussions to the way we thought about ourselves. As we see in the trailer, the film dramatizes the ways (and reasons) why Riley would bottle up her emotions, how she develops sarcasm at that age (and what it is used for), and the importance of being able to manage our emotions. The first movie was able to turn our inner world, our innermost thoughts as the setting of a great adventure. This time, that world is made even bigger that includes a huge vault of secrets and the changing landscape of a teenager’s mind.

NEW EMOTIONS — Disney and Pixar’s “Inside Out 2” returns to the mind of newly minted teenager Riley just as new Emotions show up. Embarrassment (voice of Paul Walter Hauser), Anxiety (voice of Maya Hawke), Envy (voice of Ayo Edebiri) and Ennui (voice of Adèle Exarchopoulos) are ready to take a turn at the console. Directed by Kelsey Mann and produced by Mark Nielsen, “Inside Out 2” releases only in theaters June 14, 2024. © 2024 Disney/Pixar. All Rights Reserved.

And at the heart of it all, despite all the hilarious gags and jokes that are woven seamlessly into the fabric of this narrative, is a wonderful coming-of-age story for Riley and for each of her emotions, most notably for Joy and the new emotion, Anxiety.

Amy Poehler does a wonderful job at making Joy all that her name embodies but it’s when she reaches her tipping point and finds a moment of vulnerability that everything just clicks for the whole film. Maya Hawke does a spirited job at making Anxiety such a powerhouse and a scene-stealer. While everyone does amazing at bringing their characters to life, it is Liza Lapira as Disgust who managed to shine. Her dialogue and her delivery were so sharp and precise that she managed to stand out.

INSIDE OUT 2 – WHO’S IN CHARGE? — Disney and Pixar’s “Inside Out 2” returns to the mind of newly minted teenager Riley, where her Emotions Anger (voice of Lewis Black), Fear (voice of Tony Hale), Joy (voice of Amy Poehler), Sadness (voice of Phyllis Smith) and Disgust (voice of Liza Lapira) must make room for new Emotions, including Envy (voice of Ayo Edebiri), Anxiety (voice of Maya Hawke) and Embarrassment (voice of Paul Walter Hauser). Directed by Kelsey Mann and produced by Mark Nielsen, “Inside Out 2” releases only in theaters June 14, 2024. © 2024 Disney/Pixar. All Rights Reserved.

Equally important is the way by which ‘Inside Out 2’ visualizes and dramatizes an anxiety attack. I have friends who have major anxiety attacks and I’ve always wondered what it feels like when they get paralyzed in that manner. This movie managed to show it without being preachy. It comes organically in the story and makes full use of cinematic language and the dynamism of the animated medium to fully realise the effect of it. I’ve always empathized over people suffering from anxiety attacks but now I feel like I have a grasp of what’s happening.

It’s really amazing that a movie can manage to do this, to bring us into something so abstract as an anxiety attack but without sacrificing the writing or the direction of the movie. ‘Inside Out 2’ is an eye-opener but it’s also engaging, funny, thrilling, and heartwarming in all the right places and tone.

In the cinema, all the kids were laughing and enjoying themselves while all the adults were holding back tears. It’s a wonderful balance that they’ve managed to do again.

My Rating:

Inside Out 2 is now showing! Check showtimes and buy tickets here.

June 14, 2024