Tag: movie review

MOVIE REVIEW: Unapologetically celebratory, ‘Glitter and Doom’ is a post-modern romance perfect for Pride Month

I love the Indigo Girls. As a kid of 80s and 90s, I grew up to their music and while ‘The Power of Two’ would be their most famous song in the Philippines, it wasn’t my favourite. I found the song so sweet and sentimental in comparison to Emily Saliers other songs, which are more melodically clever and more profound or any of Amy Ray’s more passionate songs. A jukebox musical of their songs sounds like a complete joy (even if I hate jukebox musicals, on principle), added to the fact that the story features a gay love story makes it even more appealing. I was very intrigued by director Tom Gustafson’s ‘Glitter and Doom.’

What I was not expecting was a post-modern musical that plays out more like a queer fantasy than a traditional, conventional movie. My pretentious classic movie leanings made me resist the movie at the start. Every scene feels like a set – the way Gustafson and director of photography Cristian Solano uses the backdrop of Mexico City to make everything feel so magical and dreamy – and even the character designs of his two protagonists feel completely fictional and unreal. Their names, after all, are Glitter and Doom. Glitter (played by an extremely charming Alex Diaz) is a rich kid, flirtatious, and, of all things, wants to go to Paris to clown school. While filming an audition in the streets of their unnamed city, he meets Doom (Alan Cammish). Doom is a budding singer and songwriter, who is trying to audition to play a regular gig at a bar called The Fountain. They bump into each other and there’s an instant attraction. But while the bubbly, optimistic Glitter comes off too strong, Doom quickly builds his walls as a dark cloud seems to be floating over his head.

I was resisting the film at the beginning. ‘Glitter and Doom’ is unapologetically a musical and takes a more atmospheric and thematic approach to storytelling rather than centering the movie with its plot. The love story of Glitter and Doom doesn’t take the normal story beats to develop. They see each other, Glitter hits on Doom, Doom backs away, they sing a song – a mashup of ‘Shed Your Skin’ and ‘Touch Me Fall’ by Indigo Girls – and all of a sudden a understanding is formed. The film, written by Cory Krueckeberg, prefers to make impressions than to hunker down and tell a cohesive story.

Adding to the fantasy, Glitter’s mom (Ming Na Wen) is a high-powered executive, who wants the same for her son. But she used to be a circus performer (which is where Glitter probably gets the fascination to be a clown) and her home is constantly on party mode with hoop dancers and jugglers and members of the queer community. She’s open about her son’s sexuality (such a breath of fresh air) but she seems less enthusiastic about her son wanting to be a clown (understandable). While Doom is constantly surrounded by drag queens and queer people in full regalia. These supporting will suddenly appear when any of the cast members burst out into song (which is often).

It wasn’t until a good 20 minutes when I finally realised the film was taking a post-modern approach to cinema. The film’s structure and style were in conjunction to the non-traditional world of its characters. The moment I accepted the film for what it is rather than what I wanted it to be, I began to see the moments of beauty this film had to offer.

First of all, the new arrangements and mashups of the Indigo Girls songs used in the film is wonderful. It helps that Cammish and Diaz are excellent singers. They are not just singing, but acting through it so it really adds a depth to the songs. Secondly, Cammish is wonderful at portraying the tortured artist, afraid of not realising his dreams of becoming a singer and falling in love. As the songwriter, he gets to do a lot of the singing and he does it perfectly. But the real star here is Diaz, whose Glitter is so free spirited and spritely but there’s a fear that is hidden underneath that Diaz manages to portray in very subtle ways. Glitter is constantly taking videos and often, Diaz has to look straight into the camera and perform a monologue and he manages to do so with all the emotions both external and internal in full view. It requires a nuanced measure of fragility and verve that he articulates with his whole body. It’s a revelatory performance that’s quite difficult to do in a film that is so tonally whimsical.

And while the story flits from its neurotic romance between Glitter and Doom, it’s also about realising your dreams and facing your demons (in this case, it’s also related to both protagonists’ mothers). By not focusing on narrative beats but instead painting impressions of moods and emotionally charged moments, amplified by the gorgeous music of the Indigo Girls, the film manages to creep in and twist on your heartstrings. I was absolutely gob smacked, while watching this movie and falling in love with it, that at some point when Cammish starts singing a new version of the classic Indigo Girls hit ‘Closer to Fine’ (with a interpolation of ‘Everything in Its Own Time’) I just started crying.

There’s a beautiful way by which this film imagines a world where the biggest problems a queer person would have been whether their dreams can come true and if their own fears and demons won’t get in the way of making a sure play at love. It’s a beautifully shot fantasy world that’s tender and sensitive and, sure, it’s easy and it never sweats the hard stuff. But in the landscape of queer cinema, it’s wonderful for a film to just be so unapologetically celebratory of queer lives. As the film leans into its formalist aesthetics, it revels in its fictional tone and just allows the characters to navigate through the darkness of their lives to try and reach that which makes them happy. And for that, on Pride month of all times, is just what is needed.

My Rating:

Glitter and Doom is now showing! Check showtimes and buy tickets here.

June 11, 2024
MOVIE REVIEW: Over-reliant on dialogue, ‘The Watchers’ offers tepid scares and a flat story

Despite the lush Irish forests as its backdrop and a rather cinematic bunker in the middle of the woods as the setting of this horror film, ‘The Watchers‘ quickly loses any of its mystery and appeal because of first-time feature film director and screenwriter Ishana Night Shyamalan’s inability to wrestle with the film’s massive lore. Based on the book by A. M. Shine, ‘The Watchers’ prefers to keep things hidden; allowing the dread to stem from what we don’t know. This only last for as long as the fear is constant, the characters we’re following are engaging, and the film points out to something bigger.

But that’s not what happens here in the film.

‘The Watchers’ is about an American, Mina (played by Dakota Fanning), who is living in Ireland and running from her past. When her boss at the pet store she works in asks her to drive to another city to deliver an expensive bird to the zoo, then she finds herself lost in an enchanted forest where she cannot find her way out. There she discovers what is called “The Coop.” It is a bunker in the middle of the forest where she is taken in by its current inhabitants – Madeline (Olwen Fouere), Ciara (Georgina Campbell), and Daniel (Oliver Finnegan) – and they tell her the rules to survive because out in the woods, when the sun goes down, the Watchers come and they will kill her if she’s not in the bunker by sundown.

All the elements are there to create an engaging story. Who are the watchers and what are they? There are rules to stay alive and, of course, Mina tries to break them because she refuses to be stuck there like everybody else. As some rules are broken, the four are put into danger. How will they get out? What do the watchers want? The list goes on.

But the moment the initial curiosity has set in, the film takes on a very by-the-numbers pace that slows everything down. While the rules are explained and while Mina tries to break them to find her way out, there’s no real sense of danger that sticks. Mina’s backstory is kept hidden from us until halfway through the movie, so we don’t feel that connected to her. It doesn’t help that Fanning, as good an actress as she is, is asked to be guarded and reserved. She’s put a distance between her and everybody in the film so she’s not the kind of lead character an audience can easily warm up to.

Madeline plays out as the older, wise woman character-trope, whose backstory I figured out quite quickly as the answers to the questions start pouring out by the third quarter of the film. Ciara and Daniel are functional but don’t have much to do to make you feel for them in any real way.

What makes the film even less scary is that all the important answers to the questions the film inevitably sets up by its premise is answered through a huge info dump in the third quarter of the movie. They learn the lore of the watchers in one big go that the already languid, tepid pace of the film is even stunted further. And regardless of how you feel about the revelation, without the mystery, the narrative starts to fall flat. What else is there to do now?

I can imagine what this narrative might be like in the form of a book. When you’re reading this story in the comfort of your home and taking the pace that you want, the story can work. The prose can cover up the variety of new information that happens near the end of the story. But for a film, as you near the end, you want the film to go faster to start moving towards its climax but instead ‘The Watchers’ ends up slowing down further to explain.

This has always been the problem of what some people call ‘the mystery box’ narrative. This is the trouble Ishana Night Shyamalan is struggling with in this film.

Once the big struggle is done, the film enters its resolution and then another twist is revealed (like father like daughter, because, yes, she is the daughter of M. Night Shyamalan). It is a twist I saw coming the moment the big info dump has occurred and the sad part is, at the film’s final conflict, it is once again done via dialogue. ‘The Watchers’ starts well with an interesting premise, but it does not keep up with all its elements as the film unfolds. If anything, this is a streaming movie for a dead weekend.

My Rating:

The Watchers is now showing! Check showtimes and buy tickets here.

June 10, 2024
MOVIE REVIEW: A vibrant city is uncovered by the films in Set A of The Manila Film Festival

Screening at Robinsons Manila and Robinson Magnolia until June 11, The Manila Film Festival offers two sets of short films, which explores the theme “Manila in Me,” and each set is opened and closed by a young but established filmmaker and in-between are four short films by student filmmakers. The six films in each of the two sets create an interesting tapestry that speaks about the variety and range of stories that are found at the heart of Manila, the seat of our country’s history.

For Set A, the films are prefaced by Dwein Baltazar’s ‘Nananahan,’ a gorgeous meditation on longing and waiting. Shot in black and white, the film is practically a silent film with the most minimal dialogue, if there’s even any. What keeps it from being silent is the exquisite music by Emerzon Tecson and the incredible sound design by Narra studios. The film is shot entirely in a furniture store at the heart of downtown Manila. It’s old and it feels abandoned and the people that hang around here are just waiting while the sounds of the city erupt all around.

It’s still and nothing happens yet a pervasive mood hangs upon the air and it tells the story of a city that is just waiting to be discovered all over again like the furniture in the store and the people that watch over it. Baltazar’s exquisite touch knows exactly how long to hold a scene and when to break it and when the finale comes and the realisation of what it is you’re really seeing hits you, it’s a magical moment that only film can truly capture.

Writer and director Vhan Marco Molacruz follows up after Dwein Baltazar with the road movie ‘Una’t Huling Sakay.’ While the story can be a little contrived, the pacing a little abrupt, what Molacruz does excellently is tell a vivid story about a life on hold. His main character (played by an arresting Gold Aceron) is a habal rider who had to stop his schooling to earn money for his pregnant girlfriend. Molacruz takes beautiful travel shots of Aceron on his bike while using the scenic backdrop of Manila as a means to symbolize the struggles and hopes and disappointment of his protagonist.

Following that is ‘An Kuan’ by writer and director Joyce Ramos. ‘An Kuan’ is tonally exquisite. It’s an absolutely charming film that manages to hit the right comedic tones as it details the struggles of a non-Tagalog speaking mom who is looking for a job in Manila. The film makes use of its rough edges to add a layer of grit that grounds the relationship of the mother (Louielyn Jabien) and her lesbian daughter (Zar Donato) that makes it both endearing and funny. It never takes itself too seriously and by doing so manages to tackles some really interesting themes while taking some very lovely shots of Manila’s coastal areas.

Phi Palmos and Precious Paula Nicole shine with a very nuanced, very powerful performance in Ronnie Ramos’ ‘Happy (M)other’s Day!’. It’s a simple film about a young girl who is navigating the difficulty of finding which parent can come to her school’s Mother’s Day event when she has no mom but two dads. It’s a small, intimate film with a lot of heart and propelled by excellent performances that includes Palmos, Nicole, and Amber Jeshley Gomez, who delivers an excellently matured performance. Unfortunately, Ramos needs to tighten his editing, allowing moments to linger when it should be snappy and manages to downplay the urgency of the story. This would be a stronger film if it had a tighter edit and some more dynamic cinematography that really helps bring you closer into the story.

Finishing off the student films in set A is ‘Pinalakang Tabingi’ by John Pistol Carmen. A lovely little love letter to cinema, Carmen’s short is about two kids who get caught up in a pirated DVD raid in their hometown in the province. The film manages to highlight the issues about accessibility to films while showing the effect a film can have on its young audience. It’s best when it’s playing at the fantasy, with Carmen also doing a really cute interplay between a fictional fantasy movie and the way the kids reenact the scene from this movie. By the latter half, the film dips into a public service announcement tone that can kill the energy built by the film’s first act but it’s charming all throughout.

Rounding up the first set is JP Habac’s ‘Shortest Day Longest Night.’ The film feels very now, very trendy. It has a pulse that belongs to the hip kids and their love for deep conversations and art and pop culture. The film is about safe spaces and how even the safe spaces that are inhabited by the queer community can be violated by members of its own community. Adrian Lindayag and Vaughn Piczon are excellent at embodying two lost souls finding safety in each other’s brokenness. It’s pretty to look at but I’m not a fan of the very didactic and verbose way that Habac approaches this story. So many of the film’s story points are articulated rather than dramatized and I really, really feel that this film is better as a full-length. There’s a world here that should be mined and sifted through and Piczon and Lindayag are excellent vessels for a story like this to unfold. As a short, I felt the story was hemmed in too much by its time constraints and I feel like it would just bloom if it had a full-length feature running time.

Disclaimer: Please note that movie showtimes are subject to change without prior notice. We recommend checking the latest schedules before planning your visit.

My Rating:

The Manila Film Fest 2024 is happening now at Robinson’s Movieworld – Manila and Robinson’s Movieworld – Magnolia (Limited Screening) until June 11! Check showtimes and buy tickets here.

June 9, 2024
MOVIE REVIEW: The old school 90s action comedy vibe of ‘Bad Boys: Ride or Die’ is very reminiscent of the first film

I completely missed out on the third installment of the ‘Bad Boys’ series of films, the buddy cop action comedy starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence. I remember seeing the first two films, but I have completely forgotten most of the details of ‘Bay Boys II’ and as the opening of ‘Bad Boys: Ride or Die’ reveals, there are many major events that happened in ‘Bad Boys for Life’ that are sort of needed in being able to follow this fourth installment in the franchise. The details aren’t that integral to the overall understanding of the movie, but you may be surprised (as I was) about certain things like the characters played by Vanessa Hudgens, Paola Nunez, and Alexander Ludwig and that Smith’s Mike Lowrey has a son (played by Jacob Scipio).

In this installment of the franchise, Will Smith’s Mike Lowrey and Martin Lawrence’s Marcus Burnett are caught in the crossfire as their former captain, Joe Pantoliano’s Captain Howard, now deceased, appears in the film as a video and dream sequence while being set up to take the fall by the cartel. Lowrey and Burnett will have none of it and as they try to uncover who in the Miami police department is working with the cartel to tarnish the name of the captain, they end up being framed as murderers and accomplices, along with Mike’s son Armando Aretas (Scipio). Aretas is key here because he’s the only one who has seen the villain’s face (played by Eric Dane).

Will Smith and Martin Lawrence star in Columbia Pictures BAD BOYS: RIDE OR DIE. Photo by: Frank Masi

Now fugitives of the law, Lowrey, Burnett, Scipio, and the rest of their team must work to clear their names and stop the cartel from carrying out their plans.

To further complicate things, Burnett suffers a heart attack, an experience that leaves him feeling both immortal and spiritual. On the other hand, the newly married Mike Lowrey must also deal with his own mortality and the fact that his very dangerous life means that his new wife (Melanie Liburd) maybe a widow before the end of the film. These two aspects address the fact that both lead actors are in their 50s. It adds a layer to the proceedings, one that Lawrence mines for all its comedic potential (which is golden if Lawrence’s humor is up your alley) and creates a softness for Smith to chew on for his character.

Will Smith stars in Columbia Pictures BAD BOYS: RIDE OR DIE. Photo by: Frank Masi

But outside of this added layer for the characters to play with, the film operates like an old-school 90s action film. It has a vibe and morality akin to the original ‘Bad Boys’ from 1995. Smith’s and Lawrence’s antics are loud and explosive. There’s a macho/testosterone-driven comedy that pervades the film’s tone. The opening scene is Mike driving extremely fast as he appears to be late to a wedding (later on we discover it is his). For a policeman, driving this fast is highly unusual, but considering it’s Miami and it’s Will Smith, the comedic tone of the film asks us to forgive their recklessness. It’s America too, so some jokes involve Smith taking out his gun and pointing it to Lawrence’s Marcus, who is annoying the hell out of Mike with his pseudo-spiritual tirades and belief in his own immortality. Some people try to stop him and call him out (thankfully) but Lowrey quickly hushes them down. He’s a cop so he’s allowed.

Martin Lawrence stars in Columbia Pictures BAD BOYS: RIDE OR DIE. Photo by: Frank Masi

This 90s era morality and humor runs through this film but with the directorial styles of Adil & Bilall, it has a pace and an energy that is fit for the TikTok generation. The film’s editing is fast, leaving very little moments to ponder on mortality or morality. The film is jumping from plot point to plot point, from Martin Lawrence joke to Will Smith action pose. When the guns start blazing, it’s loud and geared for excitement. The best fight scenes, though, are given to the younger actors of the film. Jacob Scipio’s Armando engages in an exquisitely brutal fight scene in a prison involving weights, hitting hard and impressing. Meanwhile, Dennis Greene, who plays Marcus’ son-in-law, gets a really nice fight scene mid-movie that plays off like a video game.

Will Smith and Martin Lawrence star in Columbia Pictures BAD BOYS: RIDE OR DIE. Photo by: Frank Masi

In fact, aside from social media videos, ‘Bad Boys: Ride or Die’ also takes a lot from video games as it captures a segment of the final face off in the style of a first-person shooter game.

In all honesty, ‘Bad Boys: Ride or Die’ is not my kind of movie. It absolves its heroes of their most toxic traits because they are the good guys as well as it glorifies and romanticizes the violence that the good guys take to solving the problem. But as I was sitting in a packed theater while watching this movie, I also noticed the laughter from the people around me and the electricity in the theater that showed that this dynamic still has a lot of juice left in it. The fact that it takes the old-school route showed that they knew their market and what it took to keep them happy.

For what it was: a traditional, classic action comedy film, ‘Bad Boys: Ride or Die’ checks all the boxes. And just in case people have not forgiven Will Smith for slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars, well, that’s referenced in the movie too (and it got the loudest reactions from the audience).

My Rating:

Bad Boys: Ride or Die is now showing! Check showtimes and buy tickets here.

June 6, 2024
MOVIE REVIEW: ‘Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga’ is an epic film but is too deeply connected to its predecessor

It’s been nine years since ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ but the world that George Miller created still lingers as one truly unforgettable onscreen depictions of a brutal post-apocalypse fit for cinema. The stunning visuals of that movie still linger in our minds and returning to this world, this time to explore the backstory of Fury Road’s most magnetic character: Imperator Furiosa (played by Charlize Theron) instead of the franchise’s grounding character Mad Max, can be a daunting task. Remember: Furiosa is such a beloved character, and we are coming fresh from the sand dunes of Arrakis from ‘Dune: Part Two.’ How will ‘Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga’ stand up to that burden?

Fortunately, Miller has come back to the franchise with a lot of his old team: Nico Lathouris returns as his co-writer for this movie, Margaret Sixel returns to the editing chair, accompanied by Eliot Knapman, music scorer Tom Holkenborg and production designer Colin Gibson and a lot more have returned to the wastelands of the Mad Max universe alongside the visionary director. ‘Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga’ is connected to its narrative sequel, ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ so delicately that it’s a film that feels incomplete without it.

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Everything about this new movie is big and explosive. It’s 148-minute running time is filled with impressive fight sequences that feel completely different from that of the previous film. The film opens up the world and explores the inner workings of the broken civilization that is at work. The Citadel that is heavily featured in ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ becomes a key location and its inner workings and politics comes under view as well as the economic systems that are at place – Gas Town and The Bullet Farm – that answers any sort of questions like “where do they refill all the gasoline used by their cars” and “how come they never run out of bullets?”

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A lot of the world has opened up now and Furiosa (played in the movie by Alyla Browne as the younger version and Anya Taylor-Joy as the older version) becomes our eyes, the foil by which this world is seen or understood and experienced. The story begins with Furiosa taken from her home, a place of abundance, and she is brought to the roving warlord Dementus (Chris Hemsworth), who holds on to her as she is the only one who knows where the place of abundance is. Along the way, Dementus makes a play for The Citadel and its ruler Immortan Joe (played Lachy Hume). During their battles, the young Furiosa is traded to Immortan Joe, and she manages to find herself working in the garage and armory of The Citadel. Here: she becomes an invaluable crew member to Praetorian Jack (Tom Burke) and the key to an opportunity to go home opens up as well as revenge for the horrors that Dementus had put her through.

The movie is cut up into chapters and through this narrative we see the trials and challenges that Furiosa faces that will turn her into the badass we get to see in ‘Mad Max: Fury Road.’ The world building of this movie is immense, and it really widens the scale and scope of the franchise as it has never been done before. It’s no longer a post-apocalyptic nightmare (like the first three movies depicts, though it has been a while since I last saw the films) but it becomes a place where hopes and dreams can somehow take fruit, if the person is strong enough. We know this because we’ve seen the previous film. We know what Furiosa will become and what she will accomplish. Without that knowledge, ‘Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga’ can feel repetitive and unnecessarily brutal.

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Don’t get me wrong: there’s so much to love and enjoy in ‘Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.’ There’s a kookiness and an irreverence that I can best describe as being very Australian that keeps the imagery a fresh balance of silly and cool. It vacillates effortlessly from epic to comical. This is also best exemplified by Taylor-Joy’s (and Browne’s) ferocity in their portrayal of Furiosa and the way by which Hemsworth embodies the unhinged reckless abandon of Dementus. In fact, Miller manages to emphasize his thesis about the nature of how humanity has broken in its efforts to survive this barren wasteland and one can’t help but feel he’s making a commentary on our world at the same time.There’s even a magnificent 30–35-minute fight sequence that brings Taylor-Joy from the bottom of a war rig all the way above it and inside the driver’s seat and it’s just incredible. It matches anything that was previously done in ‘Fury Road’ (though there is way more generous use of CGI effects, which was not apparent or obvious in the previous film). The film has stunning set pieces and fight choreography. It has gorgeous long shots of motorcycles and other vehicles moving through the sandy dunes of the Australian Outback. In IMAX, the images are absolutely stunning, meeting the high expectations of any George Miller epic.

© 2024 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved

But the story itself is deeply connected to its predecessor.

I feel that ‘Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga’ has a difficult time standing on its own. It’s bleak. It’s obviously a set up and it requires ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ to fully flesh out its narrative ambitions. Without spoiling anything, I think it is telling that after the film ends, the credits are interspersed with scenes from ‘Mad Max: Fury Road,’ and its effect amplifies the energy and meaning of that first film.

It’s an incredible experience but it feels incomplete on its own. It’s obviously leading to something and without it, it’s just a lovely watch.

My Rating:

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is now showing. Check screening times and buy tickets here.

May 27, 2024
MOVIE REVIEW: The faulty metaphor that plagues the family-friendly film ‘IF’

There are several structural problems that is plaguing John Krasinski’s latest writing and directing effort, the family friendly ‘IF,’ which kind of makes the film feel like a major misfire from the filmmaker behind the brilliant ‘A Quiet Place.’ While the latter film was so cohesive in terms of its metaphor and the family dynamics, ‘IF’ suffers from a lack of any real backstory that can ground the characters to a plot line that can make you feel like the story is getting somewhere. It doesn’t help that the aforementioned IFs – an acronym for Imaginary Friend – plays out like a metaphor that isn’t representing anything really clear.

‘IF’ is about a young girl, Bea (Cailey Fleming), who goes to live with her grandmother (the brilliant Fiona Shaw) while her father (John Krasinski) prepares for an undefined operation. Bea has already lost her mom to what looks like cancer, so she is guarded, reserved; putting up a brave front. But while living in her grandmother’s apartment (where she grew up as a kid), she begins to see imaginary friends, animated beings who have been abandoned by their kids when they grew up. Her new neighbor, Cal (Ryan Reynolds) can also see them and together, they try to find new kids for the imaginary friends to bond to so that they don’t “disappear” or go away.

With a cast that includes such big names like Ryan Reynolds and John Krasinski, plus the voice acting of people like Steve Carrell, Emily Blunt, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Sam Rockwell, and so many others; while wrapped up in the tender genre of a built-for-children family drama with lots of CGI characters, you’d think that this would be a sure-fire hit that would be impossible to not get right.

But there are a lot of holes that doesn’t quite get answered by this film that stops it from finding its stride. So, if the imaginary friends are all cut out from their kids because they grew up, how come those who are children now don’t seem to have any of their own? While Bea goes to visit her father at the hospital, she meets Benjamin (Alan Kim), who is recovering from an accident. He doesn’t have his own imaginary friends and becomes a potential new child to bond with the older IFs. But how come the current children don’t seem to have any?

And then, despite moving back to New York City, Bea can enter and leave her grandmother’s house without any fanfare. I’ve never been to New York, but I find it so distant from reality that a young girl could walk around the city streets – sometimes at night – without any adult situation in these scary, and dangerous times. Much more, with a stranger she just met that week. Sure, it’s Ryan Reynolds, but he’s a grown man who can also see IFs.

We don’t know much about Bea and her dad and her mom, though we understand by the implications of flashbacks and quick montages that the loss of the mom had a profound effect on her. It’s why Bea seems so mature and old at the start of the movie. She echoes Ryan Reynold’s Cal in the way he seems so bothered or frustrated by this whole IF business but the moment she is introduced into their world, she suddenly makes a 180 degree turn and does a full-on dance number (to a Tina Turner song) that includes all the abandoned IFs and to annoy Cal even more. It’s tiny shifts like these that create an inconsistency of character and plot that pervades throughout the film that does not allow it to land any of its emotional moments.

In fact, there’s an overuse of a lovely score by Michael Giacchino that relentlessly plays over everything, trying to underscore what should be emotional moments but they don’t quite get there.

Other than the inconsistency, the biggest issue is that the Imaginary Friends are supposed to serve as a metaphor for never losing your inner child – something that can be related to Bea’s father’s inability to take anything seriously – and while that makes for a good premise of a movie; the imaginary friends and their goal for finding new kids to connect with doesn’t quite figure into the overall theme the movie is trying to push. When the theme finally does come through, the whole story pivots but it doesn’t really play out the rewards and consequences of this realisation in any significant manner. There’s a lot of happiness and congratulating happening – as one would expect as the film serves as a family-friendly affair – but we don’t know why, and we don’t know what for.

At a hundred and four minutes, close to two hours, this movie never managed to find its stride and never really managed to pin down their characters or the world-building to a place that allows you to enjoy what is happening. For a filmmaker who managed to score a home run in his first outing with ‘A Quiet Place,’ I feel the marketing may have been too generous with its hyperboles when they were selling this movie. This isn’t the charming little family comedy it’s dressed up to be.

My Rating:

IF is now showing. Check screening times and buy tickets here.

May 19, 2024
MOVIE REVIEW: A cynical hero’s journey, ‘Monkey Man’ is an impressive debut by Dev Patel as a director

There was a peculiar realization to watching the trailer of ‘Monkey Man’ on the big screen that made me a little nervous about watching the film. When I first saw the film’s trailer on social media, I watched it in the little screen of my phone and found the visuals absolutely stunning. The gritty images compounded by the dark color schemes that are suddenly punctuated by bright flashes of light or color; the hard-hitting action scenes that is amplified by the fast-cuts and stirring use of music: I was spellbound by what I saw and couldn’t wait for the release. But the moment I saw the same trailer on the big screen, something was diminished. The shots were so close to their subject, everything was in extreme close-up, the power that was emanating from my cellphone screen was gone in the big screen.

When I finally saw ‘Monkey Man’ in the big screen, it has a similar effect, but it creates a tension in the film that somehow adds to its magic.

Directed and co-written by Oscar nominated actor Dev Patel, ‘Monkey Man’ is the story of a man who is hell bent in taking revenge for the destruction of his home and the murder of his mother. Patel (with co-writers Paul Angunawela and John Collee) follow a sort of mold of revenge films that creates context through its relentless violence. On the top of my head, I can think of films like ‘Kill Bill Part One’ (as I’ve not seen Part Two), the first ‘John Wick,’ and just recently ‘Boy Kills World’ that represents this genre of moviemaking. The story starts with the Monkey Man, who earns a living fighting in an underground fight club wearing a monkey mask (hence the name), already making his moves to take down the corrupt chief of police, Rana Singh (Sikandar Kher), who beat his mother and set her on fire while his men torched his village.

The film takes its time to show us Monkey Man’s motivations, showing us just flashes of imagery triggered by sights and sounds that he experiences on his path of vengeance. He discovers that Rana (and his boss) frequents a high-end brothel called Kings. He makes his way to find work there and get inside so he can get closer and closer to his target. Along the way, his mission allows him to witness the harsh class disparity between the rich and the poor in the city of Yatana, and how the elite class has corrupted the city with their greed, drugs, corruption, and prostitution. Through his journey, he will see the growing popularity of a populist leader disguising himself as a spiritual guru rallying the people to his side while the marginalized groups are harassed and abused much like the farmers of Monkey Man’s home and another set of outcasts: a transgender community living in a temple.

The extreme close ups I was complaining about runs rampant through this film and it gives a sense of claustrophobia and an absence of scale and size, for a film that has such large themes adjunct to its main story. And that’s when I realized, as the film goes on, and Monkey Man’s purpose seems resolute and single-minded in its fury, that the film’s framing of this world is so tiny because the protagonist’s on view is so small. He can only see his revenge.

Patel wanted to create an action thriller with a lot more to offer, including his own culture, and he does in droves. He opens his film with a story of Hanuman, a deity who appears in the shape of a monkey. The imagery and his stories are interspersed into the narrative and Monkey Man takes on this mantle, but he does not envision himself as the hero that a film in this genre may set him up to be. It’s all there, really. But, no, Patel infuses Monkey Man with such a ferocious, singular desire and that’s for revenge. It’s why I feel the camera does not open up. It’s why the social commentary this film makes about the corruption and brokenness of Indian society – in the reality created by the film – never feels addressed or judged. It’s there. It’s present. It causes such suffering, but the film only merely follows Monkey Man.

It’s such a confident, purposeful directorial vision for the first-time director. There’s such a wonderful texture that he creates on screen with the juxtaposition of the worlds of the rich and poor – the neon, luxurious excess of the brother Kings and how it compares to the alleys and side streets that Monkey Man escapes too when it all gets too much. At one moment, you’re listening to dance music from the club and the next moment, you are watching a hard-hitting fight scene to heavy metal music. I’m not an expert in South Asian films or the Bollywood aesthetic but from the little I know; the indulgence of style is heavy in this film and I’m all for it.

It’s visceral experience that revels in its blood and gore with no real intent for redemption or grace or reason. ‘Monkey Man,’ as a movie, is a sort of cynical and jaded hero’s journey with no real catharsis waiting for you at the end. It’s a hell of a ride if you’re up to it.

My Rating:

Monkey Man is now showing. Check screening times and buy tickets here.

May 18, 2024
MOVIE REVIEW: This isn’t just monkey business: a review of ‘Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes’

The latest set of films under the ‘Planet of the Apes’ franchise – ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes,’ ‘Dawn of the Planet of the Apes,’ and ‘War for the Planet of the Apes’ – was actually a very satisfying, grand epic that had its own pulse, heart, and soul. Lead by the very charismatic Andy Serkis (even in a motion capture performance) as Caesar, the franchise has a solid foundation and history to build upon a larger world that continues from this first trilogy. This is how director Wes Ball, with screenwriter Josh Friedman, manages to skillfully bring the franchise forward, working on the legacy that Caesar has built while introducing new characters and a new facet of this world.

In ‘Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,’ the story is set “generations later” after the death of Caesar and the world has changed. Humans have gone feral and lost the capacity of speech, and different clans of apes now roam the planet. One clan of apes, the Eagle Clan, live secluded from the rest of the world in a hidden valley. Here, they tend and bond with eagles and live relatively peaceful lives until another ape, Proximus, and his kingdom of apes have come to capture more to expand and strengthen his kingdom.

A scene still from 20th Century Studios’ KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

We follow the story of Noa, a young chimpanzee, and son of the master of the birds. He and his friends are looking for eagle’s nest to take an egg to bond with, so they have an eagle of their own as they mature. It’s a ritual that members of their clan must undertake. The first twenty minutes of the film establishes this new world and the daily lives of the Eagle Clan. It’s wonderful world building, as Ball and Friedman do a fantastic job of making us recognize these characters and finding what makes them relatable.

(L-R): Noa (played by Owen Teague) and Koro (played by Neil Sandilands) in 20th Century Studios’ KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios. © 2024 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

Noa (played by Owen Teague) in 20th Century Studios’ KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios. © 2023 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

But everything is torn upside down when Proximus’ people attack and burn everything down and Noa is left for dead, after he witnesses the death of his father during the assault. He must now explore the world outside his valley and discover the truth about the world. He will meet humans and other apes and discover the legacy of Caesar and a surprising discovery about the history of this world.

Noa (played by Owen Teague) in 20th Century Studios’ KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios. © 2023 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

‘Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes’ is an excellent science fiction movie as it uses the conventions of the genre to truly iron out real world issues and problems. Interestingly enough, the world is now populated by different clans and species of apes, the new dominant life form, but the troubles that plague them now are not so dissimilar to the issues we face today. Compound upon this fact is that while humans have gone feral, there are other aspects to them that keep them as an integral part of the equation. This tension is only just beginning.

(Center): Freya Allan as Nova in 20th Century Studios’ KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios. © 2024 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

Ball and Friedman do not take a full-on action/adventure route though much of the film’s structure follows the classic hero’s journey. The film is at its best when it ruminates and explores the complexities of society and civilization and the morality of how the apes treat the humans. Noa because a wonderful foil to project our own questions and difficulties. It is one thing to be lawful and to be just, but it is also another thing to be righteous. They do not necessarily mean the same thing and in the ways by which Noa and Proximus collide and engage, these themes come jumping out into the fore.

(L-R): Noa (played by Owen Teague) , Freya Allan as Nova and Raka (played by Peter Macon) in 20th Century Studios’ KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios. © 2024 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

The CGI effects and motion capture work is excellent as it really creates the illusion that these apes have taken over the planet. They have all the physicality of their species, but they also share and exhibit human mannerisms and behaviour. The voice acting of the cast – Owen Teague (Noa), Kevin Durand (Proximus), and Peter Macon (Raka, an orangutan, who is aware of the true legacy of Caesar) – really helps sell the story and add the depths needed that keep ‘Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes’ an engaging film that we can all enjoy and also learn from.

Proximus Caesar (played by Kevin Durand) in 20th Century Studios’ KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios. © 2023 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

A scene still from 20th Century Studios’ KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios. © 2023 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

The film boasts of an epic scope and scale, large themes about civilization and society, great big action pieces, and some wonderful acting through its motion capture and CGI technologies creating a grand science fiction spectacle that is just suited for the cinematic experience. There’s talk that this is the first of a new trilogy in the franchise. If this is the direction they are going, then I’m excited and eager to see what comes next.

My Rating:

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is now showing. Check screening times and buy tickets here.

May 9, 2024
MOVIE REVIEW: Relentless with its jump scares, ‘Tarot’ is more exhausting than scary

‘Tarot’ is the kind of old-school horror that foregoes character development, or even plot, and is only interested in setting up the frightening parts and the jump scares. It’s the kind of film where the characters have no real lives outside of this movie. They have no past except for those that are needed for this particular event and, sometimes, it only comes up when it’s needed to keep the story moving. Because the film is all about the shock and surprise factor, it is ridiculously fast-paced and relentless in its suspense that watching the whole 92-minute run time can be exhausting.

The film, directed and written by Spencer Cohen and Anna Halberg is about a group of friends who rent out an old mansion in the Catskills, in the middle of nowhere, to celebrate a birthday. When they run out of beer, they decide to search the house to see if it has any liquor left. One member finds a door with a “Keep Out” sign and decides to break it open to reveal a staircase leading down to the basement where old antiques re kept. They find a box with hand painted tarot cards and decide to have one of their friends who knows how to use it give them all a reading.

Of course, the tarot reader, Haley, begins by saying “It is bad luck to use someone else’s cards” but they push her anyway. The readings are descriptive and connected with each character’s astrology sign. It’s a long segment that can be very derivative and pedantic and seems like a callout to the trend of the younger set very steeped into the esoteric. I’m into astrology and tarot myself, at some point in my life, but even I found it annoying.

From the get-go, I already didn’t like these people. Sure, their friendship was quickly established – and what’s great is that they really felt like friends with some dynamic that was easily established – but the way by which they searched the house for liquor and the fact that they were all okay with breaking a locked down of the rented mansion and touched antiques to quell their boredom already told me that I was going to side with the monster in this movie.

Of course, the tarot cards are cursed and Haley’s readings for each of her friends start to come true. The figures in the tarot come to life and start to kill them one by one. The film actually reminds me of the classic horror franchise ‘Final Destination.’ The deaths have already been laid out in the tarot reading segment in the first act and all we have to do is watch them unfold.

Outside of the curse coming to get them, there’s nothing else really in this film for us to latch on to. They say they are students, but we never see them study or go to school. We never see them really interact with anybody (except two detectives who question them after the first death) so there’s no feeling that this is an actual place or people that can help us endear these characters to us.

Sure, Haley and Grant, her former boyfriend who she just broke up with before the film starts, has some tension but with the film focusing so much on the killing of people one by one, it hardly takes any time to develop these feelings or the tension.

The imagery is so dark and editing is so quick and fast-paced, it’s really meant to disorient you and to raise up the dread level and then surprise you with a jump scare. The whole film feels like it’s 80% that and 20% of the characters interacting with each other. Sure, there’s a moment where they talk about the history of the tarot cards but it’s all just lip service.

The film tries to make a statement about how we can sometimes leave our fates into the hands of external forces – faith, destiny, chance, or whatever – and that it tries to embolden us to fight it and make our own way. But it really doesn’t handle that message well. What happened to them, after all, was their fault for touching things they should not have and so it’s a hard lesson to sell when there’s no sympathy coming from my side. If you’re a fan of brainless horror with relentless jump scares, then this is your kind of movie.

My Rating:

Tarot is now showing. Check screening times and buy tickets here.

May 6, 2024
MOVIE REVIEW: It’s Not Just a Fantasy: a review of ‘The Idea of You’

I’m surprised at how utterly relatable ‘The Idea of You’ was for me, and all the screaming gays and women in the cinema I was in when watching the Anne Hathaway and Nicholas Galitzine romantic drama/comedy about an older divorced mother of a teenager and her relationship with a 24-year-old pop star. I may not have children, but I do love my idol groups and as someone who has reached middle age and feeling the brunt of adulting in a very difficult and tedious world, the fantasy of getting swept off of my feet by a younger, handsome pop star is a fantasy I didn’t realise was a very real thing that was stirring inside.

And the direction by Michael Showalter and the screenplay by Showalter and Jennifer Westfeldt (based on the book by Robinne Lee) really plays into the fantasy of it. Everything within the set-up of this narrative to the way the element of the story plays out is all so fictional and so convenient for this sort of story. Hathaway plays Solene Marchand, who runs an art gallery in Silver Lake. She has a teenage daughter, Izzy (Ella Rubin) and her ex-husband has, of course, cheated on her with a younger workmate. Her ex-husband pays for VIP passes and a meet and greet with Izzy’s favorite band when she was in seventh grade, August Moon, in Coachella and gets Solene to take them there. At Coachella, she accidentally meets Hayes Campbell, a member of August Moon and he is smitten by her. Their love story begins.

Of course, Hayes loves art. The trust issues both have – Solene from her failed marriage while Hayes stems from his stardom and the pitfalls of money and fame – allows them to find some sort of peace and safety with each other. The fact that Solene had a baby at such a young age (it was mentioned that it was unplanned) meant that she never got to really experience the wild and crazy time that we are expected to have in our 20s. Hayes becomes an avenue for her to find out who she truly is as a person outside the choices that she made in her lost her youth.

Everything about the first hour and a half of this film plays so well to the fantasy of this dramatic situation. It’s passionate. It helps that both actors are so ridiculously good-looking and that they do an amazing job of really selling the love story. There’s this youthful longing that Galitzine dips into and throws at Hathaway and there’s a way that Hathaway takes this unbelievable character and makes her so real. It’s as if she understands and makes her character understand that this situation is crazy, and she still runs with it. She has a way to make each facial expression – whether she’s hurt or in the throes of joy or in a state of disbelief – seem so real and natural. Showalter also doesn’t hold back in making their relationship sexual and despite its frequency, it never feels gratuitous or obscene. It’s really rooted in Hayes’ youth and Solene’s desire to reclaim hers.

It’s the last half hour when the film pushes away from the fantasy to try and delve into the real-world issues that comes with the territory. It highlights the double standards that the world has on women dating younger men, and the ways by which the world and society boxes them into certain roles. Of course, there’s no way a global pop star can keep a relationship secret and it shows off how ugly it can all be.

And while the film manages to convey the hurt this “scandal” does to Solene but the film never tries to put judgement on all the delusional people on the internet who makes these sort of judgments to people they do not know, whose business they have no right to comment on or pass judgement. I know it’s not the film’s job to moralize against this, but I felt that it was in the right space to make some sort of statement about the public’s delusion that they have a right to say whatever they want on the lives of people they do not know – even if it’s a pop star who works in the public sphere.

The film feels young without trying too hard. It’s chock full of songs both new (to showcase August Moon with Nicholas Galitzine credited for singing all his parts) and some really nice, older songs like St Vincent and Fiona Apple. ‘The Idea of You’ is a wonderful little fantasy that comes alive on screen. It never really pretends to be serious or realistic, jumping certain narrative beats because it can, and because it does, it’s this lovely little escape that pulls down your guard so that it can explore some really important core issues before coming back and finishing it off in the tone and mood that it began with.

My Rating:

The Idea of You is now streaming on Prime Video, watch it here!

May 2, 2024