Tag: movie review

MOVIE REVIEW: Equal parts comedy, action film, and romance, ‘The Fall Guy’ offers everything and a lot more

With merely just the incredible chemistry of Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt, ‘The Fall Guy’ is already an enjoyable movie to watch. The dynamic between these two Hollywood superstars is simply cinematic gold. But what elevates the film even further is that the movie offers a crazy, wild ride of a story that is never quite focused on being fully an action film, fully a comedy, or fully a romance. All three of its genres are playing off and grabbing screentime that it becomes so fun to watch. It’s never just one thing and never tries to be. The film (and the filmmakers) are having so much fun making this crazy love letter to stunt men and the art of movie stunts that it gets infectious and transfers to the audience.

‘The Fall Guy’ is not afraid to be silly. And that is exactly where Ryan Gosling excels in. He (and director David Leitch) are aware of how good-looking he is and how powerful his charisma is but they are not beholden to it. The fact that Gosling is unafraid to make fun of himself and of looking silly adds a layer to the film’s tone that allows it to go absolutely bonkers.

L to R: Ryan Gosling, David Leitch and Logan Holladay on the set of THE FALL GUY, directed by David Leitch

It’s the love story between Gosling’s Colt Seavers, a stunt man, who is dating a camera operator, Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt) when a stunt goes wrong, and he finds himself out of the industry for quite some time. He finally gets a call to get back to work for Jody’s directorial debut. Instead, he discovers that the lead star, Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) is missing, and he decides to try and find him to save Jody’s film from getting canceled.

Emily Blunt is Judy Moreno in THE FALL GUY, directed by David Leitch

L to R: Emily Blunt (as Judy Moreno) and Director David Leitch on the set of THE FALL GUY

But what he finds leads him to a dangerous world involving drugs and murder and he must use his stunt and fight training to get out of trouble and stop it from spreading around to everyone in the set, most especially Jody.

Ryan Gosling is Colt Seavers in THE FALL GUY, directed by David Leitch

The way by which the film escalates the violence, and the action sequences is really unrealistic but because the film had opened it up already with so much silliness, it gets away with it and you sit back and accept it all and have fun. Director David Leitch has said that this movie is his love letter to stunts and so the escalation allows him to go crazy with all the practical stunts that he does in this movie (including a huge scene that closed off the streets of Sydney for days and also, what I found on the internet, a report saying that they broke a Guinness World Record for the most cannon rolls performed in a car.). It’s explosive, it’s hard-hitting, fast-paced, and exciting.

L to R: Director David Leitch and Ryan Gosling (as Colt Seavers) on the set of THE FALL GUY, directed by David Leitch

L to R: Ryan Gosling, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ben Jenkin, Logan Holladay, Justin Eaton, and David Leitch on the set of THE FALL GUY, directed by David Leitch.

But it’s also a barrel of laughs and quite romantic, at some point. There are short montages and flashbacks that pepper that film when Colt recalls his relationship with Jody that is just inaudible, set to music, and Blunt and Gosling are just being sweet and funny to each other, and it looks so real. It’s just these short moments with no bigger context except two people falling in love and it works. It’s the kind of old-school cinematic magic that happens when you have two ridiculously good-looking and charming actors who manage to deliver incredible chemistry on set.

L to R: Emily Blunt is Judy Moreno and Ryan Gosling is Colt Seavers in THE FALL GUY, directed by David Leitch

So, while it’s hard to take the film seriously, and not that you should, there’s just so much to enjoy in this movie. The stunts get bigger and bigger. Narratively, it doesn’t make any sense but cinematically, you’re just screaming and cheering in enjoyment because it’s what good, mainstream fun in the cinema was meant to feel like.

Ryan Gosling is Colt Seavers in THE FALL GUY, directed by David Leitch

It’s not a perfect movie but it’s the perfect kind of film to bring a date or to watch with your friends and with all its movie references, unafraid to get silly and meta, and how genuine it is in its love for stunts and stunt performers, it really is a movie to watch in the cinema.

My Rating:

The Fall Guy is now showing. Check screening times and buy tickets here.

April 30, 2024
MOVIE REVIEW: Bloody and extremely violent, ‘Boy Kills World’ is a great showcase of Bill Skarsgard’s range and physicality

Set in an unnamed city surrounded by forests and with no recognizable culture or ethnicity, ‘Boy Kills World’ is a violent, action-packed (yet comedic) revenge story that comes off more like a video game at times. There is a commentary here about how authoritarian regimes breed the sort of violence that is at the heart of this story, but it gets muddled in all the graphic displays of it. There is a tender space in this narrative, but it can get overshadowed by all the blood and gore.

This city is ruled by the iron-first of the Van Der Koy dynasty. It’s matriarch, Hilda Van Der Koy (Famke Janssen), has put an annual event, a culling, where revolutionaries and “enemies of the state” are executed in public. Our protagonist, a child called Boy (Bill Skarsgard) manages to survive one culling where he lost both his mother and sister (and was rendered deaf and mute as well). He was taken in by a mysterious man called the Shaman (Yayan Ruhian), who trains him to be a weapon with the sole purpose of assasinating Hilda Van Der Koy. His internal world is narrated by a voice (H. Jon Benjamin) from an old arcade fighting game he used to play with his sister (Quinn Copeland).

Boy eventually gets his chance to take his revenge and sometimes guided, sometimes hindered by the hallucination of Nina, he enters in the lion’s den where he goes up against HIlda Van Der Koy, her army, and her family, played by Michelle Dockery, Brett Gelman, Sharlto Copley, and Jessica Rothe.

The film can be pretty straightforward. Boy trains and becomes a deadly human weapon and then, as he is older, he makes a go out of killing Hilda Van Der Koy. On the way, he meets up with the members of the resistance (Andrew Koji and Isaiah Mustafa) and manages to interact with the Van Der Koy family and we see a sort of deconstruction of what it probably feels like to be a part of despotic family.

‘Boy Kills World’ plays off like a video game. Everything is hyper-real. The acting is overt and pronounced. It’s not a place for subtlety (except for Skarsgard, which I’ll get to later). Everything is big and explosive. Everything is fast-paced, relentless, and merciless. There’s some fantastic fight choreography that never lets up. It’s hard-hitting and brutal. In fact, it is sometimes shaky and cut so fast that we sometimes don’t understand the sense of place and time. What we do see is when the punches land, when the knives cut, when the blood spurts out, and the bones break. There’s a lot of emphasis here on the brutality. At first it feels fun and thrilling and exciting. After the first hour, though, it feels senseless and overdone.

The commentary on this kind of revenge seems very one-sided but interesting to delve into. We are living in a world of despots and authoritarian regimes. They lord over the people with such power that they can kill indiscriminately, and it fosters the kind of rebellion that will want to pay back blood with blood. Boy, in his killing spree, is positioned as someone with a justification for his homicidal rage. HIs family was killed, and he was trained and almost brain-washed to be nothing but a killer. But as the film unfolds and the way he wreaks havoc upon the Van Der Koy’s and their army (there’s a vicious fight scene involving a cheese grater that is going to be unforgettable) starts to put into question how much joy are we to take from all this violence?

What keeps the film grounded is Bill Skarsgard fantastic performance. His physicality and his ability to embody the role of a human weapon is terrific. I believe him. And without a single bit of dialogue (his character is mute), he is able to portray a vast number of feelings that is narrated in a hilarious manner by H. Jon Benjamin. Benjamin’s lines were written with a sort of naivete since he’s the voice of Boy’s inner monologue. He never had a childhood, and he never grew up in a normal world. In a way, he is still a little boy who knows nothing but to kill and this is represented by his monologue. Skarsgard then translates this perfectly with his facial reactions and it completely humanizes. It’s an amazing work that is enjoyable to watch throughout this film.

While the fight scenes get more and more intense, especially those that involve the Shaman and Rothe’s character, strangely a woman called June 27 (and this is never explained). These two people and Boy have the best fight scenes and are saved up for last. It’s almost like a ballet except it’s brutal and deadly.While the film manages to find a tender heart by the end, it’s a lot of bloody, gory violence to get through. It never pretends to be anything deeper than a revenge film, though it does a pretty good 180 degree turn by its end that somehow softens the films hard edges but other than Bill Skarsgard’s portrayal of Boy.

My Rating:

Boy Kills World is now showing. Check screening times and buy tickets here.

April 27, 2024
MOVIE REVIEW: Disguised as a rom-com, ‘Elevator’ is a lovely little love letter to the hopes and dreams of migrant workers

While dressed up as a romantic comedy, ‘Elevator’ is actually a far more interesting movie than what it pretends to be. It has all the conventions of the genre: it has its meet-cute, the enemies-turned-to-love interest plot line, its ridiculously good-looking cast, and so much more; but the film hits harder as a love letter to migrant workers with hopes and dreams for making it big.

https://youtu.be/lOXbhWmqh-s?si=AdpxsduTIsm8LdR2

Director and writer Philip King manages to situate the majority of his film into the tiny world of elevator operator Jared (played by Paulo Avelino), who breaks protocol by trying to do a literal elevator pitch to all the VIP clients of the upscale hotel casino he works in. Jared has been working different jobs in different parts of the world and he’s come up with an app that would help migrant workers connect with potential employers. He has group of friends all working in the hotel and all from different countries and they are working together to help Jared score an investor.

What’s refreshing about ‘Elevator’ is that it presents a different side of overseas foreign workers. This isn’t a story of exploitation or desperation, which are important narratives, but we already have films like ‘Hello, Love, Goodbye,’ ‘Sunday Beauty Queens,’ and ‘Imbisibol’ to tell those stories. On the flip side, there are Filipinos with skill sets and potential, and they have hopes and dreams of making it big. It’s an aspirational story that showcases the hard work and street smarts (or as we call it: diskarte) that our countrymen have to employ to achieve their dreams. These dreams are personal and singular, which is a refreshing change from the usual narratives. It continues the trend started by films like ‘Hello, Love, Goodbye’ and ‘Never Not Love You,’ which explore the idea of going abroad and making money for oneself. It’s nice to see a movie that realizes what this dream would look like.

When Jared actually makes a connection with a rich businessman, Byron (Adrian Pang), he ends up having to work closely with Byron’s executive assistant Bettina (Kylie Versoza), who is also Filipino and is not easily swayed by Jared’s charm and passion. What starts off as a prickly relationship turns into something more friendly, warmer as Jared wins Bettina over and the two start to understand each other more. But things are complicated – Bettina is not single, and Jared is still trying to get Byron and Bettina to invest in his company – and the challenge helps form the foundation of the rom-com.

What makes this movie work is that Philip King is serious about his app. The conversations about the development of the business plan sounds legit (even if I know nothing about business or apps) but it helps create a believable world for these two characters to come together and fall in love. And in the discussion of the app, we see Jared as a good person who is passionate about all this. Coupled together with Paulo Avelino’s charm and conviction, it makes sense that Kylie Versoza’s Bettina would be swayed. This is Paulo Avelino’s best work in a long time; not bogged down by his superstar persona. He conjures up an everyman quality and it softens him and makes his Jared instantly likable. I have not seen this quality in him in a long time and it’s great to see it again.

Image Source: Viva Films FB

This is my fist time to see Kylie Versoza on screen and she’s so magnetic. I like her instantly and she infuses Bettina with intelligence and maturity. I feel, though, that there are times when she comes off as too stoic or cold because her make up can be so strong and she’s dressed up too much like a girl boss that it is hard for Versoza to play for Bettina’s softer, vulnerable side. She’s so gorgeous, with such strong, hard features that, with the styling that was put upon her, it was difficult for her to show off Bettina’s soul. She’s excellent when she’s playing it tough and cool, but she is fighting against the look that her character must reveal the other facets of her. There are moments when it happens, and it’s wonderful, but it’s something that she has get through.

The rest of the cast is incredible, though. Chai Fonacier, as one of Jared’s friends at the hotel is always enjoyable to see and she gives the film and warm heart and a sense of home for the film as much as his other friends (Shrey Bhargava, Shaun Lim Shi Yang, Shahid Nasheer, Rishi Vadrevu) give that sense of camaraderie that keeps the film from getting too small. Everyone is such a natural talent that it makes the friendship feel real. Adrian Pang, as Byron, is also excellent as he creates the necessary tension for Jared and Bettina.

What’s enjoyable about this film is its representation of a different set of Filipinos and writer and director Philip King never treats his film like some travelogue for Singapore. At the beginning, most of the scenes are trapped within the confines of Jared’s elevator. As his relationship with Bettina opens up, we see them in various parts of the hotel or in the city, but it never feels like a tourist video. It treats Singapore as a matter of fact, without highlighting it or its tourist spots, it situates Jared and Bettina as people of the world. It makes them fit in. And what a wonderful sight that is to see Filipinos fitting in wherever they go. What a wonderful way to represent us – as people of the world.

King also does some very interesting things, directorially. Like when he first introduces us to Bettina, he takes a male gaze shot of her. Versoza, dressed in a revealing outfit with a plunging neckline, is our first look at the character. Later, as one of Jared’s friends is keeping tabs of her whereabouts in the gym, he is looking at her from toe to head, emphasizing how good her body is. I thought that this sexualization of her was going to be rampant in the film. Interestingly enough, the moment Jared realizes she’s not a bad person (and thankfully, it’s early in the film) the camera stops objectifying her and puts her face as the focus rather than her body. The male gaze was only there when the characters objectified and then it stopped when they realized it was wrong.

While I’m a little bothered by the verbosity of the narration and the neat little way that the film forms its conclusion, but I was enjoying every bit of this film. It was charming and it was pleasant, and it was surprising me at every turn. I kept thinking it was going to be another predictable rom-com and instead I got a smart movie about Filipinos (and other migrant workers) working hard and trying to make it outside of their homes. Surprisingly, the love story is not the central theme to the piece but the bigger world of what the two characters learn about themselves and about their own value is what makes this movie so special. This was a very pleasant surprise for me.

My Rating:

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

April 26, 2024
MOVIE REVIEW: Unpredictable and explosive, ‘Challengers’ is an irreverent love story like no other

You don’t need to know anything about the game tennis to enjoy the crazy ride that is ‘Challengers.’ This is not so much as a sports movie as it is a movie about three very passionate athletes whose complicated, intertwined relationships comes crashing into each other in the midst of a very integral challenger tennis match. I know nothing about tennis, and I didn’t need to. It’s merely the backdrop, and in some cases the filmmaking inspiration, for this sordid love triangle. Director Luca Guadagnino (with screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes) serves up some crazy, sensual character dynamics that turns love and friendship into a competition of a different kind.

What Guadagnino manages to do, as well, is to take the fast-paced, hard-hitting energy of the sport and suffused it into his craft. The film is in constant back-and-forth. The characters are constantly pushing each other, testing each other, goading each other. The camera work and the editing take on this approach as well. The narrative is constantly jumping from present day to the past, the flashbacks serving up the context to make the present-day competition even more tension-filled and ready to explode.

‘Challengers’ is about two friends, Patrick and Art (played by Josh O’ Connor and Mike Faist, respectively), who are both tennis players and have fallen for Zendaya’s Tashi Duncan, an emerging tennis superstar. At a tournament in their youth the three get close and a relationship is formed but things get complicated. When Tashi suffers a career-ending injury, she ends up with one of the friends and becomes his coach while the other is waiting on the wings, waiting for his turn to get into the spotlight.

C_05746_R2 Mike Faist stars as Art and Josh O’Connor as Patrick in director Luca Guadagnino’s CHALLENGERS An Amazon MGM Studios film Photo credit: Niko Tavernise © 2024 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Inc. All Rights Reserved.

What makes ‘Challengers’ so enjoyable is how the love story of all three characters – because the friendship of Patrick and Art can get just as deep and just as messy as Tashi’s relationship with both men – are handled without any reverence to the concept of romance. Tashi is a cold, hard woman who has a clear-cut definition of what she wants out of life and out of her partner. Both men are constantly trying to win her over but are no match for Tashi’s strength. Instead, they take it out on each other and despite all her strength, Tashi can’t seem to shake off both of them from her orbit.

The trio are sizzling with such chemistry that any of their interactions with each other are just explosive and Guadagnino knows how to capture it on film. He sees them as fully fleshed-out characters and is quick to capture all their little nuances and facial tics as each one is pushing against the other – taunting, teasing, pleading, flirting – but Guadagnino also understands that they are sexual beings as well. There’s a lot of skin here, bodies covered in sweat and glistening under the sun. Desire is the film’s fulcrum, but the characters are not the best at articulating what it is they really want or need and so there is friction and that’s the fuel that drives the movie to its highs and lows.

(L to R) Mike Faist as Art, Zendaya as Tashi and Josh O’Connor as Patrick in CHALLENGERS, directed by Luca Guadagnino, a Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures film. Credit: Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures © 2023 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Inc. All Rights Reserved.

It’s a love story but Guadagnino doesn’t film it like a romance story. It’s set in the world of tennis but it’s not a sports movie either. It’s sexy but it’s never gratuitous or obscene. ‘Challengers’ is a crazy, high-octane study on the complex relationship of three athletes who seem to be conflating their careers, their love, and their own lost dreams and hopes into this one match. Propelled forward by the relentless soundtrack of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, ‘Challengers’ is fun, irreverent, and completely bonkers because it’s a love story where everything is at stake, and no one seems to know how to love properly.

C_00654_R Zendaya stars as Tashi and Josh O’Connor as Patrick in director Luca Guadagnino’s CHALLENGERS An Amazon MGM Studios film Photo credit: Niko Tavernise © 2024 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Zendaya, O’ Connor, and Faist are so charismatic and magnetic that you cannot help but get involved in the crazy antics of the three leads as struggle to make sense out of what it is they are feeling for each other and of their own selves. These are mature and intelligent performances that is so fun to watch because they are so committed to the craziness of this story.

C_05803_R Mike Faist stars as Art and Zendaya as Tashi in director Luca Guadagnino’s CHALLENGERS An Amazon MGM Studios film Photo credit: Niko Tavernise © 2024 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Inc. All Rights Reserved.

‘Challengers’ is so refreshing and unpredictable. It’s not cookie-cutter in any way and I hope that this is the trend for commercial films moving forward. It’s hard-hitting, smart, and risqué. It never feels safe and it’s just so enjoyable watching a movie that makes you laugh out loud and catches you off guard.

My Rating:

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

April 24, 2024
MOVIE REVIEW: Guy Ritchie’s ‘The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare’ is bombastic, all style and nothing more

While the movie states that the story is based on true events – taken off from the pages of Winston Churchill’s now-declassified papers and turned into a book by Damien Lewis called ‘Churchill’s Secret Warriors: The Explosive True Story of the Special Forces Desperadoes of WWII’ – Guy Ritchie’s ‘The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare’ must be a heavily fictionalized retelling of these people’s endeavours (a quick search on the Internet reveals that these characters really did exist). Project Postmaster actually did exist, and it involved the secret taskforce that then-Prime Minister Winston Churchill had sent to the Spanish-controlled island of Fernando Po in South Africa to sink a tanker that supplied the Nazi U-Boats that kept the Americans from making it to Europe during World War II. Director and co-writer Guy Ritchie (alongside Paul Tamasy, Eric Johnson, and Arash Amel) keeps the story and characterizations thin, and leaves the film as merely the plot points of how the mission may have transpired and did some embellishments to really amplify the violence and action.

Ritchie has a definitive style-over-substance approach to filmmaking, preferring filmmaking techniques that amp up the energy of his films and ensures that things look cool. As stylistic and spectacle-driven his version of ‘Sherlock Holmes’ was or his ‘King Arthur: Legend of the Sword,’ I’ve always found his approach to story as very thin and lightweight. Even his films that I do like ‘The Man from U.N.C.L.E.’ and ‘Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels,’ were cool and fun but there’s nothing about both films that I remember very much of and that sticks.

It’s on this level that ‘The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare’ operates it. It’s a film with a lot of action, a lot of blood and gore and violence. It’s got big explosions and a whole lot of gun fire. But the film just goes through the motions of the mission. The team, led by Gus March-Phillipps (played by Henry Cavill), must rescue one of their ranks (Geoffrey Appleyard played by Alex Pettyfer) before heading to Fernando Po to sink the Nazi tanker. While they are on their rescue mission, two double agents (played by Eiza Gonzales and Babs Olusanmokun) must ensure the intelligence they received in Fernando Po is legitimate.

There’s no inner motivation here except that many of the team have a score to settle with the Nazis. There are no real personal goals. It’s all plot, no character development. The film, then, takes us through the mission – the things that go right and the things that go wrong – and tries to wow us with all the brutal fight sequences that have no real consequence for the audience because we have no real invested to the characters.

Sure, Cavill, Pettyfer, Gonzales, and Olusanmokun and the rest of the team that includes Alan Ritchson, Henry Golding, and Hero Fiennes Tiffin are all gorgeous and charming but if their characters are archetypes without anything personal attached to them as characters, it’s hard to create any sort of attachment that makes us want to root for them (aside from the fact that they want to kill Nazis).

And that’s where I find the film a little difficult to jump along with. Sure, there’s a lot of action since it is an action film but it’s the joy the film gets in all the wanton killing of Nazis. Since the characters don’t have arcs, the film’s only theme is to fight evil with evil. Sure, I’m against battling all forms of fascism and racism and imperialism at every turn but the film sort of takes joy in the killing of the Nazis. It reduces the enemy into a cartoon and thus makes them unreal.

And we are living in a world now where fascism has risen again in some form or another. I’m worried that the film telegraphs that the best way to deal with these fascists is to destroy them in a similar manner as well. Historically, Project Postmaster turned the tides of World War II to the Allies side (that’s not a spoiler unless you know nothing of World History) but its timing in this day and age, without the benefit of nuance can create an unsettling message.

By the end of the film, the characters are who they were when the film began. Without a character arc to hold on to, the fight scenes are explosive but hold no suspense or tension or danger. It’s pretty to look at but it carries no surprises or says nothing new to what we already know.

My Rating:

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is now showing. Check screening times and buy tickets here.

April 22, 2024
MOVIE REVIEW: Too Close and Too Familiar: a review of ‘Under Parallel Skies’

There’s a lot of misfiring happening in what should be a sure-fire success that is the international co-production ‘Under Parallel Skies’ with Thai superstar Metawin Opas-iamkajorn and Janella Salvador, under the direction of Sigrid Andrea Bernardo. By all means, this should be good. Shot in Hong Kong, Bernardo is quite adept at capturing love amidst the backdrop of a foreign lang. She did it is so capably in ‘Kita Kita,’ presenting us with the surprising kilig-worthy pairing of Alessandra de Rossi and Empoy with great success. But in ‘Under Parallel Skies,’ things are not coming together, and the movie feels disjointed and confused with what story it is trying to tell.

Metawin Opas-iamkajorn is playing Parin, a very wealthy Thai young businessman who heads to Hong Kong in search of his mother. There he runs into Iris, played by Janella Salvador. She’s working at the hotel he is staying in and as his wealthy father has left instructions for the staff to take care of him, Iris ends up working overtime to address all Parin’s needs, including helping him find his mother. In the process, they get close and discover that their feelings have grown from purely professional to something much more.

The first misfire in this film is its lack of a cohesive story. The first act revolves all around Parin’s search for his mom. While he employs the help of Iris, which lays the foundation for the love story to happen after, the goal and direction is finding the mom. Surprisingly, this is resolved faster than expected, switching the entire movie’s direction on the second act to the sudden twist of Parin and Iris dropping everything to start working together as business partners running a small cafe in a provincial, coastal area of Hong Kong while living together. But the third act is a completely different movie altogether that involves one of the character’s hidden secrets that is unconvincingly set up in act one but is never any visible motivating factor until it is revealed in the final act that turns the movie over its head again.

These multiple directions made the film feel like three different movies and never gave us any chance to really get to know the characters well or see their relationship grow into the love story that the second act wanted us to fall in love with. Bernardo fills the first act with Parin’s desperation to find his mother but also peppers the scenes with comedic moments of Iris and Parin verbally sparring or Iris taking care of a drunk Parin to set us up for the love story. Unfortunately, there’s no real chemistry happening between the two leads and the moment Parin meets his mom, the lessons he learns there holds no real learning for the character as it makes no real visible change to his life.

After an hour, as Parin and Iris start to build their little business together, I realise I didn’t know these characters at all. Parin left home to find his mom and it is implied that he ran a business in Thailand (and that it failed) and that he is the youngest son of a wealthy family, but we return to none of that. We do not know what he likes or what drives him and it’s the same with Iris. I don’t know what drives her either. She has a sister back home in the Philippines that she is estranged from, but we don’t know why. So, when the two suddenly realise they fell in love, we don’t see what connects them other than the time they have spent together. The love doesn’t come from any sense of connection other than shared time.

It doesn’t’ help that Bernardo’s directing choices are also quite puzzling. It felt like 90% of the film was shot in extreme close ups of the actor’s faces. It capitalizes a lot on the good looks and star power of its two leads. Except that it makes the film feel very small and confined and claustrophobic. There are barely any establishing shots. The hustle and bustle of Hong Kong is never emphasized and the grandeur of the backdrop of any of the locations end up carrying no consequence for the narrative. Adding to this is Bernardo’s choice to direct the dialogue scenes (of which there are too much of) as cut-to-cut. There are very few moments that Metawin and Janella speak to each other in the same shot. Parin says a line, cut to Iris, who says a line, cut, and then Parin says a line. The characters feel distant and never actually get close when the film should be putting them together.

Homestream images from 28 Squared Studios FB Page

And this is strange coming from Bernardo who manages to use the full backdrop of Sapporo in ‘Kita Kita’ to help amplify the growing love story between her two leads, or in ‘Untrue,’ where she situates her romance/drama-turned-suspense/thriller in the gorgeous Georgian landscape. Bernardo situates her characters in a vast world and knows how to use the location to amplify her themes and create stunning imagery that elevates the work. None of this skill set is at work in ‘Under Parallel Skies.’ Very little of Hong Kong is scene and it never really fully plays out in the story – it could have been set in Thailand or the Philippines and nothing essentially changes in the story.

There are a lot of cliches that fill up the rest of the film to help fill in the gaps of the underdeveloped characters or storylines. All the elements are presents for a hit – a strong writer/director with a great track record for producing groundbreaking work, two big stars from different countries and cultures, a popular genre, an exotic location – but none of these things come into alignment and the film is way too close for comfort (cinematographically) that it leaves no room to breathe or to gain scope while the story is so thin that it resorts to familiar cliches to fill in the gaps.

My Rating:

Under Parallel Skies is now showing. Check screening times and buy tickets here.

April 20, 2024
MOVIE REVIEW: The Dis-united States of America; a review of ‘Civil war’

No stranger to the genre of science fiction, novelist, screenwriter, and director Alex Garland has been imagining the dark side of humanity in extreme conditions. In his screenplays for ‘28 Days Later’ and ‘Sunshine’ as well as his second directorial outing ‘Annihilation’ his movies have always raised a mirror to humanity and showed it for its ugliness when the pressure starts to kick in.

While his latest film is a dystopian science fiction imagining of an America in the midst of the second civil war, some articles quote him as saying it will be his last directorial effort as he plans to concentrate solely on writing. Despite this, the film operates very much in the contemporary mode. There are no zombies here like in ‘28 Days Later’ or aliens like in ‘Annihilation’ or AI like in the excellent ‘Ex Machina.’ No, this film is set in a future where America is at war with itself, a third term president-turned-dictator is battling the military might of secessionist states. There is no hi-tech equipment here. This is just a prediction of things to come based on an artist’s interpretation of where the United States of America is going if it does not fix itself any time soon.

‘Civil War’ follows four journalists as they make the trip from a war-torn New York down to Washington DC where they hope to interview the President. The group is led by Lee Smith (Kirsten Dunst), a renowned war photojournalist, followed by the journalist Joel (Wagner Moura). They are joined by the senior journalist Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson), a sort of mentor for the two. Rounding up the cast is Jessie (Cailee Spaeny), a young photojournalist who looks up to Lee as her “hero.”

The trip to the nation’s capital is wrought with danger and against her better judgment, Lee becomes a sort of mentor to the inexperienced Jessie. The weariness and jadedness that Dunst encapsulates into her portrayal of Lee Smith really sells the rich and vivid imagery that Garland adorns his film. ‘Civil War’ is wonderfully shot and the ways by which he imagines a ruined America – open air stadiums filled with graffiti, the highways filled with broken cars and families walking along the road moving their things with shopping carts, set pieces that look like universities used as a war zone – it’s such striking imagery because these are the same images used to depict wars in other countries with American soldiers coming in as heroes. In ‘Civil War,’ the tables have been turned. The majority of Hollywood movies have always positioned America as the heroes in any war story. Here, they are at war with themselves.

The film is extremely political yet, as some critics have pointed out, this is not some commentary on Trump or wokeism or any specific political issue in the United States now. Without any real backstory as to how this narrative has reached this point – that the film begins right at the zenith of the civil war – it’s a snapshot of how horrible things are going to be if the things that are tearing up the United States now isn’t fixed, this film looks more like a primer than a fictional depiction.

It’s an anti-war film even though it has long sequences of really riveting battle scenes. But none of it is glamorized or romanticized. It’s bloody. It’s ugly. People get hurt. People die. It’s merciless and there’s no joy in any of it. Regardless of how meticulously it is done. Through the eyes of Dunst, Spaeny, Moura, and Henderson, we see it how it really is – senseless and devastating.

But as journalists, they have to remain detached. They need to get the story so that they can get it out there so that the people can be moved to action. And that’s where the film finds its second layer because as Spaeny’s Jessie starts to find the means to detach, Dunst’s Lee Smith begins to show signs of the cracks splitting open, years of exposure to this sort of imagery tearing her up inside. It’s fantastic counterpoint performance for both actresses.

This is a brave and demanding film. It subverts years and years of Hollywood propaganda in depicting the United States as “the greatest country in the world.” It’s a fictional setting but it is pointed in the ways that it highlights all that is wrong in America today. Much like the journalists in the movie, we are being made to move, to act, to feel. If it’s true that Garland is done with directing movies, then it’s a powerful way to end his directing career. It’s a triumph in every aspect.

My Rating:

Civil War is now showing. Check screening times and buy tickets here.

April 11, 2024
MOVIE REVIEW: ‘The First Omen’ starts strong with excellent use of horror imagery until its cliched finale

Setting itself up as the sequel to the 1976 horror classic ‘The Omen’ by Richard Donner, ‘The First Omen’ surprises by being more than just a franchise cash-grab. Director Arkasha Stevenson is not above using jump scares, but she never relies on it (I was counting and only counted three, and all of them were organic to the scene and not gratuitous at all). Instead, she layers her horror with intricate camera shots that takes full advantage of the mise-en-scene and context of the narrative. The horror is born out of understanding the sheer malevolence that is happening within the story and juxtaposes this with terrifying imagery to remind us that there are forces out there who will do anything to bind us to their will.

Set in Rome in 1971 during a large-scale protest and rally against the police, the government, and even the church, an American novitiate Margaret (Nell Tiger Free) goes to an orphanage run by Father Lawrence (Bill Nighy) and a cloister of nuns. Here, Margaret will serve to care for the young girls while awaiting to take her vows. The older nuns, led by Sister Silvia (Sonia Braga), are a dynamic group of women, who have lives before and after taking on the habit (which is a welcome change). Margaret is enticed by her roommate Luz (Maria Caballero) to go out and enjoy the night life so that she understands what it is she is sacrificing as Margaret has lived with nuns her whole life having been raised in an orphanage herself.

(Left): María Caballero as Luz in 20th Century Studios’ THE FIRST OMEN. Photo by Moris Puccio. © 2024 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

But nothing is right here in the orphanage. There is a young girl, Carlita, who draws strange pictures and is frequently punished and put into “the bad room” and has strange interactions with Sister Angelica (Ishtar Currie-Wilson), a nun who seems not all there in the head. Margaret takes to Carlita, as she reminds her of herself but when a priest from a different cloister, Father Brennan (Ralph Inneson) corners Margaret and tells her that there is a sect of priests and nuns who believe that the church is losing its power over the people and have conspired to bring the antichrist into the world as a means to bring the people closer to god, Margaret must find it within herself to battle her own demons and discover the truth behind the secrets hidden in the orphanage.

(L-R): Nell Tiger Free as Margaret and Nicole Sorace as Carlita in 20th Century Studios’ THE FIRST OMEN. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios. © 2024 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

What Stevenson does well in setting up her world is that she takes the time for us to really get to know Margaret and how she feels about the world around her. While she is laying down the groundwork for the story, she finds the most horrifying means of showing us that the devil is just at the periphery and that for all its religious adornments, there is such a close link between good and evil. One cannot believe in God without believing in the devil and Stevenson wonderfully intersects all the religious paraphernalia and rituals within the film and subverts it and turns it into something insidious and scary.

Nell Tiger Free as Margaret in 20th Century Studios’ THE FIRST OMEN. Photo credit: Moris Puccio/20th Century Studios. © 2023 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

There are the usual tricks – using darkness and the silhouette of a nun’s habit hanging on the wall to create a scary moment or bring about a moment of tension – but it is in the way that Stevenson creates a narrative that allows Margaret to question what it is that she is seeing (a story point that is related to her own past) and the way that it twists and turns in her mind and how we are able to see it on screen.

The scariest things in ‘The First Omen’ are the things that the characters are imagining and seeing – a demonic hand coming out of a human body at the most inopportune moment is one of the most striking horrific images of the film – as the darkness and the evil of the conspiracy is closing in on Margaret.

Nell Tiger Free as Margaret in 20th Century Studios’ THE FIRST OMEN. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios. © 2024 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

And it is here that the film finds its strongest piece because Nell Tiger Free manages to keep it all together and give us a person we are interested in and invested in. She brings a certain everyman quality to Margaret that brings us to her side but when the film hits its third act and the film makes physical demands from her performance, she is way more than capable of delivering a fully fleshed out performance. As the conspiracy reaches full swing and she is caught into it, there’s a scene that is both physical and transformative and she does an excellent job at physicalizing it.

The first hour and a half of ‘The First Omen’ is actually terrific horror. It only loses its strength when it shifts from indie horror to a mainstream narrative where the main character must find a way to “defeat the beast.” It is a narrative trap that is often used by Hollywood to keep the protagonist active but in the face of what they are having to contend with in this story, it makes no sense for them to be so gung-ho. It becomes prosaic and loses its magic by the third act. Its finale undermines the first two acts that have so carefully created this world of horror amidst the backdrop of faith and revolution.

My Rating:

The First Omen is now showing. Check screening times and buy tickets here.

April 10, 2024
MOVIE REVIEW: Big Laughs, Bigger Heart: a review of the Chinese blockbuster film ‘YOLO’

The first thirty minutes of ‘YOLO’ was a little difficult to jump into – the first act takes its time to establish the world of its main character Leying (performed by Jia Ling, who is also the director and co-writer of the movie), an overweight bum, who lives with her parents and does not have a job. In the first half-hour, the film is filled with jokes and jabs that are meant to shame Leying for being overweight and lazy, oftentimes bordering on jokes that are insensitive and in the general area of fat-shaming. She gets into a fight with her sister while also discovering her boyfriend is cheating on her with her best friend. While some jokes are funny – the ones not centering around her weight or laziness – it’s mostly a difficult first half hour to stomach.

When Leying finally leaves home, sets out on her own, to get a job and distance herself from her family and friends who have treated her with so much disdain does the film find its footing and begins to soar. Lying meets up with a boxing coach just across her place of work and a series of hilarious mishaps puts them together and she finds herself motivated to get her life in order. The remaining three-fourths of the film is a hilarious, inspiring story about a woman taking charge of her life having felt like a loser for the past decade.

‘YOLO’ is Jia Ling’s sophomore directorial effort after the popular and successful debut outing ‘Hi, Mom.’ In preparation for this film, Jia Ling gained 20 kilograms to play Leying and then lost just so much more in the film. The film took over a year to shoot because it included Leying’s incredible transformation in setting her life straight. If all stories are centered around a change, this is the most cinematic of changes that happens in ‘YOLO’ because it does not involve any sort of camera tricks or special effects. It’s all practical real-world transformation that goes in step with the film’s story beats for its full effect.

Jia Ling’s directing is quite sophisticated and underscores her training as a comedian. She knows how to set up the camera and edit to maximize the comedy. There’s a subversive way that she uses the conventions of the romantic comedy to land a punchline and really set up the story that really pushes Leying to the wall and force her to make the necessary changes that would improve her life. There’s an excellent use of music, of mise-en-scene, and an unpredictable way the narrative shifts and turns that keeps ‘YOLO’ from being run-of-the-mill or predictable.

At its core, the film is an underdog story that takes its time to really amplify Leying’s lot in life. It never takes the time to underscore how she got into the rut in the first place. It’s not the point of the film. It does not judge her for it. What the film is interested in are the factors that motivated her to make the change. Despite its brutal first thirty-minutes, the last hour and a half really turns around, much like Leying, and delivers the comedy while creating an emotional investment with the character and then allowing it to reach a satisfying ending that feels earned and offers some catharsis.

Jia Ling is captivating as Leying. She is unafraid to make her so bereft of charm at the beginning of the film but manages to pull it out mid-movie as she plays off the equally wonderful Lei Jiayin, who plays her boxing coach Hao Kun. The way they play off each other as a very unsuspecting rom-com couple is used for all its comedic magic and it works very well in establishing the film’s rather triumphant second act. But the way by which the film keeps shifting and turning and moving to unexpected places is what keeps ‘YOLO’ from being what you would think it is. This is what makes Jia Ling so exciting. This is her sophomore directorial effort and she already is exercising such precision and control of her craft. I’m very much excited to see what else she sets out to do. There’s no question as to why ‘YOLO’ is the biggest blockbuster film in China for this year. It has all the laughs but still manages to present a tender heart beneath all that comedy.

My Rating:

YOLO opens in PH cinemas April 17 with sneak previews on April 8 and 9. Check screening times and buy tickets in advance here.

April 5, 2024
MOVIE REVIEW: ‘White Bird: A Wonder Story’ is a feel-good film that doesn’t stray too far from the formula

I knew nothing of the 2017 hit film ‘Wonder’ or the graphic novel of the same name that it was based on, so I was coming into the sequel/prequel ‘White Bird: A Wonder Story’ with a clean slate. I didn’t know the context as to why the Julian (Bryce Gheisar, who reprises his role from the first movie) has moved to a new school due to, what we later find out, is an incident of bullying from his previous one. To my surprise, they never expounded on Julian’s past. Apparently, that was done in ‘Wonder.’ For ‘White Bird: A Wonder Story,’ the story revolves around Julian’s grandmother (Helen Mirren), an artist from Paris, who has come to New York as a gallery is giving her a retrospective exhibit. She takes the time to bond with her grandson and shares her story with him, to help him understand what he did that was so wrong.

The grandmother’s story is one set in World War II, a young Sara (Ariella Glasser) witnesses her town slowly change as the Nazi presence gets stronger and stronger within her peaceful, picturesque town in the French countryside. When the Nazis come in full force and try to roundup all the Jews, her teacher and principal try to help her, and the other Jewish kids escape. The boy she likes, Vincent (Jem Matthews) gives them up and while all the other kids are taken, she manages to escape and with the help of the school outcast, the polio-stricken Julien (Orlando Schwerdt), she manages to flee and hide in his barn with the help of Julien’s parents.

As the Nazi occupation in France tightens, Sara’s world becomes extremely small. Her whole life revolves around the empty barn and the regular visits from Julien, who has become her lifeline. To pass the time, Julien shares his schoolwork with her, and they both engage in make-believe games that opens up both their worlds in fantastic ways that cinema can exploit so wonderfully through special effects, camerawork, and great acting.

Gillian Anderson as Vivienne and Ariella Glaser as Sara in White Bird: A Wonder Story. Photo Credit: Larry Horricks

‘White Bird: A Wonder Story’ benefits from strong performances by its young cast. Glasser and Schwerdt are the grounding force that keeps the film charming and engaging. The way their friendship blossoms into love was portrayed with youthful innocence amidst the tension-filled backdrop of Nazi-occupied France. Mirren is always a solid performer, bringing charm to an otherwise standard characterization of the French artist-grandmother figure. Despite the role being that of a narrator to the main story told in flashback, there are hints of a loving, concerned grandmother in the way she relates to Gheisar that adds a little something to the mix. Gillian Anderson doesn’t get to do much as Julien’s mother other than the standard fare of a film of this tone and subject matter.

Gillian Anderson as Vivienne and Ariella Glaser as Sara in White Bird: A Wonder Story. Photo Credit: Larry Horricks

There’s a timeliness to the story about the kindness that bloomed in the face of the Nazi fascist regime. The way people went out of their way to help the Jews during this time of brutal persecution. I can see how the story relates to Julian’s own story from ‘Wonder,’ which I only read about after seeing ‘White Bird: A Wonder Story’ but the way it echoes the current global climate regarding the destruction of Palestinian lives and way of life does not go unnoticed. The film is a straight-up, standard feel-good film that director Marc Foster has quite some success in with films like ‘Finding Neverland’ and ‘A Man Called Otto.’ He manages to take these almost formulaic plot lines and mines them for all its cinematic potential and delivers a film that can be quite predictable but still hits the right buttons.

Orlando Schwerdt as Julien and Ariella Glaser as Sara in White Bird: A Wonder Story. Photo Credit: Larry Horricks

Orlando Schwerdt as Julien and Ariella Glaser as Sara in White Bird: A Wonder Story. Photo Credit: Larry Horricks

This is not a subtle movie with its cheesy lines about kindness and how light can conquer the darkness. It even ends with Mirren’s grandmother character making a speech at the exhibition of her retrospective that allows her to underscore the core message of the film just in case anyone may have missed it. The timing of this film’s released is suspect but for anyone looking for something hopeful, something magical to watch during these dark times, ‘White Bird: A Wonder Story’ is offering itself fully to the audience to address this lack.

My Rating:

White Bird: A Wonder Story is now showing. Check screening times and buy tickets here.

March 26, 2024