Tag: movie review

MOVIE REVIEW: ‘Exhuma’ is an intelligent well-crafted horror film steeped in Korean culture and history

As horror films go, Jang Jae-hyun’s ‘Exhuma’ takes a different approach to frightening its audience. At a 134 minutes, director and screenwriter Jang Jae-hyun takes his time to unravel his rather simple story of an exorcism gone horribly wrong. He presents his characters – the charming and very competent young shamans Hwa-rim (Kim Go Eun) and Bong-gil (Lee Do Hyun) – as confident, maybe even cocky, as they take a case involving a rich Korean-American client living in Los Angeles, whose baby seems haunted by an evil spirit. In their initial inspection, they discover that the haunting spirit is an old one, one that is passed from generation to generation and that the ancestral spirit may be back in Korea. This powerful spirit, one they call ‘A Grave’s Call,’ requires a bigger team and they employ a veteran geomancer, Sang-duk (Choi Min-sik) and his partner Yeong Geun (Yoo Hae Jin) to join the ritual. It’s only when the four spiritualists arrive at an unmarked grave atop a deserted mountain that they realize this is far more sinister and evil than they could have imagined.

This whole set up takes over half an hour to put things in motion. What makes it so riveting and fascinating to watch is the way that tension and dread pervades each scene without spilling out into cheesy cheap scares. Director Jang allows his characters – Hwa-rim and company – to be so serious about the work and yet calm and casual outside of it. It shows off their familiarity with each other and uses their relationship dynamics to establish them as human beings that we come to like as an audience. We know something bad is coming and now, 40 minutes into the movie, we like these characters a lot that we don’t want anything bad to happen to them.

Without any huge frightening scenes, director Jang builds the tension using very detailed, very precise dramatization of the shamanistic rituals for cleansing spirits and for exhuming the buried dead to transfer to more auspicious grave sites. Those familiar with these rituals from watching Kdrama will know there’s a lot of music, chanting, and dancing and the film isn’t shy of showing the whole process and captures it for its full cinematic appeal. Kim Go Eun and Lee Do Hyun are exquisite and all they are doing is dancing or dancing with knives (Kim) or drumming and chanting (Lee) but they do it with such conviction and the camera work, quick editing, and exquisite sound designs turns each into such a spectacle that you are overwhelmed by the severity of the rite. It underscores the seriousness of the undertaking. Without showing a single scary image, the ritual alone in full display is enough to create this feeling of dread and fear. Somehow it manages to impress upon you that “damn, I hope it works” and you are actually more attuned to the outcome of all of this.

And when things go south, it takes an unexpected turn. Past the one-hour mark, you realise the story is much deeper, much richer in its exploration of South Korea’s history. This is not just some simple exorcism movie. It’s about past trauma that has yet to be resolved.

It is in the simplicity and the straightforward execution of the narrative that makes ‘Exhuma’ such a joy to watch. It is frightening but it does not rely on jump scares for it. It does so by creating set ups, allowing us to recognize the danger and see it unfold within the story. It does not try to surprise us. Instead, it allows us to follow it as it compounds and compounds.

Unfortunately, the final act feels drawn out and over-extended. Everything leading up to it is so strong, so exciting. When the grand finale happens, there’s a lot of unnecessary talking, actions are repeated, and the pacing suffers immensely. It could have been fast and quick but Jang Jae-hyun is having too much fun with his elements all coming together. But the final image still makes it landing and does not undermine all the fantastic work that set everything up.

‘Exhuma’ is an intelligent horror film that takes its time to build its horror and dresses it up in the full effects of Korean shamanism. It’s culturally and historically rich and steeped in its folklore. The cast, especially Kim Go Eun, is terrific and it can be surprising in its narrative turns.

My Rating:

Exhuma premieres this March 20. Check screening times and buy tickets here.

March 16, 2024
MOVIE REVIEW: The unreality of ‘A Glimpse of Forever’

There is an in-your-face manner by which prolific director and screenwriter Jason Paul Laxamana uses his filmmaking in his latest movie, ‘A Glimpse of Forever,’ so that he can talk about mental health, most specifically social anxiety disorder. It’s a style that comes off very literal, very straight-forward, and very unlike Laxamana’s older works. His past films like ‘Between Maybes,’ ‘To Love Some Buddy,’ or ‘The Day After Valentine’s’ tackled trendy subject matters but did them in an organic manner with a fully fleshed-out world and a solid dramatic premise. The thought that Laxamana would be directing his lens towards the concept of virtual dating and the prospect of dual lives in ‘A Glimpse of Forever’ is quite intriguing but the first ten minutes of the film, things just don’t feel like one of Laxamana’s stronger works.

https://youtu.be/oHFG7YE3jLI?si=HXgBcnUazr51TbVN

It opens in a very bare, brick themed office. Charles (TJ Valderrama) is asking his boss played by Andrea Del Rosario to let his friend Dante (Jerome Ponce) to take his place in the virtual dating company, ForeVR. So as to not be undermanned, Charles offers Dante, a trained theater actor, who unfortunately suffers from a severe case of social anxiety disorder. He has to cover his face (with a mask, and maybe a cap or a beanie) if he tries to socialize with others. But, at ForeVR, Dante would be working as a motion capture actor, acting alone in a green screen room, bringing to life virtual characters on a live “date” with their clients. It would be a perfect job for someone suffering from his condition.

What makes all this feel so inorganic and so unlike Laxamana’s stronger works in his filmography is how blatant the exposition is in this movie. The film begins in medias res and just as Charles mentions that Dante has a mental condition, Dante walks in and it’s in slow motion and the music becomes dramatic and it feels a little heavy-handed because nothing has happened yet. This happens a lot in the movie. The camera work gets dramatic as does the music for scenes that haven’t quite earned it just yet.

Dante proves himself to be great at playing any of the four characters that ForeVR offers their clientele – a bad boy, a classy and rich gentleman, a salt-of-the-earth laborer, and a bikini-wearing gigolo – and he slowly becomes a threat to the other motion capture actors already at the company. All of this unfolds in a straight-forward manner where all the ins-and-outs of the process is explained in an elementary manner. Immediately, you can see the subplot of Dante’s new co-worker’s jealousy comes to play and that – for someone who has no social capacity due to his condition – he seems to have a complete understanding of what women want.

And this is where the film is at its weakest. A quick montage shows the four characters in action, and the effect that it has on its clients. There’s no profound thought or understanding of what it seems that women want by this whole exercise. They come to a room to have a virtual date with a man that addresses archetypal, cliched ideas of what women want from men.

It’s not until twenty minutes have passed when Jasmine Curtis-Smith walks in (again with the slow motion and dramatic music) and breaks all the rules to book a virtual date with a character that is not on the menu: the boy next door called Kokoy (Diego Loyzaga).

Strangely enough, the staff assign Dante to take the role of Kokoy. None of the current roster can seem to get Kokoy right but in one try, Dante seems to have it down pat. So, even if it’s not on the menu, they allow Jasmine’s Glenda to book the date and the real story begins.

Glenda and Dante (as Kokoy) go through their first date, and it is hostile and violent. Glenda treats Kokoy mean but Dante handles it without missing a beat. He understands the boy next door as someone the client has known for a long time, there’s no pretension here so his approach to the character is not to baby her or flatter. Glenda gets so mad she storms off not finishing the session. Dante is about to lose his job except Glenda gives him the highest rating possible and a huge tip. And then she comes again.

Image Source: Viva Films FB Page

What’s strange is that the film’s idea of a boy-next-door seems to be that of a slob (his room is a mess) and he seems to be a lazy slacker. What makes it work is that Diego Loyzaga plays him with such natural charm that I haven’t seen in any of his previous works that I’ve seen. As Kokoy, Loyzaga is attentive and oozes with natural charm. The way he confronts Jasmine Curtis-Smith’s hostility as Glenda creates very interesting sparks.

So interesting that Dante begins to fall for her. But Glenda is another curiosity as well. When the camera moves in to show her side of life, we can see that she’s in an unhappy marriage but she’s extremely wealthy (someone says she’s the daughter of an extremely wealthy family) but she sells tie-dyed t-shirts in an open store in a plaza. There’s a sort of disconnect by the world that she supposedly comes from and how it operates.

While the story tries to play out a love story/love triangle narrative complicated by the idea of fake and surrogate identities, as the story rounds up towards the third act, it reveals itself to really be a story about dealing with and trying to overcome extreme mental disorders – the social anxiety disorder of Dante and that of another character that plays off of Dante’s own struggles – it’s a bait and switch that doesn’t exactly transition well. Unlike Laxamana’s other works, ‘A Glimpse of Forever’ has no clever storytelling style that allows the story to play out organically. For Dante, his struggle is mediated by scenes with a psychiatrist (played by Katya Santos) that is so literal and prosaic that it feels like a public service announcement or a product placement.

And unlike his other movies, ‘A Glimpse of Forever’ has quite a number of one-dimensional characters. Even the leads can be quite monotone except that Ponce and Curtis-Smith are good enough to add a layer of humanity underneath them. Loyzaga is also quite strong but as Kokoy, for he plays another character (they try to keep it secret but it’s so obvious on its first appearance because Loyzaga’s physique is so evident) and that one he seems to struggle with.

There’s a way by which Laxamana trains his camera on all the dramatic moments of suffering from the condition. It’s effects and how it makes the characters suffer because of it is front-and-center and feels exploitative. Everything feels directed towards the struggles and not towards building a believable world where all these things come into collision – why women go into virtual dates, how people with these conditions live (we don’t see them in everyday normal situations, we only see them struggling with their disorder as if nothing else happens but that), or how the economics of a company like ForeVR exists. It’s an intriguing premise and it has all the elements needed to make it work. Unfortunately, ‘A Glimpse of Forever’ comes off as fantastical and as unrealistic as the virtual dates that was at the center at the start of the film and kind of disappeared by the second act.

My Rating:

A Glimpse of Forever is now showing. Check screening times and buy tickets here.

March 8, 2024
MOVIE REVIEW: ‘Kung Fu Panda 4’ stands on its own and opens new possibilities for future sequels

Funnily enough, I have a soft spot for both ‘Kung Fu Panda’ and ‘Kung Fu Panda 2.’ I am a fan of Jack Black and his humor and I’m a sucker for the world of kung fu and martial arts. I’ve come to appreciate the characters from both films so it’s so funny to me that I remember watching ‘Kung Fu Panda 3’ but as I was stepping into the cinema to watch the latest installment, I could not for the life of me remember a single detail of ‘Kung Fu Panda 3.’ I don’t remember the villain. I don’t remember any fight scenes. I just know that Po (voiced by Jack Black) meets up with his family.

Luckily, I didn’t need to see the third movie to understand the fourth. Po is still the Dragon Warrior and he has not lost any of his fighting skills, his humor, his down-to-earth character, nor his appetite. He now has two dads – Mr. Ping, his adoptive goose father (James Hong), and Li Shan, his biological father (Bryan Cranston) – while Master Shifu (Dustin Hoffman) is still frustrated with him despite not questioning or diminishing Po’s stature and position. It’s a welcome dynamic that is familiar and yet honest. There is growth in Po and he has risen to the task of becoming the Dragon Warrior.

Po (Jack Black) in DreamWorks Animation’s Kung Fu Panda 4, directed by Mike Mitchell.

But as ‘Kung Fu Panda 4’ opens, we discover that he must now find a suitable successor to the role while stepping up as a spiritual leader for the Valley of Peace. This is a role Po does not feel ready for, especially since he loves being the Dragon Warrior. He’s not ready for change and this becomes the central theme of this movie.

(Center) Chameleon (Viola Davis) in Kung Fu Panda 4 directed by Mike Mitchell.

Ironically, the villain that comes to threaten peace and order is The Chameleon (voiced by the formidable Viola Davis). A sorceress with the ability to shape-shift, The Chameleon has climbed up the ranks to become a powerful criminal force and seeks to rule and plunder with an iron hand. Po must venture out of the Valley of Peace to the city where The Chameleon has her stronghold to stop her. Leading him to the fortress is a fox called Zhen (voiced by Awkwafina). Zhen is a petty thief and is the type to get under your skin and push buttons. Zhen constantly questions Po’s intentions and moral center and effectively becomes a foil for Po. Both are orphans and yet Po turned out moral because he was adopted by Mr. Ping while Zhen grew up amoral because she was raised in the streets and had to fend for herself.

(from left) Po (Jack Black) and Zhen (Awkwafina) in Kung Fu Panda 4 directed by Mike Mitchell.

As the story unfolds, it’s very clear what is transpiring in the film. Narratively, it’s pretty predictable if you’ve seen enough fantasy and adventure stories. The twists and turns are nothing new. There’s a lot of physical and visual comedy, though, and some rambunctious fight scenes spread out through the film to keep it enjoyable and fast-paced.

There’s a really funny fight scene in a bar situated precariously at the edge of a cliff. The physical comedy on this fight alone is quite entertaining. The banter between Black and Awkwafina as Po and Zhen can get dry and overdrawn sometimes, but there’s a purpose to it as the film slowly sets up its pieces to create dynamics that are reminiscent to the first film. You can see the set-up miles away but there’s an earnestness and sincerity that carries it through.

(from left) The Chameleon (Viola Davis), (right) Tai Lung (Ian McShane) in Kung Fu Panda 4 directed by Mike Mitchell.

Interestingly enough, when Po and The Chameleon finally face off, we discover another layer of comparisons that are made – this time between the hero and the villain – and the theme of change and growth are finally fully realized. Like Zhen, Po and the Chameleon also have similar backgrounds and we see how the two are the opposite sides of the same coin.

Three bunnies in DreamWorks Animation’s Kung Fu Panda 4, directed by Mike Mitchell.

Po (Jack Black) in Kung Fu Panda 4 directed by Mike Mitchell.

There are some very interesting new developments in the story and in the characters that it makes ‘Kung Fu Panda 4’ not feel like a tired franchise trying to go for a quick cash grab. While there is a glimpse (the description is apt) of the Furious Five in the movie, their absence is really felt (they were in other missions). A lot of the jokes land, there are a good deal of fight scenes that are fun to watch, and the story is set to push the franchise to new possibilities (as the producers have said they can extend the characters and narratives by two more films, completing the whole set at six). It’s a solid release that can stand on its own – I don’t remember the third film at all, but it didn’t hinder my enjoyment of this one – though it isn’t a grand slam and reinvents the wheel.

My Rating:

Kung Fu Panda 4 is now showing. Check screening times and buy tickets here.

March 7, 2024
MOVIE REVIEW: Great premise, unrealised potential: a review of ‘Baghead’

The premise of ‘Baghead,’ the horror film by director Alberto Corredor and written by Christina Pamies, Bryce McGuire, and Lorcan Reilly, is actually quite promising. A young woman, Iris (Freya Allan), inherits a pub in Germany from her estranged father. When she signs the deed, she also ends up inheriting the entity that lives in the basement: the shapeshifting Baghead, who can turn into the dead. As the custodian of this malevolent being, Iris must keep Baghead in the basement but the temptation to speak with the dead – and make money while others communicate with the deceased – puts everything at risk.

It’s a great set-up for a horror film except Corredor and his creative team never take the time to really establish the aspects of the film that would give it its emotional weight. At the start of the film, Iris is seen breaking into her apartment, which she has been evicted from. Taking her things, she considers accepting her friend Katie’s (Ruby Barker) proposal to stay with her but then she receives the call about her father. We quickly learn that she hasn’t spoken to him since he had abandoned her, and she has been living in foster care after her mother passed away. With no attachments except for Katie and no money, she quickly flies off to Berlin and decides to keep the broken-down ruin of a pub. The film makes no effort to really show us Iris’ life before this story takes flight and she meets Baghead. Except for Katie’s offer to let her stay at her place “until she gets back on her feet” and the fact that Katie would drop everything and fly off to Berlin to help Iris out, we don’t actually see the bonds of the two girls for real.

In fact, the pub itself, situated in a dark, seemingly abandoned area of Berlin doesn’t even feel like Berlin at all. Throughout the film, there are several trips made from England to Berlin but it feels like no time has passed. The narrative never even really leaves the confines of the pub so you never actually feel the world of Berlin. It could be a pub in the outskirts of London or maybe in Wales or Scotland and it wouldn’t matter. It changes nothing on the DNA of the story and the script.

It is extra jarring because the way by which Iris and Katie discover Baghead is when a man, Neil (Jeremy Irvine) breaks into the pub and asks Iris to let him see Baghead. When he offers the broke Iris 2000 (they never even say euros or pounds, no denomination) to allow Baghead to let him speak to his wife, she instantly accepts.

This is where ‘Baghead’ manages some emotional heavy lifting. From the basement, Baghead can send visions and spells out of her prison. She tempts Iris with knowledge and information about her father (Peter Mullan) and it allows her to reconsider the reason for why he may have abandoned her. If he was responsible for Baghead then, maybe had no choice? The film explores the complexity of this quite well while the rest of the film flounders with a relatively weak investigation scene (from Katie’s perspective) of Baghead’s origins and a predictable subplot involving Neil.

When the plot starts to put everything together, forcing the characters to collide and Baghead’s machinations to come to fruition, the only relationship that is truly fleshed out is the one of Iris and her father, which has already pretty much resolved somewhere within the second act. The rest feels pretty much formulaic and by the numbers. There are some good moments of tension and fright but because you don’t really feel that invested in the characters, it’s hard for the film to muster up any real sense of fear or dread.

It’s also indicative of a very western approach to these supernatural premises. The lure of money and the fearlessness of such an entity feels so far removed from an Asian perspective. While the younger generation now do not believe in the supernatural, they do have the better sense to stay cautious when presented with it. Iris jumps straight into the fray without question after she realises the economic opportunities Baghead presents. Any Asian character would immediately find an exorcist or try and find a way out as soon as possible with as little interaction with the being as possible.

While floundering as a horror film, ‘Baghead’ presents quite an interesting discussion point about western approaches to the supernatural. It’s why – in my opinion – Asian supernatural horror always feels more grounded and more frightening. It’s because Asians fear and respect the supernatural. We grew up with it. We believe in spirits and ancestors and ghosts, to some degree. We know the dangers that lurk just around the corner when these beings are near. Westerners are sure they can overcome anything as long as they fight hard enough. They feel invincible in their own beliefs of the self. It is why a lot of the third acts of many western horror films – like ‘Baghead’ – don’t always work.

My Rating:

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

March 4, 2024
MOVIE REVIEW: ‘The Holdovers’ is an instant classic and a surprising tearjerker of a film

There are a host of films about the relationships between students and their teachers. Films that are of a mold about the true nature of education, which goes beyond what is taught in books. There were a lot of them in the 90s, like ‘Dead Poets Society,’ ‘Dangerous Minds,’ and ‘With Honors’ (though the teacher there is a homeless man played by Joe Pesci). In the mid-2000s, we had films like ‘The History Boys.’ They are coming of age stories set in school, that says a lot about the importance of a good teacher in the molding of young minds.

Writer and director Alexander Payne, who has struck gold with movies like ‘Sideways’ and ‘The Descendants’ has a gift for building stories of seemingly ordinary occurrences or relationships and turning them into these profound human moments of beauty and grace. He has a knack for finding the extraordinary in the most mundane of things and people.

He does it again with ‘The Holdovers,’ a movie set in the 1970s, at the tail-end of the Vietnam war about a schoolteacher in an all-male boarding school who has to watch over the students who have nowhere to go during the holidays. This teacher, Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti), is a teacher of the classics and is hated by everyone, not just the students, but by some co-faculty too. He’s a cranky, old man with a strict sense of decorum and manners. It’s the perfect antithesis for any young male high schooler with the urge to rebel against authority.

Paul Giamatti stars as Paul Hunham and Dominic Sessa as Angus Tully in director Alexander Payne’s THE HOLDOVERS, a Focus Features release. Credit: Seacia Pavao / © 2023 FOCUS FEATURES LLC

In this case, the teen in question is Angus Tully (a breakthrough debut performance by newcomer Dominic Sessa), an intelligent but troubled kid, whose issues with his parents have caused him to move from school to school. He is enrolled in Paul Hunham’s classics class and is the only one amongst his classmates who gets a decent enough grade but, like his classmates, he cannot stand the unflinching Hunham.

© 2023 FOCUS FEATURES LLC

Rounding up the cast is Da’vine Joy Randolph, who plays Mary Lamb. She’s the school’s cafeteria manager, and whose son was an alumnus of the school. Unfortunately, at the start of the film, she’s grieving the loss of her son who was part of the Vietnam war. As the only service staff left, she is allowed to grieve in peace, and she becomes a grounding force between the bickering of the two men left behind.

Dominic Sessa stars as Angus Tully and Paul Giamatti as Paul Hunham in director Alexander Payne’s THE HOLDOVERS, a Focus Features release. Credit: Seacia Pavao / © 2023 FOCUS FEATURES LLC

What makes ‘The Holdovers’ so enjoyable is that it’s intelligent and well-crafted. Paul and Angus are both articulate and witty. Their back and forth are clever but are also loaded with the stuff that these two characters need. Paul needs to practice his empathy, needs to be reminded he is part of a larger world, of society whereas Angus needs a guiding hand, an authoritative figure who actually cares about him. These two characters are exactly what each other need but can they break through their own first impressions of each other to get what they need?

The story is so simple. Being away from family (or disconnected from them like Mary is) during the holidays has put an emotional pressure on these three characters and they find themselves hanging on to each other, albeit unwillingly for some, to feel a little more human, to feel a little less alone.

© 2023 FOCUS FEATURES LLC

And in the process of all of this, the three find themselves going out of their shells, breaking free from the expectations of others and the expectations they have put upon themselves and find themselves on a road to healing.

Payne manages to present such simple ideas in a simple story but has the artistry to amplify the human elements of this story to create a profound sense of goodness that just springs forth from the tension between these characters. I was laughing all the way through the two-hour movie, laughing at all the verbal witticisms and the displays of humanity, both the strengths and weaknesses, that it made me feel good about myself. And, in a surprising twist, found myself sobbing at the end with the way the film finds a heartwarming resolution.

It’s not a flashy film, even the cinematography tries to capture the grainy quality of classic movies of the time period. But it’s so full of heart and so funny and so real in its presentation of emotions that it feels like a film I’ll be coming back to again and again and more so on Christmas. It’s no wonder that Paul Giamatti and Da’vine Joy Randolph are gearing up to the winners of the Oscars in their category. Giamatti is in his wheelhouse and may be the strongest contender to take the award out of Cillian Murphy’s hands. It would be deserving with this role in this movie.

My Rating:

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

February 21, 2024
MOVIE REVIEW: ‘I Am Not Big Bird’ is bold as it tries to push the boundaries, but it isn’t bold enough

Advertised as a raunchy sex comedy, ‘I Am Not Big Bird’ is pretty progressive in scope and vision. It’s a period piece (set sometime in the mid 2000s, pre-smart phone era) that stars a returning Enrique Gil (without his popular love team) in comedy that is set almost entirely in Thailand and is all about sex and genitalia. It’s been said over and over: this is so new to the Philippine film landscape and it’s refreshing. While a large majority of the country can still be very conservative (and even downright oppressive) in their views on sex, the new generations are more open about it (just check social media). It’s the perfect time for a comedy like this to stir the pot and push some boundaries and trigger some pearl clutching.

But as the movie unfolds – it’s the story of Luis Carpio (Gil), whose marriage proposal is rejected by his girlfriend of five years (because he hasn’t had sex with her as he is waiting for marriage) flies off to Thailand with his two friends for a chance to be “a bigger man,” as according to a random flyer that was handed out to him – the film is a lot tamer than I was expecting it to be. This is coming from director Victor Villanueva, who directed the excellently done ‘Patay na si Hesus’ as well as ‘Boy Bastos’ and ‘Lucid.’ Tonally, ‘Patay na si Hesus’ was way more outragous and provocative than ‘I Am Not Big Bird’ is, and it was not even revolving around sex. What creates this tempered outrageousness is its straddling its risqué elements with mass appeal. You can tell they want to push the lines but not cross it so they can keep the rating low and not raise too many eyebrows.

Case in point, the main dramatic premise of the film is that Luis, called Carps by his friends, looks exactly like the porn star known as Big Bird. Big Bird has a huge penis. It’s astronomically huge as we are shown this in the film’s prologue on a sex tape from Japan. So, humorously, the size is indicated via how much is pixelated in the video. An impression is created, the joke is set. But then the film never goes beyond this after the prologue. The three friends, which includes standup comedian Red Ollero as July and Nikko Natividad as Macky, have their first night at a seedy club. They are taken to a back room so that they can have sex with some of the hostesses there, but the film suddenly enters into an advisory that the scene is “too sexy for Filipino audiences” and goes to describe what happens in the cut scene with sound effects and a dub to amplify the humor. And then after we see the effect it had on our characters.

The film is fixated on the size of Big Bird’s penis (and the subsequent jokes of Luis, who ironically has a tiny one) and pushes the characters to do risque things. The many hijinks that follow from being mistaken for this porn star leads to kidnapping, to the possibilities of castration, and so on. The friends get high on psychedelic substances and, in one scene, have to try and make a porno and other such strange happenings. It’s all for laughs and I’m all for it – I just wished they allowed us to really get the full-on unsanitized comedy that this dramatic situation allows.

We don’t actually see them smoke or ingest the drugs. We don’t see too much skin (until much later, and it’s not from Enrique Gil, the main character of the film). It never gets dirty or grimy or full-on offensive the way that it teases us that it will. At least, in the presentation of Macky as a gay character, he actually gets to kiss another guy and they get almost naked and almost have sex. It’s where I thought this film would go but that’s the spiciest the film ever gets. There’s a scene where Gil has to kiss Deborah (Wipawee Charoenpura), a porn producer who is chasing after Big Bird, but as their faces come closer together, they change the angle of their heads, and we don’t actually see the kiss; just the impression of it.

It’s this sanitized tone that hinders this film from reaching its true heights and from really pushing boundaries. Yes, they say penis a lot and show us the huge bulge in full display in other scenes but it’s always just that: covered up and sanitized.

And for all the joking around about male genitalia and the like, the film does a sneak attack and suddenly turns to transform this film into a story about male friendships but the most important aspect of the friendship is not what the film is focused on either. Luis only shows up when he needs something and isn’t privy to the goings-on of his two friends. But this is only told and never shown. And while Macky’s story is at least given a scene, July’s back story isn’t even that developed. So, when the film tries to subvert the film’s comedy by surprising us with the story of the friendship, it feels forced and rather hollow.

What I do appreciate, though, is the friendship that is shown with Macky and July. If there’s anything to applaud, it’s the unproblematic friendship between a straight guy and a gay guy. The way the film just allows July and Macky to be good friends and not have their different gender preferences get in the way of anything is just so pleasant to see onscreen. I would have given everything to see more of this, and the fac that Luis wasn’t even aware. That is an important element of the story that doesn’t feel like it was given attention to.

As something new and different, ‘I Am Not Big Bird’ was poised to really turn heads, start conversations, and really break boundaries. But they played it safe. They got the laughs, for sure, the people in the theater with me were laughing at all the gags, shocked at “the audacity of it.” But this is the era of tv shows like ‘Euphoria’ and ‘Saltburn.’ Just a decade ago, ‘Game of Thrones’ was doing more shocking things about sex and nudity that hadn’t been done before. It’s a bold move for this movie to go in this direction, but it wasn’t bold enough. I would have liked it to go all-out.

My Rating:

I Am Not Big Bird is now showing. Check screening times and buy tickets here.

February 19, 2024
MOVIE REVIEW: Crippled by a weak script, ‘Madame Web’ struggles to even be light and fun

There’s actually a lot going for ‘Madame Web’ to make it big. It stars Dakota Johnson and Sydney Sweeney, one actress who has a following because of her star-making turn in the divisive but immensely popular ‘Fifty Shades of Gray’ and the other, a rising star from hit television shows like ‘Euphoria’ and ‘White Lotus.’ While it is a comic book movie, it is based off a not so well-known character, which means that the expectations won’t affect the movie as much; the creative team have more leeway to play with the character just a bit. It’s a women-led story, which addresses the growing call for more women-centric stories in all genres. It’s also directed by a prolific film and television director, SJ Clarkson, who has worked on episodes of ‘Jessica Jones’ and ‘Succession.’

Unfortunately, the film tries to spin a complicated web but the script by writing duo Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless and also with Claire Parker and SJ Clarkson fail to bring all of its elements together. ‘Madame Web’ is burdened by a narrative structure that spends most of its time establishing story points and explaining the protagonist’s abilities than actually setting up an intriguing character arc for her. The dialogue is also extremely prosaic and literal; explaining everything that is happening in the most straightforward (thus uninteresting) way. If any of the elements are working towards the possibility of this film being exciting or thrilling, the script somehow undermines any of this by focusing on plot points rather than character building.

The film centers around Cassie Webb, a paramedic, who was orphaned when her mother died in the Amazon jungle while researching spiders (as humorously explained in the trailer). Because of her being orphaned – what she knows is that her mother died during childbirth, though the audience is aware that she was killed by her security detail – Cassie has an aversion to children and motherhood. She seems more comfortable being one of the boys than hanging out with the wives and sisters and mothers of her co-workers. A near-death experience triggers her powers, her ability to see the future, and she ends up saving three young teenagers from being murdered by Ezekiel Sims, the man who killed Cassie’s mother. Cassie must discover her past and reconcile with the truth about her mother so that she can save the three young girls from Sims.

Mattie Franklin (Celeste O’Connor), Cassandra Webb (Dakota Johnson), Anya Corazon (Isabela Merced), and Julia Cornwall (Sydney Sweeney) in Columbia Pictures’ MADAME WEB.

Clarkson takes a frenetic and loud directorial style for ‘Madame Web.’ Set in the year 2003, she infuses her film with older songs closer to that time period – ‘What’s Up’ of 4 Non Blondes, ‘Bitch’ by Meredith Brooks, and ‘Toxic’ by Britney Spears – and tries to create urgency by fast cuts and crazy camera work but somehow the film always manages to feel unhurried. Even a scene where Cassie is on the job trying to save the lives of people in a burning building, it lacks urgency or excitement. From the get-go, the film employs these camera tricks and strange edits before any actual real danger or excitement has really kicked in. In the process, the film doesn’t quite achieve the energy it is trying to convey.

And the script is just literal and straightforward. At every turn, most especially in the parts of Ezekiel Sims (Tahar Rahim), the dialogue openly explains the character’s thoughts and motivations, which ends up making the film feel like a comic book. It feels like exposition and it spoon-feeds the entire plot of the film as to make sure that people understand what is going on – even though the film isn’t that hard to understand at all.

Dakota Johnson and Sydney Sweeney in Madame Web
Photo courtesy of Columbia Pictures

Because of this, Rahim ends up looking like he’s over-acting as he is trying to add a sense of drama and danger to his character (even though the film hasn’t quite given us any real reason to) while the young teens who are in trouble – Sydney Sweeney, Celeste O’ Connor, and Isabela Merced – are doing their best with the most archetypally written teen characters in the genre. On the flipside, Johnson and the usually very interesting Zosia Mamet are doing the bare minimum for these characters, as if they both realised that the words they have to say are quite silly. They are working, for sure, but they aren’t sweating it out either like they usually do.

There is an interesting way that they visualize the way Cassie’s powers work at the start when she first gets the abilities. The jarring way by which time seems to keep repeating. It’s an interesting effect but it quickly loses its appeal after the nth time it happens. Later on, it starts to play with your head because you have no idea if what you are seeing is a vision or the actual scene. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. It can really ruin the pacing, but more importantly, it kills any feeling of suspense or thrill for the film. At some point, we stop worrying because we know that Cassie will figure it out and avoid any real danger.

The issues with the script – especially the way it handles a critical point in the second act when Cassie finally explores her mother’s story – really keeps the film from finding any semblance of stability and keeps ‘Madame Web’ from being taken seriously – even as a light, fun comic book movie. It can’t even get into that level because everything is so out in the open in terms of that screenplay.

It’s unfortunate because all the elements are there. But unless it’s the animated Spider-verse franchise or without the backing of Kevin Feige and the MCU, ‘Madame Web’ might just fall in the same pile as ‘Morbius’ and the critically panned ‘Venom’ films.

My Rating:

Madame Web is now showing. Check screening times and buy tickets here.

February 15, 2024
MOVIE REVIEW: ‘Poor Things’ reimagines the coming-of-age narrative through an absurdist lens

I’m a huge fan of the works of Yorgos Lanthimos. From ‘The Lobster’ and ‘Killing of a Sacred Deer’ to ‘The Favourite,’ I’ve found that his style of highly formalistic realities playing out a sort of morality play that critiques contemporary human society has always been executed with such a delightful meticulousness of craft. Not only are the worlds that he creates out of the box and off-kilter but the way by which he presents them amplifies the absurdity of human life. His use of crazy camera angles and distorted visuals (like the use of the fisheye lens in ‘The Favourite’) and the unsettling musical score that he favours; his works have always been equal parts hilarious and disturbing.

Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone on the set of POOR THINGS. Photo by Atsushi Nishijima. Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures. © 2023 Searchlight Pictures All Rights Reserved.

Of the three works that he’s done that I’ve seen (and I heard his earlier, non-English works are even better), they have always been mired in irony and expressed a cynical view of the world. So, it’s surprising that his latest outing, ‘Poor Things’ ends somewhat hopeful, even joyful and it’s a shift that feels more aligned to his irreverent sense of humor because it still feels like the other shoe is about to drop. And unlike his previous films, this one ends right before it does.

Emma Stone in POOR THINGS. Photo by Atsushi Nishijima. Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures. © 2023 20th Century Studios All Rights Reserved.

‘Poor Things’ centers around the growth of Bella (Emma Stone). We are introduced to her as a woman who had “hurt her head” and is now learning everything all over again like that of a child. While the setting implies a Victorian-era London, Lanthimos and screenwriter Tony McNamara opt for a dreamy, lo-fi steam punk world. It has shades of George Melies with a bit of the Spanish architect and painter Gaudi splashed into the aesthetic design. Bella is in the care of a brilliant surgeon Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe), a master of anatomy and surgery, who conducts experiments that is akin to Dr. Moreau. His home is a menagerie of strange animal experiments. A duck with a dog’s body. A chicken with a pig’s head. And then there’s Bella, a grown woman acting like a child.

Willem Dafoe in POOR THINGS. Photo by Atsushi Nishijima Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures. © 2023 20th Century Studios All Rights Reserved.

When Godwin asks one of his students, Max McCandles (Ramy Youssef) to watch over Bella and record her growth, he questions her origins but cannot help but find her attractive. He falls for her and in the urgings of the paternal Godwin, Max proposes marriage to Bella, who at this point is old enough to understand a portion of what it means and accepts.

Ramy Youssef and Willem Dafoe in POOR THINGS. Photo by Yorgos Lanthimos. Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures.© 2023 Searchlight Pictures All Rights Reserved.

Except Bella still wants to know more about the world, so seduced by a sly lawyer, Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo), Bella leaves home to explore the world outside the safe yet imprisoning walls of Godwin Baxter’s home.

Mark Ruffalo in POOR THINGS. Photo by Yorgos Lanthimos. Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures. © 2023 20th Century Studios All Rights Reserved.

What presents itself as either a strange gothic romance or a meditation on the morality and cruelty of scientific experiments conducted in the post-period of enlightenment, the movie really is a coming-of-age story of a woman who wants to understand the world. Bella’s unique circumstance allows her to see the world as an innocent, with pure intentions and is grasping for experiences that will help her wrestle with all the emotions that come with the knowledge about the world itself. Her mental growth is quick and fast, and in a few months, she has the mind of an intelligent young teen (though the sentence structure of a verbose child) but, having the body of a grown woman, she discovers the joy and power of sex and enjoys it.

Emma Stone in POOR THINGS. Photo by Yorgos Lanthimos, Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures. © 2024 Searchlight Pictures All Rights Reserved.

Sex, then, becomes the fulcrum of her understanding of power and joy. Bella questions the world around her, including polite society, which – when taken from her point-of-view – is suspect about the true nature of the power dynamics involved. Unintentionally, to understand the world, she has to face what it means to be a woman and what society demands from her. With her child-like point-of-view, she feels no shame nor guilt of which society bears upon her. And because this, she is so much stronger than everyone in the world around her.

Everyone in this film is incredible, Willem Dafoe and Mark Ruffalo are doing their best work – and these are two actors who always do amazing work – but here, they synch into Lanthimos’ sense of absurdity and they fit right in. The mannered performances are brought in with equal levels of absurdity but tempered with the reason that they don’t feel like they are hamming it up.

Emma Stone in Poor Things. Photo Courtesy of Searchight Pictures.© 2023 Searchlight Pictures All Rights Reserved.

But through and through, this is Emma Stone’s movie. It is all grounded on her and her portrayal of Bella. She is absolutely committed to this role and is unafraid of being foolish and vulnerable. She is acting with every inch of her body, creating a character that is rapidly growing before our eyes. From the times of Bella with the mindset of an infant to her fully grown and in full realization of who she is and what the world is capable of, you can see the shifts and nuances of the character’s transformation. If she wins her second Oscar for this role, it would be so deserved.

Emma Stone and Mark Ruffalo on the set of POOR THINGS. Photo by Atsushi Nishijima. Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures. © 2023 Searchlight Pictures All Rights Reserved.

Lanthimos’ incredible filmmaking is so perfectly matched for this story. The pacing, the world building, the design, and the way he captures it on camera. After the prologue, he tells the story first in black-and-white to somehow mimic Bella’s view of the world – without colour, without understanding. But as she gets older, the colours start to come in. I was trying to take notice of when it would change and shift (I knew the film would be in color because of the trailers) but I was so engrossed in Emma Stone’s performance and the hilariousness of the screenplay that I totally missed the shift the film takes to colour. And when it does, the movie just comes completely alive as it coincides directly with Balla’s on growing perspective over the world.

It’s definitely a philosophical film as much as it is the ultimate coming-of-age story that I can think of. The incredible score by Jerskin Fendrix, with its discordant melodies highlight the imbalance of power and the ways by which Bella deals with the people around her. But the music finds moments of harmony, especially at its surprising end.

‘Poor Things’ is a complete assault on the senses and this aesthetic is wonderfully maintained all throughout its 142-minute running time. It’s an exquisite meditation on the world and manages to highlight the discrepancy of power between the sexes.

My Rating:

Poor Things is now showing. Check screening times and buy tickets here.

February 14, 2024
Movie Review: The new ‘Mean Girls’ musical is kinda fetch

I was expecting to hate the new ‘Mean Girls’ movie. I’m a huge fan of the original 2004 Mark Waters-directed film and feel that it’s a perfect movie on its own. It was a cultural phenomenon and the way the movie presented the idea of the high school queen bee archetype was the pattern for later usage of that trope, like that in ‘Gossip Girl.’ It opened important discussions about the way teenage girls see themselves and each other and how they tear each other down. Many of the lines in the film are still used today in memes and gifs and, on social media, October 3 is dubbed as ‘Mean Girls Day’ due to a line in the film that mentions the date.

When I saw the trailer for the film adaptation of the Broadway musical based on the 2004 film, I had to ask why. Why make another movie when the original movie was already perfect as it was? Especially when the whole idea of a nasty, mean queen bee is such an outdated concept in 2024? This is the age of the internet and cancel culture. People like Regina George would be canceled in a heartbeat. How would this version address this shift in the generational mindset? And the trailer made it feel like it was exactly the same movie with some jokes just swapped for a more modern take but was essentially the same.

So, I was sitting in my seat, as the movie began, and when the first song opened, an intro presented like an IG or FB reel or Tiktok with Janis and Damian (Auli’i Cravalho and Jaquel Spivey, respectively) singing a song with the tone of a narrator, I immediately put my walls up and resisted. Despite the excellent vocals of Cravalho and Spivey, I found fault within the song. The two were playing their own instruments in a garage but the moment the garage doors open and it’s the wide-open savannah of Africa and we are introduced to Angourie Rice as Cady Heron, I was turned upside down.

It was an incredible scene transition that would be carried out throughout the whole film. Rice sings Cady’s first song about her life in Kenya and the song was catchy and allowed us into the interior world of our protagonist. One quick, clever transition later and she’s in high school back in the United States and experiencing her first day.

As much as I was resisting it, this musical version of ‘Mean Girls’ found a way through my walls. The full-on musical numbers help break reality and create a world for the film that is entirely of its own. It allows for the presence of a popular girl in school like Regina George to exist because the movie is not set in any sort of reflection of real life. It brought the story to the level of a fable or a modern fairy tale and so it created a space for the less realistic parts to exist.

So, when Renee Rapp makes her entrance as Regina George, the effect is actually quite staggering. Rapp is a powerful presence with a strong, powerful voice that demands attention. Rapp is not your typical svelte or skinny blonde girl. She’s a strongly built, hot young girl with the vocal chops of a diva. She has incredible confidence mixed with deadly charisma. Rachel McAdams, who originated the role in 2004, was perfect for that era’s imagination of the American dream girl but Renee Rapp is the rightful evolution of it. And boy can she sing!

Everything within this version of ‘Mean Girls’ pretty much follows the same narrative beats as the original. What is different is now that instead of Cady Heron’s narration, the voice-over is now song numbers and each girl gets a chance to reflect on their interior worlds. While Karen (played by Avantika) gets a humorous dance song about how young women can dress sexy during Halloween (as a reflection on the misplaced needs of young teen girls to be thought of as hot), it is Gretchen Wiener’s (Bebe Wood) song about her own insecurities that allows her to let Regina step all over her add something new and layered to the character.

Certain jokes remain the same – fetch is still there, and so is “she doesn’t even go here” – though others have been replaced with new jokes; some that work and some that don’t but what is surprising is that the core message of ‘Mean Girls’ has not changed over the years, but it still feels timely and important until now. The usage of the elements of social media and the internet somehow fits perfectly into the story and manages to highlight the overturning of Regina George’s popularity in favor of Cady and this is done really well with this new intrusion. It manages to showcase how shallow and petty all the noise in social media can be. One day they are praising Regina and the next, they are making fun of her and praising Cady.

This new ‘Mean Girls’ doesn’t quite top the original. It’s hard to do. What it does, though, is that it takes everything good about the first and dresses it up in modern sensibilities and makes it sing and dance and have really good scene transitions. With the vocal prowess of Cravalho and Rapp pushing it along for good measure, the film manages to justify its production and gives us a pretty fun time in the cinema in the process.

My Rating:

Mean Girls is now showing. Check screening times and buy tickets here.

February 13, 2024
MOVIE REVIEW: The unserious ‘Lisa Frankenstein’ struggles to make its quirks and whimsical elements come together

The moment I stepped out of the cinema after watching ‘Lisa Frankenstein,’ I had to really think about what I had just seen. It is an oddball of a film, a mixed bag of genres – Is it gothic-horror-comedy? Is it a dark, satirical, coming-of-age story? Is it an anti-romance movie with gothic inflections? – with so many quirks both in the script and direction that everything about the movie is distracting. The worst part was not knowing what the film was really about or what it was trying to do.

Set in the late 1980s, Lisa Swallows (Kathryn Newton) is living in an unnamed town with her dad, stepmom (Carla Gugino), and step-sister (Liza Soberano). Lisa is a survivor of a horrible attack where she witnessed her mother get killed by an axe murderer. She’s now an awkward teenager living with her oppressive, vicious stepmother and her cloyingly perfect, cheerful stepsister. She finds solace in spending time alone in an abandoned cemetery and dreaming about dying, lying on the ground side-by-side six feet under beside her favorite marked grave. After a rager where Lisa is drugged, embarrassed, and even sexually assaulted leaves her disoriented and walking home during a freak storm, for some crazy unexplained reason, a ball of lightning strikes the cemetery and brings the corpse of her favorite marked grave alive (Cole Sprouse).

From an awkward, antisocial teenager, the appearance of the undead boy somehow brings Lisa out of her shell. She dresses in Madonna circa 1980s-inspired outfits (with inflections of Stevie Nicks and the hippie-witch aesthetic) and her character does a drastic character change. She becomes more driven by her sexual desires and starts to fight back against the forces that have tried to bring her down – her stepmother and the boy who assaulted her – including being an accomplice to murder.

Because while Lisa is discovering her own strength and voice, the undead boy is slowly putting himself together, taking body parts from his victims so that he can be whole again. Throughout this process, he looks less and less like a zombie, throwing loving glances at the self-absorbed Lisa, and going through the entire movie communicating merely through grunts.

It’s a strange movie because there is no moral center that anchors this film. Yes, the murders that happen are bad and thus paint our protagonist, and unlikely romantic leads, as bad people but never does the film ever treat them as such. They are heroes in the way director Zelda Williams and writer Diablo Cody decide to depict them. The film turns each act of violence as comedic moments but never posits a stance about it. This ambiguity is refreshing but what it does is that it invalidates and undermines any moment of emotional weight that the film may try to achieve later on.

There are some interesting subversive elements within the film like Soberano’s Taffy. What would be a Regina George-esque character in any other film, is actually very sweet and genuine and is unafraid to call out her vicious mother and honestly try to treat Lisa like her sister. It’s a role that Soberano manages to portray with great aplomb. When things start to get hairy and Taffy and Lisa’s own relationship is put through the grinder, there’s a touching scene where Lisa finds a vulnerable moment and opens up to Taffy. It would have been more powerful had the film managed its quirky, ambiguous tone better. It’s hard to take this scene seriously when nothing else in the movie asks for that same treatment.

From the get-go, Williams’ and Cody’s treatment and style of this world is exaggerated and highly stylistic. It almost feels animated. Lines are delivered in such a mannered way that, at first, I thought everyone was overacting. It wasn’t until the movie stretched out that I realized everyone was acting in the same hyper-real way. It was a tonal direction – everything a little over-dramatic – that I saw the directorial control. Unfortunately, much like many aspects of the film, there’s no underlying intention behind any of it. It’s all quirky and unserious about everything – the romance aspect, the horror aspect, the gothic aspect, even the coming-of-age aspect – nothing is fully committed to by the creative team.

By the time the film ends, I felt no real connection to this world, to these characters, or to the experience. ‘Lisa Frankenstein’ felt like a hodgepodge of many great ideas and was shot and produced before any real development was put into the piece. Newton is acting up a storm but without any real context or grounding element to her character, for all her commitment, she ends up just seeming spastic and overdone. On the other hand, Gugino and Soberano find a sweet spot within the weird tone of the movie and somehow fit right in. They work completely in this movie even if the movie never really gets off the ground. I’m usually a huge fan of Diablo Cody’s work. Her previous films like ‘Young Adult’ and ‘Tully’ are just amazing works that get under your skin. Unfortunately, ‘Lisa Frankenstein’ does the opposite. It feels like an experiment in tone and whimsy that didn’t quite succeed.

My Rating:

Lisa Frankenstein is now showing. Check screening times and buy tickets here.

February 10, 2024