REVIEWS: ‘POOR THINGS,’ ‘AMERICAN SYMPHONY’
The Academy Awards will happen on 11 March (Philippine time) and we have less than a month to check out all the nominees available to us. Here are two more Oscar-nominated films — Best Picture…
Netflix’s Oscar contenders: ‘After Life’ and ‘The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar’
The Oscars are upon us! Two short films on Netflix will compete in this year’s Academy Awards for Best Live Action Short: the heavy drama After Life and the whimsical fantasy-comedy The Wonderful Story of…
REVIEW: ‘PRISCILLA,’ A TRUE-TO-LIFE DARK FAIRY TALE
If Baz Luhrmann’s 2022 Elvis is Elvis Presley’s story, then Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla is Priscilla Presley’s story. There is no comparison. Both are essential viewing. Coppola opens the film in 1959 at a diner in…
6 AWARDS-SEASON MOVIES TO STREAM
The Hollywood awards season has officially kicked off, and here are six Oscar-buzz movies that you can stream now. 1. SOCIETY OF THE SNOW J.A. Bayona’s Society of the Snow is among the 15 shortlisted…
REVIEW: ‘FIREFLY’— Wondrous premise, wanting storytelling
Zig Dulay’s MMFF Best Picture winner Firefly centers on Tonton (Euwenn Mikaell), a 10-year-old boy who lives alone with his young mother, Elay (Alessandra de Rossi), in a bucolic, sunset-soaked coastal town. Life is pretty…
MY TOP 10 FILMS OF 2023
My top 10 films of 2023 were chosen and ranked according to their cinematic impact and the joy these films brought to my soul — with number one the best of them all. It’s important…
Review: ‘GomBurZa’ — Compact, taut, intelligent
One should not expect a biographical drama in Pepe Diokno’s GomBurZa. The film is not a portrayal of the three famously executed Filipino Catholic priests — Frs. Mariano Gomes, Jose Burgos and Jacinto Zamora —…
Smorgasbord of horror
REVIEW: 'MALLARI' Here’s a true story: If London had a Jack the Ripper in the 1800s, Pampanga had a Juan Severino Mallari — a Catholic parish priest in Macabebe during the Spanish colonial period who…
Comedy in an unconventional space
As the sun sets, the open-air theater comes alive in one of the corners of the historical Baluarte de San Diego in Intramuros, Manila. Nature becomes the stage for the Tagalized adaptation of one of…
MMFF Horror ‘KAMPON’ Designed for Derek Ramsay
In Kampon, Derek Ramsay’s character Clark cannot conceive a child with wife Eileen, played by Beauty Gonzalez (who starred in the recent Sundance horror In My Mother’s Skin). They’ve been trying for eight years already…