Known for her award-winning documentary One Child Nation, the fearless Nanfu Wang returns to the screens with one of the century’s most relevant documentaries In the Same Breath. Releasing it a year after the onset of the COVID-19 virus, In the Same Breath vividly relives everything—from our last taste of normalcy to our first sip… Continue reading ‘In The Same Breath’: Unmasking the Real Virus
Spoilers ahead. Last seen Kanye-ranting about the small diameter of a Pringles can and Chipotle’s messy burritos in Make Happy, Bo Burnham bounces back five years later with Inside, a brilliant comedy-meets-meta Netflix special that is sure to stay with you for days, or even months. Directed, written, filmed, edited, scored, and starred in by… Continue reading Bo Burnham’s ’Inside’: Zooming in A Digital Caveman’s Painfully Hilarious Quarantine Diary
Pre-pandemic, we were attuned to our regular rhythms, completely clueless that in just a whiff, they would be interrupted forever. Now, as we’re still soaked in a period of uncertainty, Sound of Metal, a non-pandemic film, shakes us and pokes us with the question, “How are you accepting the fact that things will never be… Continue reading ‘Sound of Metal’ is a Sonic Portrait of Accepting One’s Post-Normal
It's quite impressive of Disney to be thoughtful and flexible in transforming their princesses over the generations. It’s almost never talked about, but it can be pretty overwhelming how creating a Disney princess can be a huge responsibility. If you look at it closely, it's beyond a documentation of an era; it's also building an… Continue reading ‘Raya and The Last Dragon’: More Than A Disney Princess’ Trust Issues
After fleeing from her abusive husband Gary (Ian Lloyd Anderson), a young Irish mother named Sandra (Clare Dunne) reconstructs her life by DIY-building her own house for her two children in Phyllida Lloyd’s (known for Mamma Mia! and Iron Lady) third and recent empowering film Herself. Dunne, who also wrote the film, gracefully embodied her… Continue reading ‘Herself’: An Empathetic, Cinematic Manual for Self-Builders
Pixar goes meta by successfully merging philosophy and jazz to create a vibrant and soul-warming animated feature film called Soul, its most ambitious work to date. Released last Christmas on Disney+, Soul gave the perfect holiday gift of existential bliss (and crisis) to its viewers. The film follows a jazz pianist named Joe Gardner (voiced… Continue reading ‘Soul’ is a near-death (and near-life) experience
Yorgos Lanthimos has this eerily satisfying way of creating a dystopian atmosphere around the concepts of human behavior. If you have been following his work, you know how he can effortlessly bend his audience and turn them into hollow but enlightened souls just as the credits roll. If you have an affinity for dark comedies… Continue reading ‘Nimic’: Mimicry at Its Most Discomforting
Sine Liwanag 