The original West Side Story, as a musical film and a cultural touchstone, is strangely both tied to the time period it was made in (seen by the fact that many of the actors were white folks in brownface), and also progressive and timeless and provocative in its message, craft, and presentation. A loose adaptation… Continue reading ‘West Side Story (2021)’: The Dazzled and the Damned
In Lana Wachowski’s The Matrix Resurrections, we find Thomas Anderson, A.K.A. Neo (played by Keanu Reeves), having to choose whether to take the red pill or the blue pill while watching a similar scene from the first Matrix movie projected on the screen of an abandoned theater, with Morpheus (played by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) showing… Continue reading ‘The Matrix Resurrections’: Destroying the Illusion of Binaries in Society
Down and Dirty Cinema explores exploitation films and how they helped shape the cinema of today. *** Watching the opening sequence of Blood and Black Lace, it feels like you’re in for a ride. There’s a hall of mannequins lit in colorful neon lights; jazzy music plays in the background as the camera pans over… Continue reading ‘Blood and Black Lace’: The Yellowed Mysteries of Giallo Films
Christmas films are usually a different beast from the typical movies made with the expressed goal of bringing hope in hopeless times. Normally, the inspirational aspect of these films comes not from extraordinary people or events, but from ordinary people with ordinary morals and failings. They come together in this time of year to find… Continue reading Hope in The Time of Chaos: How Action Films Make Great Christmas Films
Spoilers ahead. There’s a great scene in the final season of Atypical that provokes a burst of freedom in me every time. Casey (played by Bridgette Lundy-Paine) has just decided to quit track and drop out of Clayton. She was only in that high school in the first place because she runs super fast, but… Continue reading ‘Atypical’: Finding and Reclaiming Your Humanity
As the film community watched Cannes move its dates multiple times, other festivals scrambled to find a better alternative to continue. Cases were rising everywhere and no one could see the situation get any better in time for the Fall festival circuit. Venice then announced that it will continue with a limited number of films.… Continue reading Online Film Festivals: A Pandemic Alternative for a Safer Moviegoing Experience
It has always been an enthusiastic feat for every cine fan of the country to traverse through the year with so many film festivals and projects to look forward to, especially in 2020 when the Philippine entertainment industry looked very promising—at least for the first two months before everything fell apart. All ongoing productions were… Continue reading How Should Moviegoing Change After the Pandemic?
No one in the film industry has created dream scenes the way David Lynch has. He conveys a visceral reaction through his direction similar to how someone experiences an actual dream. His work has inspired iconic television shows such as The Sopranos, The OA, Veronica Mars, and The Fringe, as well as countless young directors… Continue reading Exploring the Unconscious with David Lynch
Contains Spoilers for the Netflix film Malcolm & Marie Malcolm & Marie, the 2021 Netflix film written and directed by Euphoria creator Sam Levinson, is the kind of movie that could only be a must-see event during a pandemic. It’s a bare-bones, black-and-white, single-location drama with only two actors on screen, and a script that… Continue reading ‘Malcolm & Marie’ and The Grizzly Business of Inspiration
Breakups in film have always been portrayed as a painful and dramatic experience: the heated exchanges between couples, the tearful parting, and a resolution where they either reconcile or find someone new. Turning to film and seeing these did not provide a lot of comfort and hope when I had to deal with my own… Continue reading On Post Break-Up Films: The Beginnings they Offer After Endings
Sine Liwanag 