Desire is vast; it’s also a double-edged sword. Much like love, desire, as Euripedes put it, doesn’t win the game. It changes it. In Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog (adapted from Thomas Savage’s novel of the same name), wealthy brothers Phil and George Burbank (played by Benedict Cumberbatch and Jesse Plemons) meet a… Continue reading ‘The Power of the Dog’: Desire is a Double-Edged Sword
Much can be said about Jonathan Larson’s short-lived life. He’s best known for the musical Rent, which success he tragically failed to see after a sudden death. A gifted playwright, Larson spent his 35 years of life dedicated to writing and composing musicals about grief, love, and a bucket load of questions: Fear or love?… Continue reading ‘Tick, Tick… Boom!’: An Ode to Life’s Urgency to Create
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
Spoilers ahead. There’s a point in Trese that I find really interesting; something that pops out even outside the messy plot and the extremely convoluted double-twist ending. It’s when Datu Talagbusao (voiced by Steve Blum in the English dub) tells Trese that what she has been defending, the Accords—an agreement between the engkanto and the… Continue reading ‘Trese’: Dealing With the Lies of the Past
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
Spoilers ahead Some stories are better left untold. By itself, Four Sisters and a Wedding had been established as a staple in the Philippine entertainment industry, from the meme-worthy lines, the sisters themselves, and the familiar theme of family ties. Regardless of its formulaic and predictable premise, the film managed to balance light-hearted humor with… Continue reading ‘Four Sisters Before the Wedding’: A Spitting Image of the Original
Any onscreen portrayal of a father-child relationship pales in comparison to the nuanced nature of fatherhood. Fathers in the media are often depicted in different ways, ranging from abusive to caring to devoted. However, this varied depiction is few and far in between. Black fatherhood in particular suffers from the stereotype of being absent in… Continue reading ‘Concrete Cowboy’: On Fatherhood and Belonging
There are two ways in which sapphic stories are portrayed on screen. A lot goes into these categories, mind you, but let's simplify them: good sapphic films and bad sapphic films. Ride or Die somehow straddles the line, but it tips over to undesirable at best and downright problematic at worst. Adapted from Gunjou, a… Continue reading ‘Ride or Die’ Isn’t the Sapphic Runaway Film of Our Dreams
Moxie is a 2021 film directed by Amy Poehler based on a 2015 book by Jennifer Mathieu. It's about a young girl named Vivian (played by Hadley Robinson) who decides to start an underground zine in her school as a way of promoting feminist ideals in their extremely sexist school and encouraging her classmates to… Continue reading ‘Moxie’: Same Formula, Same Tools
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
Sine Liwanag 