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Source: http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

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Anderson"/><category term="Stephen Sondheim"/><category term="Steve DeKnight"/><category term="Steve Gordon"/><category term="Steven Knight"/><category term="Steven Shainberg"/><category term="Stuart Gordon"/><category term="Studio Ponoc"/><category term="Sylvain Chomet"/><category term="T'Boli"/><category term="Taiwan"/><category term="Takashi Miike"/><category term="Takashi Yamazaki"/><category term="Ted Chiang"/><category term="Terence Rattigan"/><category term="Terry Jones"/><category term="Tetsuro Araki"/><category term="The Hague"/><category term="Theodore Sturgeon"/><category term="Thomas Hardy"/><category term="Thomas M. Disch"/><category term="Tian Zhuangzhuang"/><category term="Tim Hetherington"/><category term="Tim Miller"/><category term="Timur Bekmambetov"/><category term="Todd Haynes"/><category term="Tom Holland"/><category term="Tom McCarthy"/><category term="Tom Six"/><category term="Tom Tykwer"/><category term="Tomm Moore"/><category term="Tony Kushner"/><category term="Travis Knight"/><category term="Treb Monteras II"/><category term="Truman Capote"/><category term="Tsugumi Oba"/><category term="Venezuela"/><category term="Venice Film Festival"/><category term="Veronica Velasco"/><category term="Veronika Franz"/><category term="Victor Erice"/><category term="Victor Sjostrom"/><category term="Victor Villanueva"/><category term="Vincent Minnelli"/><category term="Vincenzo Natali"/><category term="Walter Hill"/><category term="Walter Keane"/><category term="Wes Craven"/><category term="Whit Stillman"/><category term="William Pascual"/><category term="Woody Allen"/><category term="Xavier Gens"/><category term="Yasim Ostaoglu"/><category term="Yeon Sang-ho"/><category term="Yilmaz Guney"/><category term="Ying Liang"/><category term="Yoji Yamada"/><category term="Yoko Kanno"/><category term="Yuen Bun"/><category term="Zacharias Kunuk"/><category term="Zeki Demirkubuz"/><category term="Zig Dulay"/><category term="alternate version"/><category term="art"/><category term="blood diamond"/><category term="fant"/><category term="gothic"/><category term="jacques Audiard"/><category term="jake Kasdan"/><category term="magic realism"/><category term="the Dardannes"/><title type='text'>Critic After Dark</title><subtitle type='html'></subtitle><link rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#feed' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default?redirect=false'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/'/><link rel='hub' href='http://pubsubhubbub.appspot.com/'/><link rel='next' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default?start-index=26&max-results=25&redirect=false'/><author><name>Noel Vera</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/05904212081036547668</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhFGuWELWMo9OjoDwjBzTbiUrgfyqvjbwDaHz6DeIA0oINpB_5KVEDaN-6wNnpHaVZMr9NCJr43ySze-txyN5BblMcnkdzmQMw3ZuM2sEapbF7ymPifolTd_PtpTWj6FU/s220/journal+pics+6.jpg'/></author><generator version='7.00' uri='http://www.blogger.com'>Blogger</generator><openSearch:totalResults>1263</openSearch:totalResults><openSearch:startIndex>1</openSearch:startIndex><openSearch:itemsPerPage>25</openSearch:itemsPerPage><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12690266.post-4917977429269932233</id><published>2025-07-08T14:15:00.002-04:00</published><updated>2025-07-09T13:10:25.338-04:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Action"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="CGI Effects"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Drama"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Monster"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Science Fiction"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="sequel"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Steven Spielberg"/><title type='text'>Jurassic World: Rebirth (Gareth Edwards, 2025)</title><content type='html'><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBOGlFFt3-umtUr831pnn7Nw3wV9t8Ay_hlOgXSQD2aD9Gre8O7a14bRHhb1gyssTSGT6tvAGjrepyZGwLMwa_A66DmErwgKT-sbtcqv1a7Z3fNLe-vPz8AQRUQX_aqFyCE3Z8mxZ4iZi_bxf6weEBjbpJMAh8Oko8uVjNv-du-O9G9ljF7Gv-/s4096/image16.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1716" data-original-width="4096" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBOGlFFt3-umtUr831pnn7Nw3wV9t8Ay_hlOgXSQD2aD9Gre8O7a14bRHhb1gyssTSGT6tvAGjrepyZGwLMwa_A66DmErwgKT-sbtcqv1a7Z3fNLe-vPz8AQRUQX_aqFyCE3Z8mxZ4iZi_bxf6weEBjbpJMAh8Oko8uVjNv-du-O9G9ljF7Gv-/w400-h168/image16.jpg" width="400" /></a></div> It's Alive VII: Island of the AliveAs if anything could actually kill the franchise-- comes <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt31036941/">Jurassic World: Rebirth</a>, and this time it's all dressed up in basic retro: reuse, refurbish, reboot.New characters, same strategy: bunch of people on island, well equipped well organized; things go pearshaped, and what used to be a mission (fact-finding, creature-hunting) is now an escape drama, the survivors doing best with what they got, mainly wits and guts ready to spill at moment's notice.<a name='more'></a>That's not a diss, mind; something to be said about doing that's been done before, only doing it well with integrity and maybe some spin for freshness. We have a team of mercenaries lead by an underhanded corporate executive-- yes he's a trope but in this day and age can you believe they're anything but?-- and a hapless family (Latinex this time round) along for the ride. The two groups are separated, the vulnerable one exposed to traditional threats (mud slides; Velociraptors; Dilophosaurus; T-Rex) while the veterans continue their quest to obtain DNA samples and face more esoteric menaces (Spinosaurus,&nbsp;Quetzalcoatlus). The two groups later reunite to confront the island's special collection of mutated creatures (Mutadons; D-Rex), specially saved up for the big finale.Helps to have David Koepp back-- he who wrote the first two chapters, trimming back Michael Crichton's DOA scientific exposition and enlivening the cardboard characters, fashioning a functional structure inspired by Howard Hawks' Hatari!&nbsp;for the latter. The Lost World is easily my favorite of the franchise, as Koepp 1) ditches the aw shucks sense of wonder that slows down much of the first picture, 2) makes Jeff Goldblum's Ian Malcolm the cynically witty scientifically prescient doomsayer of the latter, and 3) allows Spielberg-- condemned to be more family oriented and paternally nurturing, especially of kids in the audience-- to focus on the kind of amoral tonally cruel Rube Goldberg suspense setpieces he used to do early in his career, in better films like Duel or&nbsp;Jaws.Been downhill since, though I did like William Macy's sadsack hustler businessman in Jurassic lll. At least with this latest Koepp makes an effort to humanize the dino fodder-- expedition leader Zora (Scarlett Johansson) is a mercenary; scientific consultant Dr. Loomis (Jonathan Bailey) a nerd with the most terrifying manner of chewing Altoids; ship Cap'n Kincaid (Mahershala Ali) a melancholy figure estranged from his wife. Daddy Reuben (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) struggles to accept lazy Xavier (David Iacono) as his possible future son-in-law (yikes), while Bella (Audrina Miranda) adopts a small dino for a pet (which they're sneaking past customs-- how, exactly?).Helps to have Gareth Edwards, yet another veteran creature feature filmaker (<a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2014/05/godzilla-gareth-edwards-2014-locke.html">Godzilla</a>, anyone?), who manages to channel moments even minutes of Spielberg's original magic (I'd call the Mosasaurus&nbsp;hunt the best tribute/remake of Spielberg's Jaws to date) and who manages to conjure memorable images of his own (Zora hanging upside down over the Mosasaurus' gigantic topaz-pearl eye; Cap'n Kincaid wading into a swamp, lit flare in one hand casting a lovely ruby glow on the massive&nbsp;D-Rex close behind him).&nbsp;Not the best of the lot (see above) but not the worst (see previous three movies); not even the best of Edwards, who in the aforementioned Godzilla, <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2016/12/rogue-one-garth-edwards-2016.html">Rogue One</a>, and <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2023/10/the-creator-gareth-edwards-2023.html">The Creator</a> was a far better storyteller. And for all its megasized production values and high wattage star power it isn't half as fun and fleet on its feet as Ben Wheatley's <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2023/08/the-meg-2-trench-ben-wheatley.html">Meg 2: The Trench</a>, made only a scant two years ago.I'd say the multimilliondollar question is this will there be a sequel? Depends on this picture's performance, of course (apparently very promising) and depends on whether or not the movies's makers see a possible future direction-- a more anthropomorphized D-Rex I assume, which already has the perversity of the human form about it, massive arms, apelike posture, swollen cranium and all.&nbsp;Jurassic World: D-Rex Takes Manhattan anyone?&nbsp;<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcuJtDXiUVPXGKyyys0RgLRECm8Imv74aJ329qH7Mr5cey-v-NHbF6ZIy64zMvWCLazYg2pbZ8U1-v6PWqElhPZBrQEgEh1G8jBjzhWm5clAsqEve6IPd0zhEYEIvCrDChJiDZLREr1qF2hSDd5MVsuVB3fKa4VSeAcfOtvJR8yKGe47k0LZnV/s4044/image2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2694" data-original-width="4044" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcuJtDXiUVPXGKyyys0RgLRECm8Imv74aJ329qH7Mr5cey-v-NHbF6ZIy64zMvWCLazYg2pbZ8U1-v6PWqElhPZBrQEgEh1G8jBjzhWm5clAsqEve6IPd0zhEYEIvCrDChJiDZLREr1qF2hSDd5MVsuVB3fKa4VSeAcfOtvJR8yKGe47k0LZnV/w400-h266/image2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://www.bigomagazine.com/theshop/books/NVcritic.html">Critic After Dark: a Review of Philippine Cinema</a></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/feeds/4917977429269932233/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment/fullpage/post/12690266/4917977429269932233' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/4917977429269932233'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/4917977429269932233'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2025/07/jurassic-world-rebirth-gareth-edwards.html' title='Jurassic World: Rebirth (Gareth Edwards, 2025)'/><author><name>Noel Vera</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/05904212081036547668</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhFGuWELWMo9OjoDwjBzTbiUrgfyqvjbwDaHz6DeIA0oINpB_5KVEDaN-6wNnpHaVZMr9NCJr43ySze-txyN5BblMcnkdzmQMw3ZuM2sEapbF7ymPifolTd_PtpTWj6FU/s220/journal+pics+6.jpg'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBOGlFFt3-umtUr831pnn7Nw3wV9t8Ay_hlOgXSQD2aD9Gre8O7a14bRHhb1gyssTSGT6tvAGjrepyZGwLMwa_A66DmErwgKT-sbtcqv1a7Z3fNLe-vPz8AQRUQX_aqFyCE3Z8mxZ4iZi_bxf6weEBjbpJMAh8Oko8uVjNv-du-O9G9ljF7Gv-/s72-w400-h168-c/image16.jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12690266.post-8964776739130224155</id><published>2025-06-24T03:46:00.002-04:00</published><updated>2025-06-25T11:54:22.535-04:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Danny Boyle"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Drama"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="England"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="George Romero"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Horror"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="sequel"/><title type='text'>28 Years Later (Danny Boyle, 2025)</title><content type='html'><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDgpZwo7D7zmnPhBPBfzUXManKceMnlTMDQrsT_tQQqcKA5XERUmKthrOkHahPj7bGKu5zGKFA1ZycPDmClgiXRsWZSsN4cjnHTLwnHo6-fT6Izb3UY4WcIV1vl5IpsLR7Jrj9tIOKWdMSOyIjX63KDrwOFTzW42ZktaZhicK12q6-mc03FECa/s1200/28-years-later-emaciated-infected.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="630" data-original-width="1200" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDgpZwo7D7zmnPhBPBfzUXManKceMnlTMDQrsT_tQQqcKA5XERUmKthrOkHahPj7bGKu5zGKFA1ZycPDmClgiXRsWZSsN4cjnHTLwnHo6-fT6Izb3UY4WcIV1vl5IpsLR7Jrj9tIOKWdMSOyIjX63KDrwOFTzW42ZktaZhicK12q6-mc03FECa/w400-h210/28-years-later-emaciated-infected.webp" width="400" /></a></div></div><div> </div>Dead on arrival
Charles Dickens got it right. 
Some hundred and eighty years ago, he wrote a passage in Oliver Twist describing a haunting:&nbsp;He could trace its shadow in the gloom, supply the smallest item of the outline, and note how stiff and solemn it seemed to stalk along. He could hear its garments rustling in the leaves, and every breath of wind came laden with that last low cry. If he stopped it did the same. If he ran, it followed--not running too: that would have been a relief: but like a corpse endowed with the mere machinery of life, and borne on one slow melancholy wind that never rose or fell.That sentence-- not running too: that would have been a relief-- is key. The undead are not in a hurry, they are never in a hurry; if they ever for once hurried that would break the tension.&nbsp;<a name='more'></a>That's what made <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2007/10/day-of-dead-george-romero-1985.html">George Romero's</a> undead so unsettling, that touch of the supernatural. You can run, you can even fight back, you can mow them down like so much grass, but none of your responses or even your non-response ultimately matter; they know-- and you know-- that they will munch on you in the end. George Romero's undead are worse than confident they're indifferent, like the rising tide-- do what you will or do nothing the tide will rise past your nose no matter what you do.&nbsp;And that's what I find risible about Danny Boyle's 'zombies:' they run, they scamper, they sprint as if afraid you'll get away. They have no confidence; they're pathetically insecure wimps compared to Romero's. They're ZINAs-- Zombies In Name Only, posers that work extra hard to earn some reputation for fearsomeness.&nbsp;&nbsp;Behind the narrative logic there's storyteller's logic: running zombies as a threat is an easy way to create tension onscreen; the more artful goal is to evoke the kind of existential dread Dickens managed to create in the last chapters of Twist, and that Romero managed in all his Dead films, even the <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2010/10/survival-of-dead-george-romero-2009.html">meanest budgeted</a> and clumsiest examples.&nbsp;And yes I know I know Boyle insists his aren't undead they're infected with the Rage virus, a detail that recategorizes his pictures as closer in spirit to Romero's The Crazies-- which I also prefer, for the cleaner more coherent more pointedly political filmmaking-- over Boyle's.&nbsp;&nbsp;That's why I was never a fan of 28 Days Later; was even less of a fan of 28 Weeks Later; was mildly surprised to find&nbsp;<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10548174/">28 Years Later</a>&nbsp;better than I expected, but still less than impressive. Boyle boasts of using using lightweight digital cameras in his first movie (in this production an array of IPhones) that allow for quick convenient filming but the net result are chase and fight sequences that feel phoned-in; the footage is too shaky the editing too frenetic to help you orient yourself and know what's really going on (recall Alfred Hitchcock's recipe for onscreen thrills: "whenever possible the public must be informed"). Any sense of suspense that might accumulate is quickly frittered away and lost.&nbsp;O the movie isn't a total loss. The latter part involving Ralph Fiennes and Jodie Comer come off as unexpectedly fine; the times when Boyle manages to choke down a tranquilizer his camera takes to the air and gives us breathtaking shots of the northern English landscape-- recall that Boyle was chosen to orchestrate the 2012 Olympics, suggesting his style of smash-n-grab, occasionally pretentious lyricism, thicksmeared sentimentality is the official filmmaking style of the United Kingdom (apparently Ken Loach, Mike Leigh, and Terence Davis among others don't command enough boxoffice to qualify). I say 'sentimental' but in this case Boyle is kept nicely restrained by the sober presence of Ralph Fiennes (with able support from Jodie Comer and Alfie Williams) and the intellectual chill of Alex Garland. This is fairly valid mythmaking stuff, with a few cogent things to say about death and our response to it, and Boyle's filmmaking literally rises to the occasion, capping the movie with a clean-picked skull on a particularly tall tower of bone.&nbsp;That latter name does give rise to the question: couldn't they have made Garland the director? The writer-filmmaker's more contemplative style would have perfectly suited the picture's latter half, made intriguing contrast with the picture's more frenetic first half (apparently the job was offered to Garland, who turned it down because he was exhausted from working on back-to-back projects).&nbsp;Too bad-- a purely Garland picture would have made for an appropriately sober third chapter to this trilogy, no further sequels needed, but apparently the filmmakers saw fit to introduce a team of Power Rangers to the brew. Who's to blame for that last-minute insertion-- Garland? Boyle? Sounds more like Boyle's style (meanwhile noting that the fight sequences in the Power Rangers TV series were considerably more coherent than Boyle's) but Garland is human and capable of mistakes. Stay tuned for the next installment in the franchise.&nbsp;&nbsp;<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqVONxCCEua43IGlUHMyEwX72fUnGyF75lBu2I5epR48atfIHS4KaOnF2VdqUbLnWb_taeF_SFltXgVgw2fp8GVoLUrVBtwd9eB0h4_UDNCAWAqBDpuhuLQS9hN1-94ogvPodTEjjSGXpDHXkn3vSSk3WQOJcLExyELCZMe7qvQZxL5iUezota/s2000/DF-02268_r_2000x1409_thumbnail.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1409" data-original-width="2000" height="281" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqVONxCCEua43IGlUHMyEwX72fUnGyF75lBu2I5epR48atfIHS4KaOnF2VdqUbLnWb_taeF_SFltXgVgw2fp8GVoLUrVBtwd9eB0h4_UDNCAWAqBDpuhuLQS9hN1-94ogvPodTEjjSGXpDHXkn3vSSk3WQOJcLExyELCZMe7qvQZxL5iUezota/w400-h281/DF-02268_r_2000x1409_thumbnail.webp" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://www.bigomagazine.com/theshop/books/NVcritic.html">Critic After Dark: a Review of Philippine Cinema</a></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/feeds/8964776739130224155/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment/fullpage/post/12690266/8964776739130224155' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/8964776739130224155'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/8964776739130224155'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2025/06/28-years-later-danny-boyle-2025.html' title='28 Years Later (Danny Boyle, 2025)'/><author><name>Noel Vera</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/05904212081036547668</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhFGuWELWMo9OjoDwjBzTbiUrgfyqvjbwDaHz6DeIA0oINpB_5KVEDaN-6wNnpHaVZMr9NCJr43ySze-txyN5BblMcnkdzmQMw3ZuM2sEapbF7ymPifolTd_PtpTWj6FU/s220/journal+pics+6.jpg'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDgpZwo7D7zmnPhBPBfzUXManKceMnlTMDQrsT_tQQqcKA5XERUmKthrOkHahPj7bGKu5zGKFA1ZycPDmClgiXRsWZSsN4cjnHTLwnHo6-fT6Izb3UY4WcIV1vl5IpsLR7Jrj9tIOKWdMSOyIjX63KDrwOFTzW42ZktaZhicK12q6-mc03FECa/s72-w400-h210-c/28-years-later-emaciated-infected.webp" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12690266.post-8760660561967966777</id><published>2025-06-18T12:01:00.000-04:00</published><updated>2025-06-18T12:01:11.562-04:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Celine Song"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Comedy"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Drama"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Independent"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="New York"/><title type='text'>Materialists (Celine Song, 2025)</title><content type='html'><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmjcpugvvSSFi_SFgtAszpT6d8uRlOdPrcamF8ezPXV9sz3QCd4xQF3S6JOUL5RgCCNy-B3GUvBFMYewQx3A8EvqOAQsnsHNbqGIwEinvsSdFB6-VntUeQxO84lOYTvMVW_-3llMlcHxR8aHmxyhYm4xYmlYS99s41yP4izCWciHYgKuTYz7hw/s1707/Brody-Materialists.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1707" data-original-width="1707" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmjcpugvvSSFi_SFgtAszpT6d8uRlOdPrcamF8ezPXV9sz3QCd4xQF3S6JOUL5RgCCNy-B3GUvBFMYewQx3A8EvqOAQsnsHNbqGIwEinvsSdFB6-VntUeQxO84lOYTvMVW_-3llMlcHxR8aHmxyhYm4xYmlYS99s41yP4izCWciHYgKuTYz7hw/w400-h400/Brody-Materialists.webp" width="400" /></a></div>Surface tensionCeline Song's <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt30253473/">Materialists</a> on the surface is about the business of matchmaking-- an industry on the rise with the difficulty of online dating and of life in general (New York in particular); prices are not mentioned but looking at the clothes the characters wear and the milieu they inhabit you can probably figure it's in the five to six figure range for an annual service.So the movie looks good and the cast looks handsome and the conversation in the trailer sufficiently sparkled (not Billy Wilder league much less Ernst Lubitsch divine but bubbles popped)-- is the actual experience worth it?<a name='more'></a>I think so. Key is central figure Lucy, and as Dakota Johnson plays her she's a smooth silky operator, holding clients' hands and smoothing ruffled feathers and convincing them they're swans even if they're really waddling penguins (to be fair the casting here is almost uniform-- no one is outrageously unconventional looking (personally feel that's a disappointment), and any of these prospectives would probably do well on Tinder). She hums with professionalism and you're both soothed and stimulated by the hum.&nbsp;<div> </div><div>Enter Harry (Pedro Pascal), brother of one of Lucy's more successful matches, and he's what Lucy describes as a 'unicorn,' an impossibly perfect match: rich, intelligent, good looking, and tall (height is a major topic in this movie, making me feel not a little insecure about my 5'10" stature (for the record Pascal is 5'11''-- but of course he'd be wearing inserts for extra inches)). Is there chemistry? Sure-- you feel anything Pascal stares at would start to smoulder almost immediately.&nbsp;</div><div> </div><div>Enter John (Chris Evans, six feet flat), Lucy's ex, who deftly inserts himself into the scene serving Lucy her drinks (a coke and a beer); John ticks off almost all the boxes (tall intelligent good looking) only he works as part time server to a catering company and acts onstage other times, so unicorn he ain't-- more like standard-issue stallion with baggage.&nbsp;That's the situation, a tale as old as time: girl wants Mr. Right but is dazzled by the opulence of Mr. Wrong. Sitch evokes Jane Austen's Emma, only Austen had the skill to blindside you again and again with romantic curveballs while this is so pared down the scenario can only play out so many ways, any surprise possible would come down to the details.&nbsp;Strangely ethnicity doesn't come up as an issue-- Harry's isn't discussed much if at all (I could have missed it) and he definitely doesn't court Lucy with his exoticism, just a kind of bland Gatsbyness (swap him out with a younger Robert Redford and you basically have the same movie). Not sure I like the idea that all-American Evans is the answer to Lucy's dreams while Chilean-born Pascal isn't (Captain America over The Mandalorian? Over Joel Miller? Over Oberyn fucking Martell?!), but Song quietly shuffles the question aside (this is about materialism, dammit!) pretending it doesn't exist, and I'm wondering: why shouldn't it? Because it raises one uncomfortable question too many?&nbsp;Also didn't enjoy the fact that the food porn was held at arms' length-- I recognize Nobu Downtown, and L'Abeille, and Sushi Ichimura, all establishments way out of my price range, but would it have killed them to talk a little more about the cuisine? Do a little <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2023/02/the-menu-mark-mylod-2022.html">Menu</a>-ing? Maybe throw in an unusual or even fun venue like I don't know Sammy's Roumanian or Naks in the East Village? Noodles once romanced Deborah by shutting down an entire restaurant in Once Upon a Time in America&nbsp;for their date, complete with orchestra-- couldn't Harry sweep Lucy away with a similarly grand gesture?But I forget, this is a picture about relationships and while the schema is simple even predictable, Song does write honestly sharp and canny dialogue, and Johnson and Pascal-- and Evans-- know how to wield them to their respective advantage. Shots are fired, palpable points made, and Evans gets in a few body blows on behalf of aspiring eternally hungry artists everywhere, while Johnson manages to put everything in relatively sane perspective (it's personal, Sonny, it's not strictly business).Maybe my biggest gripe is that Song's previous film Past Lives drew blood; this mostly makes pinpricks, is more an enjoyable even thoughtful amuse-bouche than a substantial meal. Absolutely Materialists is worth a look-- just if you're bringing a first-time date you might consider wearing inserts in your shoes, for the extra advantage.&nbsp;<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3aD0B2wv3EZU3o4UQlL1yda6Jkx5GH2JOslsiYtZKZ8lshVJADF_GGrubutyKkqIZcr8XjxiYywl3CI1i8P08E3H8iHKI363GwJwRj7rfsCxh3zrb2TmohW8gHJSU8MU0bSOGAIZ8g573eSuJh4sBymfHglJlH38Wsjolsu6SMAqHRwP9yerf/s599/download%20(42).jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="399" data-original-width="599" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3aD0B2wv3EZU3o4UQlL1yda6Jkx5GH2JOslsiYtZKZ8lshVJADF_GGrubutyKkqIZcr8XjxiYywl3CI1i8P08E3H8iHKI363GwJwRj7rfsCxh3zrb2TmohW8gHJSU8MU0bSOGAIZ8g573eSuJh4sBymfHglJlH38Wsjolsu6SMAqHRwP9yerf/w400-h266/download%20(42).jpeg" width="400" /></a></div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://www.bigomagazine.com/theshop/books/NVcritic.html">Critic After Dark: a Review of Philippine Cinema</a></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/feeds/8760660561967966777/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment/fullpage/post/12690266/8760660561967966777' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/8760660561967966777'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/8760660561967966777'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2025/06/materialists-celine-song-2025.html' title='Materialists (Celine Song, 2025)'/><author><name>Noel Vera</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/05904212081036547668</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhFGuWELWMo9OjoDwjBzTbiUrgfyqvjbwDaHz6DeIA0oINpB_5KVEDaN-6wNnpHaVZMr9NCJr43ySze-txyN5BblMcnkdzmQMw3ZuM2sEapbF7ymPifolTd_PtpTWj6FU/s220/journal+pics+6.jpg'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmjcpugvvSSFi_SFgtAszpT6d8uRlOdPrcamF8ezPXV9sz3QCd4xQF3S6JOUL5RgCCNy-B3GUvBFMYewQx3A8EvqOAQsnsHNbqGIwEinvsSdFB6-VntUeQxO84lOYTvMVW_-3llMlcHxR8aHmxyhYm4xYmlYS99s41yP4izCWciHYgKuTYz7hw/s72-w400-h400-c/Brody-Materialists.webp" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12690266.post-2852336866182619873</id><published>2025-06-10T04:14:00.001-04:00</published><updated>2025-06-10T13:09:10.455-04:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Drama"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Filipino"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Filipino Film Industry"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Lino Brocka"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Nora Aunor"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="restoration"/><title type='text'>Bona (Lino Brocka, 1980) 4K Restoration on the big screen</title><content type='html'><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEYpivcL2MrepWoUhJ2s9k1QLQG-uA38kHl_SoFv1FDwU_Jq-PJJgjNMlXuWxw66YdroBxNdbpfU9fQ-SqvV5Jh1xSLW_G2kOgBe_E4oHTsYCshoUKC4JOGoxomNxMjJcag44mcvCaStSRhItO7OFnkokrKuyVlEmU9xNHW6tUGkO7XtOroKlG/s1163/bona2-1536x864.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="862" data-original-width="1163" height="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEYpivcL2MrepWoUhJ2s9k1QLQG-uA38kHl_SoFv1FDwU_Jq-PJJgjNMlXuWxw66YdroBxNdbpfU9fQ-SqvV5Jh1xSLW_G2kOgBe_E4oHTsYCshoUKC4JOGoxomNxMjJcag44mcvCaStSRhItO7OFnkokrKuyVlEmU9xNHW6tUGkO7XtOroKlG/w400-h296/bona2-1536x864.jpg" width="400" /></a></div> </div>Close to youThis early shot in <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082093/">Bona</a> (1980) I think says it all.What's so remarkable about Nora Aunor's face here is just how unremarkable it looks in that sea of faces, standing in the brainfrying streets of Quiapo. The biggest star in all of Philippine cinema crammed in a crowd like sardines in a can, and she doesn't just look as if she doesn't stand out, she looks as if she belonged there, milling among the pious, the pickpockets, the prostitutes, all out in force on the Feast of the Black Nazarene. After all when you think about it: what's the point of appearing as the lead in a Filipino film if you don't look like a typical Filipino?<a name='more'></a>And Nora didn't just look typically Filipino she looked quintessentially Filipino-- the slim build, the petite stature, the light caffeine skin, the dark hair and even darker eyes, the mole that punctuates one corner of the face.&nbsp;Even more remarkable than that first glance is how malleable Nora's looks can be, how she can morph almost instantly to represent any number of things: a mousy little daughter here and in <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2021/04/the-court-of-public-opinion-mario.html">Bakit Bughaw ang Langit?</a>; a steely&nbsp;provinciana&nbsp;in <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2007/02/tatlong-taong-walang-diyos-three-years.html">Tatlong Taong Walang Diyos</a>; a world-weary nightclub singer in <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2025/03/tatlong-ina-isang-anak.html">Tatlong Ina Isang Anak</a>; an enigmatic icon in <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2009/06/indiobravo-film-festival-brillante.html">Himala</a>. She can shrink into the background or flash out in anger, break into unforced laughter or do a perfectly timed faceplant from a just-opened doorway. Looking weak she can suddenly turn and overwhelm you with a glare; as you steel yourself for another outburst she cracks and reveals her wounded inner self. She surprises every time, constantly catches you off-guard, is almost impossible to second-guess.&nbsp;Combine that face and presence with cinematographer Conrado Baltazar's unmatched skill in color and lighting and you have a woman of infinite variety who 'makes hungry where she most satisfies.' This isn't just the first time I've seen the 4K restoration on the big screen but the first time I've seen the film on the big screen, period, and it's a glorious experience-- the sea of heads in the opening sequence, swirling around the massive statue of the Black Nazarene; the squatter area Gardo (Philip Salvador) lives in, as vividly sketched as in <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2018/04/insiang-lino-brocka-1976.html">Insiang</a> (which Baltazar also lensed) with its muddy alleys and rickety shacks and harsh incandescents; the gorgeous intervals when Bona gazes at the sunset in Manila Bay-- a rare palate cleanser between long sessions of urban squalor-- where a warm glow fills the screen and shows just how lovely Nora can be when gently illuminated. I mourned the loss of color to the only surviving print of Tatlong Taong Walang Diyos (one solution to which turned out to be regrading the film in <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2024/12/three-years-without-god-in-depth-in.html">black and white</a>), and realized while viewing this films that yes this is what Baltazar is capable of when his cinematography is allowed to be presented with color palette intact-- in terms of richness of hue and sheer emotional impact, I think his work can stand without embarrassment next to Christopher Doyle's, or even Vittorio Storaro's.&nbsp;And of course with a star like Nora and an artist like Baltazar, Brocka can only employ a story* that not only brilliantly turns Nora's status on its head, that not only uses the classic Nora trope of the beleaguered underdog but leans hard into said trope, presenting Bona as not just the lowest of the low but willingly allowing herself to be treated that way (of course I've argued that this was actually psychological jiu-jitsu, and that Bona <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2021/01/bona-lino-brocka-1980.html">manipulated others through her underdog status</a> as if not more cannily than she herself has been manipulated).&nbsp;*(by the late Cenen Ramones, a diminutive scriptwriter about as tall (as <a href="https://cenenramones.wordpress.com/about/">described</a> by actor/filmmaker Soxy Topacio) as Nora herself, who has done regular work on television but has apparently written only one feature screenplay (tho to be honest if I was that writer and resulting film was Bona I'd die a happy scribe))I'll also note that as in Insiang Brocka delights in including vignettes of slum life, such as the drinking session that progresses right next to the funeral wake (and the chaos that follows), and Gardo demanding that a neighbor open their front door, only to end up carrying said door-- lifted easily off its frame-- back to his own shabbily appointed shanty (if anything the vignettes are livelier and more wittily drawn than in the earlier film).I'll also note the clever use of two songs, both times when we see Bona bathing Gardo with warm water: Jimmy Webb's 'MacArthur Park' with its bizarre expression of yearning ("I don't think that I can take it / Cause it took so long to bake it / And I'll never have that recipe again") reflecting Gardo's ambitions to become a movie star and Bona's own desire for Gardo; and-- near film's end-- Burt Bacharach and Hal David's 'Close to You,' as bright and cheerful a song about longing as can be, the perfect counterpoint to Bona's now-hopeless longing to stay with Gardo.&nbsp;"On the day that you were born," Bacharach and David write "the angels got together / And decided to create a dream come true" Nora is a dream of an actress-- brilliant, thoughtful, volatile, in profound direct contact with the camera and through the camera with our chaotic subconscious selves, always ready to show us our ideals, our fantasies, our deepest fears and ugliest vulnerabilities. With Bona she plays to both: she gives us the fantasy of Philippine Superstar humbling herself to play housemaid not just to an actor but a wannabe actor struggling to find roles, basically the lowest of the low; and she reveals to us the kind of unhesitating unthinking ugly fanaticism we-- in particular we Filipinos, and in particular particular we Noranians-- can open ourselves to when we're not careful. Great film, worth catching on its limited run on the big screen.&nbsp;&nbsp;<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-hhQbOVp2TtWt2paVTTWGMu6WsEX38bke_tyu91kG_ElE3yHFKxLmrCfi1tuB0o6FtMu3cNrqXBm2fnfFzEIhO7242ULzC9cHlenSKidB9_R8xXdoHUKYZrRw6L6u4DVfnTGmMHDB-lVLm56K4RVha5Hh-pA41HmlLuOd_6YfpvkRhdK-DQnt/s1428/AnyConv.com__FwqHEJwWcAICAb5.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1013" data-original-width="1428" height="284" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-hhQbOVp2TtWt2paVTTWGMu6WsEX38bke_tyu91kG_ElE3yHFKxLmrCfi1tuB0o6FtMu3cNrqXBm2fnfFzEIhO7242ULzC9cHlenSKidB9_R8xXdoHUKYZrRw6L6u4DVfnTGmMHDB-lVLm56K4RVha5Hh-pA41HmlLuOd_6YfpvkRhdK-DQnt/w400-h284/AnyConv.com__FwqHEJwWcAICAb5.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://www.bigomagazine.com/theshop/books/NVcritic.html">Critic After Dark: a Review of Philippine Cinema</a></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/feeds/2852336866182619873/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment/fullpage/post/12690266/2852336866182619873' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/2852336866182619873'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/2852336866182619873'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2025/06/bona-lino-brocka-1980-4k-restoration-on.html' title='Bona (Lino Brocka, 1980) 4K Restoration on the big screen'/><author><name>Noel Vera</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/05904212081036547668</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhFGuWELWMo9OjoDwjBzTbiUrgfyqvjbwDaHz6DeIA0oINpB_5KVEDaN-6wNnpHaVZMr9NCJr43ySze-txyN5BblMcnkdzmQMw3ZuM2sEapbF7ymPifolTd_PtpTWj6FU/s220/journal+pics+6.jpg'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEYpivcL2MrepWoUhJ2s9k1QLQG-uA38kHl_SoFv1FDwU_Jq-PJJgjNMlXuWxw66YdroBxNdbpfU9fQ-SqvV5Jh1xSLW_G2kOgBe_E4oHTsYCshoUKC4JOGoxomNxMjJcag44mcvCaStSRhItO7OFnkokrKuyVlEmU9xNHW6tUGkO7XtOroKlG/s72-w400-h296-c/bona2-1536x864.jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12690266.post-8664069852310317055</id><published>2025-06-05T13:55:00.001-04:00</published><updated>2025-06-05T13:55:07.218-04:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Action"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Belgium"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Drama"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Franchise"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Hong Kong"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="John Woo"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Neorealism"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="sequel"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="the Dardannes"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Thriller"/><title type='text'>Mission Impossible 2 (John Woo, 2000), Rosetta (the Dardennes, 1999)</title><content type='html'><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJi5OYz4MkCZ4HqQ_xNB7g3DPjfNY_SLokGgs06YlGkTMiVGqS6c8OsxDkg-bGmQ5CSLWWpiT6dGxDWdUgnBs45cvyw56JYq5ouK3U72Nwnzne9mvBZpqMKGlXbC0M3kqwyAO1fxDPgOKTyNWaacqD55x7hvGOc8OaenlZDZSN99lO1aVMSLbc/s1600/mission-impossible-2-tom-cruise.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJi5OYz4MkCZ4HqQ_xNB7g3DPjfNY_SLokGgs06YlGkTMiVGqS6c8OsxDkg-bGmQ5CSLWWpiT6dGxDWdUgnBs45cvyw56JYq5ouK3U72Nwnzne9mvBZpqMKGlXbC0M3kqwyAO1fxDPgOKTyNWaacqD55x7hvGOc8OaenlZDZSN99lO1aVMSLbc/w400-h266/mission-impossible-2-tom-cruise.webp" width="400" /></a></div> </div>Midget Impossible

Movie begins with Cruise climbing an impossibly sheer cliff. He slips; he recovers; he hangs ten several thousand feet off the ground. This being a John Woo film, credibility is not a very big issue, but “cool” is--as it turns out, the entire elaborate rock-climbing sequence was staged just so Cruise can rendezvous with a pair of telecommunicating Ray-Bans, shot at him via rocket launcher from a hovering helicopter. The shades instruct Cruise on what he is to do for the next two hours…which, come to think of it, pretty much sums up how Cruise has handled his acting career to date.

<a name='more'></a>Welcome to <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120755/">Mission Impossible 2</a>, or as the impossible-to-avoid marketing blitz has been shrieking at us for the past few months: MI:2! MI:2! Lalo Schifrin’s music pounds away like a masseur on massive caffeine overdose; the movie flings explosions, automatic gunfire, flying motorcycles at our faces as if they would go out of fashion by tomorrow (actually they have, years ago, but no one wants to admit it).

Let’s cut to the chase: Woo here is hardly at his best. Back when he was making Hong Kong action flicks he used fast cuts and tightheld shots to generate excitement-- basic tools in an action director’s trade, brought by Woo to a new level of virtuosity. His action is swift enough and extravagant enough to be just this side of impossible, and part of the thrill is in pulling off those stunts with little more than a camera and a few nimble actors (if you say “easy enough, given a few editing tricks,” you haven’t seen Woo’s films). MI:2&nbsp;digitally tweaks these action sequences so that they’re just this side of this side of his usual standard of impossible. He’s pushed his action further, but the thrill is gone: you know it’s all done with the push of a keyboard button.

Still, there's grace and elan to the action; if Woo is simply pushing buttons, at least he pushes with style. Substandard Woo is still head and shoulders above hacks like Michael Bay (The Rock) or Simon West (Con Air), the secret being Woo choreographs his action (even digitized) not simply as action but as musical numbers ( not for nothing does the film pay homage to West Side Story). Bay and West will cut and shoot for impact and maximum crunch, but Woo goes for rhythm and flow; the sequences sing, if slightly off key and to a more mediocre melody.

But there’s more to Woo than just action; if there wasn’t, we can dismiss him as a nimbler Tony Scott, a more talented Robert Rodriguez. Woo's known for the homoerotic intensity of his male relationships-- witness Tony Leung Chiu Wai and Chow Yun Fat in Hard Boiled&nbsp;or Chow and Danny Lee in The Killer, or even the three childhood friends--Tony Leung (again), Jacky Cheung, and Waise Lee--in Bullet in the Head. Woo piles on the male-bonding romanticism till your cup runneth over; he presents two (or three) friends almost as lovers, looking at each other with moist and longing eyes (if totally chaste; they may lay down their life for each other but never for a second is it suggested that they would lay each other).

Cruise, on the other hand, is all by his self-regarding self in MI:2; he isn’t helped--or makes sure he gets no help (read: competition) from his costars. Dougray Scott, engaging as a hapless prince in Ever After, makes for a pallid supervillain; Thandie Newton is gorgeous beyond belief and performs a crucial act of self-sacrifice, but does little else (women are little more than decorative accessories in John’s Wooniverse).

All this might not have mattered--digitized action, bloodless adversary, unmemorable cast--if the film didn’t have such a hollow bore as producer er center; I’m speaking of the Cruise Missile, a wet firecracker if I ever saw one. Brian De Palma, who directed the first <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2021/04/mission-impossible-1996.html">Mission Impossible</a>, seemed to have a better handle on Tom’s limitations as an actor-- he kept his star quiet and intense for most of the film, distracting you with Robert Towne’s overcomplicated screenplay and a few amusing cameos (a sharp Jon Voight, an even better Vanessa Redgrave). Woo is too much of a straight man; he takes Cruise’s stardom at face value, presenting Cruise as red-hot lover (Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut&nbsp;made a more accurate assessment of the vertically-challenged Cruise’s romantic appeal, or total lack of), and as all-around superhero and martial artist (Cruise is not and never will be Jet Li, no matter how many gigabytes are spent digitizing his roundhouse kicks).

Robert Towne, again writing the screenplay, doesn’t help matters by lifting the basic plotline of Alfred Hitchcock’s Notorious&nbsp;with Thandie playing double agent between Cruise and Scott. While Cruise pines for Thandie… who squirms under Scott… who’s suspicious of the two of them… you can’t help but feel that Woo, a sucker for love triangles (check out Once a Thief&nbsp;or better yet the aforementioned Bullet in the Head), could have gotten better mileage out of the material if he had an actor with real talent to work with: Nicholas Cage maybe or better yet, Woo’s original cinematic alter ego, Chow Yun Fat. Chow threw off sparks practically all by himself in Anna and the King&nbsp;(Jodie Foster wasn’t much help); he would have taken to Cruise’s role of pimp and lover with understated flair and great natural ease. Someone should take up a collection to get these two-- Chow and Woo-- together again and soon. Meanwhile, someone should take up another collection and buy Cruise a pair of platform shoes.

As for a film with some real storytelling--how about checking out Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardennes’ <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0200071/">Rosetta</a>, showing for the entire day on July 20, Thursday, at Glorietta 4, as part of the Best of Cinemanila&nbsp;series?

The film, winner of the 1999 Golden Palm at Cannes, is the plainspoken story of a girl named Rosetta who, as the film begins, has just lost her job, and is being dragged kicking and screaming away.

A grim film, as grim as any I’ve seen-- Rosetta, soft pink face set in emotional granite, goes forth to survive by any means possible, and the film chronicles the full implication of the term “any means.” She scrimps and saves every penny; she holds on to scrap of cloth or wire or potentially useful material of any kind as if they were gold-- which to her they are. She sets fishing lines by a muddy river to catch muddy fish, and asks for job openings at every establishment she walks into. When she finally gets a chance, at the kitchen of a Belgian waffle manufacturer, she works with an intensity so fierce they won’t have any excuse to fire her. When she is fired anyway-- because the owner has to give the job to his son-- Rosetta struggles with equal ferocity, clutching a heavy sack of flour as tightly as if it was a life-buoy and she was about to go under.

The Dardennes brothers, who did the powerful (and to my mind even better) La Promesse, like to tell their social-realist tales straight-- not for them the reality-snapping kicks and punches of Cruise on Woo mode. The film is shot almost entirely with a handheld camera (avoid the front seats of the theater if you don’t want to get dizzy); there’s no artificial lighting to speak of, no special effects or set design, no music. It could almost be a Dogme 95 film, except that it’s set in Belgium and far less pretentious-- the Dardennes only want to tell their story, not set a trendy new fashion in filmmaking. Emilie Dequenne as Rosetta looks impossibly young, seems impossibly real-- you wonder if she ever manages to shake off her character’s unstoppable anger when she steps away from the camera.

Aside from the deus ex machina ending, there’s little to fault in Rosetta,&nbsp;a refreshingly honest and straightforward film, an antidote to the excess and noise of the standard Hollywood blockbuster. And especially after the digitized fizz of something like MI:2&nbsp;with its lukewarm lead star this film hits you like a shot of Scotch, straight, no chaser.
First published in <a href="https://www.bworldonline.com/">Businessworld</a> 11.4.00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN2eV5x6jzJpy5uPWzZ_byH-NxepnHwENDJV4KY4r_x7D2T84RO25YzhbTJD98NgkyMOfjw7bmLUL6GKAUgwwDYtyGMY6YA8trp1QBzv0MlsOo69RVKOoyPPIrfb8IISlaz4qZmIt76aTwe17cygn3WhWG1KjJ6bWwNKy3LTWmZQ-a3e19StCP/s1280/images-original.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="1280" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN2eV5x6jzJpy5uPWzZ_byH-NxepnHwENDJV4KY4r_x7D2T84RO25YzhbTJD98NgkyMOfjw7bmLUL6GKAUgwwDYtyGMY6YA8trp1QBzv0MlsOo69RVKOoyPPIrfb8IISlaz4qZmIt76aTwe17cygn3WhWG1KjJ6bWwNKy3LTWmZQ-a3e19StCP/w400-h300/images-original.webp" width="400" /></a></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://www.bigomagazine.com/theshop/books/NVcritic.html">Critic After Dark: a Review of Philippine Cinema</a></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/feeds/8664069852310317055/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment/fullpage/post/12690266/8664069852310317055' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/8664069852310317055'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/8664069852310317055'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2025/06/mission-impossible-2-john-woo-2000.html' title='Mission Impossible 2 (John Woo, 2000), Rosetta (the Dardennes, 1999)'/><author><name>Noel Vera</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/05904212081036547668</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhFGuWELWMo9OjoDwjBzTbiUrgfyqvjbwDaHz6DeIA0oINpB_5KVEDaN-6wNnpHaVZMr9NCJr43ySze-txyN5BblMcnkdzmQMw3ZuM2sEapbF7ymPifolTd_PtpTWj6FU/s220/journal+pics+6.jpg'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJi5OYz4MkCZ4HqQ_xNB7g3DPjfNY_SLokGgs06YlGkTMiVGqS6c8OsxDkg-bGmQ5CSLWWpiT6dGxDWdUgnBs45cvyw56JYq5ouK3U72Nwnzne9mvBZpqMKGlXbC0M3kqwyAO1fxDPgOKTyNWaacqD55x7hvGOc8OaenlZDZSN99lO1aVMSLbc/s72-w400-h266-c/mission-impossible-2-tom-cruise.webp" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12690266.post-5712378158834590865</id><published>2025-05-25T12:20:00.002-04:00</published><updated>2025-05-29T13:52:01.156-04:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Action"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Christopher McQuarrie"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Drama"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Franchise"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="sequel"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Thriller"/><title type='text'>Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning</title><content type='html'><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh1wDy26SfVv33PixcZXzDmFfm6jh7Lu7sDycy4HqSOnMs5ZzfP-uzCo8UayDm619JnrgPCoiuqwi9Jb2GEapqxFBU0sX09eKyaZcrJ1eznGIYeAh5UVgEj2RVJfRdvziwi4kcTn03gMJ8GCh2UjiMkOiuOvmXOcs9vy3cLyau42cg4MDgkALU/s1024/Capture-30-1024x562.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="562" data-original-width="1024" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh1wDy26SfVv33PixcZXzDmFfm6jh7Lu7sDycy4HqSOnMs5ZzfP-uzCo8UayDm619JnrgPCoiuqwi9Jb2GEapqxFBU0sX09eKyaZcrJ1eznGIYeAh5UVgEj2RVJfRdvziwi4kcTn03gMJ8GCh2UjiMkOiuOvmXOcs9vy3cLyau42cg4MDgkALU/w400-h220/Capture-30-1024x562.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>Run, Ethan run!Gotta hand it to Tom Cruise: he took a nifty little TV series about a group of low-key intelligence operatives that work together as a team to solve near-impossible problems and turned it into a gigantic one-man showcase where a star-producer reportedly risks his life again and again on bigger more elaborate stunt setpieces, in gargantuan productions that, y'know, celebrate the beauty of self-sacrifice and teamwork.&nbsp;<a name='more'></a>And the running, always the running. Cruise can sprint, I'll give him that; last time I went after a kid gone AWOL was the first time I found I had bone spurs-- and I'm years younger than this movie's lead. He doesn't have to rub it in my face every chance he gets, tho.&nbsp;My favorite MI will always be the original TV show; my <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2021/04/mission-impossible-1996.html">favorite feature</a>&nbsp;is the first with its clever Robert Towne script and stylish Brian de Palma direction-- a lot of sensual gliding shots, a handful of choice suspense setpieces (one stolen off Topkapi-- if you must, steal from the best), a minimum of digital effects. The second has been pissed on by most every movie critic and TikToker I know but is in my book the most underrated, with its operatic John Woo visual style and cool Hans Zimmer score (no the script doesn't make sense but film is Mission Impossible not Mission Absolutely Realistic). The third with JJ Abrams-- eh. Philip Seymour Hoffman made for a nifty villain. The fourth with the addition of Jeremy Renner and Simon Pegg was a fun mix of comedy and suspense.&nbsp;The succeeding movies I don't really remember save they were directed by some screenwriter promoted to director and the stunts got bigger in direct proportion to the budget. The auteur is and has always been Cruise, of course; De Palma just happened to sneak in a few subversive notes back when Cruise was only starting to flex his producer's muscles, and Woo was coming off the success of Face/Off&nbsp;(besides Woo has been known to riff off flimsier scripts). With Christopher McQuarrie Cruise presumably has the gun-for-hire he wants, someone to carry out instructions to the letter: basically more stunts, more closeups, more running.On the stunts-- granted they're not exactly a walk in the park but hard to believe any insurance company will underwrite anything really dangerous, at least nothing that can't be digitally erased in post-production. If you want an honest-to-goodness action star who takes risks, look at early Jackie Chan-- not only did most of his stunts under the kind of sketchy safety conditions Hong Kong filmmaking can afford, but you can see when the stunts go wrong, in the outtakes attached to the closing credits-- blooper reels where Chan fumbles or fails and half the time is carried out in a stretcher. Been said the man has broken every bone in his body for his movies; not sure Cruise shows anywhere near that level of commitment.&nbsp;This one is maybe two hours of exposition and callbacks to the best of the previous missions, a kind of glorified clip show/recap, then a rehash of the submarine salvage and deep-dive sequences in&nbsp;The Abyss only not as dangerous-looking (because McQuarrie isn't nuts like James Cameron used to be); an admittedly nifty biplane fight that takes a bit too long, with moments borrowed from Chuck Yeager's skydive in&nbsp;The Right Stuff; some presidential War Room drama from&nbsp;Dr. Strangelove&nbsp;with much of the tension and all of the wit drained away; and a briefcase lifted from of all things Pulp Fiction, which in turn purloined said baggage from Kiss Me Deadly-- a far far better picture than either this, The Abyss, OR&nbsp;Pulp Fiction&nbsp;combined.Don't get me started on the script (When Cruise wakes in a decompression chamber dude beside me quipped "You're not Nicole Kidman!"-- Cruise should have hired him for additional dialogue). The big bad now is The Entity, a sort of HAL 9000 without the teasing personality or sly humor, who controls not just nuclear arsenals but reality itself; Cruise's Hunt isn't just fighting for democracy but for humanity-- literally the savior of the world.&nbsp;What's hilarious is that Cruise tries not to make too big a deal about it. "You're about the survival of your team" villain Gabriel (Esai Morales) notes; Cruise as Hunt later claims "I'm expendable." Yeah right-- that's not Simon Pegg's name on top of the poster, or Hayley Atwell's giant closeups, or Ving Rhames' running getting all that screen time. When Hunt talks with Grace (Atwell) about trapping and maybe controlling The Entity, Hunt asks "Who'd you trust with all that power?" Grace looks at him meaningfully.&nbsp; A sly wink at a possible presidential run? God I hope not-- last thing this world needs is yet another celebrity in the White House.&nbsp;<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnhyf99GdAi-UfIQ-gHsSwxHMrICuGJNl_uSfqsag_phNFDujwu-80ErZwvJbnzbk721VA9hqIxcaSo13quwuQdGKuhfiE79LXnnwHrmi8_zObli1wwuADcLqdAv3z5T_HukLThcQracig4mw0XR3TDYdfR-xRcix_tOD9t1jmQZT9OybV_FfS/s1200/mission_impossible_running.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="1200" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnhyf99GdAi-UfIQ-gHsSwxHMrICuGJNl_uSfqsag_phNFDujwu-80ErZwvJbnzbk721VA9hqIxcaSo13quwuQdGKuhfiE79LXnnwHrmi8_zObli1wwuADcLqdAv3z5T_HukLThcQracig4mw0XR3TDYdfR-xRcix_tOD9t1jmQZT9OybV_FfS/w400-h225/mission_impossible_running.webp" width="400" /></a></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://www.bigomagazine.com/theshop/books/NVcritic.html">Critic After Dark: a Review of Philippine Cinema</a></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/feeds/5712378158834590865/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment/fullpage/post/12690266/5712378158834590865' title='2 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/5712378158834590865'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/5712378158834590865'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2025/05/mission-impossible-final-reckoning.html' title='Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning'/><author><name>Noel Vera</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/05904212081036547668</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhFGuWELWMo9OjoDwjBzTbiUrgfyqvjbwDaHz6DeIA0oINpB_5KVEDaN-6wNnpHaVZMr9NCJr43ySze-txyN5BblMcnkdzmQMw3ZuM2sEapbF7ymPifolTd_PtpTWj6FU/s220/journal+pics+6.jpg'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh1wDy26SfVv33PixcZXzDmFfm6jh7Lu7sDycy4HqSOnMs5ZzfP-uzCo8UayDm619JnrgPCoiuqwi9Jb2GEapqxFBU0sX09eKyaZcrJ1eznGIYeAh5UVgEj2RVJfRdvziwi4kcTn03gMJ8GCh2UjiMkOiuOvmXOcs9vy3cLyau42cg4MDgkALU/s72-w400-h220-c/Capture-30-1024x562.jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>2</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12690266.post-2100586907557931140</id><published>2025-05-22T13:04:00.002-04:00</published><updated>2025-05-28T12:13:42.920-04:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Action"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="adaptation"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Comedy"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Comic book"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Drama"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Jake Schreier"/><title type='text'>Thunderbolts* (Jake Schreier, 2025)</title><content type='html'><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAGtC7kRICgTrg8xdJmkOuPQ_CVssKBU85U0ne7kCRbrgWtX3u-ZX8Y_Si14I-VzE54HDvmulSHZ1ZZGk9TVlH7LSM12J9RPoujX7Aqyzk3prFdwSkVsLGlyaFqG4ke9ggyKmhJONYBN34XXE9G1WRtLy_TszzwnaEdSRDgiQGP-xug8Usq7Ad/s2859/85h_1a_627b23f3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1608" data-original-width="2859" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAGtC7kRICgTrg8xdJmkOuPQ_CVssKBU85U0ne7kCRbrgWtX3u-ZX8Y_Si14I-VzE54HDvmulSHZ1ZZGk9TVlH7LSM12J9RPoujX7Aqyzk3prFdwSkVsLGlyaFqG4ke9ggyKmhJONYBN34XXE9G1WRtLy_TszzwnaEdSRDgiQGP-xug8Usq7Ad/w400-h225/85h_1a_627b23f3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>The B-Team**(Not the real Avengers)So about that asterisk in the title-- (skip this one paragraph if you haven't seen the picture!) turns out it's exactly what it signifies, a mark meant to refer to a footnote or omitted matter, in this case the movie's real name&nbsp;The New Avengers, suggesting several things: 1) this is about the level of humor we're getting here on out, more meta and complicated and not that much funnier, and 2) this movie and the characters in it are placeholders for when the real thing arrives.&nbsp;Which is both unfair and totally appropriate. <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt20969586/">Thunderbolts*</a>&nbsp;takes the classic premise of misfits so misbegotten they can't possibly work together and somehow contrive that they not only do so but also win the day: think the original <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2012/05/avengers-joss-whedon-2012.html">The&nbsp;Avengers</a> (2012), or (off the top of my head)&nbsp;Stripes (1981), or before that and without superpowers (or even military hardware) The Bad News Bears&nbsp;(1976); think all the way back to one of the earliest misfit teams ever assembled for impossible missions, Akira Kurosawa's 1954&nbsp;Seven Samurai, with Florence Pugh in the Kambei Shimada role of putative leader and David Harbour in the Kikuchiyo role of big-hearted comic relief.&nbsp;<a name='more'></a>Throw in John Walker (Wyatt Russell) as dishonorably discharged super-soldier; Hannah John-Kamen as Ava Starr, who can phase through solid walls; Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), former Winter Solider struggling in the role of US House Representative; and one Bob (Lewis Pullman)-- a random clueless dude in pajamas who shows up out of nowhere, just because. All pitted against the Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), director of the CIA, who's everything poor Bucky is not: when Congressman Gary (Wendell Pierce) calls her 'Ms. Fontaine' the Contessa promptly corrects him: "Ms. DE Fontaine; when you address the Secretary of Defense, you don't call him the Secretary of Fence."The Contessa is a formidable foe for the team but much of the picture is spent wondering if the team will ever form at all, a fairly entertaining proposition; half the time they're bickering (which can be fun), other times they're fending off troops sent by La Contessa to wipe them out (and thus all record of her criminal activities)-- not as much fun, but to his credit Schreier directs these sequences as coherently edited, somewhat inventively staged battles, part influenced by the John Wick movies (directed by stuntman turned filmmaker Chad Stahelski), part by Captain America: The Winter Soldier&nbsp;(bruising fight choreography by James Young).&nbsp;Which means not a lot of super-powering, and I for one like that; easy on the digital effects. Course that means most audiences used to gods whizzing about the air lifting entire locomotives and firing lightning bolts might be bored stiff... but maybe not; maybe there's actually a stable sustainable market for the more realistic stuff, however ludicrously premised. Might help if the budget wasn't over $100 million, tho.&nbsp;On the sense that the picture is a placeholder-- that's partly its weakness partly its strength. It flies its freak flag proudly, declaring its second-tier status for all to hear, draws strength from the fact that no one sees it coming and no one expects it to perform (so when it does a decent job it gets a standing ovation). That goes for every character in the movie; when it turns out Bob isn't that unimportant after all, it falls to Yelena and the bit of rapport she's built with Bob and her vast experience of being the lesser-known daughter of a family of losers (the one noted exception being her deceased older sister)... sure, I can buy that, why not?&nbsp;The movie's big weakness? We've seen all this before, from the losers-turned-winners premise, to Yelena drawing from life experience to help others, to the doofus in pajamas who turns out to be the 800 pound gorilla in the room. Did I mention&nbsp;Seven Samurai? Maybe as far back as the bible: "the stone the builders have rejected has become the cornerstone." Preach it, Moses.&nbsp;Bob's later slippages in and out of minds and memory recalls <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2023/05/eternal-sunshine-of-spotless-mind.html">Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind</a> without Charles Kaufman's free-floating wit and ethereal romanticism; Yelena's traumas recall Natasha's back in the Avengers days and while Florence Pugh is arguably the better actress than Scarlett Johansson (she's taken riskier roles in general, and pulled them off well) I don't see her doing more than suggesting the kind of psychic burden her character might actually bear, inside of a PG-13 comic-book action movie.&nbsp;Not even leaving this godforsaken universe, when it comes to onscreen bickering there's James Gunn's <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2014/08/guardians-of-galaxy-james-gunn-2014.html">Guardians of the Galaxy</a> movies, and maybe it's a matter of degree and intensity than any real difference in concept, but why do I find Gunn's band of losers far more endearing and inventive and entertaining than Schreier's? Is it the number of jokes per minute, or the possibility that Gunn really feels the zen of being barrel-bottom and bitterly rebelliously defiantly funny about it? Maybe the sense that they're not trying to be funny, simply telling it as it is (or as they feel it) and because of circumstance and because they're so pathetic and the odds so badly stacked against them the bile comes out hilarious and unintentionally heroic?&nbsp;As for the look... gave up having any expectations for Marvel movies years ago, back when real filmmakers (<a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2017/07/spider-man-2-sam-raimi-2004.html">Sam Raimi</a>, <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2008/06/incredible-hulk-louis-leterrier-2008.html">Ang Lee</a>) actually directed the pictures. Ryan Coogler made a go at it and at least created a compelling villain in Michael B Jordan (his longtime actor collaborator) but was ultimately defeated by the Marvel house style; <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2021/11/the-eternals-chloe-zhao-2021.html">Chloe Zhao</a> attempted and her effort was more character-driven than usual but easily the worst in her filmography (if the best of recent Marvel efforts). The last picture I had any hopes for was Raimi's 2022&nbsp;<a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2022/05/dr-strange-in-multiverse-of-madness-sam.html">Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness</a> and it had brief flashes here and there, even entire sequences... but was ultimately upstaged by the smaller-budgeted Everything Everywhere All At Once&nbsp;(The Daniels, 2022),&nbsp;and the even teenier-budgeted Filipino independent&nbsp;<a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2023/03/leonor-will-never-die-martika-ramirez.html">Leonor Will Never Die</a>&nbsp;(Martika Ramirez Escobar, also 2022-- what dimensional portal opened to release both pictures into this universe that same year, stymieing the mighty Marvel agenda?!).&nbsp;Meantime, I spotted this name in the closing credits: Kevin Feige. O him. Earned billions for his studio, provided me zero pleasure to date. The real supervillain of the picture.&nbsp;First published in <a href="https://www.bworldonline.com/arts-and-leisure/2025/05/16/672753/the-b-team/">Businessworld</a> 5.16.25<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJvoJ9wbfSrwECLYNIfH_dkTFGCcoVzTScZEF5SpWenYSdycMaHOx73DbAD8xpOA5lDqTPZy6Li-HUOz9TEalJYULytah1hdIlqsiasZ8V-iZFsNMB-j0ds4Maa36uk1m_SMSwWs3J3Q2DqCbcfkHHiOBUgaoHrXW8dgZ_Fb3MIII0pFzo7-QX/s3840/ezgif-66cf656cf35089.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2560" data-original-width="3840" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJvoJ9wbfSrwECLYNIfH_dkTFGCcoVzTScZEF5SpWenYSdycMaHOx73DbAD8xpOA5lDqTPZy6Li-HUOz9TEalJYULytah1hdIlqsiasZ8V-iZFsNMB-j0ds4Maa36uk1m_SMSwWs3J3Q2DqCbcfkHHiOBUgaoHrXW8dgZ_Fb3MIII0pFzo7-QX/w400-h266/ezgif-66cf656cf35089.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://www.bigomagazine.com/theshop/books/NVcritic.html">Critic After Dark: a Review of Philippine Cinema</a></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/feeds/2100586907557931140/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment/fullpage/post/12690266/2100586907557931140' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/2100586907557931140'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/2100586907557931140'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2025/05/thunderbolts-jake-schreier-2025.html' title='Thunderbolts* (Jake Schreier, 2025)'/><author><name>Noel Vera</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/05904212081036547668</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhFGuWELWMo9OjoDwjBzTbiUrgfyqvjbwDaHz6DeIA0oINpB_5KVEDaN-6wNnpHaVZMr9NCJr43ySze-txyN5BblMcnkdzmQMw3ZuM2sEapbF7ymPifolTd_PtpTWj6FU/s220/journal+pics+6.jpg'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAGtC7kRICgTrg8xdJmkOuPQ_CVssKBU85U0ne7kCRbrgWtX3u-ZX8Y_Si14I-VzE54HDvmulSHZ1ZZGk9TVlH7LSM12J9RPoujX7Aqyzk3prFdwSkVsLGlyaFqG4ke9ggyKmhJONYBN34XXE9G1WRtLy_TszzwnaEdSRDgiQGP-xug8Usq7Ad/s72-w400-h225-c/85h_1a_627b23f3.jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12690266.post-7336742513290689092</id><published>2025-05-15T13:36:00.002-04:00</published><updated>2025-05-15T13:37:27.581-04:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="adaptation"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Armando Lao"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Drama"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Filipino"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Jeffrey Jeturian"/><title type='text'>Tuhog (Larger Than Life, Jeffrey Jeturian, 2001)</title><content type='html'><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvD6dTD8BWnSrJCQHCajHdrDoZanTuhFGx30ETBZv48ar5Le1XAo9bTkpzEZGdzx9BiH-gC3ehxdCycmihI1j8SoThL4j0bwoV-jGBlUua9caUfBRkzY1Ng83E4RjhyphenhyphenaagQEjzVIUFi0W9-FDEhp28N03Dk8TgCbTXPQuHkKIXHfmVLMjzE9dL/s1280/image-w1280%20(3).webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvD6dTD8BWnSrJCQHCajHdrDoZanTuhFGx30ETBZv48ar5Le1XAo9bTkpzEZGdzx9BiH-gC3ehxdCycmihI1j8SoThL4j0bwoV-jGBlUua9caUfBRkzY1Ng83E4RjhyphenhyphenaagQEjzVIUFi0W9-FDEhp28N03Dk8TgCbTXPQuHkKIXHfmVLMjzE9dL/w400-h225/image-w1280%20(3).webp" width="400" /></a></div> </div>Skewered
Jeffrey Jeturian and Armando Lao’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0291530/">Tuhog</a>&nbsp;(Larger Than Life, 2001) is, simply put, a film about screwing-- about a mother being screwed, about her daughter being screwed, about their life's story being screwed over on the way to the big screen by an unscrupulous pair of softcore filmmakers

<a name='more'></a>The mother Perla (Irma Adlawan) and daughter Floring (Ina Raymundo) sell their most marketable commodity-- their life’s story-- to a director and his writer; months later the two women and their friends go on a daylong trip to the nearest Metro Manila cineplex to watch the results: exaggerated, caricatured, distorted out of all recognition. Everything has been reduced to the ridiculous and they have been shamed and humiliated far worse than ever before.

Irma Adlawan, possibly one of the best (and, ironically, least seen) actors in recent Filipino cinema (she played a crucial role in what I believe is Tikoy Aguiluz’s best work <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2015/05/bagong-bayani-unsung-heroine-tikoy.html">Bagong Bayani</a> (Unsung Heroine, a docudrama about Flor Contemplacion, the domestic helper executed for murder in Singapore), here gives a wonderful performance as the mother. Hers is a supporting role, but it’s her story that gives the film its bite. She's hurt the most not because she's been lampooned but because her character has been oh-so-subtly subverted-- as played by the more obviously sensual Jaclyn Jose, she wasn’t exactly forced to have sex; she asked for it. Adlawan can only watch helplessly as this monstrous lie is played out onscreen, and the worse thing about it-- the crowning irony-- is that the change was probably done simply to give the actress more sex scenes in the film. Gratuitous? Goddamned right it is.

Ina Raymundo is very good as the daughter which is surprising, having seen her give one wooden performance after another in just the kind of sex flicks (Sobra-Sobra, Labis-Labis&nbsp;(Too Much is Just Right), Burlesk Queen Ngayon&nbsp;(Burlesque Queen Today)) that Tuhog&nbsp;lampoons. Here she has the fragile quality of a fresh-hatched chick, something I’ve never seen her do before; when her breast is finally bared late in the film it comes across as a real obscenity, like a child being stripped by a pederast.

Armando Lao’s script has everything you can ask for-- intelligence, wit, care for characterization and the telling detail-- that it seems almost churlish to complain about flaws. The cheap sex flick titled Hayok sa Laman&nbsp;(Greedy for Flesh), features cliches from almost every bad Filipino film in recent memory-- sex flick or melodrama; comedy, intentional or otherwise-- and there are plenty of them, no mean feat to collect and condense in one hideous parody. The parody at times reflects and reinforces the feelings of the people watching it, at times cruelly ridicules them; it’s a delicate balancing act that Jeturian and Lao somehow manages to maintain for about three-fourths of the picture, until mother and daughter walk out. Once they do walk out, balance goes out the window and their friends (who stay behind) are treated to the travesty that’s the rest of the 'film'-- an unholy mix of gothic melodrama and slasher movie as if Douglas Sirk had directed an installment of&nbsp; Friday the 13th, a chopsuey serving of worse excesses of some of our most pretentious Filipino filmmakers, and while it’s fun to see Lao and Jeturian rip open a new orifice in the carcass that is contemporary Filipino cinema, they do so at the expense of characters they had so carefully prepared-- characters we have come to care for, and resent being shunted aside.

This isn’t Jeturian and Lao’s best work to date, I think; that would be their previous film, <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2022/06/pila-balde-fetch-pail-of-water-jeffrey.html">Pila Balde</a>&nbsp;(Fetch a Pail of Water), a lighthearted yet precisely observed drama about life among slums and housing projects. Still, Tuhog&nbsp;is one of the best, most daring, most imaginative Filipino films to come out last year.
First published in Cinemaya Magazine, 1.28.02<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXROSTjDBhWU8t9dzy4zKBJvLaLqL0mS4vbMxKBAK5_GIbrt5PGL2-M2DmRHnPGcjbPXS7kNS8VB2pTK1QxaPHp5S7HpeACyyIV3R74NZmzKTM7M_hRd-EoKeirfCDo-DNQ9PTudMwda7fe-26yqtrujHGr8qTNUDi62DdZGXemnrpges0DFaC/s854/Tuhog.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="854" data-original-width="606" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXROSTjDBhWU8t9dzy4zKBJvLaLqL0mS4vbMxKBAK5_GIbrt5PGL2-M2DmRHnPGcjbPXS7kNS8VB2pTK1QxaPHp5S7HpeACyyIV3R74NZmzKTM7M_hRd-EoKeirfCDo-DNQ9PTudMwda7fe-26yqtrujHGr8qTNUDi62DdZGXemnrpges0DFaC/w284-h400/Tuhog.JPG" width="284" /></a></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://www.bigomagazine.com/theshop/books/NVcritic.html">Critic After Dark: a Review of Philippine Cinema</a></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/feeds/7336742513290689092/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment/fullpage/post/12690266/7336742513290689092' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/7336742513290689092'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/7336742513290689092'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2025/05/tuhog-larger-than-life-jeffrey-jeturian.html' title='Tuhog (Larger Than Life, Jeffrey Jeturian, 2001)'/><author><name>Noel Vera</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/05904212081036547668</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhFGuWELWMo9OjoDwjBzTbiUrgfyqvjbwDaHz6DeIA0oINpB_5KVEDaN-6wNnpHaVZMr9NCJr43ySze-txyN5BblMcnkdzmQMw3ZuM2sEapbF7ymPifolTd_PtpTWj6FU/s220/journal+pics+6.jpg'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvD6dTD8BWnSrJCQHCajHdrDoZanTuhFGx30ETBZv48ar5Le1XAo9bTkpzEZGdzx9BiH-gC3ehxdCycmihI1j8SoThL4j0bwoV-jGBlUua9caUfBRkzY1Ng83E4RjhyphenhyphenaagQEjzVIUFi0W9-FDEhp28N03Dk8TgCbTXPQuHkKIXHfmVLMjzE9dL/s72-w400-h225-c/image-w1280%20(3).webp" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12690266.post-5043962560520653475</id><published>2025-05-02T14:21:00.001-04:00</published><updated>2025-05-02T14:21:45.888-04:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Action"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="African-American"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Drama"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Horror"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="musical"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Period"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Ryan Coogler"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Southern Gothic"/><title type='text'>Sinners (Ryan Coogler, 2025)</title><content type='html'><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5kO-unLK0YJYQMo0fK-ilzAscDgVM4mf4JK3vBNlJz5iUAiL2ZvSI5Kn-KuWNWyOFiglOKoszLnkAEkSo_4zGi-5sVOsHnqFdlCjh0WOEj8tluUJgiJ0efZHV5ZzDqrdeshf5cPfJfNoAnMf7vq_ooAsQxZGWcErhRZ9rhtkQsN5Xj8C5sLdw/s1600/download%20(41).jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="873" data-original-width="1600" height="219" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5kO-unLK0YJYQMo0fK-ilzAscDgVM4mf4JK3vBNlJz5iUAiL2ZvSI5Kn-KuWNWyOFiglOKoszLnkAEkSo_4zGi-5sVOsHnqFdlCjh0WOEj8tluUJgiJ0efZHV5ZzDqrdeshf5cPfJfNoAnMf7vq_ooAsQxZGWcErhRZ9rhtkQsN5Xj8C5sLdw/w400-h219/download%20(41).jpeg" width="400" /></a></div>The Devil BluesThe first forty minutes of Ryan Coogler's <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt31193180/">Sinners</a> may be one of the best films of 2025. The rest? Not so much.&nbsp;<a name='more'></a>It's like when Kurosawa's Seven Samurai is mentioned-- everyone talks of the final battle in a rainstorm, but no one really talks about the superb first hour when all the characters are introduced, the stakes quickly and vividly established; that final battle wouldn't have half the impact if we didn't follow the first hour's journey, getting to know who's involved, how they got recruited, and why.&nbsp;It's that quality Kurosawa captures nicely that Coogler ably recaptures, of people quietly eking out a living at the margins of society, not prospering exactly but not suffering too much, just content to be. Then a wind comes-- in Kurosawa's case, a horde of bandits,&nbsp; in Coogler's case a pair of twin brothers Smoke and Stack, both played by Coogler's favorite actor Michael B Jordan-- and suddenly people are fearing and wanting again, the Japanese peasants fearing to lose what little they have, the Southerners wanting a little bit more cash than what they're used to earning. And they band together, the peasants and samurai in their tiny village, the Southern folk in their big barn, and a small miracle of collaboration is born.There's the music of course. Soundtrack with Coogler's other longtime collaborator, Ludwig Goransson, and the equally powerful new creative partner Miles Caton-- like many singer-musicians, an intriguing enough actor (what's singing after all but performance through song?); accompanied with a guitar he's amazing.&nbsp;Coogler couldn't pick a more offhand occasion for us to first hear Caton-- on Stack's jalopy, rolling down a dirt road with Stack urging his cousin Sammie (Caton) to sing something; Caton strums a few bars and Stack stares. "Travelin' / I don't know why in the world I'm here / 'Cause the woman that I'm lovin / She sure don't feel my care" The lyrics seem commonplace but Caton's plaintive voice, carried by the sharp twang of the guitar strings, give the words tang and bite and power. "We gon make some money! We gon make some money!" Stack declares, and he's not wrong.&nbsp;Folks like to point to Caton singing "I Lied to You" as the film's high point, Coogler's camera gliding through past and present and future, all spatial boundaries literally burning to the ground and yes it's a fine song and Caton absolutely delivers but it's saddled to my mind with an unnecessarily explicit thesis driven by unnecessarily elaborate effects; less fussy and far better is yet another car scene that happens earlier, with Delroy Lindo as pianist Delta Slim joining Sammie and Stack in their jalopy, waving as he recognizes some faces on a chain gang they drive past. He tells the story of the band they once formed with the encouragement of a prison warden, of the prodigious amount of money they earned one night in a concert, and of the sobering fate of one fellow musician and his money soon after. And then Slim starts humming, then singing. No effects, no thesis,&nbsp; just a hard life lived (reflected on his careworn face), and feelings so big and deep and strong he has to express them in song or bust a gut trying to hold them in.&nbsp;And then yes vampires. And (maybe for me only) the movie falls flat on its face, becomes yet another supernatural horror flick stuffed with standard-issue digital effects when it was so much more before. There was the ghost of an interesting idea here, of Gaelic music set in opposition to the blues, but we don't really get to see the (WARNING: details of the plot to be explicitly discussed hereafter!) recently turned being wooed and seduced to the rhythms of "Rocky Road to Dublin." Instead of a fangs-versus-shotguns siege, couldn't the living and the dead hold a danceoff instead, breakdancers versus riverdancers in a whirl of choreographed mayhem?I'll give Coogler this much, the bloodsucker interlude did provide an excuse for the lovely epilogue set decades later, where Stack and his girl Mary (Hailee Steinfeld) visit a much older Sammie (now played by the legendary Buddy Guy) and prompts the old man to reprise his "Travelin," now with additional mileage and pain. And if that wasn't enough, Coogler treats us to yet another&nbsp;surpassingly lovely post-credit sequence, of the younger Sammie reprising "This Little Light of Mine"-- sung earlier as traditional gospel with a church choir, now tweaked as a lonely gloriously blues anthem. In my perfect world, Coogler's Sinners is only sixty-five minutes long and all music, no fangs, with Coogler putting full faith in the seductive diabolic power of music as opposed to ho-hum digital effects. But I guess I gotta settle for what I've got.&nbsp; &nbsp;<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiSkhYzJbf-hQJDcUhYT_Mv3HAX8eYnkRbHn728judMB3m8I3v0FTnyR3e3787r8Fdyu0AFn6sqY_SSjdBHCwMdEIfyiHl39RVfSIHHpFTiJZ3tOzearMI2_I7YszdxmUfnnRCinZxDhp__YBreSUkQSWICEV3cnFINE3Aa5i8qd-M1zBrm46s/s1500/mv5bowexnzdjztitndbhyy00ywe1ltk0mtatn2mzm2e1odkzztm0xkeyxkfqcgc-_v1_ql75_ux1616_.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1500" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiSkhYzJbf-hQJDcUhYT_Mv3HAX8eYnkRbHn728judMB3m8I3v0FTnyR3e3787r8Fdyu0AFn6sqY_SSjdBHCwMdEIfyiHl39RVfSIHHpFTiJZ3tOzearMI2_I7YszdxmUfnnRCinZxDhp__YBreSUkQSWICEV3cnFINE3Aa5i8qd-M1zBrm46s/w400-h200/mv5bowexnzdjztitndbhyy00ywe1ltk0mtatn2mzm2e1odkzztm0xkeyxkfqcgc-_v1_ql75_ux1616_.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://www.bigomagazine.com/theshop/books/NVcritic.html">Critic After Dark: a Review of Philippine Cinema</a></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/feeds/5043962560520653475/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment/fullpage/post/12690266/5043962560520653475' title='2 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/5043962560520653475'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/5043962560520653475'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2025/05/sinners-ryan-coogler-2025.html' title='Sinners (Ryan Coogler, 2025)'/><author><name>Noel Vera</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/05904212081036547668</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhFGuWELWMo9OjoDwjBzTbiUrgfyqvjbwDaHz6DeIA0oINpB_5KVEDaN-6wNnpHaVZMr9NCJr43ySze-txyN5BblMcnkdzmQMw3ZuM2sEapbF7ymPifolTd_PtpTWj6FU/s220/journal+pics+6.jpg'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5kO-unLK0YJYQMo0fK-ilzAscDgVM4mf4JK3vBNlJz5iUAiL2ZvSI5Kn-KuWNWyOFiglOKoszLnkAEkSo_4zGi-5sVOsHnqFdlCjh0WOEj8tluUJgiJ0efZHV5ZzDqrdeshf5cPfJfNoAnMf7vq_ooAsQxZGWcErhRZ9rhtkQsN5Xj8C5sLdw/s72-w400-h219-c/download%20(41).jpeg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>2</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12690266.post-8319793115740451202</id><published>2025-05-01T13:59:00.001-04:00</published><updated>2025-05-01T14:02:38.389-04:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Drama"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Filipino"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Gil Portes"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Nora Aunor"/><title type='text'>'Merika (Gil Portes, 1984)</title><content type='html'><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7HXGIQRxUpv6jpfbo1NIgRkCvol-xha514RvE0JveRJ56wGAt4fAWBNDhLqHHxbE6gp8AOkmg7xfGnISjcw1Z6HO9_R8bThbZBP-Gg1slGkmMoWdV3y-7N5FW9VTIUfEYBcugkQVfeB1QgigOgnnXhnhuV5_kIaUijzZ5JNZ1qh2zsAdffS7K/s296/MV5BNDVhMTU5NzEtMWJkYS00NGI3LWI1NmEtZGIxZmIwMDIxMGE1XkEyXkFqcGc@._V1_QL75_UX296_.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="218" data-original-width="296" height="295" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7HXGIQRxUpv6jpfbo1NIgRkCvol-xha514RvE0JveRJ56wGAt4fAWBNDhLqHHxbE6gp8AOkmg7xfGnISjcw1Z6HO9_R8bThbZBP-Gg1slGkmMoWdV3y-7N5FW9VTIUfEYBcugkQVfeB1QgigOgnnXhnhuV5_kIaUijzZ5JNZ1qh2zsAdffS7K/w400-h295/MV5BNDVhMTU5NzEtMWJkYS00NGI3LWI1NmEtZGIxZmIwMDIxMGE1XkEyXkFqcGc@._V1_QL75_UX296_.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div>Alienated<div> </div><div>Gil Portes' <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0125402/">'Merika</a> (1984) opens the same way any ordinary life will usually open--in the morning, in bed. But Mila (Nora Aunor) can't seem to get out of bed; she can't seem to bring herself to touch the icy floor with her feet, or brave the chill air beyond her room. She has to sit there, shivering, her comforter wrapped around her like protective coating.<div>
<a name='more'></a>Portes films the story in frozen weather and I think the decision is deliberate, brilliant even. Jersey City (where much of the picture was shot) can take on the unfriendly look of an anonymous urban population center and at no time is it more anonymous or more unfriendly than during the wintertime. There's plenty of sun but it's a weak sun, a pale sun, with rays that can barely warm the fingers, much less melt all the ice. This is a cold city, cold people, cold country--to even touch someone or glimpse his face you need to free the people from their layers of scarves, mufflers, sweaters and long sleeves before you reach human skin.

Mila is in effect living The American Dream, or at least the Filipino's idea of the American Dream. She's a nurse in a hospital with green card in pocket; she's earning well, she's living comfortably if sparely, and presumably she sends money home to her family, money that I'm sure is much appreciated. When push comes to shove, however, when the 'melodramatic' subplot kicks in (she has a lover named Mon (Bembol Roco) who wants to marry her; turns out he possibly needs to marry her for her green card), it's almost unimportant--a precipitating event, in effect, that only serves to crystallize her decision to go back home.

“Why?” Mon pleads with her. “What can I do to change your mind?” Nothing really--the achievement of Portes' film is to show us the answer without using a line of dialogue, in the endless vista shots, the series of lost, lonely gazes Aunor gives the camera, the constant flow of work/TV/bed/rise/work again, the utter meaninglessness a life lived in America can have. One pursues the Dream, but whose Dream is it really, who decides it's worth pursuing, and who decided that you must be the one to pursue it?

Portes does this subtly, simply, a Yasujiro Ozu chasing nuances of emotion across people's faces but employing Naruse's even more self-effacing camera style (no tatami mat-level shots, here). With Aunor he helps create one of the actress' finest performance, where the answer to Mon's question is really found in the emotions that flit across her luminous eyes, like shadows on a still pond. “I can't tell you why,” Aunor informs Mon; “you can't find out if you don't already know it, if you don't already feel it.” Any Filipino who has left his beloved shores, has spent any time at all in lands alien to his skin and sensibility will know--not so much “home is where the heart is” as it is heart hearkening to home's call. The motherland, the land of one's birth, the land of one's friends, family, childhood, making its irrefutable claim on one's soul.

First published in <a href="https://www.bworldonline.com/">Businessworld</a> 12.7.09; re-edited on 5.1.25
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt_3Ad6bcwYlTel2BmQGiIODyAtc6gXegAl_FU9bzXWOlkcDQaAEnRLQpAO8EJGFTSeagt1V6LBCkQlzZBve9Zsght0jpL3zCxh0iLOontP02BUdGNNTjIodCSaO0vcx2bipe1X9FllUqhO0rFqnipz24mZj3rIkrIciTa39jFPX3grK9tGFUV/s861/MV5BMWVlMjM3MjAtOTRkYy00MTNjLTg5MjAtMjYwYWRmMjE0OTljXkEyXkFqcGc@._V1_.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="630" data-original-width="861" height="293" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt_3Ad6bcwYlTel2BmQGiIODyAtc6gXegAl_FU9bzXWOlkcDQaAEnRLQpAO8EJGFTSeagt1V6LBCkQlzZBve9Zsght0jpL3zCxh0iLOontP02BUdGNNTjIodCSaO0vcx2bipe1X9FllUqhO0rFqnipz24mZj3rIkrIciTa39jFPX3grK9tGFUV/w400-h293/MV5BMWVlMjM3MjAtOTRkYy00MTNjLTg5MjAtMjYwYWRmMjE0OTljXkEyXkFqcGc@._V1_.jpg" width="400" /></a></div></div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://www.bigomagazine.com/theshop/books/NVcritic.html">Critic After Dark: a Review of Philippine Cinema</a></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/feeds/8319793115740451202/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment/fullpage/post/12690266/8319793115740451202' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/8319793115740451202'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/8319793115740451202'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2025/05/alienated-gil-portes-merika-1984-opens.html' title=''Merika (Gil Portes, 1984)'/><author><name>Noel Vera</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/05904212081036547668</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhFGuWELWMo9OjoDwjBzTbiUrgfyqvjbwDaHz6DeIA0oINpB_5KVEDaN-6wNnpHaVZMr9NCJr43ySze-txyN5BblMcnkdzmQMw3ZuM2sEapbF7ymPifolTd_PtpTWj6FU/s220/journal+pics+6.jpg'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7HXGIQRxUpv6jpfbo1NIgRkCvol-xha514RvE0JveRJ56wGAt4fAWBNDhLqHHxbE6gp8AOkmg7xfGnISjcw1Z6HO9_R8bThbZBP-Gg1slGkmMoWdV3y-7N5FW9VTIUfEYBcugkQVfeB1QgigOgnnXhnhuV5_kIaUijzZ5JNZ1qh2zsAdffS7K/s72-w400-h295-c/MV5BNDVhMTU5NzEtMWJkYS00NGI3LWI1NmEtZGIxZmIwMDIxMGE1XkEyXkFqcGc@._V1_QL75_UX296_.jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12690266.post-4806358781112500022</id><published>2025-04-22T02:11:00.001-04:00</published><updated>2025-06-11T14:12:46.502-04:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="adaptation"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Crime"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Drama"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Filipino"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Lualhati Bautista"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Mario O'Hara"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Noir"/><title type='text'>Bulaklak sa City Jail (Flowers of the City Jail, Mario O'Hara, 1984) - restored version</title><content type='html'><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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The caged bird sings 
 
(The film is available with English subtitles on the ABS CBN Star Cinema YouTube Channel, and on Apple TV) 
 
If I remember right I saw Mario O'Hara's <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0125025/">Bulaklak sa City Jail</a> (Flowers of the City Jail) on its opening run back in 1984 and thrilled to the story of Angela Aguilar (Nora Aunor), a hapless woman jailed for 'frustrated murder.' Based on Lualhati Bautista's novel of the same name, sequences stayed in memory-- Angela's first night reception (where her cellmates practically raped her); the attempted escape through an old mansion's garden statuary; her pursuit by police through Manila Zoo. I remember the lurid red of the nightclub where Angela sings, the bleak glow of cellblock lights, the deep shadows of the zoo.&nbsp;
 
And I remember how in screenings and various Betamax and VHS recordings since how those colors have faded, the image blurred, been accompanied by questionable translations (Caged Blossoms?), how watching the film in a special screening at the Hong Kong Film Festival felt like looking through a muddied window-- and this was the only surviving 35 mm print!&nbsp; 
 
Thanks then to ABS CBN's <a href="https://www.facebook.com/filmrestorationabscbn/videos/restored-bulaklak-sa-city-jail-full-trailer/438850853486709/">digital restoration</a> for bringing those&nbsp;colors back-- the lurid reds, the bleak glow, the deep shadows.
<a name='more'></a>Again one is struck by the opening sequence of tight shots at the nightclub-- an impressionistic flurry of poured beer and gin, cigarettes perched on lips, ashtrays and salted peanuts, hand caressing skirted thigh, faces gazing at each other and at Angela singing "I've Got a Crush On You." 
 
Cut without explanation or apology to a typewriter clacking out 'AGUILAR, ANGELA,' the platen rolling to reveal 'PERSONAL IDENTIFICATION criminal fingerprint card.' Suddenly the singer who had been crooning under warm red spots flinches under the jail's harsh incandescents, looking like a deer in headlights while guard and convicts stare. The tight shots continue, passing from one face to another, their expression hostile if not hungry.
 
Much of the film is shot that way and one can think up a number of reasons why: easier to eliminate the stares of extras (Nora being at the height of her celebrity), easier to dress sets, easier to light. But O'Hara's closeups also evoke the claustrophobia of prison life, how a convict (or not a convict-- some languish in jail for months, waiting for sentencing or even trial) can only survive when she narrows her focus to what's in front of her. When Angela learns she's pregnant she confides to Juliet (Gina Alajar) that she hopes to miscarry. Unspoken: a child would be a burden here.&nbsp;
 
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Arguably Angela has been myopic all her life. In the club she only had eyes for her lover Cris (Ricky Davao); on first entering prison she only sees unfriendly faces. O'Hara's camera occasionally pulls back for a glimpse of other women's lives: the aforementioned Juliet, jailed for estafa (fraud); Viring (Perla Bautista), whose daughter is taken from her as the result of a crackdown (there was a riot at the men's prison, and a 12 year old boy was killed); Lena (Celia Rodriguez) who turns tricks to support her beloved son Jun (Jack Alejandro); cellblock 'mayor' Tonya (the inimitable Zenaida Amador) and her lieutenant Barbie (the intimidating Mitch Valdez). The camera's eye is Angela's, who stands as mute witness to these women as their stories prompt her (gently gently-- O'Hara is rarely if ever insistent) to widen her gaze, look beyond her own predicament.&nbsp;
 
And Angela learns to speak up. First for herself (turning down the proposal of prison guard Paquito, a.k.a. Cowboy (Tom Olivar)-- there might be immediate benefits, but the man looks like a sadist) then for others, especially Patricia (Maritess Guiterrez). In Patricia's brutal initiation Angela sees her own, takes the younger under her wing-- yes it helps that Patricia is from a wealthy family but that's the thread of sad realism Lualhati Bautista weaves into her melodrama: in Philippine society money helps, sometimes more effectively than the established legal system.
 
A word on Bautista's story: have not read the novel (not easy to find and listed on&nbsp;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/BULAKLAK-CITY-JAIL-BAGONG-EDISYON/dp/6219513746">Amazon</a> at a pricy $40) but the screenplay (with some rewrites from O'Hara) adds substance to the characters-- Angela's attitude towards her unborn child undergoes a gradual shift, helped presumably by the example of Viring's attachment to her daughter and Lena's dedication to her son. The various vignettes manage satisfying mini-arcs of their own-- Viring's breakdown in the absence of her child (yet another of the many forlorn&nbsp;<a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2007/06/ambitious-failures.html">Sisa</a> figures wandering through O'Hara's films); Lena's cynicism fractured when she learns her son has landed in the same jail. Tony Aguilar's varied music score, chastely applied, highlights mood (O'Hara is a veteran radio actor and knows a thing or two about musical cuing).&nbsp;&nbsp;
 
O'Hara keeps the film moving briskly, the plotlines cunningly interwoven, orchestrates a royal flush of wonderful performances (can't think of a single weak actor-- even TV talk show host German Moreno as an ominous prison warden stands out). Nora Aunor's Angela is the lead and she's wonderful but not ostentatiously so; she enters the jail like a lamb to slaughter, only later finds her strength-- and when she does only flexes that strength when necessary. Early in the film Barbie approaches Angela with Cowboy's proposal, which the latter brushes aside; Barbie threatens her with a countdown: "One. Two..." "Three," Angela finishes, eyes downcast voice firm: who is this tiny woman with the outwardly meek disposition and hidden iron will?&nbsp;
 
O'Hara keeps mostly to closeups but will cut to an overhead shot of Angela stripped naked or Cowboy tearing Viring's daughter away from her grasp. He uses corridor compositions to stress the narrowness of the women's world: a hallway wide an eternity long. When a convict stabs a prison guard in the gut she has to get past three barred doors to freedom: O'Hara's camera watches from one end of the hallway as she runs through all three, the wounded guard's gun firing each time.
 
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Bautista's screenplay has its share of memorable dialogue, lustily delivered: when Yolly (Shyr Valdez) is given the choice of sleeping with Cowboy or never seeing her boyfriend Kardo (Virgo Antonio) again she asks: "Don't we own our lives?" When Viring swears her absent daughter is calling to her Lena wonders "What's the difference between a whore and a lunatic?" The reply: "Nothing-- they're both living a fantasy." Prison guards warn the women of the new warden's arrival and Bambi quips: "Is he handsome?" Tonya: "More macho than me?" When police lead a bloodstained Jun away Lena cries out to him: "Why did you do it?" Jun: "He treated you like a pig." Lena: "But I'm used to that!" Strange but Angela is given nothing quotable; like her director she's all action, few words-- or what words there are don't come from her so much as they're directed at her (Tonya, locking Angela up in solitary for the umpteenth time: "Think you can have things your way? Okay-- have them in here.").&nbsp;&nbsp;
 
O'Hara punctuates the dialogue with indelible images: a spoon's concave bowl sticking out of a guard's spine; the convicts celebrating an escape by whanging the bars with their tin plates; Angela's tearstreaked face as she sits in a pool of blood, looking up at police flashlights and begging for mercy.&nbsp; 
 
Then there's Juliet's quest to see her son. She flees down the length of a metro train station; a police officer aims, fires, and Angela wakes-- arguably one of the most haunting match cuts in all of Philippine cinema. Was Angela recalling what people said about Juliet's fate? Was this Angela's nightmare recreation? Or was it a telepathic flash, the sudden sympathetic rapport across time and space between two fugitives from society?&nbsp;
 
It's not a perfect print, despite the colors and clarity: Angela's escape through a garden statuary is truncated, and we're missing the scene where she finds out she's pregnant (the film according to IMDb has a running time of 1 hour 50 minutes; this copy runs for 1 hour 44 minutes, or some six minutes short).&nbsp; 
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As for the Manila Zoo manhunt (womanhunt?): critics back in '84 ridiculed the sequence but when I ask folks that's the first thing they remember. I think it's O'Hara at his most noirishly streamlined attempting something baroque and grotesque-- Angela escapes to find herself in a primeval jungle, Manila before the city was ever established, and still struggles with chainlink fences steel doors rusted iron bars. It's an evocative metaphor: O'Hara suggests Manila itself is a prison-- has always been a prison, only with more room and greenery, its creatures just as cruelly caged; when the animals smell the scent of Angela's coursing blood they shriek and roar, as if welcoming one of their own.&nbsp;
 
A word about the women: on a basic level it works to have women as primary protagonists in a noir melodrama-thriller, the common belief being they're physically smaller and weaker and hence more vulnerable, particularly Nora as Angela; one of the keen pleasures of the film is in upending that notion again and again. At least it worked back in 1984; should be an archaic trope today only 1) good noirs are still hard to come by and 2) good films with women in leading roles are still hard to come by (the operative word here of course being 'good').
 
But O'Hara's film (presumably channeling Bautista's novel) does more than put a woman in the lead role-- it tells a range of women's stories, from the victimized to the empowered, even those empowered who cross one line or another. These are flawed women who can point out at least one virtue in themselves, virtuous women who hide at least one flaw inside (Angela suffers from ignorance and excess timidity, works hard at overcoming both)-- people in short doing the best they can with what they have against the challenges they face.&nbsp;
 
And they care. They come together. By film's end O'Hara and Bautista's women become a sorority of sisters bound by their shared suffering, willing to work for a cause-- in this particular case attending a baptism and standing together as godmothers to a child.&nbsp; 
 
What else to say? Not just one of the best films of 1984 but one of the best I've seen this year-- these past several years.&nbsp; 
 First published in <a href="https://www.bworldonline.com/the-caged-bird-sings/">Businessworld</a> 11.22.19 
 
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<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://www.bigomagazine.com/theshop/books/NVcritic.html">Critic After Dark: a Review of Philippine Cinema</a></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/feeds/4806358781112500022/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment/fullpage/post/12690266/4806358781112500022' title='2 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/4806358781112500022'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/4806358781112500022'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2019/11/bulaklak-sa-city-jail-flowers-of-city.html' title='Bulaklak sa City Jail (Flowers of the City Jail, Mario O'Hara, 1984) - restored version'/><author><name>Noel Vera</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/05904212081036547668</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhFGuWELWMo9OjoDwjBzTbiUrgfyqvjbwDaHz6DeIA0oINpB_5KVEDaN-6wNnpHaVZMr9NCJr43ySze-txyN5BblMcnkdzmQMw3ZuM2sEapbF7ymPifolTd_PtpTWj6FU/s220/journal+pics+6.jpg'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAX0xnYjF5Pq-er2RDwSCNxjmx0srQS0h3__qev83hL-ViINQ4hgmkrgXL98EA0skQW3bI6juTNGFimhDl7wGsupJREptt8-HLuWgNHDl9siP0qTe-7fmiqQDLNPXQewVBG_IJ/s72-c/bulaklak+2.jpeg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>2</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12690266.post-411523992939087234</id><published>2025-04-19T11:47:00.000-04:00</published><updated>2025-04-19T11:47:55.562-04:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Filipino"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Filipino Film Industry"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Ishmael Bernal"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Lino Brocka"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Mario O'Hara"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Nora Aunor"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="RIP"/><title type='text'>Nora Aunor (1953 - 2025)</title><content type='html'><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYzkGyYrl0hW-QeZzCTkod2vcNo3eH_P-yw6yRajpCSIDvujsj0eYmng8gKyD824ddkE0jcsKcdl-pHSBBVq7-XNgNy2FUEZT7qmzuHs3sSY5BpqJMNt6iONJaJApTfN5VNsLNBUdHPuK8UTOibkUk0wyT6XnziOHcRU5PGEvzlB7mH5giQA/s1269/Linus_REVIEW_Himala_1982_1.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="718" data-original-width="1269" height="362" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYzkGyYrl0hW-QeZzCTkod2vcNo3eH_P-yw6yRajpCSIDvujsj0eYmng8gKyD824ddkE0jcsKcdl-pHSBBVq7-XNgNy2FUEZT7qmzuHs3sSY5BpqJMNt6iONJaJApTfN5VNsLNBUdHPuK8UTOibkUk0wyT6XnziOHcRU5PGEvzlB7mH5giQA/w640-h362/Linus_REVIEW_Himala_1982_1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div> Philippine cinema's dark beauty

Nora Aunor is arguably Philippine cinema's greatest actress.

<a name='more'></a>She doesn't stand alone, of course: Anita Linda's sensual performance in Gerardo de Leon's <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2014/01/sisa-gerardo-de-leon-1951.html">Sisa</a>&nbsp;(1951), Rosa Rosal's humble matriarch in Manuel Silos' <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2019/11/biyaya-ng-lupa-blessings-of-land-manuel.html">Biyaya ng Lupa</a>&nbsp;(Blessings of the Land, 1959), Lolita Rodriguez's elemental Koala in Lino Brocka's <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2016/08/tinimbang-ka-ngunit-kulang-you-were.html">Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang</a>&nbsp;(You Were Judged but Found Wanting, 1974) are, I think, for the ages. Hilda Koronel, Gina Alajar, Lorna Tolentino, Amy Austria, Cherie Gil, Liza Lorena, Laurice Guillen, Nida Blanca, Gloria Romero, Charito Solis, Jacklyn Jose, Rita Gomez, Mona Lisa, Maricel Soriano, even Nora's supposed rival Vilma Santos have their memorable, even great, moments (might as well include&nbsp;<a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2015/05/bagong-bayani-unsung-heroine-tikoy.html">Irma Adlawan</a> as perhaps the most talented yet least known actress working in Filipino movies today). But Nora is the greatest, I believe-- not only because she had the sheer talent but because she had the opportunity to work with some of the Philippines' best filmmakers on some of their greatest films, producing a handful herself.

Nora wasn't always great. She started out as a popular singing star, a rags-to-riches wonder discovered in a singing contest who became an overnight sensation; movies were just another way of cashing in on her popularity. Under contract to Sampaguita Pictures she made (among others) Cinderella A-Go-Go&nbsp;(1967) and The Ye-Ye Generation&nbsp;(1968); for Tower Productions she made D' Musical Teenage Idols!&nbsp;(1968), Teenage Escapades!&nbsp;(1969), Nora in Wonderland&nbsp;(1970) and My Blue Hawaii&nbsp;(1971). Her first two pictures with Tower (Idol,&nbsp;Escapades) were so popular Sampaguita sued her for breach of contract; apparently they wanted her to work for them exclusively. At around the time of the lawsuit she was all of seventeen years old.

In 1973 Nora was popular enough and powerful enough to establish her own production company, NV Productions; her experience with Sampaguita Pictures likely taught her the benefits of self-employment. Their initial project was Carmela&nbsp;(1973), followed by other commercial projects--&nbsp;Super Gee&nbsp;(1973), Paru-Parong Itim&nbsp;(Black Butterfly, 1973), among others.

But Nora wanted more. With <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2014/07/caridad-from-fe-esperanza-caridad.html">Fe, Esperanza, Caridad</a>&nbsp;(Faith, Hope, Love, 1974), an omnibus made with Premiere Productions, she worked with three major Filipino filmmakers-- Cirio Santiago, Lamberto Avellana, and Gerardo de Leon. The Esperanza&nbsp;segment, where she was wayward wife to Jay Ilagan, showed her skill at light comedy, set against a realistic urban background; Caridad&nbsp;showed her gift for stylized drama, playing fallen nun opposite Ronaldo Valdez's impressive Satan.

Nora must have enjoyed working with De Leon, because she approached him to direct her first epic, <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2014/05/banaue-stairway-to-sky-gerardo-de-leon.html">Banaue</a>&nbsp;(1975), a melodrama about the Ifugao tribe that built the great Rice Terraces in Northern Luzon. Nora's performance is creditable (though not, I think, as interesting as in Fe, Esperanza, Caridad); more significantly, she could attract a filmmaking legend like De Leon (even if this was his last finished feature), raise enough money to finance such a major effort all her own.

Nora would do more commercial films with her production outfit, but the experience of making Banaue&nbsp;must have stayed with her; again, she looked for a filmmaker to do yet another prestige production. Legend has it that she first approached hot young filmmaker Lino Brocka, fresh from his success with Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang&nbsp;; legend also has it that Brocka's initial reaction was "I don't want to have anything to do with that Superstar!" She then approached (or possibly Brocka referred her to) longtime Brocka collaborator Mario O'Hara, who had made his directorial debut with <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2010/05/mortal-mario-ohara-1975.html">Mortal</a>&nbsp;(1975). O'Hara picked up a script he wrote for the Hilda&nbsp;TV series set in World War 2, and rewrote it for the big screen.

The result was <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2007/02/tatlong-taong-walang-diyos-three-years.html">Tatlong Taong Walang Diyos</a>&nbsp;(<a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2016/11/tatlong-taong-walang-diyos-three-years.html">Three Years Without God</a>, 1976). Nora played Rosario, a simple country girl whose boyfriend, Crispin (Bembol Roco), leaves her to fight the Japanese. Rosario is raped by Masugi, a half-Japanese officer (Christopher de Leon, at the time Nora's husband); she ultimately finds herself caught between two worlds-- that of the oppressed Filipino peasants, and that of the Japanese military and their Filipino collaborators. A powerful film, it's arguably Nora's finest performance and one of the greatest Filipino films ever made.

Nora would work with O'Hara several more times: <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2014/05/kastilyong-buhangin-castle-of-sand.html">Kastilyong Buhangin</a>&nbsp;(Castle of Sand, 1980); <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2021/04/the-court-of-public-opinion-mario.html">Bakit Bughaw ang Langit</a>&nbsp;(Why is the Sky Blue? 1981); <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2009/12/three-by-nora-merika-gil-portes.html">Condemned</a>&nbsp;(1984-- another NV Production); and <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2013/04/now-online-one-of-mario-oharas-best.html">Bulaklak ng City Jail</a>&nbsp;(Flowers of the City Jail, 1984). She would work with Brocka-- who after the critical success of Tatlong Taong&nbsp;must have finally admitted there might something to this 'Superstar'-- in the middle-class melodrama Ina Ka ng Anak Mo&nbsp;(You are the Mother of My Child, 1979-- critic Agustin Sotto's favorite Brocka film), and the slum drama <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2021/01/bona-lino-brocka-1980.html">Bona</a>&nbsp;(1980-- yet another NV Production). With filmmaker (and Brocka rival) Ishmael Bernal she would do&nbsp;Ikaw ay Akin&nbsp;(You are Mine, 1978-- Bernal apparently being quicker than Brocka in realizing Nora's potential) a drama noted for pairing her with Vilma Santos, and the great <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2009/06/indiobravo-film-festival-brillante.html">Himala</a>&nbsp;(Miracle, 1982), about a woman (Nora) who works supernatural cures in a small town. Other filmmakers she has worked with include Lupita Kashiwahara (Minsa'y Isang Gamu-Gamo&nbsp;(Once there was a Moth, 1976)), Gil Portes ('Merika, 1984, Andrea, 1990), and Joel Lamangan (The Flor Contemplacion Story, 1995).

I would argue however that her collaborations with O'Hara have a magic no other filmmaker has reproduced. O'Hara was the first of the next generation of filmmakers to recognize Nora's talent, the one who collaborated with her most frequently, and with the best results. It's possible they worked so well together because in many ways their temperaments are similar: both show a shyness, a reserve around strangers; both aren't aggressive about marketing themselves (in Nora's case usually fans or media friends speak out for her). O'Hara has remarkably little ego for a filmmaker (in an industry where ego is as necessary as a cellphone); Nora too, despite her power and longtime celebrity. Even when she's the lead of a film like Bulaklak sa City Jail&nbsp;her performance doesn't overwhelm the rest of the cast-- the film is a model of ensemble acting. In her finest pictures--&nbsp;Tatlong Taong Walang Diyos, Ina Ka ng Anak Ko, Bakit Bughaw ang Langit, Ikaw ay Akin, she meshes perfectly with her co-stars to create not an opportunity for her to stand out but a flowing dynamic, a relationship or duet that helps the story soar. As O'Hara says of her: "She would never improvise-- she felt that the director should direct her, and she should never presume to act otherwise. But she would listen to me and give me more than I ask for. Whatever it was, she would give more."

This lack of ego is nowhere more evident than in what may be her most celebrated role, that of Elsa in Ishmael Bernal's Himala. It's often cited as her finest performance; I disagree, but for a special reason. I believe the film never dives deep into Elsa's character, or makes us identify completely with her-- and this, I think, was intentional on Bernal's part. He uses Nora as a kind of focal point, a lens through which the different townsfolk (who are all more sharply delineated than she) project their various fantasies and fears-- an icon, in short. Nora's Elsa for them is, alternately, a charlatan, a saint, a sex object, a target, a booming religious industry; none of them quite see her as a person, and neither in the end do we. It's a remarkably selfless performance, totally dependent on the filmmaker's concept; when Bernal said that only Nora was capable of playing Elsa, he was right, but in a particular way-- I doubt if any other star of comparable standing would have allowed herself to be used like that.

Along with Nora's selflessness, sometimes complementing it, sometimes flashing out from behind, is an intense acting style. Nora is essentially a silent film actress performing in a sound world; she has some skill with dialogue-- you see it in films like Bernal's Ikaw ay Akin, or Brocka's Ina Ka ng Anak Mo, where she plays intelligently eloquent middle-class career women-- but dialogue isn't her kind of magic: it's in the final scene in Ikaw, when Nora faces Vilma in wordless confrontation; it's in the revelation scene in Ina Ka, when Nora confronts her mother's lover. When the words die away and the camera zooms in, it's Nora's eyes that stay with us-- her mute yet eloquent anguish, up there on the big screen, cinema's emblem for the Filipino's almost infinite capacity for pain.

Nora's films have made an impact internationally, most notably Bona, which was shown at the 1981 Cannes' Director's Fortnight; Himala&nbsp;which was screened at the 1983 Berlin Film Festival; and earned Nora a nomination for Best Actress, and The Flor Contemplacion Story, which won the Golden Pyramid at the 1995 Cairo Film Festival. But I would argue that her international acclaim is a modest side effect, because Nora wasn't made for international audiences, but for us. She's our own, quintessentially Filipina actress, the one star in all of local cinema who can never be miscast when playing a domestic helper or provincial girl or urban squatter. I'm of the opinion that Brocka's <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2018/04/insiang-lino-brocka-1976.html">Insiang</a>&nbsp;would have been better with Nora in the lead (I think many of his earliest-- and best-- films would have been better with her in the lead). Her life's story, from humble probinsyana to all-around Superstar, is the dream of every Filipino moviegoer-- is our dream, in effect; her suffering, whether as a lowly housemaid, or small town icon, or Japanese officer's pregnant wife, is our suffering. When we see her onscreen, we see ourselves.

(First published in Nora: Through the Years…&nbsp;a souvenir program for Ms. Aunor's Grand Reunion concert, April 24-25, 2004)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAFE7I-FOvR_-QwMrauZ4SvlIugtLYig8hiHxb9XI_38SoWNGkqgcl8CdulxLTLIpy0yP0QGm4VviX2Q0jfRUKPJG5EdSwsyTsFoYO76gcV7skidBUjI9c1It-WBtUIYLKjrc_WRyj8ywG0tEhP_77WfH3Fvce3vUzk1oEbfE6Gc_mgPmEbg/s3576/nora.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1988" data-original-width="3576" height="356" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAFE7I-FOvR_-QwMrauZ4SvlIugtLYig8hiHxb9XI_38SoWNGkqgcl8CdulxLTLIpy0yP0QGm4VviX2Q0jfRUKPJG5EdSwsyTsFoYO76gcV7skidBUjI9c1It-WBtUIYLKjrc_WRyj8ywG0tEhP_77WfH3Fvce3vUzk1oEbfE6Gc_mgPmEbg/w640-h356/nora.jpg" width="640" /></a></div> <div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://www.bigomagazine.com/theshop/books/NVcritic.html">Critic After Dark: a Review of Philippine Cinema</a></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/feeds/411523992939087234/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment/fullpage/post/12690266/411523992939087234' title='9 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/411523992939087234'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/411523992939087234'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2022/06/nora-aunor.html' title='Nora Aunor (1953 - 2025)'/><author><name>Noel Vera</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/05904212081036547668</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhFGuWELWMo9OjoDwjBzTbiUrgfyqvjbwDaHz6DeIA0oINpB_5KVEDaN-6wNnpHaVZMr9NCJr43ySze-txyN5BblMcnkdzmQMw3ZuM2sEapbF7ymPifolTd_PtpTWj6FU/s220/journal+pics+6.jpg'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYzkGyYrl0hW-QeZzCTkod2vcNo3eH_P-yw6yRajpCSIDvujsj0eYmng8gKyD824ddkE0jcsKcdl-pHSBBVq7-XNgNy2FUEZT7qmzuHs3sSY5BpqJMNt6iONJaJApTfN5VNsLNBUdHPuK8UTOibkUk0wyT6XnziOHcRU5PGEvzlB7mH5giQA/s72-w640-h362-c/Linus_REVIEW_Himala_1982_1.jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>9</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12690266.post-5014870717235024966</id><published>2025-04-10T12:03:00.004-04:00</published><updated>2025-05-12T20:21:44.216-04:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="British"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Drama"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Political"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Steven Soderbergh"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Thriller"/><title type='text'>Black Bag (Steven Soderbergh, 2025)</title><content type='html'><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidu81v22rJIu_P-dL8gnMe-GDJVNxnhshzGeXKuJdw742FUYkNj18Ygn-e_qJqfAc6pbWGsliJrQrpabJjEUn_Ii7aac6Rv-Nu-qLTUEAMzJDQ2aYe3vM94QtZhP-3zt-Rk4ILpnM286ca-NsbyU2e6rt3FkY3zLW1iOVFr0G9ld_SRtYoNb49/s1200/03112025_TZR_Movie-Black_Bag_tzr_113724.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="630" data-original-width="1200" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidu81v22rJIu_P-dL8gnMe-GDJVNxnhshzGeXKuJdw742FUYkNj18Ygn-e_qJqfAc6pbWGsliJrQrpabJjEUn_Ii7aac6Rv-Nu-qLTUEAMzJDQ2aYe3vM94QtZhP-3zt-Rk4ILpnM286ca-NsbyU2e6rt3FkY3zLW1iOVFr0G9ld_SRtYoNb49/w400-h210/03112025_TZR_Movie-Black_Bag_tzr_113724.webp" width="400" /></a></div>Lies like usSteven Soderbergh's <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt30988739/">Black Bag</a>-- his second feature released in the first three months of 2025-- is arguably his best in years: a stylish, sexy thriller that of all things celebrates the bond of marriage, a relationship espionage writer John Le Carre might have once characterized as a significant weakness in an intelligence officer.<a name='more'></a>Soderbergh taking on a script by David Koepp (who has collaborated with the director on at least two other films (Kimi (2022), and Presence (earlier this year)) has cooked up his version of that most classic of spy games: a molehunt, the search for a possible traitor who has stolen Severus, a powerful computer software capable of crashing nuclear reactors (loosely based on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet">Stuxnet</a>, an actual malware unleashed by the United States on the Iranian nuclear weapons program). National Cyber Security Center officer George (Michael Fassbender) is charged with unmasking said renegade and invites dissipated managing agent Freddie (Tom Burke); his satellite imagery specialist girlfriend Clarissa (Marisa Abela); agency therapist Dr. Zoe (Naomie Harris); and her boyfriend and managing agent James (Rege-Jean Page) to a small dinner prepared and served by himself, hosted by his lovely wife and colleague Kathryn (Cate Blanchett)-- who, George is told, is also a suspect.&nbsp;Call this Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? meets <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2012/03/spiesinc.html">Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy</a>&nbsp;with a dash of Thunderball glamour; hosts and guests are all beautiful and witty, their conversation lightly delivered yet cunningly barbed, their motivations frankly feral. George has spiked the main dish with a tongue-loosening drug ("avoid the chana masala," he warns Kathryn) and as a result talk, and at one point blood-- in the form of a steak knife nailing someone's hand to the dining room table-- flows freely. A fun night, in short, is had by all.But as Agatha Christie and even Le Carre-- no slouch at fashioning intricate mysteries himself-- might assert, it isn't the who or how that's so interesting as it is the why. Soderbergh and Koepp dream up perversely fascinating characters afflicted with imaginatively dysfunctional relationships, from Clarissa with her father fixation on the older incurably unfaithful Freddie ("When you can lie about everything, when you can deny everything, how do you tell the truth about anything?" "This is why you can't date a SIGINT, they're all fucking insane") to elegantly professional Dr. Zoe ("I've got nothing to hide!" "Then we'll start with you") to supremely confident Kathryn ("He told me that I want too much and that I cannot have it all. I'm gonna have his job-- you watch.") to quiet and arguably most perverse of them all George ("Little Georgie surveilled his own father" "I don't like liars"). Meaty characters for talented actors to sink their thespian teeth into and if they drool a little from the savory succulence, who can blame them?Perhaps the most fascinating dynamic flows between George and Kathryn. "How can you tell the truth about anything?" Clarissa laments; George and Kathryn keep as mum as possible about details of each other's duties and somehow make it work-- even more unlikely make it sexy. Kathryn's clearly the dom in the relationship; when they're with others Kathryn (Blanchett channeling her Elizabeth persona) rules like a queen; when they're alone she clambers on top, hungry to devour him. George knows his place; Fassbender, who's not lacking in natural charisma, seems to contract into some kind of black hole, eventually yanking the hole in after himself. He's singleminded in his pursuit of the possible traitor, a focus rivaled only by his loyalty to his wife, and the contradiction (that the traitor could be his wife) is tearing him apart. Kathryn for all her confidence knows what she has in George, and trusts that singlemindedness ("Have you seen him when his jaws lock on something? You'll rip yourself apart before he'll let go. Eat up! This ends with someone in the boot of a car."), will go to surprising lengths to protect that mind. It's a surprisingly graceful pas de deux, with Blanchett playing Fred Astaire to Fassbender's demure Ginger Rogers-- Blanchett leading and Fassbender mirroring her steps backwards.&nbsp;Is it a great spy thriller? Well now hold on a second. It's smart and sexy; it has Soderbergh wielding his own camera in a series of cleverly staged and framed shots, assembled (by Soderbergh himself) with fluid precision and a lively pace, lighting each scene just enough that we can distinguish the faces in the surrounding ethical murk (except for the rare sunlit scenes on a boat in a fishpond, and a bravura passage involving furtively hacked spy satellites observing a Zurich park bench). It boasts of a royal flush of some of the most beautiful actors one can drool over in recent cinema. It's stylish, but in an intelligent and understated-- as opposed to vulgarly extravagant-- way.&nbsp;And while Fassbender and Blanchett go a long way to selling us the idea that yes these beyond-gorgeous people do possess the same feelings we do-- anger and ambition and jealousy and love-- they aren't as palpably real as the sadly cuckolded long-retired George Smiley (so memorably played by Alec Guinness and later, at a different register, by Gary Oldman), or the memorably exhausted Alec Leamas (Richard Burton in arguably his most magnificent performance). They fascinate us much as Ian Fleming entranced us with tall tales of secret agents drinking and killing and womanizing their way around Europe and the Caribbean, but don't hold up a mirror to our faces, forcing us to see ourselves. Fun, but a somewhat disposable fun, with just maybe a tiny secret kernel of honesty smuggled in under all that entertainment.First published in <a href="https://www.bworldonline.com/arts-and-leisure/2025/04/04/663754/lies-like-us/">Businessworld</a> 4.4.25<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiYVD_epjNzL-CgRBseh0knvoRdm727AKlSm7gjKSUajkhDkhDlJDtakl-7huM3fvvNcfF2nvve-WLliYV7zAdIMI1zU-2s6yJ6JNUJyf7-3waDQSBJWriVV2QB-mhwIkP-AjN5efl0NujkDHRGTQc_zH-FgpZavhifHQkjpjCm1SevdFIAYHb/s375/thumb_998798D8-4A65-4612-A2C9-7B2C82935DA7.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="210" data-original-width="375" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiYVD_epjNzL-CgRBseh0knvoRdm727AKlSm7gjKSUajkhDkhDlJDtakl-7huM3fvvNcfF2nvve-WLliYV7zAdIMI1zU-2s6yJ6JNUJyf7-3waDQSBJWriVV2QB-mhwIkP-AjN5efl0NujkDHRGTQc_zH-FgpZavhifHQkjpjCm1SevdFIAYHb/w400-h224/thumb_998798D8-4A65-4612-A2C9-7B2C82935DA7.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://www.bigomagazine.com/theshop/books/NVcritic.html">Critic After Dark: a Review of Philippine Cinema</a></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/feeds/5014870717235024966/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment/fullpage/post/12690266/5014870717235024966' title='2 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/5014870717235024966'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/5014870717235024966'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2025/04/black-bag-steven-soderbergh-2025.html' title='Black Bag (Steven Soderbergh, 2025)'/><author><name>Noel Vera</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/05904212081036547668</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhFGuWELWMo9OjoDwjBzTbiUrgfyqvjbwDaHz6DeIA0oINpB_5KVEDaN-6wNnpHaVZMr9NCJr43ySze-txyN5BblMcnkdzmQMw3ZuM2sEapbF7ymPifolTd_PtpTWj6FU/s220/journal+pics+6.jpg'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidu81v22rJIu_P-dL8gnMe-GDJVNxnhshzGeXKuJdw742FUYkNj18Ygn-e_qJqfAc6pbWGsliJrQrpabJjEUn_Ii7aac6Rv-Nu-qLTUEAMzJDQ2aYe3vM94QtZhP-3zt-Rk4ILpnM286ca-NsbyU2e6rt3FkY3zLW1iOVFr0G9ld_SRtYoNb49/s72-w400-h210-c/03112025_TZR_Movie-Black_Bag_tzr_113724.webp" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>2</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12690266.post-1688131439741034110</id><published>2025-04-03T14:39:00.005-04:00</published><updated>2025-04-10T10:58:59.570-04:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Action"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Comedy"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Crime"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Drama"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Oscars"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Quentin Tarantino"/><title type='text'>Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1994)</title><content type='html'><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidtDETmaluJ4pUvWFCWmtpnYtfsauh4RqM2YPGptqJkE-MwW8T8JnjPmj0WRqW1KOH21CAOVeTkynmfspeXAqYUyevXzX96gXofQwirYXwraUN6hc6EXhi22Ja9nowjOMsBvEZKCZVzKo92r6yg0o6G_v5iXHaQYo7OMbKuEGrpRBipjikHyWu/s1600/image%20(7).jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidtDETmaluJ4pUvWFCWmtpnYtfsauh4RqM2YPGptqJkE-MwW8T8JnjPmj0WRqW1KOH21CAOVeTkynmfspeXAqYUyevXzX96gXofQwirYXwraUN6hc6EXhi22Ja9nowjOMsBvEZKCZVzKo92r6yg0o6G_v5iXHaQYo7OMbKuEGrpRBipjikHyWu/w300-h400/image%20(7).jpg" width="300" /></a></div> "Ulp!" fictionMovie opens with Tim Roth sitting in a diner telling Amanda Plummer the story of a man who walked into a bank. Hands a cellphone to a bank teller; voice tells teller man's daughter is held hostage and will die unless teller gives up money. Roth and Plummer then exchange endearments, pull out guns to announce a stickup. Blackout: guitar on soundtrack while titles in bright red and yellow crawl up the screen.
Welcome to the world of <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110912/">Pulp Fiction</a>, one of the more memorable American films of 1994. Five were nominated for Best Picture Oscars last year: Four Weddings and a Funeral (lightweight); The Shawshank Redemption (pretentious); Quiz Show (plodding); Forrest Gump (simpleminded). Of the five Pulp&nbsp;stands out for being Not Nice, an aggressive, in-your-face ride through the fairly tangled mind of one Quentin Tarantino.
<a name='more'></a>Pulp tells three interlinked stories: Vincent Vega (John Travolta) and Jules Winnfield (Samuel Jackson) are sent by their boss Marcellus (Ving Rhames) to retrieve a briefcase; Vincent later has to take Marcellus' wife Mia (Uma Thurman) out on a date while the boss is out of town; finally a boxer (Bruce Willis) is paid by Marcellus to throw a fight but instead wins and flees.&nbsp;Tarantino has this way of grabbing you by the collar sitting you on a chair opposite and declaring "it's like this: the second story ends first, the third is really the middle, the first ends the movie. The prologue is the beginning of the first story; after Jules and Vincent get the suitcase you think it's still the first but it's really the third; the second began when Jules and Vincent were outside the apartment door-- you follow?" You have to meet the film halfway, connect the gaps deliberately left in the plot-- it's Tarantino's way of demonstrating Godard's quip "a story should have a beginning, a middle, and an end, not necessarily in that order" (and in fact the movie's single finest scene is basically a less entrancing restaging of the dance sequence in Bande a part).&nbsp;Tarantino does help lubricate the effort with some choice lines: "What do you call a Quarter-pounder With Cheese in France? A Royale With Cheese." "Giving a woman a foot massage doesn't mean anything." "Would you want me to give you one?" "Fuck off." "Y'know my feet hurt, I could use a foot massage."&nbsp;Then there's Christopher Walken as a (what else?) Vietnam vet delivering a lengthy monologue about a gold watch stuck up his rectum throughout his years in a concentration camp. "And now," he informs his dead best friend's son looking wide-eyed up at him,&nbsp; 'I give this watch to you.'
Tarantino's real strength is his way with actors. There's Harvey Keitel's ultracool Mr. Wolf, an expert on messes, particularly corpses sitting in the back of your car with their head blown off (likely inspired by a similar character in Luc Besson's La Femme Nikita); there's Rosanna Arquette pierced within an inch of her life, watching eagerly as her boyfriend prepares to stab a woman in the chest with a cardiac needle; and there's the always excellent Peter Greene, reportedly strung out half the time on heroin-- watching him here you can believe the rumors.&nbsp;Bruce Willis pushes his John McClane persona into Twilight Zone territory;&nbsp; Uma Thurman drives Travolta crazy first one way, then another-- perhaps her best moment comes when she tells a joke that's funny because it's lame: suddenly she's no longer a temptress but a girl awake way past her bedtime, and the unexpected vulnerability is so alluring Travolta can't resist blowing her a kiss. Travolta is good as Vincent Vega-- a killer and a not very smart one, but with enough frowzy charm you end up liking him anyway.&nbsp;What begins and ends the picture tho is Samuel Jackson. As Jules Winnfield, Jackson is a pleasure to watch as he politely asks to sample a burger ("A Royale With Cheese"); he eventually assumes the stance and cadence of an Old Testament prophet, spouting partly made-up passages from the Book of Ezekiel as he renders judgment on the hapless gang of briefcase thieves. He ultimately ends up where the TV show Kung Fu begins: a wanderer out in the world seeking fulfillment, an allusion to pop culture so ingeniously crafted you scratch your head and wonder if maybe it's more profound than it really is (it isn't, but-- made you scratch!).&nbsp;Pulp is a shallow film with brilliant surface and engagingly hip attitude; should it have won Best Picture? Why sure-- the movie needs to be recognized as the new status quo, the Oscars being all about celebrating stati quo as opposed to true innovation and artistry; that it sold tons of tickets for a modest cost ($200 million from an $8 million budget), never hurts. Pulp and the Best Picture Oscar deserve each other, the way a hungry man deserves his burger; yes his belly's filled, but the experience is neither nourishing nor satisfying.First published in The Manila Chronicle 6.12.95<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhssjxt0RS55tTpyrOpUQBxst-P3-bisQVatlxK6seSzhG3tUyCz4kU8MsIqmny_dWBxjjoLn1MAgPxyBfiwcqOEMpSlt4nCMWVPUGVHavefXL-ohr1dS0YMHvU7GvLsoNz01fKdQ_2REO5OJ1jHcO4swvl-01SWhzM7_6x796heGDhOOMkYH5/s1600/MV5BNTY1MzgzOTYxNV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwMDI4OTEwMjE@._V1_.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1093" data-original-width="1600" height="274" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhssjxt0RS55tTpyrOpUQBxst-P3-bisQVatlxK6seSzhG3tUyCz4kU8MsIqmny_dWBxjjoLn1MAgPxyBfiwcqOEMpSlt4nCMWVPUGVHavefXL-ohr1dS0YMHvU7GvLsoNz01fKdQ_2REO5OJ1jHcO4swvl-01SWhzM7_6x796heGDhOOMkYH5/w400-h274/MV5BNTY1MzgzOTYxNV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwMDI4OTEwMjE@._V1_.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://www.bigomagazine.com/theshop/books/NVcritic.html">Critic After Dark: a Review of Philippine Cinema</a></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/feeds/1688131439741034110/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment/fullpage/post/12690266/1688131439741034110' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/1688131439741034110'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/1688131439741034110'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2025/04/pulp-fiction-quentin-tarantino-1994.html' title='Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1994)'/><author><name>Noel Vera</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/05904212081036547668</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhFGuWELWMo9OjoDwjBzTbiUrgfyqvjbwDaHz6DeIA0oINpB_5KVEDaN-6wNnpHaVZMr9NCJr43ySze-txyN5BblMcnkdzmQMw3ZuM2sEapbF7ymPifolTd_PtpTWj6FU/s220/journal+pics+6.jpg'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidtDETmaluJ4pUvWFCWmtpnYtfsauh4RqM2YPGptqJkE-MwW8T8JnjPmj0WRqW1KOH21CAOVeTkynmfspeXAqYUyevXzX96gXofQwirYXwraUN6hc6EXhi22Ja9nowjOMsBvEZKCZVzKo92r6yg0o6G_v5iXHaQYo7OMbKuEGrpRBipjikHyWu/s72-w300-h400-c/image%20(7).jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12690266.post-5841784542244369845</id><published>2025-03-24T13:11:00.003-04:00</published><updated>2025-04-08T02:38:33.682-04:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Comedy"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Filipino"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Frank Rivera"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Mario O'Hara"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Noir"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Nora Aunor"/><title type='text'>Tatlong Ina, Isang Anak</title><content type='html'><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3iu-dogcyAZ0WpUKBmUAXTg1ItVXhh9Fy1x5EB-vcPWIm1rL-h0t2yFDY-GWGmlSngTE8_FY_hlGHV4B5rW37YIPSD1xZUIkSddYpmse7yrhAhvEZlBYPuk-Qj3YoTXplHdEE8J94Uth4LdVuKHM8cOKgL2G2J8uMbLzMSTjkrOkIlrqUnHiV/s1308/3ina.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="707" data-original-width="1308" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3iu-dogcyAZ0WpUKBmUAXTg1ItVXhh9Fy1x5EB-vcPWIm1rL-h0t2yFDY-GWGmlSngTE8_FY_hlGHV4B5rW37YIPSD1xZUIkSddYpmse7yrhAhvEZlBYPuk-Qj3YoTXplHdEE8J94Uth4LdVuKHM8cOKgL2G2J8uMbLzMSTjkrOkIlrqUnHiV/w400-h216/3ina.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div>Three godmothersSaw Mario O'Hara's <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0125536/">Tatlong Ina, Isang Anak</a>&nbsp;(Three Mothers, One Child, 1987) starring Nora Aunor years ago in a bootleg but the video was muddy and you could barely see what's going on. Cinema One put up a reasonably clear copy on YouTube-- in a few days ABS CBN will be unveiling a digitally enhanced version on theater screens-- and judging from what can be seen at the YouTube it's one of the loveliest, moodiest, most stylishly shot and lit Filipino comedies I'd ever seen.&nbsp;<a name='more'></a>Hold-- Mario O'Hara, one of the grimmest most violent filmmakers in Philippine cinema-- doing a comedy? About a child? Nora (and frequent co-star Gina Alajar) being funny? And it looks good? Well that last bit makes sense: the film was shot by Johnny Araojo (<a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2010/02/bagong-hari-new-king-mario-ohara-1986.html">Bagong Hari</a>, <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2024/05/condemned-mario-ohara-1984.html">Condemned</a>, <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2013/04/now-online-one-of-mario-oharas-best.html">Bulaklak sa City Jail</a>), Romulo Araojo (Bagong Hari, The Fatima Buen Story, <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2014/10/hesus-rebolusyonaryo-jesus.html">Hesus Rebolusyunaryo</a>), and Sergio Lobo (<a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2009/06/indiobravo-film-festival-brillante.html">Himala</a>, <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2021/06/ishmael-bernal-partial-retrospective.html">Manila by Night</a>, <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2013/04/mario-oharas-uhaw-sa-pagibig-thirst-for.html">Uhaw sa Pagibig</a>). Looking carefully at Nora's filmography a good chunk of it is either musicals or comedy or both, and in them she often plays the straight man or delivers the punchline in deadpan. O'Hara far as I can remember has done only one other out and out comedy, Takot Ako Eh (I'm Scared! 1987) which he as much as admitted he did for the money-- but he often inserts humor into his dramas, everything from the girl who can't remember her boyfriend's name in Condemned to the jail guard hoping to get laid in a cemetery in Bulaklak sa City Jail. Aunor and O'Hara can be funny, it's just that their humor can get a little dark, even morbid.&nbsp;The script-- by Frank Rivera (who also did the production design) and O'Hara-- looks like it was lifted from John Ford's Three Godfathers&nbsp;but where Ford's comic takeoff from the Three Wise Men of the bible strands them in the middle of the Arizona desert, Rivera and O'Hara plunks their three wayward mothers in the teeming heart of downtown Manila, from its respectable bourgeoisie spinsters to its dank underclass of beggars, prostitutes, corrupt cops, and kidnap-for-ransom gangs. The three-- Au-au (Nora Aunor), Claire (Gina Alajar), and Belle (Celeste Legaspi)-- have their beaus Nonoy (Miguel Rodriguez), Dado (Toby Alejar) to be replaced by Jualdo (Dan Alvaro), and Bok (Bembol Roco); the women even have their elderly counterparts in Paraluman, Perla Bautista, and Olivia Cenizal, three auntlike spinsters who like to stick their upturned noses in other peoples' business. That's enough characters and subplots and complications for three productions, much less this slight but strangely charming movie.&nbsp;I keep mentioning a script-- the premise really kicks off when Au, Claire, and Belle acquire a child named Baby Doll (Matet de Leon, one of Nora's several children) and appoint themselves its guardian and adoptive mother; the child's real father, Nonoy, finds out about his child and is charged by his aunt (Paraluman) with taking his daughter away from the three-- and things get complicated from there.&nbsp;I keep mentioning a script but really this is just a series of loosely linked episodes where three women struggle to care for a child and maybe someday find the right man. Belle's family learns she's a bar hostess; she keeps trying to hang herself only the babe keeps crying for her attention. Claire is in love with Dado, who has an eye for passing women; finally Jualdo has to restrain her from throwing herself in despair under the wheels of an oncoming vehicle. Nonoy broke up with Au long ago-- that's how he ends up fathering a child with someone else-- but with their nightly orbits constantly crossing they can't help but be drawn to each other.&nbsp;There's no great theme, no urgent social message here, just an opportunity to enjoy the company of actors enjoying each others' company and their oddball roles, throwing whatever they can in the mix (and while we don't actually get a kitchen sink we do get a kitchen, with Matimtiman Cruz as a more than slightly cracked old lady dancing before her boiling cauldron waving a knife).&nbsp;Well, maybe there is a message, something O'Hara has been saying in many of his films from Tatlong Taong Walang Diyos to Bulaklak sa City Jail: that motherhood is a blessed troublesome vocation not everyone is willing to undertake but a lucky few-- stumbling or forced into it if necessary-- get to enjoy despite all the anxieties and heartaches.&nbsp;I mentioned Nora not normally being associated with comedies... but our first sight of her she's standing in the front doorway looking grim and serious before falling flat on her face. Gina Alajar plays chatterbox airhead romantic, and Celeste Legaspi is a cheerfully hedonistic hostess with klepto tendencies (at one point hiding out in a department store she swaps out her wet clothes for more fashionable threads and stuffs her handbag with costume jewelry while Bok follows close behind, sternly lecturing her on the evils of shoplifting).&nbsp;By film's end Au is tracking Baby Doll who's been kidnapped for the umpteenth time-- for real now, not just because her biological father wanted custody-- and is ready to rush into the kidnappers' lair armed with just a handgun (and a bright-red baseball cap with giant yellow lightbulb). How a bar girl manages to infiltrate a criminal den and eliminate all the dangerous criminals despite never having held a weapon in her life (not to mention sporting that ridiculous target-gallery hat), how O'Hara manages to stage and shoot a rescue operation that doesn't quite make sense spatially and sequentially-- is all squared neatly away with a flick of a pen and an extra twist of the plot. Done in high noirish style complete with looming shadows and blue-tinted windows and echoing sound effects and dreamlike slow motion and-- at one point-- a room glowing sickly Vertigo green. Does it all make sense? Not really. Does that matter? Not really. Did we have fun? Yes, really. Which of course is all that matters.&nbsp;<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKjnF0vJAt47LQjKdVyaGhzTmRn7qCERTPAuTmknqIosbNh1dYF8vkWyntyoYT7c9Njv4lXIyYGjzH4V_H-wDzByJAmP9b6Jvv5dNPV99NxTui3Q8cylvgynhIq7AzjPulJrYglNueQWQlbKJ6oPaxKZEUT7wJ-vZvL7T-FjmtuylRC5YGFScs/s1308/3ina4.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="708" data-original-width="1308" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKjnF0vJAt47LQjKdVyaGhzTmRn7qCERTPAuTmknqIosbNh1dYF8vkWyntyoYT7c9Njv4lXIyYGjzH4V_H-wDzByJAmP9b6Jvv5dNPV99NxTui3Q8cylvgynhIq7AzjPulJrYglNueQWQlbKJ6oPaxKZEUT7wJ-vZvL7T-FjmtuylRC5YGFScs/w400-h216/3ina4.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFHCfVo-k1aPCjyV-0RpCyB3XWk3SYgxa9-rWLtRY89FcEjTvJ8DkdKCxQ3FROh10ukN2thbeWsxGXWohBUORLrDrXaXmEq6X02Kfc0YRRCcD93g_fZ5SOvrmgbDtE1rQkN2FjQPt-Ecd9nE6zg2k7p0beINler_HK2WJAYI18bjiYODxSirpS/s1311/3ina5.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="707" data-original-width="1311" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFHCfVo-k1aPCjyV-0RpCyB3XWk3SYgxa9-rWLtRY89FcEjTvJ8DkdKCxQ3FROh10ukN2thbeWsxGXWohBUORLrDrXaXmEq6X02Kfc0YRRCcD93g_fZ5SOvrmgbDtE1rQkN2FjQPt-Ecd9nE6zg2k7p0beINler_HK2WJAYI18bjiYODxSirpS/w400-h216/3ina5.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><div> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu6wxCqI1DIvlXCHSaH8ITATkt-Jf_NVxQ7BKsPnQaMjhVonuV-JT1QXifiRGTml4Oc68ljXwLRmPaMlgLvRllZMzPSq8xc9qAt4fqLbH_h5S-8x56f_A2tCOauyfzTpdOyZqZ9KB6qFesT4pWDp0VL5CqePA2DMAWKj3D4XdYNf4p-443aVoT/s2048/485666549_10163389979145400_4617645227741362122_n.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1388" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu6wxCqI1DIvlXCHSaH8ITATkt-Jf_NVxQ7BKsPnQaMjhVonuV-JT1QXifiRGTml4Oc68ljXwLRmPaMlgLvRllZMzPSq8xc9qAt4fqLbH_h5S-8x56f_A2tCOauyfzTpdOyZqZ9KB6qFesT4pWDp0VL5CqePA2DMAWKj3D4XdYNf4p-443aVoT/w271-h400/485666549_10163389979145400_4617645227741362122_n.jpg" width="271" /></a></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://www.bigomagazine.com/theshop/books/NVcritic.html">Critic After Dark: a Review of Philippine Cinema</a></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/feeds/5841784542244369845/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment/fullpage/post/12690266/5841784542244369845' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/5841784542244369845'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/5841784542244369845'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2025/03/tatlong-ina-isang-anak.html' title='Tatlong Ina, Isang Anak'/><author><name>Noel Vera</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/05904212081036547668</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhFGuWELWMo9OjoDwjBzTbiUrgfyqvjbwDaHz6DeIA0oINpB_5KVEDaN-6wNnpHaVZMr9NCJr43ySze-txyN5BblMcnkdzmQMw3ZuM2sEapbF7ymPifolTd_PtpTWj6FU/s220/journal+pics+6.jpg'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3iu-dogcyAZ0WpUKBmUAXTg1ItVXhh9Fy1x5EB-vcPWIm1rL-h0t2yFDY-GWGmlSngTE8_FY_hlGHV4B5rW37YIPSD1xZUIkSddYpmse7yrhAhvEZlBYPuk-Qj3YoTXplHdEE8J94Uth4LdVuKHM8cOKgL2G2J8uMbLzMSTjkrOkIlrqUnHiV/s72-w400-h216-c/3ina.jpeg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12690266.post-6861144332158482541</id><published>2025-03-16T23:26:00.002-04:00</published><updated>2025-04-08T02:41:30.381-04:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="adaptation"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Bong Joon-ho"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Comedy"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Drama"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="korean"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Political"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Science Fiction"/><title type='text'>Mickey 17 (Bong Joon-ho, 2025)</title><content type='html'><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj14dU5EXcWhogissEk9g6acVuuXSVhLqytRuPYGbSFxr0tgJMacCobY-ha5U16seVPvRlnubuYATOVH80eS6LCiaPohNFJWHmld7vbt6OJQZ3zkX9fFnXRu9RmcyZi2ZYhvrav38n01Ja0EDAzLcBbiEe8MJIDxPcLtJ3zbXja7LwsuIHXbtna/s1200/mickey-17-everything-we-know.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="1200" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj14dU5EXcWhogissEk9g6acVuuXSVhLqytRuPYGbSFxr0tgJMacCobY-ha5U16seVPvRlnubuYATOVH80eS6LCiaPohNFJWHmld7vbt6OJQZ3zkX9fFnXRu9RmcyZi2ZYhvrav38n01Ja0EDAzLcBbiEe8MJIDxPcLtJ3zbXja7LwsuIHXbtna/w400-h200/mickey-17-everything-we-know.webp" width="400" /></a></div>Hidden MickeyBong Joon-ho's latest film <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12299608/">Mickey 17</a>&nbsp;is out and disappointing some folks-- in part because it isn't making the boxoffice they're hoping from the director of <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2020/02/parasite-bong-joon-ho.html">Parasite</a> ($262 million worldwide from an $11 million budget), in part because it doesn't have the sharp edge of Parasite with its literal upstairs-downstairs allegory or bloody melancholic finale. Basically the complaint I'm hearing is that it isn't Parasite, which won a goldplated Oscar doorstop for Best Picture, and that he should just do more of the same only better for the rest of his career.&nbsp;And for the rest of us? Well lemme tell you...&nbsp;<a name='more'></a>When you mention Bong Joon-ho the key question isn't really 'which film?' as it is 'which Bong?' He's dabbled not just in different genres but different combination of genres from police-procedural noir (<a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2011/07/i-saw-devil-kim-jee-woon-2010.html">Memories of a Murder</a>) to family drama turned noir (Mother) to indie comedies (<a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2009/10/barking-dogs-never-bite-oldboy-beyond.html">Barking Dogs Never Bite</a>) to creature feature turned family drama (<a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2007/09/gwoemul-host-bong-joon-ho-2006.html">The Host</a>) to girl and pet pig turned dystopian adventure (Okja) to adaptation of an action-adventure anime (<a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2014/08/snowpiercer-bong-joon-ho-2013.html">Snowpiercer</a>) to yes allegorical family comedies turned thrillers (Parasite).&nbsp;Bong is what you might call a moving target, never satisfied with making the same picture twice, and I'm betting if anyone asked him what his most perfect work was he'd frown and ask you to repeat the question. Perfection implies practicing the same skills over and over till you've mastered them and I doubt if he's applied the same set of skills twice in any two productions; I don't think he's even interested in making anything perfect-- he's just too interested in moving on and doing something else.&nbsp;So this: an English-language adaptation of Mickey 7 by Edward Ashton about Mickey Barnes, crew member on an expedition to the ice planet Niflheim-- '7' because Mickey is an Expendable, assigned to take on the most dangerous assignments; every time he dies a new clone can be decanted with most if not all of his previous memories downloaded to his latest body (this is the seventh Mickey to be revived to date). The film's title is Mickey 17&nbsp;because, as Bong put it in an interview "I wanted to kill him ten more times."You can see Bong's point. Have not read the novel but have heard it called farcical, with plenty of long agonizing deaths described involving the various Mickeys. The original Barnes was lassoed into the role by the promise of immortality; the recruiter didn't lie-- you do get immortality of sorts, but the downside are 1) all the various painful and often protracted ways in which you can get killed and 2) your unofficial (tho often vocally declared) status as bottom rung on the expeditionary ship's social ladder. Stretching Mickey's career by an additional ten deaths, Bong emphasizes the sense that Mickey has 1) gone through a lot more suffering and 2) has had his ego battered down to the point where he's actually disappointed when he doesn't die in some horrific manner ("What's the matter, my meat ain't good enough for you?!"). This is the kind of pathos Chaplin might have achieved in his great silent comedies with his resourceful sadsack Tramp, if the Tramp ever adventured in science fiction (well he did a bit in the first half of Modern Times, and did put his flesh literally on the line in The Gold Rush); Bong lunges at the same goals as Chaplin, helped by lively editing and voiceover narration and a far bigger special-effects budget-- he doesn't succeed on the same level (of course) but does get there, more or less.&nbsp;Helps that Bong has Robert Pattinson. Pattinson's been trying to rehabilitate his image since his twinkly vampire days and the effort has largely worked, with his bearded explorer in James Gray's&nbsp;<a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2017/06/the-lost-city-of-z-james-gray-2016.html">The Lost City of Z</a>, his hardpressed smalltime crook in the Safdie brothers' Good Times, his gritty greasy turn as lonely keeper in Robert Eggers' The Lighthouse (he's also had a turn as <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2022/03/the-batman-matt-reeves-2022.html">The Batman</a> but I'm still trying to forget the experience). Pattinson comes off as versatile and courageous, able and willing to try something, anything, as long as he can take it somewhere extreme; Bong must have seen this in him, had a long discussion with the actor, and confided his vision: "here in this my latest film, you must play someone sweet."&nbsp;And by golly Pattinson does. Mickey is perhaps the sweetest most likable character I've ever encountered in a Bong film, and the fact that he gets pummeled, frozen, incinerated, amputated by passing meteoroids, and exposed to various deadly gases chemicals microorganisms only serves to make his sweetness seem more heroic. A backstory I'm assuming Bong added to the film shows why he's so motivated to flee the Earth and accept such a thankless job (it's either this or a chainsaw) and also serves to show how this basically guileless man has been exploited by the less scrupulous all his life.&nbsp;And Pattinson pulls it off with his softly mumbled cracked voice and constantly stricken eyes. He plays an almost purely good character and sells it, a difficult feat to pull off, and Bong as writer-director incidentally shows an understanding of goodness that even Dostoevsky doesn't quite achieve.&nbsp;Don't get me wrong, not meaning to rank Bong above Dostoevsky. When it comes to flawed antiheroes and malevolent degenerates and vain buffoons and other underworld types the writer has no peer; when it comes to pure folk without a trace of malice in their bodies, his writing can be embarrassing even (worse) dull. Dostoevsky's sainted characters are one-note and unconvincing, possibly because he's such a self-loathing heel he can't bring himself to sully their angelic blankness; he hasn't learned the lesson Bong practices, to sell a good person by adding the one grounding detail that makes him believable, in this case Mickey's intelligence. He's not the sharpest knife on the ship, he knows it, he accepts it, and folks around him-- and in the audience-- want to throw their arms around him and protect him just because.&nbsp;The film isn't a one-man show; Bong surrounds Pattinson's Mickey with a range of comic foils, from Mark Ruffalo's Trumpish Kenneth Marshall-- failed politician turned expedition leader-- to Toni Collette's Ylfa Marshall-- manipulative politician's wife and culinary snob-- to Steven Yuen's slippery Timo-- Mickey's best friend and most relentless exploiter-- to Mickey himself or rather Mickey 18, who was reprinted by accident and now hopes to replace 17 in the scheme of things. The scenes of 17 and 18 arguing are some of the funniest in the film; unfortunately 18 may also be the film's most serious flaw-- he's meant to be a darker more aggressive version of 17 only his role is so woefully underwritten we don't quite buy the eventual trajectory of his character arc.&nbsp;Gotta mention Naomie Ackie as Nasha, security agent and one of the few crewmembers to notice and stand by Mickey through his eighteen various incarnations. Nasha stays mainly in the background (Except for the moments when she's suddenly spectacularly physical-- security agent, remember?) and manages to be the exception to the rule: the purely good character who manages to make you believe in her because well she just is.The film has a consistently grungy textured look; even the digital effects-- mainly the alien creatures found on Niflheim, deftly mixed with animatronic models-- convey the solidity and unified feel of a film with a definite mood, of exhausted bluecollar slobs trying to earn their paychecks without getting killed by either their machinery or the harsh environments they work in. That look, mainly by legendary cinematographer Darius Khondji (Se7en, City of Lost Children), adds a dimension to the picture, arguably the handsomest looking Bong has done to date; also contrasts nicely with the frozen inferno of Neflheim, all vast tundras and perilous deadfalls and endless howling wind; the creatures (designed by Bong and longtime collaborator Jan Hee-chul) manage to look both moistly disgusting and unaccountably cute at the same time.&nbsp;Is this Bong's best work to date? I don't know; I've said it isn't perfect, that Bong doesn't even try for perfection. I do think it's overstuffed, ambitious, flings various things at the wall in the hope some of it sticks, and that a surprising amount does; the film does this trick of skittering across various genres and emotional tones throughout the entire running time, even within certain scenes, keeping its balance with more dexterity than you might expect-- but then Bong has apparently been doing this sort of thing for some time, years even. You might even say he's had practice.&nbsp;First published in <a href="https://www.bworldonline.com/arts-and-leisure/2025/03/14/659161/hidden-mickey/">Businessworld</a> 3.14.25<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhtSsrzdxgjuvBknPv-479FiUByS9fyurZgVJRMp3JFdCocxo257hq6H-dH8Bis7DxgGRGw6tW29oDYGJKu3Y1kj6iatyDX56P8OzLlWd3KWYQGpyMVzgAr2RUQyh2jxA6fOMR3aRokOS0zFXTq-vFvduZJy167nSFNvtaJ9xI0hy0JL8o7Ruuc" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="1240" data-original-width="2400" height="206" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhtSsrzdxgjuvBknPv-479FiUByS9fyurZgVJRMp3JFdCocxo257hq6H-dH8Bis7DxgGRGw6tW29oDYGJKu3Y1kj6iatyDX56P8OzLlWd3KWYQGpyMVzgAr2RUQyh2jxA6fOMR3aRokOS0zFXTq-vFvduZJy167nSFNvtaJ9xI0hy0JL8o7Ruuc=w400-h206" width="400" /></a></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://www.bigomagazine.com/theshop/books/NVcritic.html">Critic After Dark: a Review of Philippine Cinema</a></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/feeds/6861144332158482541/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment/fullpage/post/12690266/6861144332158482541' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/6861144332158482541'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/6861144332158482541'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2025/03/mickey-17-bong-joon-ho-2025.html' title='Mickey 17 (Bong Joon-ho, 2025)'/><author><name>Noel Vera</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/05904212081036547668</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhFGuWELWMo9OjoDwjBzTbiUrgfyqvjbwDaHz6DeIA0oINpB_5KVEDaN-6wNnpHaVZMr9NCJr43ySze-txyN5BblMcnkdzmQMw3ZuM2sEapbF7ymPifolTd_PtpTWj6FU/s220/journal+pics+6.jpg'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj14dU5EXcWhogissEk9g6acVuuXSVhLqytRuPYGbSFxr0tgJMacCobY-ha5U16seVPvRlnubuYATOVH80eS6LCiaPohNFJWHmld7vbt6OJQZ3zkX9fFnXRu9RmcyZi2ZYhvrav38n01Ja0EDAzLcBbiEe8MJIDxPcLtJ3zbXja7LwsuIHXbtna/s72-w400-h200-c/mickey-17-everything-we-know.webp" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12690266.post-1870140923163704358</id><published>2025-03-13T13:17:00.000-04:00</published><updated>2025-03-13T13:17:25.990-04:00</updated><title type='text'>Stargate (Roland Emmerich, 1994)</title><content type='html'><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG2D0feqL30BqaEblMG0Nnv0KYRhDq_EcqaZ_Xj0r8zcpgRQ1XGYHncjY_-PksbTSrA6Ekg2_u08Nc8q6DpBwNTZSoB7g7kQ0nd03L-X7_0lT4GBVR8tibae4z3qFFDuhxiB9_pFLYbDx5S8FC1c6h6pK1ZmmlNxkw6-OJt4Bo8ljX34Uaccuz/s1024/MERc8196210c4d1db04614d6db9f3e4fstargate1020-1024x580.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="580" data-original-width="1024" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG2D0feqL30BqaEblMG0Nnv0KYRhDq_EcqaZ_Xj0r8zcpgRQ1XGYHncjY_-PksbTSrA6Ekg2_u08Nc8q6DpBwNTZSoB7g7kQ0nd03L-X7_0lT4GBVR8tibae4z3qFFDuhxiB9_pFLYbDx5S8FC1c6h6pK1ZmmlNxkw6-OJt4Bo8ljX34Uaccuz/w400-h226/MERc8196210c4d1db04614d6db9f3e4fstargate1020-1024x580.jpg" width="400" /></a></div> </div><div>Gatekeeping</div><div> </div><div><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111282/">Stargate</a>&nbsp;is a whole mix of movies blendered and rendered into a soupy paste. You suck it through a straw, because the producers of the film believe you have no teeth to work with, just gums to massage the occasional tasty tidbit.
<a name='more'></a>The movie has a brisk pace; it's the footwork that's terrible. The beginning begins with dusty Arab laborers and German-accented scientists working on an archeological dig in the desert; the place looks like they went and found the sets from Raiders of the Lost Ark&nbsp;and just started filming. Then Dr. Daniel Jackson (James Spader) and Col Jack O'Neil (Kurt Russell) are rustled up to form a handpicked team sent on a Mission Impossible: explore what lies beyond a mysterious ten-thousand year old window to another world known as the Stargate. Mysterious, of course, only to those who never saw a single Star Trek episode, particularly City on the Edge of Forever. The trekkers go through a sort of 'ultimate fantasy trip' (see 2001: A Space Odyssey), and end up on the set of The Ten Commandments. Here, enslaved Israelites-- sorry, aliens-- toil at backbreaking and pointless tasks known only to the scriptwriters of the movie. They are lorded over by a powerful alien being named Ra who, after watching Invasion of the Body Snatchers&nbsp;decided to possess the body of a young boy (Jaye Davidson). Wearing a costume previously donned by Ming the Merciless, he comes down from the sky to visit his subjects in the manner of the Mother Ship in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Meanwhile, Jackson and O'Neil (were their names picked out of a phone book?) have not been idle; inspired by the example of Peter O'Toole in Lawrence of Arabia&nbsp;they enlist the aid of the local labor force and stage a revolt in the desert. The final confrontation involves some teleportation gore borrowed from The Fly&nbsp;and a stubborn nuclear device left over from Dr. Strangelove; unlike the bombs in Strangelove, the climax is a dud.
Borrowing from other movies is an old practice, the results are not always contemptible. But the writers of this Cuisinart flick haven't learned the lessons of mixing and matching. They outdo themselves cramming so many ideas they forgot to give the audience a coherent, believable story; worse, the references are distracting, because you remember those other films and how much fun you had watching them. Then you realize how little fun you're having now and do the very thing that spells death for a picture's hold on its audience: you start poking holes in the plot. Who made those footprints that led Jackson to the cameleopard thing, that desert beast? Why does Ra have to come from outer space to visit his subjects, and where does he go when he leaves, Planet Hollywood? Ra's ship looks like it could house thousands, where's the rest of his gang? If Ra is so powerful, why does he have the most incompetent guards in the universe, so when O'Neil attacks, the only ones able to protect Ra are the little kids? Who are those kids, and why do they hang around (Does Ra possess really awesome Nintendo games?)? Why do two space fighters with superpowerful blasters take so long to defeat a dirty little band of kids hiding behind a cart?
One other question: Russel and Spader are smart actors; why are they in a silly little flick like this? Spader has the most fun, being a nerdy scientist who overnight deciphers heiroglyphics on the Stargate that experts have spent two years trying to crack. He makes his apparent genius believable by being so casual about it; it surprises him when others don't come to the same conclusions he had made hours before. He cuts through all the difficulties about alien culture and protocol by offering the natives a 5th Avenue candy bar; he learns the natives' language by falling for one of their prettier vestal virgins and conducting late-night study sessions. Kurt Russell has the straight-man role, and a dead son on his conscience; despite all the excess baggage, he manages to stay loose and gives a relaxed, confident performance as leader of the crack Stargate unit. He gets to charm the native children, and brood over the nuclear device that he has to set off in case their mission goes wrong. Jaye Davidson, the astonishing young performer in The Crying Game&nbsp;is given the thankless role of standing around and smoldering, acting several IQ points dumber than he really is. Fortunately, he smolders well, and gives his alien a graceful step and an eerie androgynous beauty (too bad they gave him a synthesizer-mangled voice that sounds like Arnold Schwarzenegger gargling gravel).
The sets recall everything from the MGM hotel in Las Vegas to Blade Runner; the costumes look like Battlestar Galactica&nbsp;meets Cleopatra&nbsp;with a side trip through The Greatest Story Ever Told. The film's use of pyramids should give crackpots who believe in pyramid power some much-needed popularity, if not credibility.
As for the special effects, I have this to say: when the Stargate turns on, you hear a mighty roar, and the Gate's silvered surface boils outward, then sinks in a whirling funnel. Mighty impressive till you realize that the Stargate looks and sounds like a horizontal toilet bowl that has just been flushed. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgCd2VRL32IOr-EajLuzc4Tx9fZBbTKpcya26Qdm8TIrfdhR6K_mSPdiRL0lpm9xpKG3kw0GD3bqTVlU2UjLDVZDqE3nnRzxxvaMjLjp9zCIzzJza_0bu32vuUB4jJs7l6ezPu_murMqS3nJSh1JWXYCti0Af2m9w-O_Ld4GSxkcsLYjY0Ionu2" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="218" data-original-width="328" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgCd2VRL32IOr-EajLuzc4Tx9fZBbTKpcya26Qdm8TIrfdhR6K_mSPdiRL0lpm9xpKG3kw0GD3bqTVlU2UjLDVZDqE3nnRzxxvaMjLjp9zCIzzJza_0bu32vuUB4jJs7l6ezPu_murMqS3nJSh1JWXYCti0Af2m9w-O_Ld4GSxkcsLYjY0Ionu2=w400-h266" width="400" /></a></div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://www.bigomagazine.com/theshop/books/NVcritic.html">Critic After Dark: a Review of Philippine Cinema</a></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/feeds/1870140923163704358/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment/fullpage/post/12690266/1870140923163704358' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/1870140923163704358'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/1870140923163704358'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2025/03/stargate-roland-emmerich-1994.html' title='Stargate (Roland Emmerich, 1994)'/><author><name>Noel Vera</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/05904212081036547668</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhFGuWELWMo9OjoDwjBzTbiUrgfyqvjbwDaHz6DeIA0oINpB_5KVEDaN-6wNnpHaVZMr9NCJr43ySze-txyN5BblMcnkdzmQMw3ZuM2sEapbF7ymPifolTd_PtpTWj6FU/s220/journal+pics+6.jpg'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG2D0feqL30BqaEblMG0Nnv0KYRhDq_EcqaZ_Xj0r8zcpgRQ1XGYHncjY_-PksbTSrA6Ekg2_u08Nc8q6DpBwNTZSoB7g7kQ0nd03L-X7_0lT4GBVR8tibae4z3qFFDuhxiB9_pFLYbDx5S8FC1c6h6pK1ZmmlNxkw6-OJt4Bo8ljX34Uaccuz/s72-w400-h226-c/MERc8196210c4d1db04614d6db9f3e4fstargate1020-1024x580.jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12690266.post-297622223467175372</id><published>2025-03-06T16:47:00.004-05:00</published><updated>2025-03-14T03:01:06.007-04:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Filipino"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Film Criticism"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Film Festival"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Lino Brocka"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Mario O'Hara"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Mike de Leon"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Raymond Red"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Rotterdam"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Tikoy Aguiluz"/><title type='text'>Cinema Regained: Noel Vera (Rotterdam Film Festival 2006)</title><content type='html'><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVCQ-T8Rlc7pZJgVE7EeEjUTixgWQHHJ2w4K8F_UymQNFktRxyMQCm6Q7Vq5sS_PSetHLoytYxlNjigXhN2SimBiRxuGkXdCukWKV-KBX5ymDeUqPxZAD3NDkMZs-JncJvCM3yzMnRVQAa_fVU8Xv_py87dI9AGpyB6DR1Az5Q4hlt1bL3NvT6/s604/465116933_10161540275655792_7199853283662753659_n%20(1).jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="402" data-original-width="604" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVCQ-T8Rlc7pZJgVE7EeEjUTixgWQHHJ2w4K8F_UymQNFktRxyMQCm6Q7Vq5sS_PSetHLoytYxlNjigXhN2SimBiRxuGkXdCukWKV-KBX5ymDeUqPxZAD3NDkMZs-JncJvCM3yzMnRVQAa_fVU8Xv_py87dI9AGpyB6DR1Az5Q4hlt1bL3NvT6/w400-h266/465116933_10161540275655792_7199853283662753659_n%20(1).jpg" width="400" /></a></div> </div><div>In tribute to <a href="https://iffr.com/en/blog-remembering-gertjan-zuilhof">Gertjan Zuilhof</a> (1955 - 2025) who made this program possible</div><div> </div>Critic in Rotterdam

Some months ago, Gertjan Zuilhof of the Rotterdam Film Festival asked me right out of the blue to program films I'd written about in my book <a href="https://archivo1984.com/products/critic-after-dark-a-review-of-philippine-cinema">Critic After Dark</a>. I originally had over ten choices, narrowed down to seven features and a collection of shorts, made a few compromises along the way but otherwise felt happy about what I'd been able to bring to festival audiences last January 2006.

<a name='more'></a>The program, under the festival's <a href="https://iffr.com/en/iffr_film_section/cinema-regained-noel-vera">Cinema Regained</a> (a Proust allusion, I assume) subsection, includes <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2018/04/insiang-lino-brocka-1976.html">Insiang</a>&nbsp;(1976), Lino Brocka's tightly structured, tightly told tale about a young girl betrayed by family and society; <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2020/03/kisapmata-mike-de-leon.html">Kisapmata</a> (In the wink of an eye, 1982), Mike de Leon's harrowing film about a patriarchal tyrant; <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2024/02/tikoy-aguiluz-1952-2024.html">Tikoy Aguiluz</a>'s first feature (Boatman, 1984, about live sex performers) and arguably his best (<a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2015/05/bagong-bayani-unsung-heroine-tikoy.html">Bagong Bayani</a>&nbsp;(Unsung Heroine, 1995), about the execution of overseas worker Flor Contemplacion in Singapore); a film looking back on the Marcos era (Chito Rono's <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2019/12/page-margin-0.html">Eskapo</a>, 1995); a film from Lav Diaz-- relatively short, considering his other works (<a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2014/10/hesus-rebolusyonaryo-jesus.html">Hesus Rebolusyunaryo</a>&nbsp;(Jesus the Revolutionary, 2002)); a late work from Brocka contemporary and collaborator Mario O'Hara (<a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2023/07/pangarap-ng-puso-demons-mario-ohara-2000.html">Pangarap ng Puso&nbsp;</a>(Demons, 2000)-- in my opinion the best of the recent films); and, representing Philippine experimental cinema, the short films of <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2007/12/raymond-red.html">Raymond Red</a>, including his first (Ang Magpakailanman&nbsp;(The Eternity, 1982)) and one of his latest (the Palme d'or-winning short Anino&nbsp;(Shadows, 2000)).

My idea was to provide a sample of the '70s and '80s brand of socially committed neorealism (Insiang, Kisapmata-- the respective filmmakers' finest works-- and Boatman), then go on to show how others took that commitment in various different directions: docudrama (Bagong Bayani), dystopic science fiction (Hesus Rebolusyunaryo, which is set several years in the future), and magic realism (Anino, Pangarap ng Puso). A viewer following the screenings would in effect see the neorealist classics, then move on to the newer, more experimental films.
I was to introduce the films, at least the evening screenings, and conduct a Q &amp; A session afterwards. The first film I introduced-- Aguiluz's Boatman-- was simple enough: I explained that the film came out at a time when the Marcos regime's control was slipping, censorship of films was liberalized, and a whole spate of sexually and violently explicit films came out, this being one of the best of them. I didn't have much to add to the Q &amp; A after, except to note that the film shows the eponymous character going full circle, so to speak-- at the film's beginning, he loses his foreskin at a circumcision ritual; at the film's end he loses much more than that. Lot Piscaer of The Daily Tiger noted that she had to take a moment to recover from that ending.

When I introduced Insiang, I mostly tried to put the film in context (Brocka's neorealist masterpiece, originally from a TV script by Mario O'Hara) and in the Q &amp; A, pointed out differences in both script and film-- how O'Hara had originally set the story in Pasay and not in Tondo, how this affects the film's veracity, why Brocka made the change; how the censors insisted on a different final scene between Insiang and her mother, how Brocka filmed it in such a way that satisfied him, and how O'Hara, in a recent theatrical production, took that scene, and with a few changes (mainly in how Insiang delivers her lines), reclaimed it for his own.

Jonathan Rosenbaum, author and critic of The Chicago Reader was one of the audience, and I told him how important the film's structure was to its impact, the progression of relationships (Insiang's deteriorating regard for her mother; her mother's increasing mistrust of Insiang; Dado falling deeper and deeper under Insiang's spell), the accumulation of detail (from sex in a hovel to sex in a cheap motel; Dado's increasing irritation at Bebot's earring); Rosenbaum replied that structure isn't as important to him as the overall feel of the film, and that he certainly felt the film's intensity.

I do think much of the film's power comes from the eventual implication of everyone in the picture's penultimate crime. With everyone guilty, we can't fully sympathize with either one or the other; at the same time, we can't just self-righteously condemn anyone-- Brocka (presumably taking his cue from Renoir) makes it clear that everyone has their reasons for being the way they are. Mona Lisa's Tonya is trapped in her advanced age and status as abandoned housewife; Insiang is trapped in the role of put-upon daughter and young woman in Filipino society (women being expected to treat their virtue as a priceless treasure, easily and irredeemably lost); Dadong is trapped by his own low ambitions and sexual appetites. All three are worthy of both our pity and our contempt, the end result being we tend in our confusion to suspend our judgment, and pause in thought. I submit that that confusion, that pause, that suspension of our tendency to accuse and condemn-- that staying of our upraised arm, in effect-- is Insiang's best and strongest effect. We judge not lest we, like these creatures so vividly, unforgettably alive and struggling before us, are similarly judged.

If in Insiang&nbsp;the audience reacted with repulsion and dismay, the reaction in Kisapmata was altogether more interesting. They were laughing throughout much of the film, but it wasn't easy, derisory laughter; if anything, it was a terse release of tension, the kind of laughter you hear from someone fully aware he should know better but feels nervous, nevertheless. Much of de Leon's film played like a sharply observed domestic comedy, where husband and wife are forced to stay with their in-laws, only with an unsettling nightmare undertone (actually, I thought the weakest sequence in the film was Charo Santos' nightmare, where the subtext was made-- unnecessarily, I thought-- explicit).

I had again caught Rosenbaum in the audience (he seemed to be making it a point to catch the Filipino classics), and he told me that perhaps the one implausible moment was Charo Santos' need to confront her parents one more time, to which I replied that it might be more believable if you consider the kind of hooks parents can sink deep into their children, that in Philippine society that kind of filial sense of duty is perfectly understandable, and that much of the film's dialogue mirrors the dialogue married Filipinos often have with their in-laws. The film's impact with Filipino viewers comes mostly from the shock of recognition-- how closely the newlyweds' lives closely (and uncomfortably) resembled their own.

Rosenbaum went on to note how the film made him think of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's TV movie <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2008/07/martha-rainer-werner-fassbinder-1973.html">Martha</a>, about a troubled woman who marries a domineering and abusive husband. He acknowledged that Fassbinder and de Leon have wildly differing styles-- Fassbinder tends to an offhand, seemingly slipshod style, while de Leon's is almost Kubrickian in its control of every detail-- but that both films use black comedy as a means to bypass the audiences' defenses and bring the horror home.

Maybe the most notable question to come out of the Q &amp; A for Bagong Bayani-- which director Aguiluz introduced himself-- was whether or not the film had a commercial screening and what effect this had on government policy towards overseas workers; Aguiluz replied that the film failed to get a commercial screening. I interjected that after being rejected by the Metro Manila Film Festival, Aguiluz had pretty much given up; meanwhile, I had recommended the picture to the Hong Kong Film Festival-- which accepted it, to my surprise (it was the first film I ever programmed)-- and it gained new life on the festival circuit. It was eventually bought up for showing at the local cable, which helped recover the costs of making the film.

As for any lasting effects, Aguiluz noted that Contemplacion's death had caused the firing of the Philippines' ambassador to Singapore, but not her dismissal from foreign service, and that it did at least draw attention to the plight of overseas workers. An independent body agreed to by both Singaporean and Philippine governments investigated her case, and came to the conclusion that she was guilty after all. I realized later on I that I should have pointed out the film is relevant whether or not Contemplacion was innocent; it was the only one of the several films on the story that presented both sides of the case, and its focus is not just on her story but on the story of all Filipino overseas workers.

Perhaps the liveliest debate occurred during the evening screening of Pangarap ng Puso. I restated my basic thesis, that Brocka's films are an apotheosis, and that this represented the next step beyond. As critic Tony Rayns put it, the film "fits no established genre template. Part social history, part ghost-horror story, part romance, part quasi-Marxist parable, it has no obvious antecedent except perhaps Charles Laughton's Night of the Hunter." I added that the film was made for under fifty thousand dollars and shot in fourteen days, and that reactions to the film have been extreme: either they agree with me that it's one of the best and most imaginative Filipino film in recent years, or they think I've gone insane. I added that there would be a Q &amp; A after the screening so people could tell me to my face if I'm crazy or not.

After the screening I noted that one hallmark of an O'Hara screenplay is that he insists he does not include anything in a screenplay that he believes is untrue, or could not possibly true, that his script for Insiang&nbsp;was in fact based on his backyard neighbors growing up in Pasay, and that everything in this film, including the man thrown off a helicopter and the kapre&nbsp;(ogre) that steps over a house, is either based on testimony or on local myth (myths that he presumably believes are true-- O'Hara, it must be said, has a strange idea of what reality consists of).

A woman informed me that I needn't have bothered mentioning the budget-- that it didn't look like a fifty thousand dollar film. A young man asked about the class tensions between Negros hacienderos (ranchers) and their workers, that in this film class structures seem to be shallowly rendered where they were more endemic to his later <a href="https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2005/filipino-cinema/woman_of_the_breakwater/">Babae sa Breakwater</a>&nbsp;(Woman of the Breakwater, 2004). I replied that it was merely a fact of these people's lives, a background for the love story, which was the main element. On reflection, I should have added that at least here the upper class have a face; in Breakwater&nbsp;they're mostly represented by the smoothly anonymous glass facades of the skyscrapers surrounding the breakwater inhabitants. O'Hara has dealt with class tensions before, in his noir film <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2024/05/condemned-mario-ohara-1984.html">Condemned</a>&nbsp;where a rich woman's suitcase of dollars is the McGuffin that propels a brother and sister to tragedy (the confrontation between rich and poor that constitutes the film's climax is priceless); and most notably in his flawed <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2016/08/mga-bilanggong-birhen-captive-virgins.html">Mga Bilanggong Birhen</a>&nbsp;(The Captive Virgins, 1977), where the upper class and those revolting against them share a bitterly disputed commodity, their women (hence the title). I don't feel O'Hara has to rail against the dichotomy between rich and poor in every film, not when he has so many stories to tell, and so many ways in which to tell them...

A young woman (she and the young man seemed to be part of a group of Slovenians somehow involved with--or maybe they just read?--the film magazine <a href="https://kinoteka.si/en/ekran-magazine/">Ekran</a>) asked about the nature of the creatures in Pangarap. There was the 'kapre;' there were the forest spirits that played with the young girl; then there were the demons. Didn't I find it confusing that forest spirits and ogre are depicted in frightening terms when the former are innocent, the latter not? I replied that anything unknown is frightening, whether or not it's innocent; if we're not familiar with it we're scared, unless it proves itself otherwise. Plus the creatures--ogres, spirits, demons--can be seen as projections from the characters' minds; when the children saw spirits they saw them with innocent (if somewhat apprehensive) eyes; when they grew older and saw ogres and demons, it was with less innocent eyes. The meaning of these supernatural beings changed, not only with the youths' emerging sexuality, but also with their growing awareness of the political and military situation around them.

I should note that reactions to the film include Richard Porton's, editor of Cineaste, who thought the film was "extraordinary," and Bill Krohn's (who wasn't at the screening, but saw a tape) who wrote that it was "awesome; I've never seen anything like it." Rosenbaum, who caught another screening, thought it was "wild and fascinating."

Reflecting on the film, I like the offhand way O'Hara presents contemporary Philippine history; he starts from before the EDSA revolution to the various post-Marcos administrations, a period of roughly fourteen years, showing them in a series of quick photo stills. The theme recalls a similar strategy <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2014/10/lav-diaz-retrospective-of-his-early-work.html">Lav Diaz</a> used in his 9-hour Ebolusyon ng Isang Pamilyang Pilipino&nbsp;(Evolution of a Filipino Family, 2005), and while I do like the longer film very much, was moved by the two family's plight, was moved by the swirl of events Diaz showed in a series of news footages (the long glide over the crowds of EDSA--millions of people crowding a great highway, covered in a single shot--was a visual tour-de-force), I felt Diaz was showing two separate films, and that they had at best a tenuous connection. O'Hara's still photos are like flashes of recollection, as if people were remembering what they had seen in newspapers and magazines, and you can see the effect of history's progress on the film's characters: as the monolithic repression of the Marcos administration gave way to the chaos of the various presidents, control over the military grew weaker and the atrocities grew worse. O'Hara was even able to crack a joke using this device: as a father explains to his daughter about those "who think they're kings too," O'Hara flashes a picture of Jaime Cardinal Sin, the once-powerful archbishop of Manila.

It was an exhilarating and humbling experience. To watch these people discover Filipino films, to see them react to its intensity, its strangeness, its moments of imagination makes me feel the whole business, the time and trouble spent on procuring these films, was more than worthwhile--that perhaps my entire career as film critic studying these films wasn't a waste after all. It's a vindication of sorts, I thought, at the same time a gentle reminder that Philippine cinema still has a long way to go, in terms of recognition. The struggle continues.
First published in <a href="https://www.cineaste.com/fall2006/the-2006-rotterdam-film-festival">Cineaste Magazine</a> Fall 2006<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9kKAcpPEiQ71ruT3HZigbVW-iyI9Ac2urDDLmxA-hybDg0F2xWvIRSzaGMwx8LHQZpf6Vnn-i9HlDEXbRBoKnNp16VOCN1rOvzT-2aYK3NA5HikLY9FyqFlvat1BnB-aZSaToAcdV8RVfn5IbW-c13XjlaDc5uyuOEFQWwcvPysrNQDRLurLV/s1772/8a7150b1-2765-4898-a6cc-24c59722c1e1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1265" data-original-width="1772" height="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9kKAcpPEiQ71ruT3HZigbVW-iyI9Ac2urDDLmxA-hybDg0F2xWvIRSzaGMwx8LHQZpf6Vnn-i9HlDEXbRBoKnNp16VOCN1rOvzT-2aYK3NA5HikLY9FyqFlvat1BnB-aZSaToAcdV8RVfn5IbW-c13XjlaDc5uyuOEFQWwcvPysrNQDRLurLV/w400-h285/8a7150b1-2765-4898-a6cc-24c59722c1e1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEheEitchYeebC0FX4fID-3grKzEht1iBlUAeHX87o841AvTcApNHMc6tmb06nDzqMQgx8g24PxOoo9b7KqhTxtVa1D7qQ4HWk5u-m5eejQfyXYSMxhVm-eqR-7xDnARdPe2o-z46Tg6NuIaHT59tsy3PTkLlkREYtLpeoUdq5YyaPzcaRSJDijD" style="margin-left: 1em; 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text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlC5t7qouXNBD600ePHJXATeorR9g5cE_Zqj4BtkMdGRaE7xb-194qNWplQ2wk6AWW34MjXez5K968NBPctSpBIAHMzp4n02IrOM9KIH5cVTxhqiQbKyMIAQQ6ef-7JLkJsfCTV1M9pf6ZTxQFzoSXFtJSpEoV6AUdYiK7SE_2R7AjOPWu1Ris/s861/noel%20at%20rotter.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="523" data-original-width="861" height="243" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlC5t7qouXNBD600ePHJXATeorR9g5cE_Zqj4BtkMdGRaE7xb-194qNWplQ2wk6AWW34MjXez5K968NBPctSpBIAHMzp4n02IrOM9KIH5cVTxhqiQbKyMIAQQ6ef-7JLkJsfCTV1M9pf6ZTxQFzoSXFtJSpEoV6AUdYiK7SE_2R7AjOPWu1Ris/w400-h243/noel%20at%20rotter.JPG" width="400" /></a></div> <div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://www.bigomagazine.com/theshop/books/NVcritic.html">Critic After Dark: a Review of Philippine Cinema</a></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/feeds/297622223467175372/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment/fullpage/post/12690266/297622223467175372' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/297622223467175372'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/297622223467175372'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2025/03/cinema-regained-noel-vera-rotterdam.html' title='Cinema Regained: Noel Vera (Rotterdam Film Festival 2006)'/><author><name>Noel Vera</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/05904212081036547668</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhFGuWELWMo9OjoDwjBzTbiUrgfyqvjbwDaHz6DeIA0oINpB_5KVEDaN-6wNnpHaVZMr9NCJr43ySze-txyN5BblMcnkdzmQMw3ZuM2sEapbF7ymPifolTd_PtpTWj6FU/s220/journal+pics+6.jpg'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVCQ-T8Rlc7pZJgVE7EeEjUTixgWQHHJ2w4K8F_UymQNFktRxyMQCm6Q7Vq5sS_PSetHLoytYxlNjigXhN2SimBiRxuGkXdCukWKV-KBX5ymDeUqPxZAD3NDkMZs-JncJvCM3yzMnRVQAa_fVU8Xv_py87dI9AGpyB6DR1Az5Q4hlt1bL3NvT6/s72-w400-h266-c/465116933_10161540275655792_7199853283662753659_n%20(1).jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12690266.post-6462046049389573039</id><published>2025-02-27T13:11:00.011-05:00</published><updated>2025-06-18T02:54:16.078-04:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Comedy"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Drama"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="New York"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Wes Anderson"/><title type='text'>The Royal Tenenbaums (Wes Anderson, 2001)</title><content type='html'><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpfeyNtc9rENIxPH3a_UNATrMABZFyp2cuvHGloilZKcnngC-ZxrU9YCXewSY0fkfBOglf7DzpPFAjH8z3xL8Cp4MkTAWB7Omeoqpqek7nWsw11U6IjSfL7BgMp-bRuAZrEJZpZdPR3CRT-IUN3cOvN2bnl7PBlv5_vDv3IWaLOe1BTWIOI5aY/s1920/The-Royal-Tenenbaums-369.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1920" height="166" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpfeyNtc9rENIxPH3a_UNATrMABZFyp2cuvHGloilZKcnngC-ZxrU9YCXewSY0fkfBOglf7DzpPFAjH8z3xL8Cp4MkTAWB7Omeoqpqek7nWsw11U6IjSfL7BgMp-bRuAZrEJZpZdPR3CRT-IUN3cOvN2bnl7PBlv5_vDv3IWaLOe1BTWIOI5aY/w400-h166/The-Royal-Tenenbaums-369.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div><div>(In tribute to Gene Hackman, 1930 - 2025)</div><div> </div><div>Kin dreadWes Anderson’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0265666/">The Royal Tenenbaums</a>&nbsp;is richly layered as a wedding cake-- level after level of confectionery subtly sweetened and deftly whipped follow one after another, with baroque curlicues of icing ornamenting the edges. Not to everyone’s taste and I don’t quite like it as much as his previous Rushmore-- you felt as if you could actually have known the people in that movie. But for those who enjoy lightly sugared nonsense leavened with tart wit (as opposed to the thick syrup that passes for romantic comedy nowadays) and imagination, this is a feast.
<a name='more'></a>The Tenenbaum children number three: Chas (Ben Stiller) is the business prodigy-- made an early fortune creating Dalmatian mice; Margot (Gwyneth Paltrow) wrote full-length plays; Richie (Luke Wilson) became a tennis star. All of them were child geniuses, having reached the pinnacle of their respective careers roughly about the time they reached the pinnacle of their adolescence-- after which it’s all downhill, more or less.
The shaping event of their life was the departure of their father, Royal Tenenbaum (Gene Hackman) who at one point lets slip that his many infidelities caused his wife and their mother Etheline (Anjelica Huston-- real starstudded cast here) to ask him to leave. Many years later Etheline is thinking of marrying her accountant Henry Sherman (Danny Glover) and Royal, upon hearing the news, decides it’s time to come back to the family… which is about the time when things really hit the fan.
Anderson tells the story like a modern-day urban fairy-tale; he divides the film into chapters, introduces each chapter with a voiceover (by Alec Baldwin, who occasionally sounds uncannily like Gene Hackman-- makes you wonder if this was accidental). 
Anderson achieves a look and tone difficult to describe, its reality askew yet muted, its colors garish yet tastefully used, its music offbeat same time it sounds old-fashioned. You’re reminded of the Coen brothers and their odder comedies-- the brightlit Raising Arizona, the amiably bizarre The Big Liebowski, but Anderson (who co-wrote the script with Owen Wilson) doesn’t quite show the same mixture of cynicism or formal brilliance. You feel the two shape things more intuitively, have more ready affection for their characters (hence the lack of any real villains in their films). And there are moments of knotted human emotions that you feel the Coen brothers could never achieve (or don’t bother to try).
There are some juicy anachronisms to ponder over-- like tombstones of recent deaths showing us the years 2000 and 2001 respectively, though little in the film feels contemporary. Many of the cars are from the fifties (a battered old gray cab keeps popping up like a running joke that refuses to die), the buildings are from the ‘30s, the costumes from all over-- Stiller wears a modern-day jogging suit while Hackman looks almost resplendent in a fuzzy bellhop uniform complete with working elevator cage (you can’t help being startled when he whips out a cellphone). The locations look and feel like New York sometime before the Second World War-- there are shots where we could be looking down at a Central Park more forest than park, and the skyline has one strangely-shaped rooftop (the design reminding me of Da Vinci’s aerial screw) too many. Actually, the locations are real-- Anderson shot around Harlem, Forest Hills in Queens, Park Slope in Brooklyn, and Jersey City; it’s Anderson’s and Wilson’s sensibilities that make everything seem off-kilter.
It would be accurate I think to call what Anderson and Wilson are doing a juggling act-- they toss in whatever they thought might be amusing, and keep it all in the air through sheer force of whimsy; only later do you realize that things actually make sense. No one is willing to admit this, but Royal’s departure put the family into a tailspin from which they never really recover-- Margot stopped writing plays, Richie choked up on the tennis court during a televised match, Chas spent much of his adult life trying to destroy Royal. If the Tenenbaums’ world looks as if they had been stranded by some time-warp in the past, that’s because they were-- they’ve been waiting for their father to catch up ever since.
The whole thing shouldn’t cohere-- should really be flying apart in a thousand different directions-- if it weren’t for the conviction of the performers that this all actually works. Stiller and Paltrow do some of their best recent work here: Stiller’s psycho yapping-dog intensity perfectly suggest Chas’ bewildered fury at his father’s behavior, while Paltrow’s heavily linered eyes and pallor give Margot the haunted quality of a woman wandering endlessly in search of peace. Luke Wilson adds to the film’s lost-in-time quality with his Ancient Mariner of the Tennis Courts act-- he looks as if he hadn’t shaved since his last match, and when he finally does shave, the pained Frog-Prince sensitivity that comes through is perfect, the snipped-off hair falling away like a magic curse. Danny Glover as the courtly but nevertheless intelligent Henry Sherman and Bill Murray as the clueless Raleigh St. Claire (his scenes where he tries to create out of thin air a mental case history that can tour the talk show circuit is classic) round off the cast.
Royal Tenenbaum has been called a bastard and worse, by friends and family alike, and it’s all true, yet you can’t help feeling for the cad-- he means well in his myopically selfish way, and has a charm you simply can’t shake off. Hackman has always been good in comedies (he was the high point as a blind hermit lighting The Creature’s thumb in Young Frankenstein); Royal is perhaps his fullest comic role in a long career, and he goes to town with it.
I’d point out three elements out of hundreds about Hackman in this movie, the third best being his generosity-- he makes everyone he interacts with look good. His scenes with Anjelica Huston as his wife Etheline have the familiar yet frazzled quality of two people who know each other inside out and hate it (Huston has the smaller role, but she’s the rock Hackman stands on and occasionally dashes against). The second would be the incredible ease with which he pulls his performances off-- he takes Anderson’s complex, ungainly movie and wears it lightly on his shoulders, like a velvet cape, and it sits perfectly. Finally, there’s his grip-- he holds tight to the secret core of Royal’s character, holds it, and holds it, until it practically has to be pried from him. When this happens-- in a series of quiet, almost throwaway moments-- he gives the film an emotional force you wonder if Anderson or Wilson had ever planned for it seems so, well, unplanned. Hackman deserves the 'Royal' moniker all right; at the moment he reigns as king of Hollywood character actors-- has been reigning, in fact, for years.
First published in <a href="https://www.bworldonline.com/">Businessworld</a>, 3.14.02<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX2k9DUnNZblzo1h_MEn05IW1HtpueZPeNOchT3f640L-93qkrpkydjfdujrX_oXsRGkTg-uZK2IK8Ff5J1wHVe8wBXGQZxNKqMT4-6HFmio7pV93eoGzH80sUMP0gv7decQaWLp4OR8yh-fyjOjk4VPeFIAVFP4PfLuDhDh0s8JHJ6l7E1SpW/s980/large_The-Royal-Tenenbaums_1920x1080.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="551" data-original-width="980" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX2k9DUnNZblzo1h_MEn05IW1HtpueZPeNOchT3f640L-93qkrpkydjfdujrX_oXsRGkTg-uZK2IK8Ff5J1wHVe8wBXGQZxNKqMT4-6HFmio7pV93eoGzH80sUMP0gv7decQaWLp4OR8yh-fyjOjk4VPeFIAVFP4PfLuDhDh0s8JHJ6l7E1SpW/w400-h225/large_The-Royal-Tenenbaums_1920x1080.jpg" width="400" /></a></div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://www.bigomagazine.com/theshop/books/NVcritic.html">Critic After Dark: a Review of Philippine Cinema</a></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/feeds/6462046049389573039/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment/fullpage/post/12690266/6462046049389573039' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/6462046049389573039'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/6462046049389573039'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2025/02/kin-dread-wes-andersons-royal.html' title='The Royal Tenenbaums (Wes Anderson, 2001)'/><author><name>Noel Vera</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/05904212081036547668</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhFGuWELWMo9OjoDwjBzTbiUrgfyqvjbwDaHz6DeIA0oINpB_5KVEDaN-6wNnpHaVZMr9NCJr43ySze-txyN5BblMcnkdzmQMw3ZuM2sEapbF7ymPifolTd_PtpTWj6FU/s220/journal+pics+6.jpg'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpfeyNtc9rENIxPH3a_UNATrMABZFyp2cuvHGloilZKcnngC-ZxrU9YCXewSY0fkfBOglf7DzpPFAjH8z3xL8Cp4MkTAWB7Omeoqpqek7nWsw11U6IjSfL7BgMp-bRuAZrEJZpZdPR3CRT-IUN3cOvN2bnl7PBlv5_vDv3IWaLOe1BTWIOI5aY/s72-w400-h166-c/The-Royal-Tenenbaums-369.jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12690266.post-1874357553474395830</id><published>2025-02-20T12:53:00.002-05:00</published><updated>2025-02-20T12:53:42.760-05:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Action"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Animated"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Comedy"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Digital"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Disney"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="John Lasseter"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Pixar"/><title type='text'>Toy Story (John Lasseter, 1995)</title><content type='html'><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7FNHuFLoYDDcA8ElPppzIZzFs_-4ZLE_fWdBYwQP8rL8OpqWY800zuU1rznyQwoL33TS91OQWkiXhR15B5sLOpHM1nn2f1BUA4oOLsDSrKQwy-bmoNytELRhZrfh-vAM-LnjCvBL9bZA7GwCDuGjwsG9zjs66K-nUeNPhtpElcJFIuAIy9jKg/s3840/ImWUY6B6gcOUzhFqDilUk9w2-ezgif.com-webp-to-jpg-converter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2160" data-original-width="3840" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7FNHuFLoYDDcA8ElPppzIZzFs_-4ZLE_fWdBYwQP8rL8OpqWY800zuU1rznyQwoL33TS91OQWkiXhR15B5sLOpHM1nn2f1BUA4oOLsDSrKQwy-bmoNytELRhZrfh-vAM-LnjCvBL9bZA7GwCDuGjwsG9zjs66K-nUeNPhtpElcJFIuAIy9jKg/w400-h225/ImWUY6B6gcOUzhFqDilUk9w2-ezgif.com-webp-to-jpg-converter.jpg" width="400" /></a></div> </div>Toying<div> </div><div><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114709/">Toy Story</a>&nbsp;is a witty, precisely paced picture, a flawless entertainment. It has all your favorite toys packed in one movie. It has the voice of Tom Hanks and Tim Allen, two proven actors with a pair of Oscars and several hundred million in boxoffice between them. It has wall-to-wall, state-of-the-art, computer-graphic effects designed to pop your eyes out, if you’re not careful. It has the multimedia might of the Walt Disney conglomerate behind it, for heavy marketing muscle. It’s going to be the biggest hit of the year.
<a name='more'></a>The heart of the movie however isn’t the computer graphics or movie stars or Disney machinery at all; it’s John Lasseter, and Lasseter’s secret as he describes it is his ability to think of the toys as if they were alive; to put himself in their situation and imagine what, for them, are their fears their desires their goals. He gets into the mind of characters like Woody (Tom Hanks) so thoroughly that we feel what Woody feels, when a state-of-the-art plastic spaceman has replaced you as top playmate in a boy’s heart. Lasseter with unerring accuracy has put his finger on the toy’s worse fear: its disposability. The very definition of the word “toy” implies something you don’t take seriously, something to manipulate, to throw about for a while, then ultimately set aside. A plaything, an amusement, no more.
If Lasseter is key to the movie's appeal the movie itself looks prepared to assume a key role in Disney’s master plan at world domination. Think of it: this is a killer opportunity to plug products-- toy manufacturers will pay through the nose, beg on their knees, sell their children’s body parts to have their companies’ Christmas offerings put onscreen-- that’s millions right there, and you haven’t started filming yet. Killer merchandise-- action figures, t-shirts, lunch boxes, semiautomatic weaponry-- with the “Toy Story” logo on them will sell twice as fast (ammo not included).
The toys themselves will help-- who doesn’t want to watch toys have funny adventures? It has an appeal that knows no boundaries. Children will love this film all over; you could put a subliminal message-- “Buy More Disney” or “Katzenberg Is A Jerk” or “Death To All Unbelievers”-- and two billion people will watch, easy. 
What do you call two billion marching in step, with Buzz Lightyear’s laser (in full working lethal order) in one arm and Karate Chop Action swinging away in the other? The end of the world as we know it.
Maybe I exaggerate. But precisely because it’s a well-crafted entertainment in the hands of a soulless multinational entity-- that’s the thought that gives me reason to pause. Weren’t we handled-- expertly perhaps but nevertheless handled-- by the movie? Weren’t our emotions tossed about a while? Weren’t we ultimately disposed of, permitted to go forth and spread the word, while more converts sit in our place? Didn’t we end up feeling like we were some sort of amusement-- something to be toyed with, perhaps? First published in <a href="https://www.bworldonline.com/">Businessworld</a>, 5.2.96<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWqYTwL_Y3uWZTlwb4vur0z9YYeaP0jnylcoXSkH4c9fF4VD1rxEmXvEKyrBb7zUwhpsP9LN-EKgJPQfBeW-uESQT6dkLiNlavzDGhKzhldZHupqEst1fPSAaS7WxnrtKD68koJXYl_q86WWmdpR50fIRZW5nwe3jXh0_5OPs1kI_zW-gFh1U0/s1296/toy_story_1995_-_h_-_2016-ezgif.com-webp-to-jpg-converter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="730" data-original-width="1296" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWqYTwL_Y3uWZTlwb4vur0z9YYeaP0jnylcoXSkH4c9fF4VD1rxEmXvEKyrBb7zUwhpsP9LN-EKgJPQfBeW-uESQT6dkLiNlavzDGhKzhldZHupqEst1fPSAaS7WxnrtKD68koJXYl_q86WWmdpR50fIRZW5nwe3jXh0_5OPs1kI_zW-gFh1U0/w400-h225/toy_story_1995_-_h_-_2016-ezgif.com-webp-to-jpg-converter.jpg" width="400" /></a></div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://www.bigomagazine.com/theshop/books/NVcritic.html">Critic After Dark: a Review of Philippine Cinema</a></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/feeds/1874357553474395830/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment/fullpage/post/12690266/1874357553474395830' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/1874357553474395830'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/1874357553474395830'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2025/02/toy-story-john-lasseter-1995.html' title='Toy Story (John Lasseter, 1995)'/><author><name>Noel Vera</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/05904212081036547668</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhFGuWELWMo9OjoDwjBzTbiUrgfyqvjbwDaHz6DeIA0oINpB_5KVEDaN-6wNnpHaVZMr9NCJr43ySze-txyN5BblMcnkdzmQMw3ZuM2sEapbF7ymPifolTd_PtpTWj6FU/s220/journal+pics+6.jpg'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7FNHuFLoYDDcA8ElPppzIZzFs_-4ZLE_fWdBYwQP8rL8OpqWY800zuU1rznyQwoL33TS91OQWkiXhR15B5sLOpHM1nn2f1BUA4oOLsDSrKQwy-bmoNytELRhZrfh-vAM-LnjCvBL9bZA7GwCDuGjwsG9zjs66K-nUeNPhtpElcJFIuAIy9jKg/s72-w400-h225-c/ImWUY6B6gcOUzhFqDilUk9w2-ezgif.com-webp-to-jpg-converter.jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12690266.post-8941599090435677857</id><published>2025-02-10T14:03:00.002-05:00</published><updated>2025-02-10T14:03:54.893-05:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Brady Corbet"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Drama"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Hungary"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Period"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="World War 2"/><title type='text'>The Brutalist (Brady Corbet, 2024)</title><content type='html'><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQH_cmCNMyfmB1lREzgs53J3ACemXrsw5SvNEpXXbbxxo72okMHFI5VXtIOzwVImo1MWyfVMGBeDqSE3La6ajxSfsPLO5ELOmKsE4v25TU340o-Ka-XKcFwjQGfXN7WSKdje4F2aOb4jByVJ2fqqWk4COB1zSN2kfL3rwD8DrJlkZN-eKIns_4/s2560/c531ddf9-7e09-4d10-a4d2-136c4a8ed3d6_2560x1439.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1439" data-original-width="2560" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQH_cmCNMyfmB1lREzgs53J3ACemXrsw5SvNEpXXbbxxo72okMHFI5VXtIOzwVImo1MWyfVMGBeDqSE3La6ajxSfsPLO5ELOmKsE4v25TU340o-Ka-XKcFwjQGfXN7WSKdje4F2aOb4jByVJ2fqqWk4COB1zSN2kfL3rwD8DrJlkZN-eKIns_4/w400-h225/c531ddf9-7e09-4d10-a4d2-136c4a8ed3d6_2560x1439.jpg" width="400" /></a></div> The fountainheadBrady Corbet's <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8999762/">The Brutalist</a> is his three-and-a-half hour Vistavision biopic on a Hungarian-born Jewish architect who emigrates to the United States for a fresh start on life-- use the word 'biopic' loosely because Laszlo Toth is nominally based on Hungarian architect Marcel Breuer only Breuer wasn't a Holocaust survivor, didn't scrabble too hard for his living, and didn't fanatically insist on having every detail of his plans exactly carried out; Corbet needed spicier material to work on, hence the changes.The film is about capitalism, anti-Semitism, racism (kind of), and the immigrant experience in America; it's big in almost every sense of the word, down to the expansive 70 mm frame-- an extraordinary achievement considering this was shot for a slim $9 million.&nbsp;<a name='more'></a>I suppose it's perfectly permissible to pick and choose details from a real-life figure (in this case Breuer) to structure your fictional narrative; so many actual biopics have played fast and loose with historical fact, with varying results. I also suppose Corbet, co-writing with his partner fellow filmmaker Mona Fastvold, can be forgiven for recycling practically every cliche on immigrants, anti-Semitism, and artist-investor relations known to cinema-- this is old-fashioned meat-and-potatoes storytelling, meant to evoke the ambiance of a previous age, not ride just ahead of fashionable trends.&nbsp;I do have a problem with the fact that despite the title and all the critics citing the protagonist's kind of architecture there isn't really a discussion of what Brutalism is, how it compares to the established style of the time, and why it's so radical; no real discussion of why said architect's designs are noteworthy except maybe at the end, where we're given a huge exposition dump at the 1980 Venice Biennale. And no real talk of fellow architects-- Brutalism didn't happen in a vacuum-- but I suppose Corbet needs to keep his vision of a lone revolutionary intact.&nbsp;Maybe the biggest problem I have with the film is inseparable from the nature of the movement it's-- exploring? Exploiting? Using as a prop? Brutalism emerged in the 50s as a reaction against the neoclassicism and art deco movements of the 40s. The style makes it a point to use exposed raw materials (taking cue from the French phrase 'beton brut' or 'raw concrete') and emphasizes functional and structural forms without any decorative designs.&nbsp;The challenge to Brutalism is that with exposed building material and no decorations it's hard to hide flaws in design or execution-- either you get everything right or your air pockets and sloppy joins and unnecessary corners are all there for everyone to see. Likewise with the film-- Corbet plays into old tropes about the classic immigrant's tale, throwing in the classic tortured relationship between an auteur-- sorry, architect-- and his sponsor, and if there's anything lacking or clumsy in the telling of the tale the knots and gaps are all the more prominent.&nbsp;Hence: the lack of specificity when it comes to the characters' lives. Lazlo Toth (Adrien Brody), his osteoporotic wife Erzsebet (Felicity Jones), their niece Zsofia (Raffey Cassidy) all survived the camps, but don't really talk about their experience there; I get that there was trauma involved-- Zsofia lost the power of speech because of this-- but certainly there can be some way no matter how indirect to convey how they feel about what happened, maybe shushing each other when some verboten detail is unintentionally mentioned; here you get the sense that their memories of the camps are hermetically sealed off, instead of something that simmers underneath, threatening to burst out at any moment. The past is safely past-- there's no sense that it really haunts them, beyond Zsofia's silence, and, perhaps, an extraordinarily erotic scene where Erzsebet whispers urgently in her unresponsive husband's ear, practically begging for sex while she reaches into his pants to grip his phallus (don't know about you but if Felicity Jones breathed into my ear like that I'd certainly respond-- I guess Adrien Brody deserves an acting award after all).&nbsp;Actually I can't quite buy Toth's struggles. A Bauhaus graduate who has done major commissioned works can't find a job in Philadelphia? There would have been a network of Bauhaus graduates all over the world-- couldn't he contact any of them? He ends up working in a furniture store, of all places, then shoveling coal-- shades of Gary Cooper breaking rocks in a quarry.&nbsp;Enter Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce), your standard-issue wealthy capitalist. Van Buren is obscenely rich and claims to enjoy 'intellectually stimulating' conversations but when confronted by real talent and innovation-- as when his son Harry (Joe Alwyn) commissions Toth to renovate the Van Buren home library behind his father's back-- the industrialist yells that Toth ruined his private sanctuary and throws him out. It's only years later after several news articles and complimentary photo spreads hold up Toth's remodeling as an example of next-generation design that Van Buren reaches out and apologizes; wouldn't do to keep the man ostracized when the press obviously admires his work.&nbsp;&nbsp;Again Corbet hits all the requisite notes without really giving them a fresh spin; Pearce's rich jerk is appropriately loud, Brody's architect appropriately respectful, Alwyn's Harry expectedly slimy (he refuses to pay for the remodeling-- Harrison ends up paying Toth himself-- later drops a few anti-Semitic remarks, and apparently has an eye for Zsofia). Brody's Toth proves to be pigheaded and abrasive in the Randian manner when the Van Burens try to cut a few corners by changing his design (You wonder why Harrison's such a penny pincher when his estate is so opulent, and every other weekend seems to be throwing a party). Toth's real-life model Beuer was more flexible and more diplomatic about arguing his case-- but no, the drama has to be stark, with little nuance (throw in a little heroin addiction to give the otherwise martyrlike hero a visible flaw, and an African-American best friend named Gordon (Isaach de Bankole) for a visible virtue). Again the challenge with Brutalist architecture that echoes the challenge this film isn't quite meeting: with an emphasis on function and structure there's not a lot of ways your design can go, and the danger is a plainness that falls into banality, even boredom.&nbsp;Then something startling does happen (skip the rest of this paragraph if you plan to see the film): seeking Carrera marble for the massive gym / theater / chapel Toth is building for Corbet, the two travel to the Carrera quarry to negotiate purchase. There's a party thrown for the guests and Toth wanders off to shoot some heroin; a drunken Van Buren finds him on the ground flying high; the industrialist lowers himself behind Toth and sexually assaults him, calling him 'weak' and a 'leech' to his ear. I get that scene-- I appreciate how Corbet had to go there, to make Van Buren rapacious in every sense of the word (adds to the unsettling nature of the assault that it echoes the earlier scene of Toth's wife also whispering in his ear). What I don't quite get is the scene soon after, where a righteous Erzsebet walks up to the Van Buren estate and flings the man's crime to his face in front of dinner guests-- that hit me wrong, maybe because I can't see what Erzsebet thought they might gain from it, maybe because neither of them discussed what happened or how they felt about it beforehand, beyond Erzsebet mentioning she knows everything from what he had told her (they'd been shooting heroin previously). All that trouble, and she just possibly cost her husband his job? The leap from knowledge to consequent act ("He's a rapist!" complete with accusing finger) smacks of the worst Filipino melodramas, where the scene is forced on us because it's time to have a scene (after all we're pushing to the 3 hour mark), not because we're prepared to the point that the scene feels inevitable.&nbsp;O there are good things to the film-- Jones is especially fine (if underwritten), Pearce amusingly vulgar, Bankole quietly persuasive as the Noble Token Black Man Who Loyally Stays by Toth's Side Till Unaccountably Dropped. Brody I thought gave a subtler performance in Roman Polanski's <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2023/02/the-pianist-roman-polanski-2002.html">The Pianist</a>&nbsp;(and the much underrated Hollywoodland) but does well enough here. The music (by Daniel Blumberg) is percussive, somehow metallic, the widescreen cinematography (by Lol Crawley) appropriately monumental, more big than imaginative except for the opening sequence where the camera flips the Statue of Liberty upside-down-- a nicely disorienting image suggesting how all the promises of America will be upended and subverted.&nbsp;The remodeled library is nicely minimalist; the chair Toth conceives for his furniture store cousin Attila (Alessandro Nivola) is familiar if one has seen Breuer's designs, but Corbet manages to convey a sense of how radical it might look in a 1950 store window. The Van Buren community center, aside from the design of the cross created by the sun crossing the sky (an idea I suspect that was inspired by Breuer's <a href="https://saintjohnsabbey.org/church">St. John's Abbey Church</a> in Collegeville, Minnesota) looks disappointingly blocky and plain-- Breuer's actual church seems to soar into the sky while Toth's just squats there like a molehill on a mountain (random question: what community center sits in the middle of nowhere miles from the nearest community?); I'd expect a little more from a supposed masterwork. Corbet does seem to square things away when Zsofia-- who has somehow regained her ability to speak-- talks at a major retrospective of Toth's career explaining the significance of that forbidding blockiness, giving us a final little tidbit suggesting the possibilities of art, and how it can help us transcend the miserable circumstances of our lives-- now we understand Toth's ferocious insistence throughout construction that the skylight should extend to a specified length, not a foot shorter. Not an especially clever twist, but satisfying enough.&nbsp;First published in <a href="https://www.bworldonline.com/arts-and-leisure/2025/02/07/651708/the-fountainhead/">Businessworld</a> 2.7.25<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtdSWckd4FhEzaWnfxiMY6HNGA3LGOXKIl5F3db8X6v3Dcontae_39E9VewBig4JWA0Hz2QTGh4qeninHBK28gPcO2Dod5XI_Ceeoz16nMV8E69DbFrhYuL_bRXE-ghXtEk8qzWL9gx42pBzGueQZfDb7u1zfVutprnow98c7LZIONWtxmG-W1/s1024/brutalist_header-mobile.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="768" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtdSWckd4FhEzaWnfxiMY6HNGA3LGOXKIl5F3db8X6v3Dcontae_39E9VewBig4JWA0Hz2QTGh4qeninHBK28gPcO2Dod5XI_Ceeoz16nMV8E69DbFrhYuL_bRXE-ghXtEk8qzWL9gx42pBzGueQZfDb7u1zfVutprnow98c7LZIONWtxmG-W1/w300-h400/brutalist_header-mobile.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://www.bigomagazine.com/theshop/books/NVcritic.html">Critic After Dark: a Review of Philippine Cinema</a></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/feeds/8941599090435677857/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment/fullpage/post/12690266/8941599090435677857' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/8941599090435677857'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/8941599090435677857'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2025/02/the-brutalist-brady-corbet-2024.html' title='The Brutalist (Brady Corbet, 2024)'/><author><name>Noel Vera</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/05904212081036547668</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhFGuWELWMo9OjoDwjBzTbiUrgfyqvjbwDaHz6DeIA0oINpB_5KVEDaN-6wNnpHaVZMr9NCJr43ySze-txyN5BblMcnkdzmQMw3ZuM2sEapbF7ymPifolTd_PtpTWj6FU/s220/journal+pics+6.jpg'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQH_cmCNMyfmB1lREzgs53J3ACemXrsw5SvNEpXXbbxxo72okMHFI5VXtIOzwVImo1MWyfVMGBeDqSE3La6ajxSfsPLO5ELOmKsE4v25TU340o-Ka-XKcFwjQGfXN7WSKdje4F2aOb4jByVJ2fqqWk4COB1zSN2kfL3rwD8DrJlkZN-eKIns_4/s72-w400-h225-c/c531ddf9-7e09-4d10-a4d2-136c4a8ed3d6_2560x1439.jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12690266.post-1477066507629095105</id><published>2025-02-07T13:55:00.002-05:00</published><updated>2025-02-11T11:56:44.304-05:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="adaptation"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Ann Rice"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="gothic"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Horror"/><title type='text'>Interview with the Vampire (Neil Jordan, 1994)</title><content type='html'><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB3WtM837_XMkGmn4yQEjaHbHCrc4meLfwxmBhegFz1Y9qzzByF9xhdnOroF3K1RgSt_Qoq-QFtlK8O4Lr8vZC4zDlKfziD7rl6E8dgC8avYhhw1GGb75KTPa1NcRNIOjZhcOpEpRGvwc9SvWJGiLCtldlP2UHqwvQaaSe9lK-xNvfPufSidzU/s2048/image%20(6).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1365" data-original-width="2048" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB3WtM837_XMkGmn4yQEjaHbHCrc4meLfwxmBhegFz1Y9qzzByF9xhdnOroF3K1RgSt_Qoq-QFtlK8O4Lr8vZC4zDlKfziD7rl6E8dgC8avYhhw1GGb75KTPa1NcRNIOjZhcOpEpRGvwc9SvWJGiLCtldlP2UHqwvQaaSe9lK-xNvfPufSidzU/w400-h266/image%20(6).jpg" width="400" /></a></div> A Bloody Mess(WARNING: Plot twists and story discussed in explicit detail)When I saw <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110148/">Interview With The Vampire</a>&nbsp;I was floored, I couldn't get the movie out of my mind. Said to myself: have to read the book. The very next day I hooked myself a copy and read it. I couldn't believe it, I was devastated; the book if anything was worse than the movie.
<a name='more'></a>Ann Rice's novel begins with an irresistible premise: a news reporter interviewing Louis, a two-hundred-year-old vampire. With a hook like that, how can anyone not write a thrilling pop masterpiece? Rice tries her level best. Her protagonist is an insufferable whiner; when not complaining about Lestat (the vampire who 'made' him), Louis whines about loneliness and a general state of listlessness (this from a man who stays up all night sucking). The moaning goes on for about a hundred pages (the longest hundred pages you'll ever read) till Louis bites a child named Claudia, who gives him a reason to look beyond his self-centered bitching. The two ditch Lestat and go in search of other undead, who in turn show their hospitality by frying Claudia and shutting Louis in a box. Louis takes revenge, takes a break for the next century, and doesn't really do anything significant till present day when he sits down for his press interview.Rice writes all this in what is supposed to be the feminist style of the 70's (Actually, Rice's prose is quite an achievement, managing to be overpoweringly purple without producing a single memorable detail, a sort of concentrated blandness). Despite all her efforts the novel became a bestseller and cult classic; you might ask why till you remember the '70s also brought us Love Story, Jonathan Livingston Seagull,&nbsp;and The Partridge Family (To be honest I prefer Love Story, which refuses to hide the fact that it was written solely for the purpose of jerking readers dry; it has the virtue of its own shamelessness. Also, it's shorter). The novel is said to be more popular with female rather than male readers, that men are turned off by the implied androgyny and homoerotic passages; I don't think it's a sex thing at all; I think Rice is a genuinely bad writer. In a flash he fastened on me... I thrashed against him wildly. I dug my boot into his chest and kicked him as fiercely as I could, his teeth stinging my throat, the fever pounding in my temples....&nbsp;If Rice had bothered to visualize, she might've realized the scene looks less like a desperate encounter between man and vampire and more like Reed Richards vs Patrick O'Brian.The film improves on the book several ways. First, no prose;&nbsp;second, punched-up dialogue with a dose of humor (vampires are supposed to be undead not deadly boring); last and most infuriating, Neil Jordan. Jordan is a not ungifted filmmaker who has dealt in horror fantasies (Company of Wolves); his images flow with the swiftness and clarity of a remembered nightmare-- misted forests, redhooded girls, giant toadstools, bottomless wells. An egg hatches a little stone child with tears in its eyes; an endless line of wolves leap gracefully through a bedroom window to the accompaniment of screams.
Jordan manages to lend the same dreamlike quality to Interview&nbsp;without repeating himself. When Lestat 'makes' Louis at a ship's wharf he lifts Louis bodily past canvas and riggings into the night sky. 'Enough?' asks Lestat, who promptly drops him, properly deflowered, into the sea-- the film's first soaring moment, and nowhere in the book.&nbsp;What cripples this film about vampires is well the vampires. In the book, the boy notes Louis' French accent, befitting a New Orleans native; Pitt's diction is pure Hollywood Boulevard. He poses like a sullen Method actor when what's needed is some young and dashing figure comfortable in period costume (Where was Julian Sands when we needed him?). Pitt does manage to convey Louis' weariness and self-disgust, perhaps a little too well; we end up feeling weary and disgusted putting up with him.
Antonio Banderas fares better, despite the faux Cher wig; with his handsome glare and thick accent, he sounds decadent enough to play Armand, the oldest of vampires. Banderas has a moment where he passes his fingers over a candle flame and sighs with pleasure; he fails, however, to pass himself convincingly off as four hundred looking thirty.
Which Kirsten Dunst does without breaking into a sweat; as Claudia, Dunst shows the right mix of eerie youth and chilling experience. Jordan knows a good thing when he sees one and in Dunst' case gives her the works; turned, Dunst literally blooms before our eyes, her cheeks glowing red, her head sprouting gold curls. Dying from sunlight she turns into an ashen figure straight out of Hiroshima and Dresden-- there's a return to innocence in her final image that's eerily moving. Dunst takes everything Jordan gives and responds with an amazing performance: she's funny when she proves incapable of leaving her piano instructor or dressmaker alone, poignant when gazing enviously at a nude woman, knowing she can never be like that. And she can be unsettlingly seductive beyond her age when circling Louis and whispering that he is father and mother and she loves him.
As the interviewer Malloy, Slater improves on Rice's moistfaced twerp, his skeptical slouch and raised eyebrows a nice antidote to Pitt's tall tale, the better to persuade us as well as himself when he finally comes to believe. Need to mention Stephen Rea, who played soulful IRA terrorist in Jordan's The Crying Game; the sad smile and hangdog charm there has here become psychotic. With only minutes of screen time and a handful of lines, Rea as Santiago is easily the most convincing of vampires, his ferocious snarl and feral eyes promising more evil than he's allowed to do (Rea would have made an admirable Lestat).
Bringing us to the movie's true horror, Tom Cruise. Rice reportedly protested when Cruise was chosen, then bought newspaper ads retracting her objections when she saw his performance; don't know what bit her, but she was right the first time. Cruise brings to Lestat everything he brought to all his roles, from Top Gun&nbsp;downwards: mannered charm, toothy smile, squeegee voice. Listen when he yells 'you idiot!' at Louis, which he does all the time (Louis isn't exactly the sharpest fang in the film); Cruise admitted in an interview that he uses a special recording technique, supposedly given by the Church of Scientology, to electronically enhance his voice. The movie star should sue the Church; onscreen he sounds like either Chip or Dale, can't decide which.What hurts is that Cruise gets the best lines. At one point Lestat informs Malloy that he's had centuries of Louis's whining, and we laugh in sympathy-- after over two hours of Pitt's moaning we know how he feels. In the book Lestat is coarse, ignorant; the film version gifts him with a sense of camp. When he catches Louis biting the then-mortal Claudia, Lestat, inspired, picks up the corpse of Claudia's mother-- dead from plague-- and dances with it. The book views this scene as the ultimate horror; the film views it as black comedy, the horror emerging all the clearer.
Jordan with the help of cinematographer Philippe Rousselot photographs gorgeous candlelit tapestries-- you can hardly call them images: African slaves capering before a plantation mansion in flames; vampires strolling down wet cobblestone streets; Lestat's throat cut, the blood pooling like black ink on a parchment. But to what purpose-- a movie as dramatically inert as it is visually ravishing?&nbsp; The leads act like wimps, the supports are hardly allowed to act, the plot meanders like an anemic bloodsucker.&nbsp; Do yourself a favor, watch the film-- it's a beautiful film, there's no denying that-- but first buy a bag of popcorn, go to your seat, lean back, relax; then with both eyes wide open, take a kernel in either hand, and plug your ears.Manila Chronicle 1/18/95
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_VCN6XgDQh-zUYqhdwMmvcrhYRNfg2YCZa2ln4BgyZ91fO5YBsPo0-rDaQgTnQArx3-p5rSxojEVcqWs5LtmMWrmyof1DGeemjhrZfh6-L0qcd3-sz8M4Y7IOuZw8LMn2HK7NVpXuMZLH_dlszG21nN1kwxi6l6mU70_VYDRkPbSVgW9JELBy/s1280/5f402d9dbf91150c56d7f342.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="853" data-original-width="1280" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_VCN6XgDQh-zUYqhdwMmvcrhYRNfg2YCZa2ln4BgyZ91fO5YBsPo0-rDaQgTnQArx3-p5rSxojEVcqWs5LtmMWrmyof1DGeemjhrZfh6-L0qcd3-sz8M4Y7IOuZw8LMn2HK7NVpXuMZLH_dlszG21nN1kwxi6l6mU70_VYDRkPbSVgW9JELBy/w400-h266/5f402d9dbf91150c56d7f342.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://www.bigomagazine.com/theshop/books/NVcritic.html">Critic After Dark: a Review of Philippine Cinema</a></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/feeds/1477066507629095105/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment/fullpage/post/12690266/1477066507629095105' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/1477066507629095105'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/1477066507629095105'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2025/02/interview-with-vampire-neil-jordan-1994.html' title='Interview with the Vampire (Neil Jordan, 1994)'/><author><name>Noel Vera</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/05904212081036547668</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhFGuWELWMo9OjoDwjBzTbiUrgfyqvjbwDaHz6DeIA0oINpB_5KVEDaN-6wNnpHaVZMr9NCJr43ySze-txyN5BblMcnkdzmQMw3ZuM2sEapbF7ymPifolTd_PtpTWj6FU/s220/journal+pics+6.jpg'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB3WtM837_XMkGmn4yQEjaHbHCrc4meLfwxmBhegFz1Y9qzzByF9xhdnOroF3K1RgSt_Qoq-QFtlK8O4Lr8vZC4zDlKfziD7rl6E8dgC8avYhhw1GGb75KTPa1NcRNIOjZhcOpEpRGvwc9SvWJGiLCtldlP2UHqwvQaaSe9lK-xNvfPufSidzU/s72-w400-h266-c/image%20(6).jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12690266.post-116658942592518514</id><published>2025-02-01T17:06:00.000-05:00</published><updated>2025-02-01T17:06:50.855-05:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Action"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Digital"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Mel Gibson"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="racism"/><title type='text'>Apocalypto's racism</title><content type='html'><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQfzfrMokbkxmKJOaBxJysS2UuEHPY_lp3BxaTRYO2DsYT1ugHNMdMU6C2cTyZnD-e5N-3XS3_C-DALFdkN6yZ5E8OSxr3dHilgsg9UiG508aMdqjc54J8x9Tg63-DxkTb75DlNgJatB6YVGGxAT9SjJlTpV5jQp_io3A-tIa2_vAf6q5b23FN/s1200/Apocalypto-e1711440161296.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="1200" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQfzfrMokbkxmKJOaBxJysS2UuEHPY_lp3BxaTRYO2DsYT1ugHNMdMU6C2cTyZnD-e5N-3XS3_C-DALFdkN6yZ5E8OSxr3dHilgsg9UiG508aMdqjc54J8x9Tg63-DxkTb75DlNgJatB6YVGGxAT9SjJlTpV5jQp_io3A-tIa2_vAf6q5b23FN/w400-h225/Apocalypto-e1711440161296.webp" width="400" /></a></div> Race to the bottom<div> </div><div>Cultural anthropologist Liz Grandia's article* lays out far better than I ever could the kind of heedless ignorance Gibson likes to brandish in his movies (the kind of ignorance that chooses Anne Catherine Emmerich's texts (if they really are her texts-- there's doubt) over the Bible for <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2010/04/christ-almighty.html">a movie on Christ</a>, or portrays Jews as demonic money-grubbing backstabbers who let the Romans do their dirty work for them). <a name='more'></a>Not exactly a new trend; as far back as his Oscar-winning (and utterly ludicrous) Braveheart Gibson has had a blinkered, hateful view of the politically marginalized, not to mention a way of painting them with a broad brush-- witness the way he <a href="http://www.qrd.org/qrd/media/print/gabriel.rotello/1995/gays.should.beware.men.in.kilts-06.01.95">slanders Prince Edward</a> in the picture. The praise for Gibson's talent is, frankly, puzzling-- what's the difference between his style and, say, Eli Roth's in Hostel? If' it's graphic violence and body mutilation you want, Roth's movie shows that select hardware items and an array of medical equipment will cause far more suffering and physical damage, with far more reliability and precision, than was available to the Mayans, anytime. Oh, Gibson can hire good talent-- Caleb Deschanel for Passion of the Christ, Dean Semler (George Miller's cinematographer of choice in films like The Road Warrior, and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome) for this project. Gibson can also pull off something halfway entertaining-- the encounter with the jaguar comes to mind-- but at his best is a pale shadow of Miller, who was filmmaker enough to give the kineticism in his early works an epic, mythological feel, and never felt a need to&nbsp; &nbsp; dwell&nbsp;on the violence (you saw more cars being shredded in his postapocalyptic outbacks than human beings)-- unlike Gibson, who often will (most notably in Passion of the Christ) indulge himself to the point of tedium (all right, all right, Jesus' back is raw hamburger-- get on with it already). More, Miller seems to have moved beyond mere action-- he has kept his dark, larger-than-life filmmaking and applied it to films like&nbsp;Lorenzo's Oil, Babe: Pig in the City, and <a href="http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2006/12/happy-feet-george-miller-2006.html">Happy Feet</a> (a for all its flaws far more ambitious more imaginative more moving (not to mention more environmentally relevant and popular) film, I submit). We're talking about an anti-Semitic, racially insensitive (to put it mildly), homophobic director, narrow in his range of interests (have I mentioned his Man Without a Face? More evidence of a persecution complex, mawkishly dramatized, plus Gibson expunges any and all hints of the main character's homosexuality from his adaptation), rich enough to hire what semblance of filmmaking talent he has. A hack, in short. I'd have thought people would be smarter than to continue to buy this guy's bullshit (though apparently people still do). Give me wittier practitioners of the art of torture or violence, like Michael Haneke, or even the now-unpopular Kim Ki-Duk; at least they still know the value of creating horror in the mind, or of operating on the principle 'less is more' (I'm thinking of claustrophobic&nbsp;Funny Games and bizarre&nbsp;The Isle, respectively), or at the very least of using a less sophomoric brand of humor (the Three Stooges Meet The Spicy Testicle joke that opens Apocalypto is more embarrassing than funny). The only principle Gibson seems to recognize is a kind of masturbatory sadomasochism-- the more he feels bad, the more he wants you to suffer for it. Especially if you're not white.</div><div> </div><div>Originally published 12/20/06, re-edited 2/1/25 </div><div>*Liza Grandia's article seems to be out of print, so here's her text in full:&nbsp;</div><div> </div><div>The Sober Racism of Mel Gibson's Apocalypto</div>
by Liza Grandia
Film critics appear split on how to handle Mel Gibson's newest production, Apocalypto. A few refuse to patronize the film in symbolic protest of Gibson's drunken rants over the summer. Others suggest we should temporarily suspend judgment about Gibson's anti-Semitism and judge this action film on its own merits.
Remarkably, none of the critics seem to be asking whether Mel Gibson has produced a film any less racist than his summer tirades about Jews. Hollywood seems willing to admonish Gibson for certain kinds of bigotry, while oddly excusing other kinds of racism - especially if targeted at poor, brown, and indigenous peoples.
As a cultural anthropologist who has worked for thirteen years among different Maya peoples of Mesoamerica and who speaks the Q'eqchi' Maya language fluently, I found Apocalypto to be deeply racist. The Maya in the film bore no resemblance to the hardworking farmers, teachers, lawyers, doctors, businessmen and women of Maya descent that I know personally and consider among my closest friends.
I fear the repercussions Apocalypto will have on contemporary Maya people who continue to struggle for survival and political governments under discriminatory governments that consider them stupid, backward, and uncivilized for wanting to maintain their customs and language. Gibson's slanderous film reinforces the same stereotypes that have facilitated the genocide of Maya peoples and the plunder of their lands starting with the Spanish invasion of 1492 and continuing through the Guatemalan civil war to the present.
Rather than quibble about Apocalypto's many historical and archaeological inaccuracies as other academic critics have done, I focus here on four racist messages the film sends to audiences:
1. Native Americans are all interchangeable. Many critics have offered facile praise to Gibson for having filmed his bloody epic in a contemporary Maya language and employed various Native American actors. Gibson has boasted to the press how relatively cheap it was to make the film because he had pay so little to these actors and his Mexican crew. To me, these actors didn't look or sound Maya at all. Their Yucatec diction was terrible and lacked the real lyric cadence of Maya languages. If someone exploited local labor to make a cheap film about gang-violence in Brooklyn and employed heavily-accented Australian and British actors, would critics still praise it as "authentic" simply because the actors are speaking English?
2. Mesoamerican cultures are all the same. While keeping some of the archaeological details accurate for "authenticity," Gibson then jumbles together mass Aztec sacrifices with Maya rituals, as if they were the same. Certainly at the height of classic Maya civilization, the ruling classes made occasional human sacrifices to their gods, but nothing on the Holocaust-level scale that Gibson portrays in Apocalypto with fields of rotting, decapitated corpses that his hero, Jaguar Paw stumbles across as he attempts to escape his own execution in the city. With the advice of archaeologist Richard Hansen, Gibson seems to have researched anything the Maya might have done badly over a thousand year history and crammed it all into a few horrific days. How would the gringos look if we made a film that lumped together within one week the torture at the Abu Ghraib and Guatanamo prisons, the Tuskegee experiments, KKK lynchings, the battle at Wounded Knee, Japanese internment camps, the Trail of Tears, the Salem witch hunts, Texas death row executions, the Rodney King police beatings, the slaughter upon the Gettysburg battlefield, and the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki - and made this look like a definitive statement on U.S. culture?
3. Indigenous people should remain noble savages, since attempts to build cities and more complex political organization will bring their inevitable demise. Gibson purportedly wanted to make a statement about the decay of empires in this film. However, the only clear message I could take away was that indigenous people should have remained friendly forest hunter-gatherers and never have attempted to build their own civilization. Ignoring the fact by the time of the Spanish invasion, all Maya peoples had been either urbanized or sedentary agriculturalists for hundreds of years and maintained complex trade networks, Gibson nevertheless depicts his hero's tribe as crude but happy rainforest peoples living in isolation, blissfully ignorant of the corrupt cities neighboring them. He contrasts these noble forest savages with evil city dwellers such as slave traders, despotic politicians, psychotic priests, and sadistic head-hunters all living amidst rotting sewage, filth, disease, and general misery. Real Maya cities were places with sophisticated water and sanitation systems, great libraries, and extraordinary artwork and architecture. If Gibson wanted to make a statement about the consequences of environmental destruction, as he has claimed to the press, why not produce a film about corporate excesses at Love Canal or Three Mile Island instead of mucking up the historical reputation of the ancient Maya?
4. The Spanish arrive as if to save the Maya from themselves. After enduring two hours of horrific violence, in the last minutes of the film, we witness the miraculous rescue of the film's hero Jaguar Paw from his stalkers by the appearance of Spanish galleons off the coast. This short, final scene shows dour Spaniards approaching the mainland in boats bearing Christian crosses across still water. After forcing his audience to endure two hours of horrific violence, Gibson uses this placid scene allow the movie-goer a sigh of relief in the hopes that these European Civilizers have arrived to make order out of the Maya mayhem. By ending his film there, Gibson ignores the far greater genocide to befall the Maya. In fact, within a hundred years of conquest, the Spanish were responsible for killing between 90 and 95 percent of the Maya population through disease, warfare, starvation, and enslavement.
To stereotype and slander ancient Maya civilization and to imply that the impending holocaust of Maya peoples by the Spanish is a "new beginning" shows how truly racist Gibson really is-whether drunk or sober.Originally published 2006, December 17, web. Op-ed: “The Sober Racism of Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto.” Common Dreams News Center. http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1217-24.htm (link not working)
Liza Grandia is a cultural anthropologist who has worked with Maya peoples in Guatemala and Belize since 1993 and who speaks Q'eqchi' Maya fluently. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Yale University, writing a book called "Unsettling" about the repeated land dispossessions and enclosures of the Q'eqchi'.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://www.bigomagazine.com/theshop/books/NVcritic.html">Critic After Dark: a Review of Philippine Cinema</a></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/feeds/116658942592518514/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment/fullpage/post/12690266/116658942592518514' title='16 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/116658942592518514'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/116658942592518514'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2006/12/apocalyptos-racism.html' title='Apocalypto's racism'/><author><name>Noel Vera</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/05904212081036547668</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhFGuWELWMo9OjoDwjBzTbiUrgfyqvjbwDaHz6DeIA0oINpB_5KVEDaN-6wNnpHaVZMr9NCJr43ySze-txyN5BblMcnkdzmQMw3ZuM2sEapbF7ymPifolTd_PtpTWj6FU/s220/journal+pics+6.jpg'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQfzfrMokbkxmKJOaBxJysS2UuEHPY_lp3BxaTRYO2DsYT1ugHNMdMU6C2cTyZnD-e5N-3XS3_C-DALFdkN6yZ5E8OSxr3dHilgsg9UiG508aMdqjc54J8x9Tg63-DxkTb75DlNgJatB6YVGGxAT9SjJlTpV5jQp_io3A-tIa2_vAf6q5b23FN/s72-w400-h225-c/Apocalypto-e1711440161296.webp" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>16</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12690266.post-1578854776372938793</id><published>2025-01-27T09:15:00.006-05:00</published><updated>2025-06-23T18:46:13.116-04:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Ali Abbasi"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Francis Coppola"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="George Miller"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Greg Kwedar"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Lav Diaz"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Osgood Perkins"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Sean Baker"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Ti West"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Tim Burton"/><title type='text'>Best of 2024</title><content type='html'><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2n1diNnfL1OX2H7AdXZJ_a0f7ELDWjtKkBJMuV3m1CW3nKQNyqzhNPYx6g8ZXaieCyH-c-HnTm1YDD6xLvbJADKLbgGs32E7kXt-tPuvY5auruc4KlusPA9LgIcbVUOhKtSQ_0LJLRUPCLIO3R_k3vKA8h0OUjBRSk8U9dDnTc8V5wUwsZLvK/s509/Anora-14-e1730311766554.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="423" data-original-width="509" height="333" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2n1diNnfL1OX2H7AdXZJ_a0f7ELDWjtKkBJMuV3m1CW3nKQNyqzhNPYx6g8ZXaieCyH-c-HnTm1YDD6xLvbJADKLbgGs32E7kXt-tPuvY5auruc4KlusPA9LgIcbVUOhKtSQ_0LJLRUPCLIO3R_k3vKA8h0OUjBRSk8U9dDnTc8V5wUwsZLvK/w400-h333/Anora-14-e1730311766554.jpg" width="400" /></a></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkooGgo6dzJhsn8LffU-hHFBf0oOvbSOTE_mWonBBEG3kBUlCMziq0ZAkqp_A3M_17ILBj-kksUS2GGwNdWwBZEshrbdopjEPL8q9KW6ohvCy_n2VG2hIf7P-y9ciifGj54kTeKz4AgOt4DEJlJ1eudRCbchAEzpdkyxDkFS7nLLmIT9Ygnecp/s2454/c2VAIn0yto7wkq6maw4mTse1mId.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2454" data-original-width="1636" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkooGgo6dzJhsn8LffU-hHFBf0oOvbSOTE_mWonBBEG3kBUlCMziq0ZAkqp_A3M_17ILBj-kksUS2GGwNdWwBZEshrbdopjEPL8q9KW6ohvCy_n2VG2hIf7P-y9ciifGj54kTeKz4AgOt4DEJlJ1eudRCbchAEzpdkyxDkFS7nLLmIT9Ygnecp/w266-h400/c2VAIn0yto7wkq6maw4mTse1mId.jpg" width="266" /></a></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7fa7w2NYhn2JWQOh0j6Cs-ULl2gsTJASdm_l0aWQzSVC3hMvu-fyXhB4IbC2UCZIXVtlbeAXk8mBtPOpKR6wjEmsuO7GZasr2xbp0oZOs_3b_5JptY52qCW6ZyD0NOlB_jKh5-2LeTJw5fMLl-s8y-qwDAWpiNJ9rrNF22Jt_aqPJIVawHxMm/s1600/P1910211%20(1)%20(1).JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7fa7w2NYhn2JWQOh0j6Cs-ULl2gsTJASdm_l0aWQzSVC3hMvu-fyXhB4IbC2UCZIXVtlbeAXk8mBtPOpKR6wjEmsuO7GZasr2xbp0oZOs_3b_5JptY52qCW6ZyD0NOlB_jKh5-2LeTJw5fMLl-s8y-qwDAWpiNJ9rrNF22Jt_aqPJIVawHxMm/w400-h225/P1910211%20(1)%20(1).JPG" width="400" /></a></div> </div>Best I Can Come Up With For The Year List<div> </div><div>Too much life going on, had an extremely limited viewing selection this year, a more mainstream list than I’d like. In ascending order, the best of what I saw:</div><div> </div><div><a name='more'></a>24. Trap (M Night Shyamalan, 2024) -- Surprisingly effective; Josh Hartnett for once in all the years I've watched him (well there's De Palma's criminally underrated The Black Dahlia) comes to life onscreen as a cunning quick-witted monstrously entitled serial killer.&nbsp;</div><div> </div><div>23.&nbsp;<a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2024/04/civil-war-alex-garland-2024.html" style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Civil War</a> (Alex Garland, 2024) -- not so much a great dystopian future as a pretty good photojournalist thriller in the tradition of (tho not as good as) Under Fire or Platoon, set in the near future. With excellent performances by Kirsten Dunst and Cailee Spaeny among others, and-- for a dramatic highlight the rest of the film doesn't quite live up to-- a terrifically tense sequence involving the always terrific Jesse Plemons.&nbsp;</div><div> </div><div>22. Emila Perez -- Well... it's generally well made. And entertaining. But how many trans drug lords do we know or have heard of? How many trans folk do we know are interested in being more than casually active in the drug trade, or aspire to be rising stars? How big are the problems in one's life if one has tens of millions to throw at them? Zoe Saldana is terrific and so is her co-star Karla Sofia Gascon, but Selena Gomez is undone by one plot twist too many (can't comment on her accent, alas).&nbsp;</div><div> </div><div>21.&nbsp;<a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2024/11/conclave-edward-berger-2024.html" style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Conclave</a> -- Edward Berger's ecclesiastical pomp and circumstance thriller is more fun than it has any right to be, a marked improvement over his overelaborate remake of All Quiet on the Western Front. The cast has sly stylish fun, the highlights including an irrepressibly liberal Stanley Tucci, a beautifully slimy John Lithgow-- and Ralph Fiennes, never better, bearing the burden of choosing a pope (and leading a good-sized Hollywood production) effortlessly in the palm of his hand.&nbsp;</div><div> </div><div>20.&nbsp;<a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2024/11/anora-sean-baker-2024.html" style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Anora</a> (Sean Baker, 2024) – A charmer about a stripper who marries a spoiled Russian rich kid. Not much here beyond the Eat (or F*ck) the Rich messaging, but Mikey Madison as the eponymous character is easy to fall in love with.</div><div> </div><div>19.&nbsp;Drive-Away Dolls -- raunchier and funnier and far less sentimental than Baker's take on girls gone wild, Ethan Coen's solo effort comes off as gaudily pointless, the best kind of road trip.&nbsp;</div><div> </div><div>18. <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2024/09/the-killer-john-woo-2024.html">The Killer</a> (John Woo, 2024) -- Not actually as big a fan of the 1989 original as most so I actually like this recent remake with its eponymous killer gender-flipped, and the homoerotic frisson generated between her and her unintended victim. Still made with Woo's inimitably exuberant style tho now executed with an uncharacteristic dispassion. Woo and his style have aged, apparently, and done so like fine wine.&nbsp;</div><div> </div><div>17.&nbsp;The Brutalist (Brady Corbet, 2024) -- Beautifully crafted three hour film about an architect that flees Nazi Germany to set up shop in America. Excellent performances all around, but especially from Adrian Brody as the eponymous architect; not a big fan of the film's dramatic climax, but recovers nicely afterwards.&nbsp; 16.&nbsp;<a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2024/10/megalopolis-francis-ford-coppola-2024.html" style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Megalopolis</a> (Francis Ford Coppola, 2024) – hot take: didn’t think <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2010/05/godfatherr-you-broke-my-heart-you-broke.html">The Godfather</a> films were all that great, so don’t think this latest is all that precipitous a quality drop. As ambitious as any of his later more eccentric more personal works, this whatever it is has the courage of its convictions and – alas – not much else.15. The Colors Within -- Where Naoko Yamada focused on sound or its absence in a deaf girl's ear in&nbsp;A Silent Voice&nbsp;here she focuses on color, and a girl's ability to perceive it in other people's personalities, or soul if you like. Quiet but not quite to the point of tedium, this understated little drama is more in the spirit of Nabuhiro Yamashita's underrated Linda Linda Linda, about disparate folk pulling together to form a band, and has similar charms and strengths.&nbsp;&nbsp;14. Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl -- any occasion to watch a new Nick Parks is an occasion to celebrate. The nefarious Feathers McGraw (from The Wrong Trousers) makes a reappearance as the incarcerated master thief plotting revenge on the eponymous pair, the whole a hilarious parody of Scorsese's Cape Fear remake, with allusions to James Bond and Disney's The&nbsp;Sorcerer's Apprentice tossed in (all things being equal I prefer the parody). But visual jokes, thrilling action sequences, and eyepoppingly detailed stop-motion animation aside, the meat of the film is and has always been the bond between perennially clueless Wallace and his heroically loyal Gromit (seriously I don't know what the mutt sees in that guy).&nbsp;13.&nbsp;<a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2024/09/beetlejuice-beetlejuice-tim-burton-2024.html" style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice</a> (Tim Burton, 2024) – in my book, the rare shameless cash grab that actually works: Winona Ryder bravely shows her age and exhaustion as our heroine wearing her trauma on her sleeve, and Michael Keaton after a hiatus of over 30 years plays The Ghost with the Most as if he’d just stepped out for a bathroom break and stepped right back in to pick up where he left off. Easily Burton’s liveliest most inventive work in years.12.&nbsp;<a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2024/07/longlegs-osgood-perkins-2024.html" style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Longlegs</a> (Osgood Perkins, 2024) – is haunted by three ghosts: the eponymous serial killer (Nicholas Cage in an unnervingly unhinged performance, even by his outrageous standards); the director’s father Anthony Perkins, who portrayed perhaps the most famous serial killer in all of cinema; and Perkins Sr.’s director Alfred Hitchcock, from whom Perkins Jr. has learned a useful tip or two, even come up with a few clever tricks of his own. Does not stick the landing, but for a while there like nothing I’ve seen all year.11.&nbsp;<a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2024/07/maxxxine-ti-west-2024.html" style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">MaXXXine</a> (Ti West, 2024) – <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2022/10/pearl-ti-west-2022.html">Pearl</a> was my favorite of the trilogy but as a conclusion to the eponymous character’s tortured character arc as satisfying a conclusion as any. Maxine (Mia Goth) during her adventures realizes, in her relentless quest to achieve stardom, that one does not easily escape the shadow of one’s father, nor does one fail to learn from him accordingly.10.&nbsp;<a href="https://uncaged.asia/review-exhuma-unearths-a-terrifying-force-of-ancestral-curses/" style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Exhuma</a>&nbsp;(Jang Jae-hyun, 2024) -- terrific Korean horror film about exhumed graves (with a helping of Korean workplace drama, for that touch of realism) that just (for once) gets better and better the deeper the shamans and geomancers and gravediggers dig.&nbsp;9.&nbsp;<a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2024/10/the-apprentice-ali-abbasi-2024.html" style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">The Apprentice</a> (Ali Abbasi, 2024) – forget <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2024/09/the-fountain-of-ew-coralie-fargeats.html">The Substance</a> or Heretic or even&nbsp;<a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2025/01/nosferatu-1922-1979-2024-fw-murnau.html">Nosferatu</a>: this is the most terrifying film of the year. That’s it, that’s the post.8.&nbsp;<a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2025/01/isang-himala-miracle-pepe-diokno-2024.html" style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Isang Himala</a> (A Miracle, Pepe Diokno, 2024) -- under any other circumstance this anti-religious drama about a miracle worker in a small Philippine town would be considered an excellent film, perhaps even best of the year, if it wasn't a remake of the&nbsp;<a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2009/06/indiobravo-film-festival-brillante.html">Ishmael Bernal masterpiece</a>. All that said, a far superior far more substantial musical compared to <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2024/12/wicked-part-1-jon-m-chu-2024.html">Wicked</a>&nbsp;and even-- dare I say it?-- Emila Perez.7. Scavengers Reign (created by Joseph Bennett and Charles Huettner) -- eerie haunting science fiction that takes off from the Sea of Corruption of Miyazaki's <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2015/09/nausicaa-of-valley-of-wind-hayao.html">Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind</a>, then morphs into an identity all its own. O are you suggesting it's only a Netflix mini series? No-- it's cinema.6.&nbsp;<a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2024/05/furiousa-mad-max-saga-george-miller-2024.html" style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Furiosa: a Mad Max Saga</a> (George Miller, 2024) – less an action epic than an origin fable, a myth made in the telling. Where <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2015/05/mad-max-fury-road-george-miller-2015.html">Fury Road</a> was a hurtling bristling juggernaut, Furiosa is the decades-long odyssey of a woman seeking revenge, home, finally herself.5. <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2024/12/flow-gints-zilbalodis-2024.html">Flow</a> -- Forget <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2024/10/the-wild-robot-chris-sanders-2024.html">The Wild Robot</a> or <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2024/06/inside-out-2-kelsey-mann-2024.html">Inside Out 2</a>; this is the animated film of the year, a wordless, explanationless tale of a cat and friends trying to survive constant climate change.&nbsp;4.&nbsp;<a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2024/08/sing-sing-greg-kwedar-2023.html" style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Sing Sing</a> (Greg Kwedar, 2023) – Greg Kwedar’s film features lovely performances by Colman Domingo and Clarence ‘Divine Eye’ Maclin as convicts who join, and struggle to stay in, a prison-based drama group – but arguably the true stars are the real-life convicts, who lack the art or skill to present themselves or their material otherwise. They are themselves, and this is their story.3.&nbsp;<a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2024/05/evil-does-not-exist-aku-wa-sonzai.html" style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Aku wa Sonzai Shinai</a> (Evil Does Not Exist, Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, 2023) – film thrives on uneasy confrontations between cagy townsfolk and clueless urbanites but breathes in the scenes where nothing much happens, as when father and daughter study a nearby bush. But beware: some bushes hide a poisoned spine, some fairy tales a secret jolt of horror.2. Hard Truths (Mike Leigh, 2024) -- Never mind Demi Moore or Lily-Rose Depp; Marianne Jean-Baptiste's Pansy Deacon is the performance of the year. Complex, subtle, beautifully modulated, she dominates Mike Leigh's latest film the same way David Thewlis dominated Leigh's masterpiece&nbsp;Naked-- I can think of no higher praise.&nbsp;&nbsp;1.&nbsp;<a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2024/09/phantosmia-lav-diaz-2024.html" style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Phantosmia</a> (Lav Diaz, 2024) – Diaz’s latest turns on the simple conceit that a man carries his trauma for the rest of his life, sometimes in the form of a smell. Doesn’t have to be a real smell – the stink is in his mind, a manifestation of guilt for sins committed during the Marcos dictatorship. Master Sergeant Hilarion Zabala of the First Scout Ranger Regiment, who spends much of the film’s running time working out his psychological burden, may be the capstone of Ronnie Lazaro’s acting career – hard to tell, he’s done so much tremendous work – but the film is also a celebration of Batangueno and Cotabatuan cooking, ironic for a film featuring someone with an overwhelmed sense of smell.And of course there are the restorations and revivals, of which my favorites would include the 4k digital revivification of Lino Brocka's <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2024/05/bona-44-years-later-lino-brocka-1980.html">Bona</a>-- in my book Brocka and Nora Aunor's best-ever collaboration and arguably the definitive film portrait of an exploitative relationship between a man and a woman (but in this film who's really exploiting who?)-- and ABS CBN's regrading of their restored copy of Mario O'Hara's <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2024/12/three-years-without-god-in-depth-in.html">Tatlong Taong Walang Diyos</a> (Three Years Without God) to glorious black and white, not meant to supplant the original color print but to stand alongside, as a fascinating experiment and way to look at it with fresh eyes.&nbsp;<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkL_ZoZSJvLN59CiO056sSpRgOwR5x7f1Ir3aZR9Z5CijSC4K0xsKQ6Yd37rYW3Rj0u9ErUVv59XEsq89jP0jQ9bxCcVacOR-O4xMNDU0MufnKLte5Oe3r9I2NoHY0v0ry438QU5v-8nverg_nkPesipLedIhTwWnu_9rJRZdshXCNZtYWUPJ-/s260/images%20(24).jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="194" data-original-width="260" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkL_ZoZSJvLN59CiO056sSpRgOwR5x7f1Ir3aZR9Z5CijSC4K0xsKQ6Yd37rYW3Rj0u9ErUVv59XEsq89jP0jQ9bxCcVacOR-O4xMNDU0MufnKLte5Oe3r9I2NoHY0v0ry438QU5v-8nverg_nkPesipLedIhTwWnu_9rJRZdshXCNZtYWUPJ-/w400-h298/images%20(24).jpeg" width="400" /></a></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlZ5nhcG5SHpGiP-4OtXLIVW589cSRIxsgjeQChgqZ7lkyXZcY26Vb5SdOlEfLVgRWugl4eX8brG3_tjzPs8cv6iO9ymk1fZx4iHturj1o0V3xJ0MZyADXnzGyvZ8lLsabilEbFViLl0IQAZSMW0FBfuCgZO-MjZ35CEGUIc4qwoWDF7vFSLDt/s2048/1733490159157928.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1556" data-original-width="2048" height="304" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlZ5nhcG5SHpGiP-4OtXLIVW589cSRIxsgjeQChgqZ7lkyXZcY26Vb5SdOlEfLVgRWugl4eX8brG3_tjzPs8cv6iO9ymk1fZx4iHturj1o0V3xJ0MZyADXnzGyvZ8lLsabilEbFViLl0IQAZSMW0FBfuCgZO-MjZ35CEGUIc4qwoWDF7vFSLDt/w400-h304/1733490159157928.jpg" width="400" /></a></div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://www.bigomagazine.com/theshop/books/NVcritic.html">Critic After Dark: a Review of Philippine Cinema</a></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/feeds/1578854776372938793/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment/fullpage/post/12690266/1578854776372938793' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/1578854776372938793'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/1578854776372938793'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2025/01/best-of-2024.html' title='Best of 2024'/><author><name>Noel Vera</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/05904212081036547668</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhFGuWELWMo9OjoDwjBzTbiUrgfyqvjbwDaHz6DeIA0oINpB_5KVEDaN-6wNnpHaVZMr9NCJr43ySze-txyN5BblMcnkdzmQMw3ZuM2sEapbF7ymPifolTd_PtpTWj6FU/s220/journal+pics+6.jpg'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2n1diNnfL1OX2H7AdXZJ_a0f7ELDWjtKkBJMuV3m1CW3nKQNyqzhNPYx6g8ZXaieCyH-c-HnTm1YDD6xLvbJADKLbgGs32E7kXt-tPuvY5auruc4KlusPA9LgIcbVUOhKtSQ_0LJLRUPCLIO3R_k3vKA8h0OUjBRSk8U9dDnTc8V5wUwsZLvK/s72-w400-h333-c/Anora-14-e1730311766554.jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12690266.post-2319499863698925453</id><published>2025-01-21T11:12:00.009-05:00</published><updated>2025-02-02T21:00:55.013-05:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="adaptation"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Bram Stoker"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="F.W. Murnau"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Fantasy"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Germany"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Horror"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="remake"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Robert Eggers"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Werner Herzog"/><title type='text'>Nosferatu 2024, 1979, 1922 (Robert Eggers, Werner Herzog, FW Murnau)</title><content type='html'><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfIHuYCrTRyaGYzS-exitM5TCo7b0g9I-16yk-rGxeitJyCTxsYEEeWXZhaYrSrd0PYyvLM3-2-2TolSDOGpjjKSrNJsga1GMx6gWyP1OJSfT5l4lEUqghd2Qp2XRyg1iPjo66xcuV-VaD3ADIRRzSPwQqSt-2osUsg2EXiKsmjtud_dD2tTGR/s2618/MV5BNGUwMzgzNTAtMThlOC00N2IwLWEwNGQtZjVlZDQ0MDYyYjY1XkEyXkFqcGdeQWRvb2xpbmhk._V1_.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1473" data-original-width="2618" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfIHuYCrTRyaGYzS-exitM5TCo7b0g9I-16yk-rGxeitJyCTxsYEEeWXZhaYrSrd0PYyvLM3-2-2TolSDOGpjjKSrNJsga1GMx6gWyP1OJSfT5l4lEUqghd2Qp2XRyg1iPjo66xcuV-VaD3ADIRRzSPwQqSt-2osUsg2EXiKsmjtud_dD2tTGR/w400-h225/MV5BNGUwMzgzNTAtMThlOC00N2IwLWEwNGQtZjVlZDQ0MDYyYjY1XkEyXkFqcGdeQWRvb2xpbmhk._V1_.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>The blood drinkers(WARNING: story and plot twists discussed in explicit and gory detail)FW Murnau did a low-budget unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula&nbsp;titled Nosferatu&nbsp;(1922) which Stoker's widow pursued with a vengeance, demanding all prints and negatives be destroyed (despite which the film went on to achieve unholy immortality); Werner Herzog did a remake in 1979 employing ten thousand rats and his own inimitable filmmaking style; now Robert Eggers-- who professes admiration for the Murnau-- has crafted his own version, shifting emphasis from vampire to victim in his <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5040012/">2024 remake</a>.&nbsp;And how does Eggers' compare? Well let me tell you.<a name='more'></a>1922Writer Henrik Galeen switched out all the names (Count Orlok (Max Schreck) for Count Dracula, Thomas Hutter for Jonathon Harker, Ellen (Greta Schroder) for Harker's wife Mina), streamlined the narrative (no chase across Europe; most of the side characters either combined or reduced or eliminated), and has the creature perish at dawn-- the first but certainly not the last time this method of killing was used onscreen. Wouldn't be surprised if Murnau thought of the idea; death by sunlight is something I imagine a filmmaker might dream up, if not actually fantasize about.&nbsp;Murnau took his tiny budget and fashioned a look for the film: instead of the stylized Expressionist sets of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari&nbsp;he chose to shoot on location, and it's his use of location that is source of much of the film's power. The High Tatras (understudying for the Carpathians) look like a vast hardmuscled back forcing its way up out of the surrounding soil, a violent upheaval freeze-framed for our appreciation; the castle is an Escher fantasy of shadow and stone, with sudden plunges to isolate the unwary guest, and deep passageways to allow late-night snacking. The sea is a shimmering sheet over which the tallmasted Empusa glides, carrying doomed cargo; the Count's residence opposite the Hutters' (actually the Salzspeicher in Lubeck) resembles a cave wall pockmarked with rat holes; you expect to see eyes glittering out of each dark cavity.&nbsp;Murnau's miserable creature-- designed by film's producer and lifelong occultist Albin Grau-- is gaunt and cadaverous, with a head like a shaven rodent's skull, tiny LED lights for eyes, a pair of huge front fangs. With the simplest effects Murnau depicts Orlok's abilities and strength-- fast-forward motion denoting inhuman speed; great earthfilled coffins lifted like so much luggage; Orlok himself pivoting straight out of his casket, the ultimate popup surprise for the ultimate children's nightmare of a book.&nbsp;Murnau's stripped-down retooling of Stoker's tale is revealed to be a menage a trois between man and woman and parasite, in a world drained of its population by plague (the film came out only two years after the Spanish Flu killed anywhere from fifty to a hundred million people, one of the deadliest pandemics in history)-- said parasite not just cause and carrier but its walking incarnation. Murnau could not be more direct: the world is a frightening place.&nbsp;&nbsp;1979And then there's Werner Herzog, who considers the Murnau the most important of German films and still feels the need to put out his own version. Herzog's picture is more intimate, his filmmaking more handheld casual; even the shots of mountain ranges suggests more a passerby stealing glances during a hike than a serious observer determined to contemplate their majesty and scale. Notably the ship's passage is truncated (where in the original it was a dramatic high point), the Count's new-bought residence a rattier more dilapidated version of the first.&nbsp;But Herzog's camerawork-- accompanied by West German group Popol Vuh's dreamy soundtrack-- holds a power all its own, the mobile camera capturing on the fly the twisted faces of Mexican mummies, the plunge of water down a narrow gorge, the leisurely flutter of a bat in flight.&nbsp;Klaus Kinski's Count Dracula (with rights entering public domain, Herzog decided to use the original's names) owes his basic features to Schreck's Orlok but his eyes are lonelier, his lips more sensuous, his voice wheezy and gratingly high-- he's like the stereotype of an unhappy child, shunned by others for his asthma attacks, who grows up to prey on children. Bruno Ganz as Jonathon Harker is able to run energetically up and down stairs and slam his shoulder against the odd barred castle door, yet when Kinski's Dracula lunges forward you immediately fear for Harker. Ganz's real estate agent may look like a formidable physical specimen but Kinski's vampire is ancient, and insatiable.&nbsp;&nbsp;Matching Kinski stare for stare is Isabelle Adjani's Lucy Harker (for unknown reasons she and Mina have switched names and roles). Greta Schroder's Ellen didn't do much for me save offer herself as bait, her one desperate bid to end Orlok; Adjani with her bloodless pallor flashing her dark eyes admits to little calculation and even less sanity. She has a clearer narrative arc than Ellen-- friends don't believe her when she talks of the menace; Jonathon when he sees her again doesn't even recognize her; and people on the streets stare uncomprehendingly when she yells out warning. One by one she's cut off from each and every member of society till left only with herself-- and the vampire-- and instead of cringing in one corner she steels herself to act. Kinski's Dracula may be evil but Lucy is intensely even terrifyingly passionate-- angel or devil, her eyes warn you, if you ever get in her way she will fuck you up.&nbsp;2024Arguably Eggers' bravest most breathtaking achievement is to position himself in direct comparison with the two filmmakers. I've liked some of Eggers' work-- arguably my favorite to date is his two-hander masterpiece of sodden misery The Lighthouse-- but against Murnau's elemental sense of beauty and Herzog's perverse mysticism the filmmaker sadly comes up short. The digitally enhanced landscapes and digitally enhanced weather have little of the weight or presence of Murnau's Carpathians or North Atlantic; Eggers' citizenry line up their coffins and talk of loss and despair but can't approximate the awful resignation of Murnau's, who wordlessly accept Orlok's gift of death (Herzog took his townfolk's response a step further, having them celebrate their fate with music and dance, even an elaborate dinner swarming with rats).Actually acceptance was only the final stage of a process Murnau inflicts on the people of Wisborg; along the way they panic and pin blame on poor demented Knock, Orlok's underling, who flees and hides (in a chilling demonstration of mob fury a scarecrow is pulled down and&nbsp;torn apart in his stead).&nbsp;It isn't just digital effects that bar Eggers from realizing a vision to stand alongside his predecessors'; what made Herzog's work I suspect was that he shared with Murnau a maverick's monomaniacal willingness to strike out and realize their dream projects despite financial restrictions-- I submit the big budget Eggers waited decades and possibly sold his soul to the Devil for kneecapped his project, reduced it into yet another glossy Hollywood horror. Need footage of flying bats? Borrow from a documentary-- with a deep blue background and the right hypnotic drone (rhyming with the rhythm of slowed wings), said footage becomes the film's emblematic visual motif. Vampire's death but no money for effects? Cut Kinski loose; he'll perform a death scene (knowing the actor probably self-improvised) that will make you forget all others, especially&nbsp;digitally enhanced.&nbsp;Doesn't help either that Murnau sprinkles his film with effortlessly achieved shots like that of the shadow of Orlok's hand reaching across the screen to seize Ellen's heart, an image so indelible Eggers can't help but imitate it at least twice*, once with a vast digital shadow stretching across the town-- appreciate that Eggers is under Murnau's spell and can't help it, but the zombie repetition starts to become wearying, even risible.&nbsp;*(I actually counted six times, but could be wrong)&nbsp;Bill Skarsgard's Orlok is this version's profoundest mystery (or the production's most cunning publicity gimmick) but when finally unveiled is basically a carefully researched meticulously costumed and prostheticized half-rotten Transylvanian nobleman complete with handlebar 'stache. I'm aware of the controversies and in fact Stoker does describe Dracula as sporting a pair, but the facial hair on Skarsgard (as opposed to Schreck's and Kinski's nakedly verminous design) has the possibly unintended effect of softening his ghoulish features, making him more endearing than threatening, resembling not so much a&nbsp;strigoi as a zombie Frank Zappa.&nbsp;And O the bit about Skarsgard 'deepening his voice!' Such a predictable way to intimidate; if the vampire must have a voice then I much prefer Kinski's gambit-- his high wheezy tone, like fingernails dragged across a chalkboard, is more unconventional and in the end more frightening, especially when you realize (as with Peter Lorre in Fritz Lang's&nbsp;M) that it's less the voice of a bloodsucking predator than of a lifelong sexual predator, one fully aware ("The absence of love is the most abject pain") and despairing of his situation ("Death is not the worse; there are things more horrible...").&nbsp;&nbsp;As for Lily-Rose Depp-- respect her dedication and salute her and Eggers' determination to focus less on the victimizer and more on the victim, but for all the blood and sweat and tears shed, all the acrobatics and eye-rolling and shrieking she undergoes (shout-out to Linda Blair, who originated much of the contortions), the breathless declarations of dread and despair and oncoming doom, she doesn't quite achieve the impact of Isabelle Adjani with both eyes wide open. Depp has all the intensity of a hungry up-and-comer with something to prove; Adjani has the serenity of someone who has always been unhinged. In this, in The Story of Adele H., and in <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2022/06/possession-andrzej-zulawski-1981.html">Possession</a>-- perhaps her most out-there role-- she's the perfect foil for the equally strong equally freakshow Kinski; between the two of them everyone and everything within range and recent memory just fade a bit, like shadows into the surrounding mist.&nbsp;First published in <a href="https://www.bworldonline.com/arts-and-leisure/2025/01/17/647146/the-blood-drinkers/">Businessworld</a> 4.17.25<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5WqhHHU3L-z4Gacd-WG6w9Rly2RSl8e9up0YCHANYmgl0ZPELYy6JvRCZivy3ab2B8V2goSvwAHHm6o1Nlf1xfl92ynNR6RRF6yWLhZRyDGv8aTUqhGcSR3Jc3CPpDtTDn-1DdnsA7M5lr7ngoyyOEbzl_l9oA9CEjFB4m_ZsSsUC1w-CKYlD/s780/Nosferatu-The-Vampyre-review-Klaus-Kinski-2.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="470" data-original-width="780" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5WqhHHU3L-z4Gacd-WG6w9Rly2RSl8e9up0YCHANYmgl0ZPELYy6JvRCZivy3ab2B8V2goSvwAHHm6o1Nlf1xfl92ynNR6RRF6yWLhZRyDGv8aTUqhGcSR3Jc3CPpDtTDn-1DdnsA7M5lr7ngoyyOEbzl_l9oA9CEjFB4m_ZsSsUC1w-CKYlD/w400-h241/Nosferatu-The-Vampyre-review-Klaus-Kinski-2.webp" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgimTSgG7V9I7Jo8BacEYkIXtrydiTf4oksk9wndA_lMQEQhR62oMPAE8u9VYYQQSqfK7KJBkoFWl8ZmukMTiD-86kek3HSRpmseHhjEW4SwxXolKLkuMpI3rKD1aPsoVRJViZtr_01dtmupUOUtlwoftCIf5iYwpk0Jp4mwvBocNf5FKg-30AN/s1200/nosferatu.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="667" data-original-width="1200" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgimTSgG7V9I7Jo8BacEYkIXtrydiTf4oksk9wndA_lMQEQhR62oMPAE8u9VYYQQSqfK7KJBkoFWl8ZmukMTiD-86kek3HSRpmseHhjEW4SwxXolKLkuMpI3rKD1aPsoVRJViZtr_01dtmupUOUtlwoftCIf5iYwpk0Jp4mwvBocNf5FKg-30AN/w400-h223/nosferatu.webp" width="400" /></a></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://www.bigomagazine.com/theshop/books/NVcritic.html">Critic After Dark: a Review of Philippine Cinema</a></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/feeds/2319499863698925453/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment/fullpage/post/12690266/2319499863698925453' title='2 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/2319499863698925453'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/2319499863698925453'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2025/01/nosferatu-1922-1979-2024-fw-murnau.html' title='Nosferatu 2024, 1979, 1922 (Robert Eggers, Werner Herzog, FW Murnau)'/><author><name>Noel Vera</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/05904212081036547668</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhFGuWELWMo9OjoDwjBzTbiUrgfyqvjbwDaHz6DeIA0oINpB_5KVEDaN-6wNnpHaVZMr9NCJr43ySze-txyN5BblMcnkdzmQMw3ZuM2sEapbF7ymPifolTd_PtpTWj6FU/s220/journal+pics+6.jpg'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfIHuYCrTRyaGYzS-exitM5TCo7b0g9I-16yk-rGxeitJyCTxsYEEeWXZhaYrSrd0PYyvLM3-2-2TolSDOGpjjKSrNJsga1GMx6gWyP1OJSfT5l4lEUqghd2Qp2XRyg1iPjo66xcuV-VaD3ADIRRzSPwQqSt-2osUsg2EXiKsmjtud_dD2tTGR/s72-w400-h225-c/MV5BNGUwMzgzNTAtMThlOC00N2IwLWEwNGQtZjVlZDQ0MDYyYjY1XkEyXkFqcGdeQWRvb2xpbmhk._V1_.jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>2</thr:total></entry></feed>

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