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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="Zach Cregger"/><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>1273</openSearch:totalResults><openSearch:startIndex>1</openSearch:startIndex><openSearch:itemsPerPage>25</openSearch:itemsPerPage><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12690266.post-9198169742124433431</id><published>2025-09-18T15:10:00.001-04:00</published><updated>2025-09-18T15:10:46.108-04:00</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="French"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Henri-Georges Clouzot"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="remake"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Thriller"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="William Friedkin"/><title type='text'>Sorcerer (William Friedkin, 1977) vs Wages of Fear (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1953)</title><content type='html'><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg7uQhi23WDvLWhLneuf84mcsNpqUYkiy3ltnpJufJXp65-YqpiC70wH4xrt-GGd934C2GRFwJmZGqvfoTw1gAgdnvE9tcxQKZ-1M_99szXU0gYGaJHlWumqvtXc1fMEmue2tBK9E1BZ4-L4zPC4JjP6t5bPU3zzRFqthl-F9iHwTK5Lkkt1FU0" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="945" data-original-width="1520" height="249" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg7uQhi23WDvLWhLneuf84mcsNpqUYkiy3ltnpJufJXp65-YqpiC70wH4xrt-GGd934C2GRFwJmZGqvfoTw1gAgdnvE9tcxQKZ-1M_99szXU0gYGaJHlWumqvtXc1fMEmue2tBK9E1BZ4-L4zPC4JjP6t5bPU3zzRFqthl-F9iHwTK5Lkkt1FU0=w400-h249" width="400" /></a></div> A bridge too farYou hear the debate at the fringes of socmed discussion: "Which is the better film, Henri-George Clouzot's <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0046268/">black-and-white thriller</a> or William Friedkin's $22 million <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076740/">tribute/remake</a>?" Well let me tell you--(WARNING-- plot twists discussed in explicit detail!)<a name='more'></a>When Friedkin scored a double success with&nbsp;The French Connection and The Exorcist, Hollywood couldn't help but take notice (French made $75 million and won the Best Picture Oscar, The Exorcist was only nominated but earned $441 million). Friedkin declared his next project would not&nbsp;be a remake of Clouzot's 1953 picture but would use the same basic premise (two trucks carrying touchy explosives over rough South American roads) with a 'grittier' more 'documentary feel.'Friedkin asked, and Friedkin got it. I remember seeing this back in '77&nbsp; or '78 as a youth of 11 or 12, and being startled at the sheer squalor; I wondered if perhaps Friedkin had filmed in Manila-- the scattered wet garbage, the pools of fetid water, the mud and feces, the scabied dogs (of course Lino Brocka captured similar imagery in <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2018/04/insiang-lino-brocka-1976.html">Insiang</a>, but this was a Hollywood director, from the United States!). What the director achieved in those opening images was extraordinary, I thought, and are easily the best passages in the film.&nbsp;Takes a while to get going too. We get the four main characters' backstories, where they came from, what drove them to seek refuge in this rectum of a small town; Clouzot did indulge in a lengthy introduction of his characters but in town and not flashback, already interacting with each other-- not only do we get the same amount of backstory (in brief snatches of conversation with each other) but we get the others' reactions to said backstory, the sense of camaraderie generated when sharing bits of their past. At one point Bimba (Peter van Eyck) gingerly pours a cup of nitroglycerine into a hole, to blow up a big rock; the others remark on his steady hands, and he mentions working in Nazi salt mines during the war-- compared to that, he claims, this is nothing.&nbsp;Friedkin declared he wanted an 'unsentimental' film, but with that comes less emotional investment-- Bimba, Luigi (Folco Lulli), Jo (Charles Vanel), and Mario (Yves Montand) are far more engaging folk than Victor (Bruno Cremer), Nilo (Francisco Rabal), and Jackie Scanlon (Roy Scheider); I submit that it matters more when Clouzot's drivers are put in peril, suffer, snarl and snap back at each other.&nbsp;I'd call Amidou's Kassem the remake's noted exception: Amidou is excellent here and you're immediately won over by his underdog expression and can-do spirit. Scheider coming off his equally huge double success of The French Connection and Jaws acts more like the standard Hollywood star, complete with obligatory freakout scene (takes a machete and desperately tries to clear an alternate route through the jungle) designed to win him an acting nomination (he doesn't get it).&nbsp;The thrills also hit different-- have not read Georges Arnaud's novel of the same name but I'm assuming Clouzot follows the general outline fairly closely. There's a greater variety to the dangers the drivers are subject to, more precision in the way Clouzot establishes each obstacle and how they're overcome (you imagine the film's alternate title could be 8 Million Ways to Die). Coming up to the corrugated road, the two teams explain to one another the problem: takes too long to safely cross on second gear so the only solution is to speed up-- to fly over the corrugations at an insanely counterintuitive forty miles an hour, and right then and there the audience feels its collective sphincter squeeze when Clouzot cuts to a foot pressing on a gas pedal, the engine roaring-- you expect the next sound to be two hundred liters of nitroglycerine going up in flames.&nbsp;That's one problem with the road; Clouzot brilliantly suggests the second as he intercuts between the two teams laying out the no-margin no-error solution, arriving at the same answer independently. What happens then when chance changes circumstances, and to warn the other truck of the change one must rely on a message conveyed by a single white handkerchief laid on the road?By way of contrast there's not much thrill to remake; after spending almost an hour introducing each character we don't get any real hazards until the rope bridge stretched across the river, where Friedkin pours all his considerable filmmaking skills-- and a good chunk of the budget-- on the pair of trucks crossing said river, in the middle of a tropical monsoon.&nbsp;&nbsp;Take a moment to note that Friedkin's much vaunted 'realism' isn't, really; we're asked to believe that the oil company, needing the explosives transported quickly and safely, won't spend a peso giving the four drivers the best trucks and mechanics that corporate resources can buy (the drivers have to waste time customizing their own vehicles). We're also asked to watch the trucks with their great goofy gap-toothed smiles seriously, without once laughing, or believe multi-ton trucks can cross a rope bridge with nary a supporting steel cable in sight (not to mention the fraying suspension ropes are too far apart, and the bridge's planking looks suspiciously spaced like in an amusement park ride, for maximum apparent danger). Yes Friedkin pours plenty of verite-like style into the images but if you pause to think (which admittedly with the rain and assaultive sounds it can be hard to do) it's difficult to take the situation seriously.&nbsp;I can see what Friedkin must have been aiming for: by sharing each driver's stories with us the audience and not with the other drivers, the filmmaker turns the four men into four distinct narratives, isolated not by time or distance but by the sheer alienating nature of modern life. The focus on Scanlon in particular is telling: he gets the longest flashback, most of the story is seen through his eyes; he also enjoys the film's showiest setpiece-- not the infamous bridge-crossing during a rainstorm but the final odyssey through surreal desert landscapes (in a South American jungle?), with Friedkin abandoning Ecuador to shoot in Navajo territory, in New Mexico. Scanlon has to walk the flat mesa alone, surrounded by towering silent stone figures, the synthesizer score of Tangerine Dream filling his head-- it's the ultimate Sartrean trek, who wouldn't crack under that kind of punishment?The sequence is impressive if not easy to love (I admit to admiring it) but not quite what Clouzot offers in Wages. There fellow Frenchmen Mario (Yves Montand) and Jo (Charles Vanel) bond; when during the course of the trip Mario gradually realizes that Jo has 'lost his nerve' (has become a coward), Mario feels personally affronted-- he thinks he's been betrayed, putting his trust in a man who proves practically useless in the mission.&nbsp;But dealing with the final hazard-- a pool of oil that grows deeper and wider with every pump of the twisted leaky pipeline-- Mario finds himself betraying Jo in turn, in a no-win situation far more horrifying and darkly sticky than anything they've faced so far (Friedkin has to settle for a random group of bandits). We get thrills but we also get the intensity of watching Mario forced to eat his words about honor and loyalty in friendship-- the self-justifying bickering Mario has with Jo afterwards is the kind of odd realistic detail that helps locate horror in everyday life, the way a married couple might quarrel after a harrowing home invasion.&nbsp;Not saying Sorcerer is a bad film-- it's a masterpiece of production design and cinematography, the prime example of a skilled filmmaker (Friedkin) falling prey to his own hubris and nearly succeeding. But Wages of Fear is Clouzot at the peak of his powers; he knew exactly what was needed, he knew exactly how it all fitted together and played out, he knew it was the emotional stakes and not the mechanics of the thrills involved that hook an audience. In the end I have my preference.&nbsp;<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhafYFmq5Ko-z08DeM0l8bUsDYc5DgIkjVmIdTjvQqRvLWjj5mgmzypbAQWMB7ZKqH39xlGspwnaLLYIknZPXCNwGWPP8A7YPn5tcBiXWqk2iU0nV4zXVD1I2xuOZs-D5-QpEzwlH7ynf7BkMhKF9IlCh7AZfVHfDDIeGW8PbyHnbLuicc5EHRP" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="2400" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhafYFmq5Ko-z08DeM0l8bUsDYc5DgIkjVmIdTjvQqRvLWjj5mgmzypbAQWMB7ZKqH39xlGspwnaLLYIknZPXCNwGWPP8A7YPn5tcBiXWqk2iU0nV4zXVD1I2xuOZs-D5-QpEzwlH7ynf7BkMhKF9IlCh7AZfVHfDDIeGW8PbyHnbLuicc5EHRP=w400-h225" width="400" /></a></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhX9xnsGS8V7qM0b7_9Hi3VHgxQxZFd5ollsXoftYZGJ-kBNXbgcLbfYoVivbXbyC7Fl9O_Oss4iEw-ijiOPAoCsnuVxEM97rdBafLjRlkoy28OJD6jBEDI9lVuNWJSDEFXxHJhVf1gQ19o4U_ZQaCFPByX_bUpFrkAHw41iq3NSpNcAutAWzqm" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="576" data-original-width="1024" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhX9xnsGS8V7qM0b7_9Hi3VHgxQxZFd5ollsXoftYZGJ-kBNXbgcLbfYoVivbXbyC7Fl9O_Oss4iEw-ijiOPAoCsnuVxEM97rdBafLjRlkoy28OJD6jBEDI9lVuNWJSDEFXxHJhVf1gQ19o4U_ZQaCFPByX_bUpFrkAHw41iq3NSpNcAutAWzqm=w400-h225" 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/9198169742124433431/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment/fullpage/post/12690266/9198169742124433431' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/9198169742124433431'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/9198169742124433431'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2025/09/sorcerer-william-friedkin-1977-vs-wages.html' title='Sorcerer (William Friedkin, 1977) vs Wages of Fear (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1953)'/><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/a/AVvXsEg7uQhi23WDvLWhLneuf84mcsNpqUYkiy3ltnpJufJXp65-YqpiC70wH4xrt-GGd934C2GRFwJmZGqvfoTw1gAgdnvE9tcxQKZ-1M_99szXU0gYGaJHlWumqvtXc1fMEmue2tBK9E1BZ4-L4zPC4JjP6t5bPU3zzRFqthl-F9iHwTK5Lkkt1FU0=s72-w400-h249-c" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12690266.post-7511250364456245516</id><published>2025-09-05T16:02:00.007-04:00</published><updated>2025-09-15T07:28:56.943-04:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Biographical"/><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="Lav Diaz"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Period"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Portugal"/><title type='text'>Magellan (Lav Diaz, 2025)</title><content type='html'><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjV6UWwIfgkkNf72uR7_CTGIHxkqEX_HKStDVQ9NGcOfmNHDMluLMABva9Bsanab4Jx34OH_3vzdEKhwpzoNWyaSrz9n7bIRy2TFcWi256UkkmBxIT84YLxkT0fJRamF_rejnt4RwXhutb25dZNCuREQWpD0kqPeCbgUfjVJYKU6xloxHgMOohs"><img data-original-height="766" data-original-width="1018" height="301" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjV6UWwIfgkkNf72uR7_CTGIHxkqEX_HKStDVQ9NGcOfmNHDMluLMABva9Bsanab4Jx34OH_3vzdEKhwpzoNWyaSrz9n7bIRy2TFcWi256UkkmBxIT84YLxkT0fJRamF_rejnt4RwXhutb25dZNCuREQWpD0kqPeCbgUfjVJYKU6xloxHgMOohs=w400-h301" title="Gail Garcia Bernal as Magellan" width="400" /></a></div></div></div><div> </div>Killing fieldsLooked down at my notes after just having finished Lav Diaz's latest <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt36456563/">Magellan</a> (2025) I see-- circled and underlined, on top of the page-- the words: 'so much killing!'<a name='more'></a>That was the most lasting impression the film made: so much death, almost all of it deliberately inflicted. Not actual violence-- Diaz has declared again and again he doesn't enjoy being explicit onscreen-- but the consequence of such violence, either sprawled on a beach or draped over rocks or curled tight like an injured worm, often with an exhausted or resigned expression on the face, at times elaborately drizzled with a thick peri-peri sauce. Corpse after corpse after corpse and you think maybe Diaz is trying to say something: that it's everywhere; that it comes in all forms; that it gives rise to every consequence, from vengeance quests to military reprisals to international conflicts to-- and this strangest of all-- a unique and private peace. Some of the bodies show a serenity and lack of suffering they never had when alive; one wonders what Diaz himself thinks of death, if he seems to obsess with its depiction on the big screen.&nbsp;This film is actually a first for Diaz: previously he's devoted himself to telling the Filipino experience, at most (in <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2022/10/batang-west-side-west-side-avenue-lav.html">Batang West Side</a> (West Side Avenue)) the Filipino-American experience. With this feature Diaz focuses on Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan (in his native language 'Fernao de Magalhaes')-- an important figure in Filipino history, not so much for 'discovering' the existence of the Philippine Islands (at this point a loose collection of kingdoms living in uneasy truce) as for directing King Carlos I's attention to the islands' natural wealth, ripe for exploitation.&nbsp;In short, Magellan (Gael Garcia Bernal) is a calamity waiting to happen. He wreaks havoc in the Malaccas (where the local defense consisted mainly of near-naked men and women with their hands raised, pleading to the gods* while he mows them down en masse); watches his boss Governor Afonso de Albuquerque (Roger Alan Koza) deliver a rambling megalomanic rant before collapsing, then sips wine over the Governor's prone body. He loses half his men across Portugal's conquered territory and has to fend off their widows as they stand on a beach, demanding to know what became of their men; he acquires an indentured servant named Enrique (Amado Arjay Babon), a beautiful wife heavy with child named Beatriz (Angela Azevedo), a new patron in King Carlos (Victor Chesnais), and five ships to find a new path to the Spice Islands-- west as opposed to east, circumventing Africa, India, China, and his former patron King Manuel of Portugal (Daniel Viana).*(The sight of these naked men and women arms upraised and visibly distressed is in itself unsettling, and you're not quite sure why. Their shouted words: "The promise of the gods of our ancestors is upon us!"-- what does that mean? Are they excited to see these visitors? Terrified? Is this a fulfillment of a long-promised prophecy or confirmation of an apocalyptic end? Maybe both? Enrique early in the film is seen caged; he cries out to Apo Laki for help and climbs and hangs from the bars moaning his despair. We're not just seeing the conquest and imprisonment of these men and women but the imminent destruction of their beliefs spirit souls)And if you think Magellan was a brutal sonofabitch commanding troops on land you should see him on a boat. He metes out swift punishment to a sodomizing rapist, enforces discipline with a heavy whip, suppresses mutinies by forcing one conspirator to lop the head off the other (otherwise he'll lop off both),&nbsp;overall gives you the impression that a ship-- especially one making a crossing expected to last a few days that stretches out to three endless months-- is basically a vast bowl of concentrated misery, all shivers and sores and simmering anger, sicknesses physical and mental. Headed, mind you, slowly but inexorably west, to contaminate what we now call Southeast Asia.&nbsp;Magellan's arrival (skip the rest of this paragraph if you haven't seen the film!) comes with a surprise twist: the children of Cebu suffer from scurvy, which Magellan handily treats with a spoonful of quince. It's the rare touch of humanity that complicates an otherwise grim portrait, and for the first time you see Bernal's charismatic smile as he lifts an afflicted child to his arms; you're reminded that he already has a son, and knows-- somehow-- that his son has passed. You think 'maybe this man isn't so bad after all' and might even start rooting for him to succeed (you shouldn't, but you might).Visually the film-- the rare recent Diaz in color-- is a striking example of heightened verite. Locked-down camera setups capture corners and intersections of Portuguese alleyways or Malaccan village trails, and the action (or if you like the slaughter) scatters accordingly; figures are lit sideways, edged with a warm sunset glow. The footage aboard the Trinidad&nbsp;is particularly extraordinary-- Diaz managed to snag himself a full-sized galleon, and you hear the creak of the planks, the wind whistling off the lines, the snap of filling sails; even the locked-down camera can't help but shudder a bit, as the ship goes into an especially hard roll.&nbsp;As for the film's climax (skip this paragraph again if you haven't seen!): Diaz puts forth the radical proposal that Lapu-Lapu wasn't an actual figure but an invention of Rajah Humabon (Ronnie Lazaro), ruler of Cebu, to distract Magellan and draw him to a specific location for ready ambush. Revisionist history, and officially Diaz says he did it in part because there's no credible record of a ruler named Lapu-Lapu outside that of Antonio Pigafetta's (Magellan's chronicler) account, in part to spark debate around the film. I do note that this deletion of Lapu-Lapu (not sure how Cebuanos feel about that) makes Humabon look more like a cunning strategist-- Magellan landing on the beaches of Mactan looking for a fight when it turns out his adversaries stood side-by-side with his own warriors-- and if that seems like less than honorable conduct, why one only need look at Magellan's own previous actions, the landscapes decorated with the consequences of his slaughter, to see that notions of honor and good conduct aren't a priority, on either side. Humabon was defending his territory the best he can-- and he succeeded, at least for a while.&nbsp;&nbsp;The film is such a ravishing experience it seems churlish to complain it's a mere 160 minutes-- a blink compared to Diaz's more marathon features. But I'd love to learn more of Enrique's story, more of his experiences being passed from one slavemaster to another, the possibility that he and not Magellan was the first person to actually circumnavigate the globe, and especially his thoughts and feelings about this latest owner. I'd also love to know the thoughts and feelings of Humabon, listening to this strange sickly-pale man from the distant realm of Spain go on and on and on about Christ and morality.&nbsp;Diaz did mention planning a sequel, focusing not on that military bore Ferdinand but on his mysterious wife Beatriz-- as Azevedo plays her she has a hushed presence that commands your attention, and her few scenes with Bernal have&nbsp;a palpable warmth. Diaz also mentions the sequel should run about nine hours-- nine hours! What does Beatriz have to say us that Magellan can't, or won't? What tea might she offer, or fling in our faces? I for one would like to know.&nbsp;&nbsp;First published in <a href="https://www.bworldonline.com/arts-and-leisure/2025/09/05/695902/killing-fields/">Businessworld</a> 9.5.25<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjzeI1e4GAwQCQVWNRn1stQQMG61stq6CqCcEm5DFTOgkPIbAT6RNpAmqC_imUZE3PImXk0wQqXoGjPeLZlkb1LVr6kWZvOpxD-ehgZqOkz4zhtFBMvYBLWUgcggZY1wuSGS6egdI05asIK_NzhIvvsviRY5KJ3ERLZtPp8WeYFZl_m1MdpRlNZ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="168" data-original-width="300" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjzeI1e4GAwQCQVWNRn1stQQMG61stq6CqCcEm5DFTOgkPIbAT6RNpAmqC_imUZE3PImXk0wQqXoGjPeLZlkb1LVr6kWZvOpxD-ehgZqOkz4zhtFBMvYBLWUgcggZY1wuSGS6egdI05asIK_NzhIvvsviRY5KJ3ERLZtPp8WeYFZl_m1MdpRlNZ=w400-h224" title="Amado Arjay Babon as Enrique" 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/a/AVvXsEh8fF6x6lXvCVBO5oGmPhwteiATFDNwfWdVO37HTb9spI650fJPJrXFthQTMfU1pz2BU02ciHLxqwIt3RZDxeF8OpbwRnjF5SyecFiMJeYIzOGbSE3vSX_QiOlWi89PKuwBUG3M71GdYUVIJVJuFnYsqXXyE7NRgga8IrmgFB0reqxxeHg52cOT" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="2560" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh8fF6x6lXvCVBO5oGmPhwteiATFDNwfWdVO37HTb9spI650fJPJrXFthQTMfU1pz2BU02ciHLxqwIt3RZDxeF8OpbwRnjF5SyecFiMJeYIzOGbSE3vSX_QiOlWi89PKuwBUG3M71GdYUVIJVJuFnYsqXXyE7NRgga8IrmgFB0reqxxeHg52cOT=w400-h225" title="Ronnie Lazaro as Rajah Humabon" 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/7511250364456245516/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment/fullpage/post/12690266/7511250364456245516' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/7511250364456245516'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/7511250364456245516'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2025/09/magellan-lav-diaz-2025.html' title='Magellan (Lav Diaz, 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/a/AVvXsEjV6UWwIfgkkNf72uR7_CTGIHxkqEX_HKStDVQ9NGcOfmNHDMluLMABva9Bsanab4Jx34OH_3vzdEKhwpzoNWyaSrz9n7bIRy2TFcWi256UkkmBxIT84YLxkT0fJRamF_rejnt4RwXhutb25dZNCuREQWpD0kqPeCbgUfjVJYKU6xloxHgMOohs=s72-w400-h301-c" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12690266.post-8088242550159589363</id><published>2025-09-01T05:02:00.007-04:00</published><updated>2025-09-05T11:08:21.553-04:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="adaptation"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Drama"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Hollywood"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="John Ford"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Western"/><title type='text'>The Searchers (John Ford, 1956) in a 70 mm print</title><content type='html'><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpvq_-oGVbHa9afMbIWIuUZOXzhWhemGkcIuIC2VffReO_myNlaQntIWgNarZED9Lihai8BDrQIwczGJ-cW4-ndVQYVomU__SWzkCrJ-DqHBBpVZEa5S13TZ8HZcs16J3bmFhx4vVd8DFJktTKhR0M9MOlWgMucG2uOUlqeqOS5Ju3kS3G6sfI/s1080/thesearchers-1080x675.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="1080" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpvq_-oGVbHa9afMbIWIuUZOXzhWhemGkcIuIC2VffReO_myNlaQntIWgNarZED9Lihai8BDrQIwczGJ-cW4-ndVQYVomU__SWzkCrJ-DqHBBpVZEa5S13TZ8HZcs16J3bmFhx4vVd8DFJktTKhR0M9MOlWgMucG2uOUlqeqOS5Ju3kS3G6sfI/w400-h250/thesearchers-1080x675.jpg" width="400" /></a></div> That'll be the dayFinally saw John Ford's <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049730/">The Searchers</a>&nbsp;(1956) in a 70 mm print and the experience is as sprawling and expansive as the VistaVision landscape.(WARNING: Plot of this 69-year-old film discussed in explicit detail!)<a name='more'></a>As in poetry much of the film's power comes from repetition and rhyme. The film's opening shot follows a woman emerging from a dark cabin into the open desert; the finale repeats that movement in reverse, with the camera retreating from the wide world back into the comfort of another cabin's womb.&nbsp;In between the two shots we have a massacre, a five-year hunt, a marriage, an attempted wedding, a second even bloodier massacre. Ethan Edwards (John Wayne) visits the home of his brother Aaron (Walter Coy), lifts young Debbie (Lana Wood) up high in his arms, enjoys the loving attentions of Aaron's wife Martha (the quietly luminous Dorothy Jordan) before joining a posse out to recover stolen cattle. Turns out the stolen cattle were a ploy; turns out the rustlers were really Comanches luring the men away from their families; turns out Ethan is too late to save little Debbie from being kidnapped, too late to keep Aaron, Martha, and family from being slaughtered (and worse).&nbsp;You might say Ethan's search for Debbie is his way of dealing with his failure to protect the only family he had. You might say Ethan's quest makes perfect pairing with (maybe inspiring) one <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2008/03/vertigo-alfred-hitchcock-1958.html">Scottie Ferguson's</a>, who can't get past his failure to protect one Madeleine Elster. You might further say some of the most highly regarded films of the past few decades involve aging white men unable to let go of unfinished business, yearning for a second chance.&nbsp;You might also say calling the film The Searchers&nbsp;is actually a misnomer; there's only one searcher and his name is Martin Pawley (Jeffrey Hunter), Debbie's part-white part-Cherokee adopted brother. Once Martin realizes that Ethan isn't so much looking for Debbie as seeking revenge-- perhaps seeking to kill Debbie (now grown into the beautiful Natalie Wood) for becoming the wife of Comanche chief Scar (Henry Brandon)-- he insists on joining Ethan's years-long quest, hoping to keep his sister safe from Ethan's wrath. He in truth is the film's moral center, insisting on rescue over vengeance, insisting on his love for Debbie despite Ethan's repeated reminders that the two have no common blood ties, no bond between them beyond the fact that the Edwards took Martin in and raised him as their own. In many ways Martin is a better man than Ethan; he only&nbsp;lacks the sense to properly water and feed his horse before galloping to the rescue.But Martin learns; he grows in skill and experience. On occasion he fumbles, mistreating his accidental wife Look (Beulah Archuletta), and his uncharacteristic cruelty-- treated as low comedy-- is near unwatchable (that said Archuletta's performance feels honest, and Max Steiner's music, not always subtle when it comes to comic cues, evokes a tender regard for her that suggests the film does see her, and does see her plight). Martin's face on learning of Look's ultimate fate doesn't show much empathy-- but that&nbsp;(I submit) is a failure of his character's imagination, not the film's.In the dynamic between Ethan and Martin I'm reminded of another classic, Orson Welles' <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2014/05/touch-of-evil-orson-welles-1958.html">Touch of Evil</a>&nbsp;(1958), where the moral lesson is delivered by the self-righteous didactic prig Miguel Vargas (Charlton Heston)--("The law protects the guilty as well as the innocent."&nbsp;"Our job is tough enough."&nbsp;"It has to be tough. A policeman's job is only easy in a police state. That's the whole point.")--when all everyone wants to look at and listen to is the charismatically corrupt cop Hank Quinlan (Orson Welles): "An old lady on Main Street picked up a shoe; the shoe had a foot in it. We're gonna make you pay for that mess." Welles stacks the deck against the hero, making him unlikeable, making the villain seductively funny, making their conflict that much more interesting; he might have taken his cue from Ford in this film.&nbsp;By film's end Martin has grown enough in ability and experience to the point where&nbsp;he's able to infiltrate a Comanche camp on his own and locate Debbie and kill Scar; all Ethan is able to do riding with this second larger posse* is take Scar's scalp, chase Debbie down, then fail to do what he had announced he would do all along, commit an honor killing.*(Interesting to note that this 'raid' on an Indian camp has a few Comanche warriors taking a few token shots at the raiders-- all on horseback-- while women and children run for cover. Suggested if not explicitly stated: this was a second massacre, this time inflicted by mounted vigilantes on a camp of mostly civilians)I'm being unfair. Ethan took Martin in, fed him, guided him, trained him for years; Ethan in effect was the mentor Martin needed to learn the skills to enforce his morals, though even he isn't able to stop Ethan from running Debbie down.&nbsp;And why doesn't Ethan go through with the killing? One clue is Ethan's dour expression when he picks up his gun, prior to joining the second posse-- shades of "This feels familiar" or "Why the fuck am I doing this again?" As Scottie Ferguson says: "This is my second chance"-- Ethan is both startled to be offered and determined to take advantage of the offer and terrified something's going to fuck things up as always.&nbsp;Ethan isn't the hero, Martin is; Ethan ends up trying to do that other thing, only it's all mixed up in his head what he's supposed to do: kill Debbie or rescue Martha? In a moment of ambiguity worthy of few other films (the finale of <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2014/05/journey-to-italy-roberto-rossellini-1954.html">Journey to Italy</a> comes to mind) where you-- and I suspect Ethan himself-- isn't sure what's to happen next, it's the muscle memory of lifting Debbie up high that ultimately wins out, that gesture he did years ago, celebrating a family life he never really knew (but always treasured), the inexpressible power of repetition and rhyme. Ethan overcome (but hardly one to admit it) can only say: "Let's go home."&nbsp;Ethan's finest moment in effect was that he wasn't man enough to do what he said he would. His constant refrain (and the audience's constant delight) are the words 'that'll be the day!'-- well today was the day he didn't keep his word. A man can be guilty of worse crimes.&nbsp;And that lovely final shot that rhymes so perfectly with the first-- Debbie has been restored to her community,** Martin enjoys a hero's welcome, all is right with the world. As for Ethan? What did he do, ultimately, beyond shepherd matters to this point then fail to fuck things up further? Sad the way the door closes on the man, but also in a sense deserved: Ethan has served his purpose, has in fact survived past his purpose; he's free to go do whatever while the real people step inside to live out the rest of their lives. And I'll cite yet another film that might have found (unlikely but possible) inspiration from this film: Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, where Kambei tells Gorobei 'Again we've lost. Victory belongs to the farmers-- not us.' In Kurosawa's case as in Ford's, the camera just happens to point in the wrong direction, at the loser left sidelined in the margins. A momentary tribute to them, and to what they managed to do right in their otherwise godforsaken lives, before they walk away.&nbsp;**(And I know I know, Debbie's real-life fate was more complex-- she was rescued against her will, and struggled to re-adjust to settler life. Ford cheats by suggesting Debbie was half-willing to come with Martin-- her attitude before and after rescue can be described as ambivalent at best-- and never really alludes to the rest of the story. Which may be one of the film's major failings)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTFUlneweHETa0stZ6rYS-Nluu_FVLyVJk4qUBR8-fdT9vQHJ6LMNx_xliCWrgf_qF4RAOnuAZLIRoKeeiwGebz19gKpISeseKRo4QHIA6TNhMi9aZ7mdlC3U2TmBZUNfxjyW4ax3udhpcz02us-u7WkI8oHtcojIDVy0JPODDMW13KDZaD1Ds/s880/download.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="542" data-original-width="880" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTFUlneweHETa0stZ6rYS-Nluu_FVLyVJk4qUBR8-fdT9vQHJ6LMNx_xliCWrgf_qF4RAOnuAZLIRoKeeiwGebz19gKpISeseKRo4QHIA6TNhMi9aZ7mdlC3U2TmBZUNfxjyW4ax3udhpcz02us-u7WkI8oHtcojIDVy0JPODDMW13KDZaD1Ds/w400-h246/download.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/8088242550159589363/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment/fullpage/post/12690266/8088242550159589363' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/8088242550159589363'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/8088242550159589363'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2025/09/the-searchers-john-ford-1956-in-70-mm.html' title='The Searchers (John Ford, 1956) in a 70 mm print'/><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/AVvXsEjpvq_-oGVbHa9afMbIWIuUZOXzhWhemGkcIuIC2VffReO_myNlaQntIWgNarZED9Lihai8BDrQIwczGJ-cW4-ndVQYVomU__SWzkCrJ-DqHBBpVZEa5S13TZ8HZcs16J3bmFhx4vVd8DFJktTKhR0M9MOlWgMucG2uOUlqeqOS5Ju3kS3G6sfI/s72-w400-h250-c/thesearchers-1080x675.jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12690266.post-1372065039509912539</id><published>2025-08-21T14:51:00.000-04:00</published><updated>2025-08-21T14:51:58.520-04:00</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="Horror"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Japan"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Kurosawa Kyoshi"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Thriller"/><title type='text'>Cloud (Kuraudo, Kurosawa Kiyoshi, 2024)</title><content type='html'><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdUq3BK4n_CK0zjyyoXAtWBH04GbRo3aeLzxRdL_1dvYJAGXvnzkx1uds2XEvTU0NGWfsgR0UeFjfk9sYpKtDBWRqZxL9sO0lh4Ue3ieIwPouWt7E5VExMwn6MNnlRa5DSGqUjE-zWFVeKoK0CRsiOZ8FUfV8bKRGp0p3zcD-xGoIopoKglnfp/s2400/17521765326870179437fcc_1752176532_3x2_rt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="2400" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdUq3BK4n_CK0zjyyoXAtWBH04GbRo3aeLzxRdL_1dvYJAGXvnzkx1uds2XEvTU0NGWfsgR0UeFjfk9sYpKtDBWRqZxL9sO0lh4Ue3ieIwPouWt7E5VExMwn6MNnlRa5DSGqUjE-zWFVeKoK0CRsiOZ8FUfV8bKRGp0p3zcD-xGoIopoKglnfp/w400-h266/17521765326870179437fcc_1752176532_3x2_rt.jpg" width="400" /></a></div> PsychospaceI thought <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2025/08/weapons-zach-cregger-2025.html">Weapons</a>-- Zach Cregger's brilliantly structured supernatural thriller about seventeen children running out their front doors and vanishing into the night-- was hot shit, arguably the best horror of 2025; along comes Kurosawa Kiyoshi saying "hold my beer."<a name='more'></a>(WARNING: plot and narrative twists discussed in explicit detail!)&nbsp;Cregger starts out at a leisurely pace, tracing the story of one character then another; Kiyoshi practically locks down his camera to focus on one Ryosuke Yoshii (Masaki Suda), an internet reseller callously coaxing an aged couple to let him have a set of medical diagnostic devices at ruinously low prices. When he goes online advertising said devices at a huge markup, he watches as the items flip from 'on sale' red to 'sold out' green-- you sense satisfaction but for all the emotion shown he could have been monitoring his blood pressure.<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt32828123/">Cloud</a>'s first third is just that-- a character study on Yoshii, who has a factory boss named Takimoto (Yoshiyoshi Arakawa), a girlfriend named Akiko (Kotone Furukawa), and a friend named Muraoka (Masataka Kubota) who introduced him to the reselling business in the first place. The boss likes Yoshii-- sings praises of him, even offers him a promotion-- but he seems unengaged; the girlfriend is affectionate and he's more responsive but; the friend offers partnership in an online auction platform. Yoshii politely considers each in turn but the only image that really holds his eye are the red lights turning green.&nbsp;Kiyoshi takes the premise of his breakthrough hit <a href="https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2006/dvd/pulse-kurosawa-dvd/">Pulse</a>&nbsp;and expands it, suggesting the internet isn't just the afterlife it's the only life, with a high score you must hit before rising to the next level; the fact that you're only connected through a stream of electrons grants you protection, a wifi force field that shields you from the wrath of the people you exploit.&nbsp;Only that force field is illusory as Yoshii learns in the second third. If Cregger varies his storytelling by dropping one narrative strand to take up another, Kiyoshi varies his by morphing his film into a different form-- in this case a cat-and-mouse stalk, where Yoshii learns that the internet as opposed to insulating actually integrates, in this case folks like his former boss and a yakuza gangster and an experienced hunter and an old friend and a random stranger, all brought together by the common cause of payback for the harm he's dealt them. And yet another lesson: that they feel the same sense of security Yoshii feels, and this has the effect of lowering one's inhibitions, encourages the speaking out lashing out acting out of people from beyond the anonymity of the cloud into the real world.&nbsp;You see the progression: Yoshii's interactions start out as quiet, civil, dictated by society's polite rules of discourse; as Yoshii moves from his Tokyo apartment to a house in the countryside (taking Akiko with him and hiring Sano (Daiken Okudaira) as his assistant along the way) the conversation moves online and grows openly hostile, especially in a chat room dedicated to doxxing and locating the reseller. After a period of calm-- of false security-- men show up at Yoshii's door, and Kiyoshi records the event with the same deadpan he uses to record conversations both online and off: same shit, different day.&nbsp;&nbsp;In the final third the film morphs into a first-person shooter game complete with elaborate multilevel layout and an array of weapons; Kiyoshi adds one touch of realism, that perhaps half if not nearly all the people involved are unfamiliar with firearms. Most onscreen shootouts depict combatants with two-fisted preternatural skill; watching terrified human beings shake and fumble and drop their weapons is almost a novelty ("Cover me!" yells one man; the other stares as if he had spoken Greek), and it's a different kind of suspense wondering who manages to learn how to use their weapon properly first, Yoshii, or his pursuers.&nbsp;And then there's Yoshii's assistant, Sano. Who's unswervingly loyal, even when Yoshii hands him severance pay for trying to meddle in the resell business; who seems able to draw on uncannily deep pockets ("Need the van? Keep it"); who apparently has ties to some large criminal organization (the Yakuza?); who-- and this for me was his most impressive flex-- constantly (if politely) turns down repeated requests to come back to said organization, and is&nbsp;still&nbsp;able to call on them for help and resources.Who's Sano? One might say he's Kiyoshi's most pretentious twist, the filmmaker's way of leveraging a run of the mill (if uncommonly wrought) crime flick to the level of arthouse; or one might say he's Kiyoshi's last twist, the fulfillment of his deceptively simple concept and the picture's final form, a briefly sketched variant of the apocalyptic visions glimpsed at in Pulse and Charisma-- in short Yoshii's ultimate reward for a lifetime of amorality. Yoshii smiles, but he's sweating as he smiles-- could just be anxiety or could be he's getting close and starting to feel the heat.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvPixNuXSlsYU19FO0NN73kz6SzF2ivRmf__ZbAgxLWaKZeXuIhUneuj_Z7mvONwb6eK9Jra3VKo2vtUkjg0UC_xnhSchFdOuOSz5L1CLHudrqzQNgmhZYVx9NWIV0x4glB2Id4jdxnP777-14ejvVIbnmFsOyE4JORsuFh2piolADZI0wWYvt/s1616/MV5BNmE2NTc5MmYtYzYxOC00YzRhLWEyNTQtY2Y3MjFkYThiMTNkXkEyXkFqcGc@._V1_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1078" data-original-width="1616" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvPixNuXSlsYU19FO0NN73kz6SzF2ivRmf__ZbAgxLWaKZeXuIhUneuj_Z7mvONwb6eK9Jra3VKo2vtUkjg0UC_xnhSchFdOuOSz5L1CLHudrqzQNgmhZYVx9NWIV0x4glB2Id4jdxnP777-14ejvVIbnmFsOyE4JORsuFh2piolADZI0wWYvt/w400-h266/MV5BNmE2NTc5MmYtYzYxOC00YzRhLWEyNTQtY2Y3MjFkYThiMTNkXkEyXkFqcGc@._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/1372065039509912539/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment/fullpage/post/12690266/1372065039509912539' title='2 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/1372065039509912539'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/1372065039509912539'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2025/08/cloud-kuraudo-kurosawa-kiyoshi-2024.html' title='Cloud (Kuraudo, Kurosawa Kiyoshi, 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/AVvXsEhdUq3BK4n_CK0zjyyoXAtWBH04GbRo3aeLzxRdL_1dvYJAGXvnzkx1uds2XEvTU0NGWfsgR0UeFjfk9sYpKtDBWRqZxL9sO0lh4Ue3ieIwPouWt7E5VExMwn6MNnlRa5DSGqUjE-zWFVeKoK0CRsiOZ8FUfV8bKRGp0p3zcD-xGoIopoKglnfp/s72-w400-h266-c/17521765326870179437fcc_1752176532_3x2_rt.jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>2</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12690266.post-1927833985440660858</id><published>2025-08-16T13:33:00.003-04:00</published><updated>2025-08-20T10:08:44.294-04:00</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="Horror"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="mystery"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Zach Cregger"/><title type='text'>Weapons (Zach Cregger, 2025)</title><content type='html'><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPl8sArxoPqps106S8LqOVd4yDB7Y3VQXj93WvcpIZ11-AH6ZqcGFj4ssdnW2CyMs5RfpoR6ygV2vahnc7yHI4tAU1RevJU6Zr2nMckWGryPgZiAzX4MIDqVyAR4rVGZTUWylDRKUTMF8DwwWYm6_i4u9KBUdl2az-iNVGEZrnPKYWr0WgHFF_/s1200/Weapons.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1200" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPl8sArxoPqps106S8LqOVd4yDB7Y3VQXj93WvcpIZ11-AH6ZqcGFj4ssdnW2CyMs5RfpoR6ygV2vahnc7yHI4tAU1RevJU6Zr2nMckWGryPgZiAzX4MIDqVyAR4rVGZTUWylDRKUTMF8DwwWYm6_i4u9KBUdl2az-iNVGEZrnPKYWr0WgHFF_/w400-h300/Weapons.webp" width="400" /></a></div>IncomingFirst things first: <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt26581740/">Weapons</a> is easily the best horror in 2025 to date, an ingeniously written inventively shot and staged film written and directed by Zach Cregger, whose debut feature Barbarian was also an inventive ingenious horror released in 2022.&nbsp;With that out of the way-- (WARNING:&nbsp;plot and surprise twists discussed in close and explicit detail!)<a name='more'></a>First thing that strikes you is the fairly unusual script-- not for Cregger the trope of the brave young woman caught in a perilous situation; in an interview he recounts how he had started with something similar in Barbarian (girl arrives late one stormy night at a Detroit airbnb only to find it already occupied by creepy young man) was immediately bored with the limited possibilities and wondered how he could change things up. His solution was both simple and radical: he brought in someone new.&nbsp;With Weapons&nbsp;Cregger ups the ante: Justine (Julia Garner) comes to class only to find all her students absent save Alex (Cary Christopher); the community is upset and blames Justine; she naturally feels motivated to find out what had happened, make sure Alex is all right.&nbsp;Cregger follows Justine's thread far as it goes then pivots to follow someone else's; the result is a tapestry capturing the mood and personality of a town, or a surprisingly wide sample of its citizenry. He's cited Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia with its multicharactered multinarrative script as inspiration but I submit the equally relevant influence is of all things Stanley Kubrick's The Killing-- in both films you see the clock wind back again and again to a previous event, you see an incident retold from differing points of view, you see gears mesh and whirr-- this time not to propel the mechanism of a tightly planned robbery but to force forward a haphazardly staged crime investigation. The lucky breaks, the unlucky accidents, the sometimes surreal way things can either come together or unravel-- Cregger hooks and drags you along, a flopping fish wanting to know not just what happened but how and why, arguably the most primal appeal of the art of storytelling.&nbsp;But it isn't just all about story; the characters also engage. Justine has the clenched-jaw look of someone who suffered a traumatic ache, is determined to prove the whole community wrong; Archer (Josh Brolin), business owner and father of one of the vanished, has the haunted look of someone who regrets not knowing what he had till it was taken from him (but still hasn't learned all the relevant lessons-- Cregger suggests that Archer's responsible for a sophomoric act of vandalism on Justine); Paul (Alden Ehrenreich) is a sadsack cop with an impulsively heavy fist who can't stay away from Justine (they meet for the odd hookup), can't stay away from trouble (he's also dating his superior's daughter); local dopehead James (Austin Abrams) is equally funny as professional leaf on a wind and Paul's occasional punching bag; Marcus (Benedict Wong) is amusingly beleaguered as Justin's school-principal boss who's constantly forced to step between her and the angry parents.Cregger doesn't quite see his people as plot functions; each have their points of view, their varying predicaments, their sometimes foolish sometimes cruel ways of dealing with each other; we view them, we laugh at their absurdities (in an interview Cregger noted that when he tried to write a deliberate joke it fell flat but when he just let a character act according to their nature the humor was unforced and honest), we can't help but be invested in what might happen to them.&nbsp;The picture's far from perfect. I'd like to have seen a more grounded form of witchcraft, taking details from actual rituals-- but I suppose Cregger would open himself up to accusations of cultural appropriation or (worse) demonizing a niche sect (speaking strictly for myself if I were a member I'd love the publicity). The director strains credulity when he asks us to believe Alex can move around town unnoticed buying dozens of cans of soup, stretches credulity even further when the police don't dig deeper into Alex's family situation considering he's the only student left. I'd also note that while Cregger is deft at introducing and developing characters (even better I submit than ostensible role model Paul Thomas Anderson) he still hasn't mastered the knack of granting them a suitable exit-- Marcus in particular feels poorly served (Justine could at least pause a moment to mourn him, he seemed like a real if reluctant ally to her); same with Paul and James, who deserve to be in each others' arms, if not at each others' throats.&nbsp;The film does have its memorable imagery, an essential for good perhaps great horror-- mainly the way the kids flit into the night with arms spread like as someone pointed out winged sycamore seeds, or better yet like cruise missiles skimming their way to their preassigned target. I like the way sustained shots and unsettling staging and framing-- motionless figures in the dark glimpsed at from the top of a stair for example-- ratchet up the suspense. The film doesn't have as off-kilter quirky a style as Osgood Perkin's <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2024/07/longlegs-osgood-perkins-2024.html">Longlegs</a>-- the flavor of some of Perkins Jr.'s visual compositions still linger on the tongue-- but Cregger does show ability.&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;As the crucial Gladys introduced late in the story (chillingly foreshadowed in one of Archer's dream sequence) Amy Madigan goes fullon batshit complete with caked makeup and Stephen King clown fright wig-- she's clearly channeling Ruth Gordon's Minnie Castevet in Rosemary's Baby but can't quite capture Gordon's sly sense of humor (ambitious noteworthy attempt, tho). I do think her ultimate fate is fully hilariously realized (and as for the complaint that the finale is more comedy than horror-- O come on: Sam Raimi, John Carpenter, Wes Craven, George Romero, Mario Bava, James Whale. Show a little intellectual flexibility!).Maybe the core performance is Cary Christopher's Alex-- his story explains what's going on and if you don't fall for his character or feel his predicament the whole picture falls flat. I recognize Alex-- have worked with him or kids like him before, the youth who finds himself in over his head, forced due to circumstances to step up and act as surrogate parent to people he cares for, sometimes operating below the radar of society. Kids like Alex are amazing-- the strength the resilience they show-- but are victims too; the term we have for them are 'parentified children' and it's not a (how do you put it?) superpower but a sustained and painful trauma, with lasting consequences; kids aren't meant to be parents they're meant to be kids, to be as goofy as they need to be before sloughing it all off to assume the mantle of responsibility. Cregger to his credit doesn't cure everyone with a miraculous wave of the wand; some don't start speaking again till years after, others are permanently institutionalized-- but what happened to Alex you know from the look on his face will stay with him for the rest of his life.&nbsp;First published in <a href="https://www.bworldonline.com/arts-and-leisure/2025/08/15/691638/incoming/">Businessworld</a> 8.15.25&nbsp;<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ8MMDOyJmcmQi3US_N7HmnHtcfvE4Bb8VKqNJfzyaAl6rvrMrXwZH2aRD2v0x1W5E67oGE3IIpwazY5PYIx36Q2Pn7RUjyDF8yIHajbubgcVDq-f-cAqnL_01vn_DXMLjcA-kXX98DmeXsvvjSC-ah_12Dj2NEoNAgxRS4ZnR5p549cgbgl9T/s1200/Creepy-child-from-weapons-trailer.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="676" data-original-width="1200" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ8MMDOyJmcmQi3US_N7HmnHtcfvE4Bb8VKqNJfzyaAl6rvrMrXwZH2aRD2v0x1W5E67oGE3IIpwazY5PYIx36Q2Pn7RUjyDF8yIHajbubgcVDq-f-cAqnL_01vn_DXMLjcA-kXX98DmeXsvvjSC-ah_12Dj2NEoNAgxRS4ZnR5p549cgbgl9T/w400-h225/Creepy-child-from-weapons-trailer.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/1927833985440660858/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment/fullpage/post/12690266/1927833985440660858' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/1927833985440660858'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/1927833985440660858'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2025/08/weapons-zach-cregger-2025.html' title='Weapons (Zach Cregger, 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/AVvXsEiPl8sArxoPqps106S8LqOVd4yDB7Y3VQXj93WvcpIZ11-AH6ZqcGFj4ssdnW2CyMs5RfpoR6ygV2vahnc7yHI4tAU1RevJU6Zr2nMckWGryPgZiAzX4MIDqVyAR4rVGZTUWylDRKUTMF8DwwWYm6_i4u9KBUdl2az-iNVGEZrnPKYWr0WgHFF_/s72-w400-h300-c/Weapons.webp" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12690266.post-6160153535243756585</id><published>2025-08-14T15:32:00.004-04:00</published><updated>2025-08-14T15:35:23.887-04:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Action"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Ari Aster"/><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="Horror"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Political"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Western"/><title type='text'>Eddington (Ari Aster, 2025)</title><content type='html'><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikoQnxpJfdgKnOrC5yPD8qMK7gku9GwoVhUwJ3fgKS-oxflUj_YSPuyMQtv668nYGwZ2jYZ_R_vIJQHuu8c3mK2jwUVLJyF5oMPnhA4fgko7ekA0aqkOe2vcQ2qIlQxSKySyWY4Cz9UJQ7ga_kWYwBDbk3ksZphaQJiAoZ_XIk8CieHoe758ai/s1200/eddington-official-trailer-2_mqrc.1200.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/AVvXsEikoQnxpJfdgKnOrC5yPD8qMK7gku9GwoVhUwJ3fgKS-oxflUj_YSPuyMQtv668nYGwZ2jYZ_R_vIJQHuu8c3mK2jwUVLJyF5oMPnhA4fgko7ekA0aqkOe2vcQ2qIlQxSKySyWY4Cz9UJQ7ga_kWYwBDbk3ksZphaQJiAoZ_XIk8CieHoe758ai/w400-h225/eddington-official-trailer-2_mqrc.1200.webp" width="400" /></a></div>'Who is that masked man?!'I have yet to warm up to Ari Aster, a talented filmmaker who does inventively staged and shot twists on classic horror but has yet to deliver a cohesive feature. <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2018/06/hereditary-ari-aster.html">Hereditary</a> his debut starts off with a fairly unique premise-- a mildly dysfunctional family where the horror arises not from supernatural evil or witches' covens but from a peanut allergy; later Aster drags in the evil and covens, in a weak-tea attempt to emulate Rosemary's Baby. <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2019/08/midsommar-ari-aster-2019.html">Midsommar</a> is Aster's stab at remaking The Wicker Man&nbsp;with twice the budget and half the subtle wit. Beau is Afraid is arguably his most original work-- or at least his work with the most wide-ranging influences such that it seems original, even autobiographical-- and perhaps the one feature I like best to date.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt31176520/">Eddington</a> feels like a step backwards. Aster starts off well-- he almost always starts off well-- introducing a small town and half a dozen of the interlinked characters of that town, mainly Sheriff Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix) and his boss Mayor Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal) and as Phoenix usually plays characters who lean into their awkward grotesqueness and Pascal usually plays charismatic patriarch figures you can be sure these two alpha males will lock horns at the mayor's re-election campaign.&nbsp;<a name='more'></a>(WARNING: plot twists and conclusion discussed in explicit detail!)You're not quite sure where this is all going, but Pascal is charismatic enough and Phoenix grotesque enough that your interest is piqued; then a left-turn twist, or (as with the best twists) one you see coming a mile away but is still a shock when it happens-- can't say more save Mayor Garcia's slapping Cross' face in full view of the town's fundraisers triggers something in Cross and suddenly he's staging a New Mexico version of Bernard Tavernier's <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2010/12/coup-de-torchon-clean-slate-bernard.html">Coup de Torchon</a>, arguably the best-ever adaptation of Jim Thompson to the big screen and one of the best bleakest noirs ever. O it isn't perfect; Phoenix is no Philippe Noiret and Aster doesn't have anywhere near the effortless precision of Tavernier (if anything his grip on the camera has the frenzied feel of a cameraman on a bender) but still-- admirable ambitions, amazing approach, awe-inspiring near-miss.Just when he's close to pulling off something impressive Aster&nbsp;has to drag in an all-powerful shadow organization-- think Alan J. Pakula's <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2024/08/the-parallax-view-alan-j-pakula-1974.html">The Parallax View</a> only with less intellect and more firepower. A cadre of killers is flown in by plane who apparently have the ability to stalk anyone and everyone; they can even track a running fugitive in the dark to fire a string of spectacular near-misses from a bouncing all-wheel SUV in hot pursuit-- looks great as a Mission Impossible-style action sequence on the big screen (Phoenix runs more like normal human being than Tom Cruise ever could in his best pair of Reeboks) but makes little sense otherwise. Cut to a few years later, because Aster doesn't have the momentum or patience to develop the story to where he wants his characters to end up.&nbsp;Politically-- hard to avoid the topic if the main action is a re-election campaign-- Aster determinedly sits on the fence, ignoring the wood splinters sinking into both cheeks. He skewers liberals on the small details, the way they micromanage their correctness till their membership badge gleams with impeccable shine (the torturous way they negotiate the thorny thickets of political correctness' ever-evolving grammar is actually a fun listen); the conservatives usually hold power so their postures are almost always more laid back-- they've got money to lose, large spans of real estate, access to actual power, so they're naturally more cautious about flashing it or exerting it or releasing it from their avaricious little paws. On the whole conservatives land on top-- if not the powers that have always been then up-and-comers who bought into the myth (of course for the myth to work-- as with most vampire lore or witches' spells-- you actually have to have faith) and what on first blush may look like black satire looks suspiciously like affirmation of the status quo. Is horror an inherently conservative genre? Maybe, at least the kind that leans into shadow groups and conspiracy theories.&nbsp;And that's it, all I've got, except to note that handsome as Aster's camerawork and editing and occasional gruesome butchery can be (thanks to Darius Khondji who in earlier this year helped Bong Joon ho with <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2025/03/mickey-17-bong-joon-ho-2025.html">Mickey 17</a> and later this same year Josh Safdie's Marty Supreme), it's hard to think of any single image or moment or character that stays with you once the lights go up. Aster has talent-- I've admitted as much-- and can put out the odd original idea (tho not as original as you, and I suspect even he, thinks), but I'm still waiting for the great work that announces the arrival of a genuine artist.&nbsp;<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig4_WxLD84MwjVGaJHFn-vxCEAEzS_u44Fx9psL90cNCjt_yA80WUQJkJuL31vMymwTznx-bs0zPxcd4uvdRS9b8ACzWLcON27kizXz5_CnOnydiHevOevPoKrkQ2xkJxObcb46fXT1dzS4KZfbu7V50m8YXzT_hiXeGUmmv9_WUP4-ZyjuyDJ/s820/MV5BNjQ1NDFhMTQtN2E4YS00MGVmLWFjYWQtNDIyYzdlZWIxNjhiXkEyXkFqcGc@._V1_QL75_UX820_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="547" data-original-width="820" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig4_WxLD84MwjVGaJHFn-vxCEAEzS_u44Fx9psL90cNCjt_yA80WUQJkJuL31vMymwTznx-bs0zPxcd4uvdRS9b8ACzWLcON27kizXz5_CnOnydiHevOevPoKrkQ2xkJxObcb46fXT1dzS4KZfbu7V50m8YXzT_hiXeGUmmv9_WUP4-ZyjuyDJ/w400-h266/MV5BNjQ1NDFhMTQtN2E4YS00MGVmLWFjYWQtNDIyYzdlZWIxNjhiXkEyXkFqcGc@._V1_QL75_UX820_.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/6160153535243756585/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment/fullpage/post/12690266/6160153535243756585' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/6160153535243756585'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/6160153535243756585'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2025/08/eddington-ari-aster-2025.html' title='Eddington (Ari Aster, 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/AVvXsEikoQnxpJfdgKnOrC5yPD8qMK7gku9GwoVhUwJ3fgKS-oxflUj_YSPuyMQtv668nYGwZ2jYZ_R_vIJQHuu8c3mK2jwUVLJyF5oMPnhA4fgko7ekA0aqkOe2vcQ2qIlQxSKySyWY4Cz9UJQ7ga_kWYwBDbk3ksZphaQJiAoZ_XIk8CieHoe758ai/s72-w400-h225-c/eddington-official-trailer-2_mqrc.1200.webp" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12690266.post-1917853983577869565</id><published>2025-08-04T15:49:00.000-04:00</published><updated>2025-08-04T15:49:15.121-04:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Akira Kurosawa"/><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="Japan"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Period"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Shakespeare"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Stage Adaptation"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="war"/><title type='text'>Ran (Akira Kurosawa, 1985)</title><content type='html'><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvGUtsPZc4CyJrOM_7YCKvyvu0usepMlx7x8_dw5_bK7fbTG9UIDct3GoLMnXox_zp0flFC5Q7Q4rxM9XCvCIyOTHK1jbik3RNwINnIWle9EYiONP2zGpzAw2berPGqIPE3EsdI_BNpq0VpKIfes0MWfFVlm8BomXM-TFwkW_fxkjCHhRSIAPg/s2734/Ran-Image-FINAL.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1885" data-original-width="2734" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvGUtsPZc4CyJrOM_7YCKvyvu0usepMlx7x8_dw5_bK7fbTG9UIDct3GoLMnXox_zp0flFC5Q7Q4rxM9XCvCIyOTHK1jbik3RNwINnIWle9EYiONP2zGpzAw2berPGqIPE3EsdI_BNpq0VpKIfes0MWfFVlm8BomXM-TFwkW_fxkjCHhRSIAPg/w400-h276/Ran-Image-FINAL.jpg" width="400" /></a></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheTQvcs-mKuGftNlcovP7wSeWYex3rRYFAX9uDSpnxM59qrsNQ2ulai60-VuWN-5sbXwVuE79IE9THUbkfoOIVrZ4Z0q9liHz9Trx7bVbHrC1VJzc1X2t3CurPTGKsumd6ItCYe_xEEY3C5uQR6mJnnGJQLOKkkhl1MqFG-8UwSXhg6RZnHMdW/s705/p8940_i_h10_ac.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="397" data-original-width="705" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheTQvcs-mKuGftNlcovP7wSeWYex3rRYFAX9uDSpnxM59qrsNQ2ulai60-VuWN-5sbXwVuE79IE9THUbkfoOIVrZ4Z0q9liHz9Trx7bVbHrC1VJzc1X2t3CurPTGKsumd6ItCYe_xEEY3C5uQR6mJnnGJQLOKkkhl1MqFG-8UwSXhg6RZnHMdW/w400-h225/p8940_i_h10_ac.jpg" width="400" /></a></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYJMyAGiYev9p6kLOk1eVAJaASIdWfiQDgcwuFA7HBezwknNKRnUkW94ZoyGGGBRzJeKL9tZFRpvnIJCT-m3aMjoylmsz5bY7yu3rkc30uQ8EwaA2OzBC_G6Yteg_n2nZ0URXuHn07fxvhfXxIoqoKy5fMFkPNi9gtN5mKPnALNjZK-uYSDUSA/s3697/hd_004photo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3697" data-original-width="2484" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYJMyAGiYev9p6kLOk1eVAJaASIdWfiQDgcwuFA7HBezwknNKRnUkW94ZoyGGGBRzJeKL9tZFRpvnIJCT-m3aMjoylmsz5bY7yu3rkc30uQ8EwaA2OzBC_G6Yteg_n2nZ0URXuHn07fxvhfXxIoqoKy5fMFkPNi9gtN5mKPnALNjZK-uYSDUSA/w269-h400/hd_004photo.jpg" width="269" /></a></div>Burning down the houseBeen years since I saw Akira Kurosawa's&nbsp;<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089881/">Ran</a>&nbsp;(1985) and decades since I saw it projected (an unimpressive 16 mm print in an improvised theater). Watching the 2016 4K UHD restoration on the big screen forty years after its premiere is like watching a storm surge approach shore: you're confronted with an unstoppable wall stretching from end to end, and you're not sure whether to run (where to?) or fall on your knees in worship.&nbsp;And then you realize, after so many viewings, like a shock of saltwater to the face: damn, but this film is funny.<a name='more'></a>(WARNING: story and twists discussed in explicit detail)As in bleakly funny. As in flies to wanton boys. As in godlike vantage gazing down at scattering ants.Warlord Hidetora Ichimonji (Tatsuya Nakadai, one of Kurosawa's ensemble actors) has apparently fallen senile: he's banished favorite son Saburo (Daisuke Ryu) for speaking the unvarnished truth and divided his kingdom among the remaining two-- the elder Taro (Akira Terao), the younger more ambitious Jiro (Jinpachi Nezu)-- for flattering him. A cruel despot punishing truthsayers and promoting asskissers, over a kingdom falling into chaos! Now where have we seen that before?Donald Richie once described Kurosawa as Toho's best director, Japan's finest scriptwriter, and Japan's greatest editor (don't hold me to that, I'm paraphrasing from memory), and it's the second quality that comes to mind as he adapts Shakespeare's King Lear to the big screen. In the play the world that crashes down on Lear as various people step in and heap misfortune upon misfortune on his head; in Ran much of what happens to Hidetora is a consequences of all the death and destruction he has dealt out to others in the course of his rule. The rewrite shortened the original's cast of characters, clarified previously obscure motives (Why is Gloucester such a sucker? Why do the sisters fight over Edmund? Why is Edgar so unaccountably noble?), overall streamlined the narrative. For an almost three-hour film (162 minutes) the picture actually contains not a lot of fat.&nbsp;Which is crucial to comedy, in particular domestic comedy, and Lear and consequently Ran are essentially household farces with royal insignias stuck on all participants. Taro's wife Lady Kaede (Mieko Harada) bumps heads with Hidetora's concubines and the great lord has to fume; later Kaede attempts to claim the family banner and first blood is drawn, by the great lord no less-- with an arrow, from a high window, the deadly shaft hissing before it claims a life (much praise has been heaped on Kurosawa for his monumental style of visual filmmaking, but little note has been made on his evocative sound effects). When Hidetora picks up his concubines and thirty warriors and leaves Taro's castle for Jiro's the scale of humiliation ramps up accordingly-- instead of loud tantrums and slammed doors we have Hidetora ordering a dozen men to slowly shove a massive castle gate open for him to depart, and when he's outside Kurosawa frames the shot just so that Hidetora is in the foreground, his son in the far background, and the dozen men sweat and strain once more to heave the huge slabs of aged wood shut between the two, dramatizing the rupture between father and son with a vast booming thud.&nbsp;Lady Kaede keeps the humor honed; gliding across polished wood floors in her constantly whispering kimono, she sounds and acts like the ghost of sins long past and in fact she's a figure out of Hidetora's own past: her castle taken from her her family massacred her own body offered as gift in marriage to eldest son Taro. She's a master of court etiquette and wields irony and innuendo with the same skill with which she wields a tanto, and she wants in increasing order of priority sex, power, revenge on the great lord.When Hidetora wanders a wasteland with his warriors and concubines in tow the humiliation is elevated to pathos and you start to feel for the guy; when he holes up in banished Saburo's deserted castle and Jiro and Taro combine their armies to literally burn him out, the pathos achieves a cosmic scale.&nbsp;You probably won't laugh tho. The flames, the firepower, the bright spraying blood, the men crawling on the ground backs bristling with arrows like so many porcupines-- men you quietly applauded not long ago for their loyalty to Hidetora and chutzpah in defying Taro, cut down and slaughtered-- the images choke down any impulse to laugh. And yet you can still appreciate the irony of this tinpot dictator being brought low by his own sons, with soldiers he himself authorized them to use as they see fit. Toru Takemitsu's music-- the staccato drumming, the wailing flute, the chillingly distant strings-- elevate the comedy to the level of divine amusement, a joke even gods can appreciate, leaning back on their vasty thrones and chuckling at the stupidity of mortals.&nbsp;Shakespeare tragedies don't achieve their power through suffering alone, the suffering must be modulated by other emotions along the way including pride, nobility, tenderness, love. The latter is introduced early on with Saburo, who's blunt to the point of insulting; when he shuts up however he cuts out a few leafy branches and plants them next to the sleeping Hidetora to give him some shade (a wordless gesture I found unaccountably moving, especially this past scorching summer). Lady Sue is haloed by an orange setting sun, and her gentle adoration of Hidetora ("It's worse when you smile," he notes as she gazes at him) is another contrasting note to offset the gloom. But arguably it's Kyoami (Peter) who best represents the opposing forces in the film: the court jester isn't particularly funny (difficult when he's competing with even bigger fools) but he does flash his cynicism consistently like an ID badge (I'm the royal jester!) till at the nadir of his relationship with Hidetora-- when he picks up his bundle of clothes and prepares to abandon the mad lord-- he suddenly finds himself unaccountably bound to his now-helpless master, weeping at the fact that yes, he does love the senile old man after all.&nbsp;The finale leaves you with a numb coldness-- a fault, many folks say, as this is supposed to be a tragedy when really it isn't. Seeing it as tragedy's flip side I submit the film works even better: the very best dark jokes kill not just laughter but any sense of hope that things might change, that man is destined to ascend, that goodness-- and life-- ultimately triumphs. Kurosawa's film is a pained response to all that, to the humanist-idealist sentiments he's championed most of his career. Only twice has he been as darkly pessimistic, in his previous major Shakespeare adaptation Throne of Blood (his take on Macbeth) and in his hit of a samurai black comedy <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2007/11/yojimbo-akira-kurosawa-1961-ikiru-akira.html">Yojimbo</a>; this blows past those two previous masterworks and arguably even Shakespeare in terms of sheer nihilism, basically a bitter final laugh with the metallic tang of learned experience. After this he would still direct-- the anthology film&nbsp;Dreams, the quietly hopeful Rhapsody in August, the gently defiant Madadayo (Not Yet)-- but would never again touch on the subject, not in this manner and not on the big screen, for the remainder of his life.&nbsp;<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0AfBUy8Yjvp7pJ9b1EfQ4WA22bm6jBc0Wu7G6nucMMymKfLW-z_8A97A9xFWRwSjh93S93yW7blPkumIdHj-xzNPA6Mrv7-zb4LlhRSOhLMAfDEL4H6qLRLKcmicsi4WL7ST_qHmzWXtFdSRGcVsH6FsRZclCJl2BnYe0P1YDlic6f2mGCKOi/s1909/MV5BODYyYzE1MTMtNDQ5Yy00NzhjLWJlOTYtNGEwZDRkN2NkMzlhXkEyXkFqcGc@._V1_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1027" data-original-width="1909" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0AfBUy8Yjvp7pJ9b1EfQ4WA22bm6jBc0Wu7G6nucMMymKfLW-z_8A97A9xFWRwSjh93S93yW7blPkumIdHj-xzNPA6Mrv7-zb4LlhRSOhLMAfDEL4H6qLRLKcmicsi4WL7ST_qHmzWXtFdSRGcVsH6FsRZclCJl2BnYe0P1YDlic6f2mGCKOi/w400-h215/MV5BODYyYzE1MTMtNDQ5Yy00NzhjLWJlOTYtNGEwZDRkN2NkMzlhXkEyXkFqcGc@._V1_.jpg" width="400" /></a></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcQegTqs9peKgggxnGP0xyOOaDlaFxj1Jlm9dJbrHuN6AygDX-OxLhBFXNWyA-nBQyY5_rMgDUnnLKqtDNzkZBUOzZ2RlafvCoQVaxizjLmivxp7u6FLekOhuWBB2_pcU97UneyQYwecMtDSvmzqmrcGjjfWYnHGLnxbeQ0trk1yDReVs5387U/s1280/fe12b586630fc4772962ef5f4b54ded0_1280x720.jpg" imageanchor="1" 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/AVvXsEhcQegTqs9peKgggxnGP0xyOOaDlaFxj1Jlm9dJbrHuN6AygDX-OxLhBFXNWyA-nBQyY5_rMgDUnnLKqtDNzkZBUOzZ2RlafvCoQVaxizjLmivxp7u6FLekOhuWBB2_pcU97UneyQYwecMtDSvmzqmrcGjjfWYnHGLnxbeQ0trk1yDReVs5387U/w400-h225/fe12b586630fc4772962ef5f4b54ded0_1280x720.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/1917853983577869565/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment/fullpage/post/12690266/1917853983577869565' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/1917853983577869565'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/1917853983577869565'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2025/08/ran-akira-kurosawa-1985.html' title='Ran (Akira Kurosawa, 1985)'/><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/AVvXsEgvGUtsPZc4CyJrOM_7YCKvyvu0usepMlx7x8_dw5_bK7fbTG9UIDct3GoLMnXox_zp0flFC5Q7Q4rxM9XCvCIyOTHK1jbik3RNwINnIWle9EYiONP2zGpzAw2berPGqIPE3EsdI_BNpq0VpKIfes0MWfFVlm8BomXM-TFwkW_fxkjCHhRSIAPg/s72-w400-h276-c/Ran-Image-FINAL.jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12690266.post-8251474676175864969</id><published>2025-07-28T18:59:00.003-04:00</published><updated>2025-07-31T13:11:32.489-04:00</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="Matt Shakman"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Period"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Science Fiction"/><title type='text'>Fantastic Four: First Steps (Matt Shakman, 2025)</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/a/AVvXsEiJQuotFW-nLI2dCtXAJpJsgGXROQr1LZt1gGIGfkwpRYZDmYvy16FVa28LTjRCI57k3P9KiUaJJNM_cIfG_549OXvEuQ4t8S94YFMPoytQsMhqkI4jMq_FsMaYrkGI2-r7Zs-9jL63xRq8GTA0f5UYdZzQESr3aCW4HH5LOJmlyNaprFSj6mTi" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="844" data-original-width="844" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiJQuotFW-nLI2dCtXAJpJsgGXROQr1LZt1gGIGfkwpRYZDmYvy16FVa28LTjRCI57k3P9KiUaJJNM_cIfG_549OXvEuQ4t8S94YFMPoytQsMhqkI4jMq_FsMaYrkGI2-r7Zs-9jL63xRq8GTA0f5UYdZzQESr3aCW4HH5LOJmlyNaprFSj6mTi=w400-h400" width="400" /></a></div></div> Take fourYou wonder why Marvel's First Family (and first collaboration between writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby) would have so much trouble transitioning to the big screen when predecessors (<a href="http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2011/08/captain-america-joe-johnston-2011.html">Captain America</a>) and contemporaries (<a href="http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2010/05/iron-man-2-jon-favreau-kick-ass-matthew.html">Iron Man</a>; <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2012/05/avengers-joss-whedon-2012.html">The Avengers</a>) went on to cause a bigger splash; suspect it all stems from something folks behind those efforts remembered that folks behind this team's previous incarnations forgot: that it isn't the cosmic-ray powers that appeal to readers so much as the motivations they hold for fighting crime, supervillains, various forces of evil and injustice. Not the what, to paraphrase a key lesson taught in Michael Chabon's <a href="https://www.randomhousebooks.com/books/25713/https://www.randomhousebooks.com/books/25713/">The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier &amp; Clay</a>, as the why.<a name='more'></a>Maybe the best thing Matt Shakman and his writers (Josh Friedman, Eric Pearson, Jeff Kaplan, Ian Springer, Kat Wood) managed to do with this umpteenth adaptation is to actually recall that lesson, at least for big portions of the picture. O there's the production design of course, setting the movie in a more optimistic version of what the '60s considered their future, complete with tailfinned baby-blue Cadillac convertibles and iconic checkered taxicabs maneuvering for parking at the foot of buildings that look like Oscar Niemeyer was given fifteen times the budget he had for&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bras%C3%ADlia">Brasilia</a>&nbsp;to overhaul Manhattan, and Eero Saarinen plunking every <a href="https://www.twahotel.com/">birdwinged building</a> he always wanted to build (but couldn't due to budget) here and there, just because. Production designer Kasra Farahani said he was inspired by the look of&nbsp;<a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2018/07/2001-space-odyssey-stanley-kubrick.html">2001: A Space Odyssey</a>, which is ironic-- this movie shows no trace of Kubrick's cynicism about humanity's prospects. If the picture is channeling anything I'd say it's Hanna-Barbera's The Jetsons--&nbsp;down to robot sidekick Herbie as an apronless gender-flipped Rosey.At least for the first (and much better half) the focus is on family, and the community amongst which that family moved-- everyone from Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal) and wife Sue (Vanessa Kirby) scrambling to become nestbuilders to Ben Grimm (Ebon Moss-Backhrach) teased by a gang of schoolchildren. The 60s brownstones and retro-futuristic buildings have their charm but what completes that charm are the well-scrubbed folk cheering their celebrities on in a harmonious symbiosis-- the Richards offer New Yorkers protection and some Kennedy-style glamor, the New Yorkers in return offer the Richards adoration and love.&nbsp;Enter planet-eating Galactus (Ralph Ineson) and (skip the rest of this article if you haven't seen the movie!) that relationship quickly collapses-- in arguably the dumbest press conference ever put on the big screen Richards unwittingly reveals that Galactus had offered to spare the Earth if and only if the Richards give up their only begotten son (would it have hurt Reed to tell the reporters 'We negotiated, he didn't go for it'?). I personally would have thought the Manhattanites' reaction to the failed deal would be more complicated, and it might have helped to show some of the other reactions onscreen, but hey, this is a veddy veddy expensive Marvel movie-- got to get this subplot resolved ASAP, get on with the anti-Galactus action right-quick before the kiddies get bored.&nbsp;And that's it, only I do object to the changes done to the Silver Surfer (Julia Garner), not that they changed her gender but-- hair? The Surfer traverses vast reaches of space; why even bother with the suggestion of a bob (that can't even wave when you shake your head like in a shampoo commercial) when what you really want is a streamlined skull, to better surf the stellar winds? Not as if Garner couldn't rock a bald pate (see <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persis_Khambatta#/media/File:Persis_Khambatta_we_Ilia.jpg">Persis Khambatta</a>).I'll admit it-- nitpicking. I do think making the Surfer female instead of male changes the dynamic of her role in the story, not necessarily in a good way-- Johnny Storm (Joseph Quinn) simply bats his pretty-boy eyelashes at her and she folds, where I thought there was real poetry in the way the Surfer has his trajectory queered by an ordinary blind sculptress. So okay the Surfer's now a girl and she and Johnny have a moment; could have at least spent more time on that crucial subplot, made it the dramatic highpoint it was in Kirby and Lee's original comic.Maybe-- spitballing here-- let the Surfer have a moment with Sue instead? Sue in the comics occasionally had the supervillains falling for her (koff koff-- Harvey Elder) disrupting Reed's smug alpha male complacency, and having her realize her sexuality is still in development would've been a nice little loop-the-loop plot twist in the otherwise vanilla Marvel universe. Bet Kirby would've approved.&nbsp;I keep talking about visuals when I talk comic book movies, and considering what little I've seen of the previous adaptations yes I can easily say this is the best yet-- only I'd actually read The Galactus Trilogy, the three-part issue where the titanically talented Kirby conceived of this gargantuan purple-armored planet eater who wore a crazy weathervane headdress and his brilliantly reflective herald (Lee provided the two with appropriately nutty faux-Biblical dialogue), and I'm telling you right now no real filmmaker in his right mind would even dare come near what Kirby achieved. The wide-legged stances, the dynamic framing and staging, the cosmic sweep of the action and operatic feel of the drama-- I'd say only Kubrick on acid could come close, and find it appropriate that Marvel asked Kirby to adapt Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey into a taboloid-sized <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001:_A_Space_Odyssey_(comics)">treasury edition</a> (some passages-- the trip through the Star Gate for example-- suggest Kirby actually surpassed Kubrick).&nbsp;Otherwise the movie's okay. More fun than it had any right to be, thanks to Farahani and the cast and the script's hard work in that first half. Doesn't have the more singular voice of a real storyteller like&nbsp;<a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2025/07/superman-james-gunn-2025.html">James Gunn</a>, more recognizably a corporate product that only slightly bends as opposed to breaking the status quo. But it'll do till something better (not holding my breath here) comes along.&nbsp;<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgQm-chGT8AaVFmgndNBK4Z1pZ2LtDHxp_2oX5d4fgrKY94IDiDuYxx445aiFoFod16kl2zeOvE52Q_GNAaSQYgVEmAs8vrJ3aM1aLolaoL991V3Vfog4Ids0wgKodCe6siqS9rfXlMM4eeRtXF_EweCj325icluc1FaPit2xr46Dugf5EM7dAb" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgQm-chGT8AaVFmgndNBK4Z1pZ2LtDHxp_2oX5d4fgrKY94IDiDuYxx445aiFoFod16kl2zeOvE52Q_GNAaSQYgVEmAs8vrJ3aM1aLolaoL991V3Vfog4Ids0wgKodCe6siqS9rfXlMM4eeRtXF_EweCj325icluc1FaPit2xr46Dugf5EM7dAb=w320-h400" width="320" /></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/8251474676175864969/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment/fullpage/post/12690266/8251474676175864969' title='3 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/8251474676175864969'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/8251474676175864969'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2025/07/fanatastic-four-first-steps-matt.html' title='Fantastic Four: First Steps (Matt Shakman, 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/a/AVvXsEiJQuotFW-nLI2dCtXAJpJsgGXROQr1LZt1gGIGfkwpRYZDmYvy16FVa28LTjRCI57k3P9KiUaJJNM_cIfG_549OXvEuQ4t8S94YFMPoytQsMhqkI4jMq_FsMaYrkGI2-r7Zs-9jL63xRq8GTA0f5UYdZzQESr3aCW4HH5LOJmlyNaprFSj6mTi=s72-w400-h400-c" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>3</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12690266.post-4938742955997460739</id><published>2025-07-21T10:07:00.004-04:00</published><updated>2025-07-28T01:31:20.009-04:00</updated><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="James Gunn"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Jerry Siegel"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Joe Shuster"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Political"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Science Fiction"/><title type='text'>Superman (James Gunn, 2025)</title><content type='html'><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVDd47gO4sOVbeFpOTPIkSkzSlNE_c8m8EhxXxjmO5CujTBhKJhWpw2NHU5NX-dYVHg5FWhmG3AmLs5RJCSpvEKMyJXFMAENZu97IAph2xRXxrToPg_iLCLxJwYkPTotz4HxLd-7TN42Lv5xmz7aFYxTJKe3Quz4695ZadEqZYI9SjHCafqnu3/s1823/david-corenswet-s-superman-smiling-at-a-woman-he-just-saved-in-the-dcu-movie.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1823" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVDd47gO4sOVbeFpOTPIkSkzSlNE_c8m8EhxXxjmO5CujTBhKJhWpw2NHU5NX-dYVHg5FWhmG3AmLs5RJCSpvEKMyJXFMAENZu97IAph2xRXxrToPg_iLCLxJwYkPTotz4HxLd-7TN42Lv5xmz7aFYxTJKe3Quz4695ZadEqZYI9SjHCafqnu3/w400-h220/david-corenswet-s-superman-smiling-at-a-woman-he-just-saved-in-the-dcu-movie.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div>The man with the golden GunnA lot riding on James Gunn's latest <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5950044/">movie</a>: not just the reboot of DC Films (now called DC Studios, with James Gunn and producing partner Peter Safran as co-CEOs) but also a reboot of not just a DC comic book superhero but arguably the foundational&nbsp;superhero (not the first ever but damned close and arguably the most influential)-- in effect, the salvation of an entire movie genre, which lately has been in a box-office slump generating more bad publicity than Elon Musk on a ketamine binge.&nbsp;So did Gunn do it? I'd say you're asking the wrong question.&nbsp;<a name='more'></a>Gunn's roots come from low-budget independent horror, learning how to write, produce, direct, distribute, and even make poster art for Troma Entertainment; his first mainstream screenplay was for two Scooby Doo movies (2002, 2004) and a Dawn of the Dead&nbsp;(2004) reboot (none of which I must note I much liked); his directorial debut was <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2014/08/slither-james-gunn-2006.html">Slither</a>&nbsp;(2006), a sly horror comedy about sluglike alien parasites infiltrating a small town (that I liked a lot); his <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2016/08/super-james-gunn-2010.html">Super</a>&nbsp;(2010)-- arguably his best work to date-- is a grotesque yet surprisingly poignant satire of costumed heroes in general.&nbsp;Gunn at this point was an interesting indie filmmaker who dabbled in mainstream genre filmmaking; his next project however was&nbsp;<a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2014/08/guardians-of-galaxy-james-gunn-2014.html">Guardians of the Galaxy</a>&nbsp;(2014) where he took a relatively unknown comic book team and fashioned for himself a breakthrough hit, mainly by smuggling his subversive indie humor into a mainstream Marvel Studios project, complete with a soundtrack full of 60's and 70's nostalgic titles. That was significant: Gunn found that his gonzo often raunchy sensibility, recalibrated for a PG-13 rating as opposed to his usual R, didn't just speak to a cultish select but had widespread-- no, worldwide-- appeal, and he hasn't looked back since. A few more Guardians sequels (Volumes <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2017/05/guardians-of-galaxy-vol-2-james-gunn.html">2</a> and <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2023/05/guardians-of-galaxy-vol-3.html">3</a>) made respectable if not outstanding cash and he earned influence enough to direct a big R-rated production (The Suicide Squad, 2021) and its equally R spinoff mini series (The Peacemaker, 2022) that still retained his irreverent shitstirring sensibility and still left him with clout, even (and this is the impressive part) if the projects did less than impressive numbers.So the original question was: can Gunn still do it? The movie's earned its cost back on the first two weekends, more or less, which suggests a splash, not necessarily big enough to save either DC Studios or the comic book movie industry, at least not quite yet.&nbsp;But the real&nbsp;question is: Did Gunn manage to fashion a recognizably James Gunn movie out of one of the oldest and most revered comic-book characters in pop culture history?First thing you'll notice while watching will recall the term 'in media res'-- after a few introductory titles we get Clark (David Corenswet) on ice, broken and bleeding (clever that the first teasers for the picture show this exact moment, little of what follows). In swift succession we meet Krypto, the robots, Ultraman, the Engineer, Lex Luthor, and so forth. We've been introduced to the Kryptonian at least twice before on the big screen; now meet the rest of his world, and try keep up.Pretty much what Gunn did with Guardians and Peacemaker-- you meet them in a cold open, follow to learn more, find out the full story in bits and dribbles along the way. O and that tendency to just toss new characters at you pell mell? Totally out of the comic books, as pointed out by someone calling himself <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@sir_superhero">Sir Superhero</a> on Youtube (not kidding, you can find him on the app, and he at least sounds authoritative and what he had to say about this movie's story structure does make sense). Unlike Marvel Studios which introduced major characters in single features leading up to the big Avengers movies, a strictly linear progression, Gunn opts for what some of the more freewheeling issues do, using crossovers and teamups and whatnot (Sir Superhero's recommendation on how to dive into the teeming brew: pick a character and hang on; swerve to follow whoever happens to catch your eye along the way into whatever narrative hole they dive in; rinse, repeat). Instead of a linear progression you get chaotic bloom spreading out in all directions, a more democratic buffet of interconnected storylines instead of a fascistic single narrative.&nbsp;Or you can call Gunn a messy writer. Either way it's a bit hard to predict when he'll zig or zag, and there may be times you're actually pleased at the direction your specific journey took.&nbsp;Gunn doesn't mess with the original character-- much. As first conceived by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the Man of Tomorrow (he was apparently called that after the 1939 New York World's Fair) was a violent sadistic vigilante who, yes, championed the oppressed and helped those in need-- at one point by hurling a man against a wall (to be fair he was a wife beater) at another snatching a man by his ankle and leaping up the side of a building to terrify him (to be fair he's a corrupt politician). Gunn's protagonist comes from the Silver Age (around 1956 to 1970), a more amiable family friendly hero who fights for 'truth, justice, and the American Way!' (a motto that started with the 40s radio shows, was continued in 50s TV, was burned into recent memory by Richard Donner's 1978 feature). Gunn keeps the Big Blue Boy Scout's squeaky clean sensibility, tweaking a few details: he's not adverse to premarital sex (though that was introduced as early as Donner and Richard Lester's 1982 feature) and he tends to get heated when challenged.Speaking of challenged-- Clark's 12-minute scene with Lois (Rachel Brosnahan) is a nice little moment to introduce both characters' chemistry together. Not only the question of ethics-- of doing the right vs. the legal thing (though Lois could've worked harder at catching Clark in moral dilemmas-- quoting Robert Bolt's dialogue for Thomas More might have helped) but of how the couple struggle over the issue of professional vs. personal boundaries (neatly demonstrated by the constant stopping and starting of the 'record' button ("You can't use that!")) which they have pretty much trashed by sleeping together. This Clark is a hothead with a big heart who tends to act before he thinks, and a bit of a horndog to boot-- in other words a regular guy like you and me, as he makes a little too explicit in a late speech.&nbsp;Nicholas Hoult's Luthor-- well he's more in line with recent comic book incarnations, a media-canny ultrarich tech bro with serious self-esteem issues (but don't they all?) who doesn't really do business but takes things very very personal. Hoult taps into his sense of entitlement and comes up with a character we would all dearly love to strangle; good job, only I remember Gene Hackman's&nbsp;Luthor and his crack sense of comic timing, the way he would turn on a dime (at least in the first movie) and suddenly be quietly terrifyingly menacing. In Lester's sequel he was less villain and more buffoon but 1) we need more Hackman humor in our lives and 2) even as court jester he kept slyly throwing shade at Terence Stamp's pompous General Zod.To be fair Hoult does have one good moment where he casts aside all pretense of dignity and shows his true nature: an envy of Clark's innate goodness so malignant he comes to represent all humans against all metahumans, assume the Iagolike position that anyone who stands above us should immediately be pulled down and ground into the dirt. Hoult delivers his supervillain speech with deeply felt bile, made even more sour by years of repression; you almost feel like cheering him on as he speaks on behalf of your mean spiteful soul.&nbsp;Conversely Luthor's crippled spirit helps contrast the purity of Clark's, the latest piece of evidence I would present before the court on just how difficult it is to write for a truly good person (koff koff-- <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2015/04/sponge-out-of-water-mr-turner-kingsman.html">Spongebob Squarepants</a>, to name another example), and how Gunn should be recognized for at least managing a halfway decent job.&nbsp;The rest of the cast is memorable and alas too numerous to enumerate, though I'll single out Nathan Fillion's Guy Gardner as the best candidate for a spinoff feature; not only is Gunn free to push him hard as possible (those giant green middle fingers!) but he inspires others to step up with their quips ("That haircut should be against your vows!").&nbsp;Quick note on Jor-el and Lara-- I hear purists crying 'blasphemy!' and understand: Gunn is fiddling with time-honored lore. But I liked this particular fiddle-- having the basis of your life yanked from under you and being forced to make an existential decision what you're going to do moving forward (helps to have Pruitt Taylor Vince clarify things in his loamy Kansas accent) actually helps sell the idea that Clark's metal is true.&nbsp;Visually Gunn isn't an especially distinctive stylist, though I might note that he likes to use lengthy takes, the better to catch the chaos and chaotic interplay between multiple voices-- but this is no <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2014/05/batman-returns-tim-burton-1992.html">Tim Burton</a>, the last real fabulist to work in the genre (sorry, Burton and <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2008/09/hellboy-ii-golden-army-guillermo-del.html">Guillermo del Toro</a>). Gunn does keep it at human rather than monumental scale, insisting on keeping our eyes directed at the characters instead of the mile high monsters and gigantic explosions. The color palate is standard-issue bright comic book-- but his visual source being the Silver Age, meant to hold the attention of ten year olds, that's to be expected.&nbsp;Not much else to say except I love the explicit stance the movie takes on the Palestinian invasion (it's wrong) and like-- kind of-- Gunn's assertion through Clark that "Kindness is the new punk." Maybe, but what does that mean, exactly? Has Gunn turned a page and devoted the rest of his career to making bigbudgeted movies about bighearted Kryptonians? Or has he finally stepped out of his personal closet to reveal himself as yet another edgelord cynic hiding a marshmallow heart?&nbsp; Gunn does his best with Clark but it helps to surround the man with a cast of characters reflecting and contrasting and giving context to his essential goodness, showing how he stands out in a still imperfect world-- meanwhile and hopefully Gunn hands off the sequel soon as possible to someone else while he focuses on unexpected walk-on cameo Kara, who seems to be the kind of damaged-goods antihero that's more his jam. To paraphrase what St. Augustine once said: O Lord go ahead give me kindness-- but don't give it to me yet.&nbsp;First published in <a href="https://www.bworldonline.com/arts-and-leisure/2025/07/18/685882/the-man-with-the-golden-gunn/">Businessworld</a>&nbsp;7/18/25<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/a/AVvXsEgDmo0IixgngyUKyhCaXfFAA4K7EQlfznO9rg4I4Qs0zDmSQ_u8PnGx3Oj_1CF9R7v1cb0uCpIF_gn94JwSh8nRGPVlLwu69wPtMfYlvRvKsgYoEXR7x1s7dqPzSLjR_AwIkSINxyv1cnI7OaxiQUMHn2Uvkn2VCIWzEZe3EUS7AUZKh3n84u2v" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="733" data-original-width="1100" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgDmo0IixgngyUKyhCaXfFAA4K7EQlfznO9rg4I4Qs0zDmSQ_u8PnGx3Oj_1CF9R7v1cb0uCpIF_gn94JwSh8nRGPVlLwu69wPtMfYlvRvKsgYoEXR7x1s7dqPzSLjR_AwIkSINxyv1cnI7OaxiQUMHn2Uvkn2VCIWzEZe3EUS7AUZKh3n84u2v=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/4938742955997460739/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment/fullpage/post/12690266/4938742955997460739' title='2 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/4938742955997460739'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/4938742955997460739'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2025/07/superman-james-gunn-2025.html' title='Superman (James Gunn, 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/AVvXsEiVDd47gO4sOVbeFpOTPIkSkzSlNE_c8m8EhxXxjmO5CujTBhKJhWpw2NHU5NX-dYVHg5FWhmG3AmLs5RJCSpvEKMyJXFMAENZu97IAph2xRXxrToPg_iLCLxJwYkPTotz4HxLd-7TN42Lv5xmz7aFYxTJKe3Quz4695ZadEqZYI9SjHCafqnu3/s72-w400-h220-c/david-corenswet-s-superman-smiling-at-a-woman-he-just-saved-in-the-dcu-movie.jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>2</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12690266.post-7235665626746771648</id><published>2025-07-17T12:48:00.002-04:00</published><updated>2025-07-17T13:10:30.805-04:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Comedy"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Independent"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Wes Anderson"/><title type='text'>The Phoenician Scheme (Wes Anderson, 2025)</title><content type='html'><div><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/a/AVvXsEh951Q5NYrETk0pduT12KHRBDN6OVcPWOHY3w3BwrBZHe3XO1wULYOPWfD9RpIQM4UR-BeNBmmYHjDeFdx4kTdie8_eZ9pb5DrX0s1grX1_Dt5G1rEAX3yR9EejVQcCL8kNRFUXq-2eIZyn4bf1WYZps9enbco0p4GH8w6GFcYFv3TdMcJqEPE5" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="555" data-original-width="556" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh951Q5NYrETk0pduT12KHRBDN6OVcPWOHY3w3BwrBZHe3XO1wULYOPWfD9RpIQM4UR-BeNBmmYHjDeFdx4kTdie8_eZ9pb5DrX0s1grX1_Dt5G1rEAX3yR9EejVQcCL8kNRFUXq-2eIZyn4bf1WYZps9enbco0p4GH8w6GFcYFv3TdMcJqEPE5=w400-h400" width="400" /></a></div></div> </div>Trump, Inked<div> </div><div>Wes Anderson should really preface his pictures with a paraphrase of Tolstoy: All Wes Anderson movies are alike; the better Anderson movies are better in their own way. Anderson's work has stylized (some would say calcified) to the point where nonfans have thrown up their hands in despair, while more persistent viewers (fans, even) still flock to screenings, still attempt to suss out what's different in this installment and what Anderson seems up to at the moment.</div><div> </div><div>So it goes with <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt30840798/">The Phoenician Scheme</a> (2025) and surfacewise I'd argue it's easy to see the diff-- in <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-grand-budapest-hotel-wes-anderson.html">The Grand Budapest Hotel</a> the palette is decidedly based on different intensities of pink; in <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2009/12/fantastic-mr-fox-wes-anderson.html">The Fantastic Mr. Fox</a> it alternates between earthy brown and fur orange-- very autumnal colors; in <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2023/06/asteroid-city-wes-anderson-2023.html">Asteroid City</a> it ranges from bright Granny Smith to deep lime; he dabbles in both live action and stop-motion, sometimes with extensive use of miniatures in the former; his tone will range from gratingly twee to deadpan black, and he usually turns a monomaniacal focus on well-off folk with an array of mostly self-inflicted issues.</div><div> </div><div>Again the question, and of course a follow up folks might be interested in: is Anderson's latest different, and is it worth catching? Well let me tell you</div><div> </div><a name='more'></a><div>On the surface the film is a recognizably Anderson film, with a few cogs switched out and a spanking new paint job slapped on (offhand I'd say the dominant color is marble grey); underneath it belongs to that subset of Anderson films that isn't pure ensemble but dominated by a patriarch-- think <a href="https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2025/02/kin-dread-wes-andersons-royal.html">The Royal Tenenbaums</a> or the aforementioned Mr. Fox, or The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou-- here unscrupulous industrialist Zsa Zsa Korda (Benicio del Toro), who has a tendency to bark while re-negotiating settled deals. Now where have we seen that before?</div><div> </div><div>Let's get this straight: Benicio del Toro is better looking than Trump, is more charismatic than Trump, cannier and more eloquent than Trump could ever hope to be; but that inconsistency and unpredictability and the constant yelling at people he's dealing with, in a futile attempt to force them to submit to his will-- that's pure 47, and it's funny watching him be that way with the various people involved in his scheme, failing, and being forced to adopt other means of persuasion. There is character growth here, despite the deadpan delivery and apparent flatness of the figures (yes the way Anderson shoots them in their intricately designed environments they do resemble cardboard cutouts in a marvelously constructed diorama)-- when Korda plucks his daughter Sister Liesl (Mia Threapleton) from the convent, the daughter he now feels he wants but being all screwed up never really bothered to try raise as his own, he treats her like a difficult homework assignment he must carefully study in the hopes of passing a quiz; by film's end he's clinging to her, regarding her as an essential he can't live without.&nbsp;&nbsp;</div><div> </div><div>And Korda's actions have consequences, one of which are repeated assassination attempts-- part of the fun of the film is watching del Toro collect all kinds of cuts and bruises and internal injuries along his travels-- the other having to deal with what he's done to his daughter. Sister Liesl is brought up strict, and judges her wayward father with the same severity that she learned growing up in the convent (doesn't help that he's rumored to have killed her mother), and it's Anderson's conceit to have her look at her increasingly sodden pater with increasingly pitying eyes.&nbsp;</div><div> </div><div>I suppose I must mention Michael Cera as Bjorn, an entomologist turned personal assistant who also happens to have fallen in love with Lucy. Word is that Cera is funny (he is) and a perfect addition to Anderson's regular cast (he can be)--but in my book, in the overall scheme of things, doesn't seem crucial to the film's narrative drive, is at most an entertaining sideshow.&nbsp;</div><div> </div><div>Call this Anderson's attempt at relevance. He's usually sealed off in his own bubble breathing in the increasingly stale air, but here I can't help but be taken by what actually looks like Anderson's attempt to sketch some kind of redemption arc-- if Trump were fitter and younger and actually has a heart under all the machinations (and if-- big difference-- the machinations actually made sense, unlike the random semaphores the present executive-in-chief indulges in in lieu of an actual policy). He flies, nearly dies, is wounded again and again, has to work hard to earn the trust and respect of Sister Liesl-- is Anderson being satiric or prescriptive? Is he actually hoping 47 will watch his film and take notes? Or am I reading all this into a savant of a filmmaker, flailing away in his own self-styled aesthetic bubble? Don't know, not sure, haven't the faintest idea, but-- I'm entertained. That must count for something.&nbsp;</div><div> </div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg-CpCXL76GvvZiHhCBabL7m_MyWNgxPq36PoDuNUimmwTk_rpdyKw8jWaEP9RjyY-uP2Jt8AjO-JerSMAQSLStDvxTNuzwarKcbl4zjpweN2JRGAsAYnSxb3KIM_DJLTyw7CLkOp0ZVxAA3orbmueG_XSM70N4e7ZIhJotrJ4_TdDhOqBw8EUT" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="1281" data-original-width="2560" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg-CpCXL76GvvZiHhCBabL7m_MyWNgxPq36PoDuNUimmwTk_rpdyKw8jWaEP9RjyY-uP2Jt8AjO-JerSMAQSLStDvxTNuzwarKcbl4zjpweN2JRGAsAYnSxb3KIM_DJLTyw7CLkOp0ZVxAA3orbmueG_XSM70N4e7ZIhJotrJ4_TdDhOqBw8EUT=w400-h200" 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/7235665626746771648/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment/fullpage/post/12690266/7235665626746771648' title='2 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/7235665626746771648'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/12690266/posts/default/7235665626746771648'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2025/07/the-phoenician-scheme-wes-anderson-2025.html' title='The Phoenician Scheme (Wes Anderson, 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/a/AVvXsEh951Q5NYrETk0pduT12KHRBDN6OVcPWOHY3w3BwrBZHe3XO1wULYOPWfD9RpIQM4UR-BeNBmmYHjDeFdx4kTdie8_eZ9pb5DrX0s1grX1_Dt5G1rEAX3yR9EejVQcCL8kNRFUXq-2eIZyn4bf1WYZps9enbco0p4GH8w6GFcYFv3TdMcJqEPE5=s72-w400-h400-c" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>2</thr:total></entry><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='2 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>2</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='11 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>11</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></feed>

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