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Showing posts from September, 2013

THE GUERRILLA IS A POET (Sari and Kiri Dalena, 2013)

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After seeing THE GUERRILLA IS A POET, the new film by sisters Sari and Kiri Dalena, whatever your stand may be on communism, what's certain is that Jose Maria Sison, or JoMa Sison, or Amado Guerrero (his war name) is indeed an ordinary man who dreams, who loves, and who fights, but whose extraordinary achievements imparted a constant reminder to Ferdinand Marcos during Martial Law that his tyranny shall not go unchallenged.  At almost two and a half hours, GUERRILLA constantly makes for an uneasy watch; its subject overtly serious and heavy. From the time of JoMa's childhood up to his and his wife, Julieta De Lima's exile in The Netherlands, the film broadens the history, making a parallel between JoMa the revolutionary and JoMa the poet- which actually are one and the same, because traces of rage are present in JoMa's literature.  The use of docudrama may be distracting at times, appearing propagandist even, yet there are moments of candidness during the i

ON THE JOB (Erik Matti, 2013)

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Erik Matti's ON THE JOB is that return to form of Pinoy action movies we've been waiting for, and the film that will probably be tied to Matti's career. From the trailer alone, the story, the shots, and the editing are all promising. We easily get the concept of the movie: prisoners are being used as assassins so that the hits will be untraceable, meanwhile an idealistic NBI agent and a beat-up policeman chase the assassins unaware, or perhaps partially aware that they are pawns in an elaborate game where power is what matters.  "So what's new?" says you. While it is true that the story has been more or less explored in previous action flicks both local and international, it's the inspired performances of OTJ's leads (and even supporting characters), a rich back story for its protagonists and antagonists, and more notably, the seamless fusion of cinematography, editing and music that gives OTJ a gritty feel more than enough to satisfy fans