DEATH OF TRADITIONAL CINEMA

"Tandem" could have been another generic tale about urban crime, but screenwriter Zig Marasigan, working from a story by Mikhail Red, and director King Palisoc inject the film with a solidly grounded conflict between two brothers- the elder an ex-convict with a clear-cut set of newfound morals, while the younger a thrill-seeker who wants to earn his brother's respect, that the story rises above the trappings of the genre. Roman (Nico Antonio) and Rex (JM De Guzman) earn a living from robbing other people. Equipped with a motorcycle, guns and their sense of brotherhood, the two prowl the streets of Metro Manila looking for the next big score. Roman has a baby on the way with his wife Cha (Rochelle Pangilinan), while Rex is madly in love with a bar girl named Nadine (Elora Españo). As we begin to see the brothers on a human level, suddenly they cease to exist as mere criminals. They are now survivors.  Yet the film does not glorify or justify the incidence ...

English title: Does your Heart Beat Faster? A film like Mike De Leon's outrageous musical "Kakabakaba Ka Ba?" would have never been made today. Equal parts a mystery film, a comedy, a social criticism and a bizarre descent into the unknown, De Leon and co-writers Raquel Villavicencio and Doy Del Mundo unleash one maddening sequence after another, culminating in a finale that now stands as one of Philippine cinema's most iconic moments. Everything begins on familiar territory. A Japanese (Buboy Garovillo) tries to smuggle contraband into the Philippines, but miserably fails every single time. (If this is not predictive of current airport woes in NAIA, I don't know what else to call it.) In his latest attempt, he hides the contraband inside a cassette tape, and slips it into the jacket of an unwitting co-passenger named Johnny (Christopher De Leon). The contraband goes through customs, undetected. (Again, another mockery of local airport security which st...

"Love" is the latest film from France-based Argentinian filmmaker and provocateur Gaspar Noé, and surprisingly, it is also his tamest, despite the slew of onscreen full-frontal nudity and overlong hardcore sex scenes. Told in a non-linear fashion similar to Noé's previous films, "Love" tells of American film student named Murphy (Karl Glusman), who is torn between the love of his life, Electra (Aomi Muyock) and the mother of his child, Omi (Klara Kristin). The story unfolds as if an ambivalent surge of memory; Murphy recalls the good and the bad, but for the most part, the unrelenting sex. In one scene, Murphy questions why no one has ever depicted "sentimental sexuality" on film, which is Noé trying to state the obvious. "Love" succeeds when it strips down its main character of his pretensions; it fails when Noé has to justify the film's reason for being, which he does so a number of times during the film's 135-minute ru...

* English title "Shadow behind the Moon" The best term to describe Jun Lana's latest film would be a cinematic charade- a game of identities, of motives, of suppressed passions, and of uncertainty. Or the film equivalent of a Russian doll, if you will. "Anino sa Likod ng Buwan" only has three characters- husband and wife Nando (Anthony Falcon) and Emma (LJ Reyes) and military man Joel (Luis Alandy). What started as a seemingly routine banter among friends gradually and intensely escalated into an examination of society, where the definition of immorality is blurred during a time of insurgency.  And in fact, the film does discuss the subject of immorality from various paradigms. When does adultery become acceptable, and to whom? Is sexual liberation more heinous than murder? Why is immorality always a double standard? The film plays out the ideas in endless games. Or are they really games at all? Lana could have stopped there, but he didn...

English title: "Trap" Tragedy is a very delicate subject matter for film. If done inappropriately, the filmmaker is prone to either sensationalism or emotional detachment. "Taklub" borders closer on the latter. The film opens with a tracking shot of the typhoon Yolanda aftermath in Tacloban, and cuts to a fire consuming one of the refugee tents in the makeshift "Tent City" community. People scamper to put the fire out with pails of water, as we see a familiar figure emerge in the dizzying darkness. It is Nora Aunor, who plays one of the displaced residents during the storm. Filmmaker Brillante Mendoza exhibits early on his penchant for visual irony, when a fire causes the death of an entire family of storm survivors, sans the patriarch. Fire, as opposed to water. Water, which is supposed to give life, yet caused the deaths of thousands.  Slowly, "Taklub" introduces us to its assortment of characters. Bebeth (Aunor) runs a run...

HENERAL LUNA Directed by: Jerrold Tarog 2015 There has never really been an extensive chronicle about Antonio Luna. Even during history class, teachers do not talk much about him — and it’s not entirely their fault. Majority of us only know one thing about Luna: that he is short-tempered, egotistic even. Yet in Jerrold Tarog’s latest feature,  Heneral Luna , it is revealed that Luna played a major role towards Philippine independence, on a par with the greatness of Andres Bonifacio, or even Dr. Jose Rizal. In  Heneral Luna , Tarog reveals that the ill-fated general shares a bigger connection with Bonifacio. A disclaimer at the beginning of the film could not have been more fitting, since Tarog is well aware of Filipinos’ fixation on fact-checking everything. While the film is based on historical facts, some of the scenes were fictionalized for dramatic purposes, the warning read. Heneral Luna  should make for an interesting topic for lengthy discuss...

* International English title: "Ruined Heart" You've seen this film already, Khavn says during the Philippine premiere of his latest feature. The tagline even reads "another love story between a criminal and a whore," yet Khavn's take on one of the most known (and heavily overused) cinematic sub genres is anything but ordinary. Japanese actor Tadanobu Asano (Ichi the Killer) is the "criminal," in love with Mexican actress Nathalia Acevedo (Post Tenebras Lux) who plays the "whore." They cannot go public with their affections for one another lest incurring the wrath of the "godfather," played by Vim Nadera.  Meanwhile, Russian-German actress Elena Kazan is the "lover," whose undying love is pivotal in the film's later part, while Andre Puertollano is the "friend," who in one scene defends the "criminal" against an army of thugs, using his skills in Muay Thai (Puertollano teaches...

*Official selection, 2015 World Premieres Film Festival, Filipino New Cinema section Alvin Yapan has explored the supernatural with "Ang Panggagahasa kay Fe" (The Rapture of Fe), the subliminal with "Ang Sayaw ng Dalawang Kaliwang Paa" (Dance of Two Left Feet), the marriage of the mythical and the religious with "Debosyon" (Devotion) and the psychological with "Anino ng Kahapon" (Shadows of the Past). His latest film "An Kubo Sa Kawayanan" (The House in the Bamboo Grove), surprisingly veers away from his usual exploration of folklore and literature, as its story lives within the confines of the mundane, the ordinary, and the calming silence.   Perhaps "Kubo" is the antithesis to Yapan's film canon- a meditation on the simplicity of things, stripped away of all of the modern world's noise. In here, we find Michelle (Mercedes Cabral), an embroiderer living alone in a nipa hut tucked deep in the woods. She fi...

AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON, the highly-anticipated sequel to the highly-successful 2012 gathering of Marvel's superheroes, delivers a lot of idealism at its core, trading the non-stop explosion extravaganza of the first movie for heart as well as Darwinian scrutiny. Make no mistake: "Age of Ultron" is still an action-packed vehicle, yet it doesn't substitute the action for lack of catharsis, something the first film did so well. And for that, the sequel surpasses its predecessor by miles. Whereas the first film dealt with the dilemma of becoming a hero, which is the Achilles' heel of every hero movie's beginning, "Age of Ultron" focused on the consequences of being a guardian of peace. When one of the Avengers seeks to end a war before it even begins, using whatever means necessary to prevent a cataclysmic event, such as the Chitauri invasion of New York in Part One, tension ensues. The Avengers begin doubting each other, and this is where each...

For a film that is headlined by much star power, INTO THE WOODS is surprisingly dull, joyless, and overlong. The fact that the film adaptation is directed by the same person who wowed us 10 years ago with the Oscar-winning CHICAGO is hard to swallow. INTO THE WOODS is a mashup of characters from popular fairy tales, and finds Cinderella, Rapunzel, Little Red Riding Hood, and Jack (and the beanstalk) on a collision course as one childless couple (played by James Corden and Emily Blunt) journey into the titular woods to have a cursed reversed, which was cast years before by a vengeful witch (Meryl Streep). But while the material yielded tons of potential for conflict and a deconstruction of the characters, the film version suffered from an obvious detachment to its characters' plights. It is hard to retain any emotional attachment with any one character when the plot spirals here and there, only to fall flat in the end. Unlike previous mashup movie adapatations such as L...

FORCE MAJEURE, the observational drama from Sweden is a quiet, dynamic study of gender roles between man and woman, husband and wife, placed under the microscope following an unexpected accident. While having their breakfast on the patio of a ski resort in the French Alps, businessman Tomas (Johannes Bah Kuhnke), his wife Ebba (Lisa Loven Kongsli), and their two children (Clara Wettergren and Vincent Wettergren) witness a "controlled avalanche", a man-made avalanche created to avert the occurrence of a bigger, more destructive avalanche. Tomas assures his family that it's perfectly safe, even videotaping the avalanche in his cellphone. However, as the avalanche draws closer and closer, the guests panic, and Ebba is left aghast at what happens next.    Tomas goes on with their vacation as if nothing happened. But soon, the elephant in the room needed addressing, and Ebba hounds her husband every chance she gets about what happened. She is shocked more at her husba...

Here's my pick for what I think are the notable local films of 2014: 20. EDNA       Directed by: Ronnie Lazaro EDNA marks the directorial debut of actor Ronnie Lazaro, who also stars in the film as husband to Irma Adlawan's titular character. What's admirable about EDNA is the sheer bravery of experimenting on various storytelling techniques to tell the plight of an OFW who comes home and finds out the real price of her years of toil overseas. The end result might be a little crude, sometimes confusing, yet Irma Adlawan still shines as a woman inches away from losing her sanity.  RATED 3/5 19. THE JANITOR       Directed by: Mike Tuviera Whoever said that Pinoy action cinema is dead clearly haven't seen THE JANITOR. Thrilling, intriguing, and breathtaking all at the same time, THE JANITOR is one of last year's must-see, if only for the morality study it brings to the plate. We live in a world when our version of truth is on...