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COMFORTABLY FAMILIAR
Decrying film clichés is easy. Replacing them with something worthwhile is much harder. Tropes become tropes because they’re often the straight-line, natural-feeling answer to common story...
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RECOGNIZABLE AND REALISTIC
The Hearing (Cinemalaya, Pelikulaw, Center Stage Productions, 2024) evokes the experience of a molested child in all its furtive anxiety and shame. Sensitively directed by Lawrence Fajardo and...
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OBSESSION AND MADNESS
Maligno (Rosas Productions, 1977) builds tension with masterful patience and detail, not because it relies entirely on the payoff of its devilish finale, but because Celso Ad. Castillo wants to...
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A FRESH TURN
This beguiling romance offers a fresh take on a familiar premise. At its heart is a story about love, tolerance and honesty. For all its anodyne rom-com silliness, however, 4 Days (Phoenix...
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SOUL STARVING EMPTINESS
Ivan Andrew Payawal's Table for Three (Vivamax, The IdeaFirst Company, 2024) follows successful couple Marlon (Topper Fabregas) and Paul (Arkin del Rosario) as they explore being a throuple with...
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BODIES IN MOTION
For filmmaker Lawrence Fajardo, social interaction with the audience is far more important than sexual interaction on the screen. Some of the men solicit attention, others determined to avoid it....
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BITTER REVENGE
Although Lino Brocka’s Bona (NV Productions, 1980) might seem like an unlikely place from which to launch a discussion of the craft of one the great Filipino actors, it illuminates several threads...
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BRISK, TAUT AND FOCUSED
While movies such as Paluwagan (Vivamax, Pelikula Indiopendent, 2024) don't exactly depend upon a wealth of logic, such an obvious gap is all too common in a film that survives solely upon the...
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BITTER REVENGE
Although Lino Brocka’s Bona (NV Productions, 1980) might seem like an unlikely place from which to launch a discussion of the craft of one the great Filipino actors, it illuminates several threads...
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LOVE'S MANY FACES AND DISGUISES
Nominally Filipino cinema’s most psychologically fascinating love triangle, Ishmael Bernal's landmark is a hard film to resurrect in a contemporary era that favors logic and emotional literalness...
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ENIGMA OF ADULTERY
There are so many good things in Halikan Mo at Magpaalam sa Kahapon (Luis Enriquez Films, 1977), but they’re side by side instead of one after the other. They exist in the same film, but the...
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UNEVEN AND PRE-PACKAGED
Much has already been written about the bravery of Ang Duyan ng Magiting (Cinemalaya, Sine Metu, 2023). I wish the movie had been even brave enough to risk a clear, unequivocal, uncompromised...
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A QUICK AND SIMPLE SCARE
Unlike the most memorable entries into the horror genre, Nokturno (Evolve Studios, Viva Films, 2024) offers only the most superficial of thrills. Director Mikhail Red's Deleter (2022) utilizes the...
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STRENGTH AND RESILIENCE
In Joel C. Lamangan's Walker (New Sunrise Films, 2022), the spectator is lured into the lives of women who, for various reasons, have been forced into prostitution. Strangely, the single-take...
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FOREBODING DREAD
A film driven by atmosphere and a sense of foreboding dread, Pasahero (Viva Films, JPHILX, 2024) proves that even though you may think you are done with the past, the past isn’t always...
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EVERYBODY HUSTLES
Everybody hustles, but in Monti Puno Parungao's The Escort (Lexuality Entertainment, Treemount Pictures, 2011) hustling (in the hard core sense of selling your body for sex) is a way of life. For...
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HOOK AND FLAW
The concept of Boy Kaldag (VMX, BLVK Films, Pelikula Indiopendent, 2024) is undeniably clever. Size is both the film's hook and flaw, an amiable but ambling comedy that collapses under extended...
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SILLY, CLASSY, ENJOYABLE
Nympha (Regal Films, Inc., 1980) is a silly, classy, enjoyable erotic film that was an all-time box-office success. It’s not remotely significant enough to deserve that honor, but in terms of its...
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IMPORTANT AND ABSORBING
Most movies succeed or fail because of the way they tell their stories and develop their characters. Balota (Cinemalaya, GMA Pictures, GMA Entertainment Group, 2024) does introduce remarkably...
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MORE THAN SURFACE ELEGANCE
It’s devastating, the way director Maryo J. delos Reyes depicted how the domino-effect destruction of 1995’s Sa Ngalan ng Pag-ibig (Regal Films, Inc.) came within milliseconds of never happening....
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