I have always enjoyed going to the movies, especially to watch foreign films. The latest Tagalog films with English titles are a complete turnoff. But I am not averse to watching a local movie for as long it is good and entertaining like “Oro, Plata, Mata.” The fact is, I have seen some indie films which I thought are worthy of my time. But that is not why I write today.
The controversy over “Zero Dark Thirty”—specifically, over whether Kathryn Bigelow’s Oscar-nominated movie about the hunt for Osama bin Laden accurately depicts the truth about the use of torture—has revived the old debate about the movies’ debt to the historical record. Another Oscar-nominated, based-on-a-true-story, starring-a-persistent-agent-from-the-Central-Intelligence-Agency movie that takes some liberties with the historical record, is also very much in the news, but except for the occasional critical story or post, Ben Affleck’s “Argo” has largely escaped the kind of scrutiny trained on “Zero Dark Thirty.”
Of the varied fare produced by this year’s Metro Manila Film Festival, it was “El Presidente,” the film depicting the life of Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo, that I was most eager to watch. Films about a nation’s heroes are always tricky affairs. If they show nothing new about the persons or the circumstances in which they lived, they risk becoming utterly boring. If, on the other hand, they set out to project heroes in a new light, they are likely to face the question: What is fiction and what is fact?
I was about to say let’s take time out to mourn the deaths of artists, but came to my senses just in time. It made me wonder what had happened to me taking politics to be the more serious preoccupation, and art, well, something to take time out for. Art is in fact the more serious thing. The deaths of artists are a cause for the world to stop, the deaths of politicians are a cause for the world only to bring out the champagne.
Tim Burton and Johnny Depp have explored the same territory previously: contrasting the weirdness and darkness that surrounded Edward Scissorhands in his childhood with the bright, cheery suburban setting bathed in pastels that greets him upon his “introduction” to human society.
When I first saw the trailer for “Hugo,” I wondered why Martin Scorsese would make a fantasy film about a child who lived in a railroad station. But after sitting through about an hour of the movie, I realized why the project held such appeal for the well-respected, much-awarded director, for whom “Hugo” is his first “3-D” movie.
I finally caught one of the Metro Manila Film Festival entries on its last few days, and it happens to be the horror-thriller “Segunda Mano.” It’s been sort of a ritual between me and my future daughter-in-law Tesh to watch local horror movies together, and to close the old year (or start the new one), we chose the Kris Aquino-Dingdong Dantes starrer.
“Plots drawn from the headlines,” goes the blurb for crime shows and TV dramas that take for their material current events and timely topics. You could say the same for two recent movies: “In Time” and “Tower Heist.” In tone and approach, the two films could not be more different. “In Time” is what’s known [...]
A large part of the enjoyment of watching “Zombadings: Patayin sa Shokot si Remington” is watching it in a public theater. My daughter, future daughter-in-law and myself went on a “girls’ night out” to watch “Zombadings” and, to our surprise, found Cinema 6 at Glorietta 4 full, so much so that some viewers were forced [...]
As I stare at a shelf full of Harry Potter things, I cannot help but wish the series will never end. I feel like I am a part of the wizarding world and I am afraid that if I finish reading the last book or watch the last movie, its magic will burst like a [...]
HOLY WEEK would hardly seem the time to urge you to go see a movie about an unmitigated drunk whose only saving grace is that he stands to inherit billions from his humorless mother. But “Arthur” is a morality tale if ever there was one, and the title character’s redemption is as good an Easter [...]
EVERY TIME International Women’s Day comes around, this columnist is torn between celebrating womanhood and decrying the continuing “manifestations of gender oppression” that we see all around us. Certainly, there is much to celebrate about being a woman, especially the gains women have won over the decades, the centuries. And yet, for every step forward [...]
