Trip to Quiapo
You'd think Emerson Reyes' MNL 143* took inspiration from Jafar Panahi's Taxi, or Steven Knight's Locke--both very good films that largely take place inside a vehicle--and you'd be wrong; Reyes' film came out three years before Panahi's, and a year before Knight's. Not that I'm suggesting Panahi or Knight were inspired by Reyes (Though who knows? The film screened in the Edinburgh festival the year it was released), just that the Filipino filmmaker is every bit as capable of conceiving a reasonably novel concept and now--thanks to digital filmmaking and fundraising efforts to support that filmmaking--is able to realize them on the big/small/online screen.
Beat of a different drum
This being a sequel it would be smart of me--obligatory almost--to declare that lightning doesn't strike twice, that Gunn has sold his soul to the corporate suits at Marvel, that this lacks the freshness of the original and so on and so forth.
Might be true--is true, arguably--but what the hell enjoyed it anyway.
Love never dies
Richard Abelardo's Mutya ng Pasig (Pearl of the Pasig, 1950) at first glance plays like a musical version of Wuthering Heights (Dona Sisang's LVN Pictures was known for its musicals): the star-crossed lovers forcibly separated (this time by a false accusation and a prison term); the woman marrying another; the death in mid-narrative; the man haunted by ghosts of memories past--all accompanied by the occasional song (including the haunting eponymous melody* composed by Nicanor Abelardo, Richard's cousin) and dance number.
