mother! (Darren Aronofsky 2017)

A boy's best friend

(Warning: overall narrative and plot twists discussed in explicit detail)

Call it Rosemary's Baby with a strong dose of The Shining or: what happens when a pregnant woman's gnawing sense of paranoia confronts a writer's block. 

Darren Aronofsky's latest feature mother!--title is a minefield of smallcase capitalization and punctuation--feels at first like a creepy-funny mix of the two. mother (Jennifer Lawrence) is married to Him (Javier Bardem); both live in a three-story house in the middle of lovely nowhere (no driveway no mailbox, the structure apparently airlifted to location and dropped in place (the production is reported to have used a constructed set for the first-floor daytime sequences, soundstages for the later night scenes involving upper and lower stories)).

Raging Bull (Martin Scorsese)

Bronx Othello

Properly speaking Scorsese in what is arguably his masterpiece should have introduced the lean La Motta (Robert de Niro) to us first let us get used to him then revealed the overweight figure later on-- but no; Scorsese wasn’t interested in easy dramatic strategies. He immediately has us confront the later man in all his fleshy glory complete with piggy eyes and wheezing breath delivering his nightclub monologue, a mix of highbrow quote (“a horse a horse my kingdom for a horse!”) and lowbrow aside (“haven’t had a winner in six months”) in the same gag. We are bemused, if slightly repelled by the man; he looks like the kind of close relative you hide silverware from when visiting. He ends his spiel with arms flung wide declaring “That’s entertainment!” repeats the line thoughtfully looking at his cigar (his lost virility?). The film cuts back to a boxing ring in 1941

and the young La Motta leaping into the camera frame. Trim loose-limbed taut-muscled (you can’t help but gasp at the sheer physical difference) he shakes off Jimmy Reeves' blows like raindrops. He is told he’s behind on points and has to knock Reeves out; down in the ringside seats a woman screams as a fight breaks out in the audience.

Logan Lucky (Steven Soderbergh, 2017)

Low rent gold

Late in the film a news announcer dubbed the racetrack robbers the "Ocean 7-11" and I can't think of a better term to describe the picture: basically a Steven Soderbergh-directed heist movie complete with large cast and intricate plan, done in a thick West Virginia accent and for a considerably smaller budget.

Respeto (Treb Monteras II, 2017)

Faceoff

Film swaggers all pissed off all kissed off
Staggering while dragging a pair.
Has the grit of an 8 Mile ripoff at kickoff
Midway a Karate Kid flair.

Despite the borrowed feel borrowed beat
We confront a whole other creature
With its own look its own meat its own heat
Pitched like a hundred-five fever

Old man meets young buck shit out of luck
Old will teach young some wisdom:
Words that stun as if head had been struck*
Set to the young buck's rhythm

Cuz rap is no stranger to Philippine shores
We been battling for near a century**
The rhymes the pulse the lyrical wars
The fight to inflict verbal injury

But young buck too the old man fuel
Remind him of a past bad-scarred
The pains of living under Marcos rule
(The ghoul the cruel the redtipped tool)
The ghosts whose memories die hard

All swept aside by the new reality
This 'drug war' our mayor declared;
What's two lives in a fascist totality
(Insanity bestiality gory immorality)
Deaths 'tween generations shared?

This be a new exciting young punk
Aureate glow hard-rapping tempo
But its soul's straight out of '70s funk
Out of Mike and Mario Ishma and Lino***

Film has its flaws can't be denied****
But lands with a 'FUCK YOU!' thud
Speaks truth to power to arrogant pride
To the lust to spill our blood


*(Featuring samples from Bien Lumbera, Frank Rivera, Vim Nadera and other carnivora)

**(It's called Balagtasan, yo!)

***(Not so much the '70s as the '70s to '80s Martial Law films: Mike de Leon's Batch '81; Mario O'Hara's Bagong Hari; Ishmael Bernal's Manila by Night; Lino Brocka's Insiang)

****(Would a man with a gun stop if confronted? Wasn't the man attempting multiple EJKs (Extra Judicial Killings) at the finale the wrong man?*****)

*****(Meaning--those who plan to watch DON'T READ--shoulda been a cop not a drug dealer?******)

******(Still a worthwhile film)

First published in Businessworld 9.15.17

Twin Peaks Season 3 Finale (David Lynch, 2017)

Cherchez la femme

(Warning: plot outline and narrative twists discussed in close detail)

In the first part of The Return finale co-writers Lynch and Frost assembles most of the series' characters (those left alive I mean) at the Peaks sheriff's station, lashes every (well most) storylines together in a single great gift-wrapped all-encompassing Christmas package of a resolution. In the second half Lynch takes that package stuffs it under the belly of the Trinity bomb and fires the device, sending everything up in a mushroom cloud spinning slowly against the dark New Mexico sky.

Ma' Rosa (Brilliante Mendoza, 2016)

Swap heads

Brillante Mendoza's latest feature executes the immersive handheld camera style of filmmaking as well as could be done despite the small production budget of a little over fifteen million pesos (roughly $300,000).