Barbie (Greta Gerwig, 2023)

Life in plastic

I put it to my wife. "Want to see a movie?" "Which one?" "Barbie."

She gave me a look. "I know I know I know, but I feel funny watching it alone."

"Seriously? You took your teenage son to watch Magic Mike."

"You don't have to bring that up. We're both still trying to get over that experience."

Upshot of which is that she finally agreed to go, fell asleep around the twenty minute mark, woke up in time for the end credits. I filled her in on the details during dinner at a Japanese restaurant-- her price for agreeing to come with me. 

Oppenheimer (Christopher Nolan, 2023)

Mission impossible

(Warning: plot twists discussed in explicit detail)

Get this out of the way: Christopher Nolan is the boxoffice savior of modern American cinema.

Science Fiction: A Ghetto

Science Fiction: A Ghetto

Science fiction as a genre gets little respect.

“What?” goes the cries. “With the Star Wars series, the Transformer series, the Jurassic Park series, and the Marvel Comics Universe raking in billions?”

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

Aren't you glad you used Dial?

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny feels like your last high school class reunion where you spot old faces and gossip about missing ones. O look Harrison Ford with his Traveller hat! Yanking on his leather whip! O look John Rhys-Davies as Sallah driving a yellow cab! O and isn't that--? Yes it is now shut up we aren't meant to spoil anything (that's a job for TikTok). 

Pangarap ng Puso (Demons, Mario O'Hara, 2000)

Demon lover

Mario O'Hara's Pangarap ng Puso (Demons, 2000) is about a pair of children who grow up at the edge of the Negros' enchanted rain forests, fall in love, are pulled into the tumultuous currents of history. Their growth can be seen in the evolving ways the two lovers view the creatures that dance about them-- as a child's metaphor for the wide, unknown world; as a pubescent's metaphor for emerging sexuality; as a young adult's metaphor for the daibolic impulses that drive terrorists and fascists alike, locked in a never ending cycle of violence and revenge.