One Hundred Years of Solitude (Cien Anos de Soledad, Alex Garcia Lopez, Laura Mora, 2024)

One hundred years of telenovela

I remember the first time I opened Gabriel Garcia Marquez's celebrated novel and read the sentence "Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice." It was an intriguing opening line and I was hooked, but for some reason never made it past the second page. I put the book aside, and didn't bothered touching it again for two years.

Then sitting in a beach-- in the shade, away from that ridiculous scorching sun,  while friends were in the water enjoying themselves-- I had no other choice but to pick up the book again, and this time (I think it was when Jose Arcadio, Colonel Aureliano's father, after many intricate calculations, announced to his wife that the world was round like an orange) I was well and truly hooked. I read till the sun gave up its plan to burn me and sank back into the sea to bide its time; read deep while the moon rose and kept me company; read till the moon gave up and bade farewell and sank back down and the cocks started to crow; read till there was nothing left to read, and when I put the volume aside saw my old nemesis peeking out from over the ocean's edge with a spark in its eye, fresh and ready for another round. 

Three Years Without God, in depth, in black and white

Three Years Without God, in depth, in black and white

(The film will have special screenings to be announced, and will be streaming in IWant TFC (The Filipino Channel))

(WARNING: Plot and dramatic high points in the story discussed in close and explicit detail)

I first saw Mario O'Hara's Tatlong Taong Walang Diyos (Three Years Without God, 1976) in the '90s in a fading magenta print, then saw it again-- partially restored to its former glory by L'Immagine Ritrovata-- in 2016. Earlier this week I finally saw it regraded to black-and-white by ABS CBN' s Film Restoration Project-- not necessarily meant to supplant the original colored copy but to stand alongside, as an experiment meant to address the fading colors by eliminating them.

Flow (Gints Zilbalodis, 2024)

Cat and friends

Forget The Wild Robot or Inside Out 2; the animated film of the year has to be Latvian filmmaker Gints Zilbalodis' Flow, an eighty-five minute feature notable for what it doesn't have as for what it does. No anthropomorphic animals-- these creatures don't quip or sass back, only express what sounds can be expected of them in the natural world; no strong narrative, mainly the random events that can occur to cat in its attempts to survive a flooded world; and no gag-a-minute pacing, the standard-issue sop Pixar or Disney throws its kiddie audiences to keep their presumably ADHD buttocks glued to their seats. 

Wicked Part 1 (Jon M Chu, 2024)

Icked

I suppose we should start with the positives: Jon M. Chu's Wicked, part 1 of his $150 million adaptation of Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman's Broadway hit adaptation of Gregory Maguire's 1995 novel of the same name, itself a prequel to L. Frank Baum's 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and the 1939 film adaptation of the same name-- pause for breath-- boasts of a pair of fine performances, Cynthia Erivo's sensitive interpretation of Elphaba Thropp, and Ariana Grande's deliciously wicked take on Galinda Upland.

Oz the Great and Powerful, Valhalla Rising, Volver, Story of GI Joe

By Popular Demand

Never had much use for boxoffice figures; never thought the approval of the moviegoing public was all that important, or an indicator of a film's quality, or relative lack of.

Once in a while, though I find myself in the embarrassing position of agreeing with everyone else. In which case I plead pure coincidence, and point to that old adage-- how does it go again? A stopped clock is right twice a day? 

Well, maybe not that one. But I do suspect that public opinion is smarter than the critical establishment is willing to admit. 

Case in point: Sam Raimi's Oz the Great and Powerful. Critics describe it as not "knowing its own mind," or "visually overcrammed, empty mega-spectacle"-- which is funny, because Raimi has never been known for sticking to one genre, even in his own movies, and was never a believer in visual restraint. The man likes over-the-top comic-book action, and unlike some filmmakers I can think of who can't even do that properly, he is superb at it.

Gladiator ll (Ridley Scott, 2024)

Gladiator, Jr.

(WARNING: plot of Gladiator 2 discussed in close and explicit detail!)

Coming out of the multiplex after a screening of Gladiator ll: 

A: What do you think?

N: Wasn't a fan of the first Gladiator. Not a fan of anything Scott since Blade Runner.

Tatlong Taong Walang Diyos (Mario O'Hara, 1976) in black and white

Three Years Without God without color

This all started from a suggestion by amateur film archivist / historian / enthusiast / restorer Jojo de Vera-- 'amateur' only in the sense that he's not paid for what he passionately works for and believes in and has a vast store of knowledge and expertise about that I often call upon for advice. 

Jojo asked if I was interested in seeing Tatlong Taong Walang Diyos (Three Years Without God) without color; I said yes. When I saw it I was impressed, and suggested the idea to Leo Katigbak, head of the ABS CBN Film Restoration Project; they had a digital copy of the 2016 L'Immagine Ritrovata restoration of the film, which they regraded to black-and-white and screened this Dec. 20 at the University of the Philippines Film Center.

And the results--

Conclave (Edward Berger, 2024)

Succession

Edward Berger's Conclave is more fun than the process of choosing a world leader has any right to be. 

Anora (Sean Baker, 2024)

For better or for worse

Sean Baker's Golden Palm-winning film Anora is arguably the most enjoyable of the year, by turns funny, sexy, profane. 

But a great film? Well let me tell you.

Viy (Konstantin Yershov, Georgi Kropachyov, 1967)

A comedy of horrors

Not that Viy (Konstantin Yershov, Georgi Kropachyov, 1967) is the first-ever Soviet horror film (There's A Spectre Haunts Europe (1923)) or even the first adaptation of the Nikolai Gogol story (the first was 1909, considered lost)-- but it's the rare Soviet horror film so visually striking and tonally bizarre it's at least worth a look.

The Apprentice (Ali Abbasi, 2024)

Birth of a supervillain

Calling it: there will not be a more terrifying film to come out this year than Ali Abbasi's The Apprentice, a startlingly evoked, reasonably entertaining, essentially accurate biopic of the former and possibly incoming president Donald J. Trump.

The Wolf of Wall Street (Martin Scorsese, 2013)

The lower depths

There's David O. Russell's approximation of a Martin Scorsese film, and then there's the original. The Wolf of Wall Street is everything American Hustle is-- sexy, funny, fluid, profane-- and more: disgusting, despairing, demented, in both a good and bad way.

Joker: Folie a Deux (Todd Philips, 2024)

That's entertainment

Saw Joker: Folie a Deux and-- well I liked the ending. 

Todd Philips can't direct traffic to save his life and the movie still looks like a recycle bin of older better films, among others Umbrellas of Cherbourg, One From the Heart, Pennies from Heaven, and (a Scorsese, can't not have a Scorsese) New York, New York and you can feel the droplets of sweat showering down like a morning thunderstorm from Joaquin Phoenix's brow as he strains to make a profound statement out of yet another $200 million comic book villain movie-- but I did like that ending. 

Megalopolis (Francis Ford Coppola, 2024)

Megalomania

Came out of Megalopolis feeling a lot of things but what I did not feel was disappointed-- not a bad thing but not necessarily a good thing either. 

I run hot and cold on Francis Ford Coppola. Thought his first two Godfather films were classically well-written if visually conventional, too-carefully curated portraits of a corrupt  American family, thought Apocalypse Now was a vividly directed Vietnam war movie that had little to do with the actual war, thought The Conversation (easily his best early work) was a nicely done portrait of loneliness and introverted paranoia. 

I actually prefer Coppola's wilder less disciplined later works: the lowkey monochromatic Rumble Fish, the emotionally extravagant One From the Heart (my favorite), the beautifully mounted Bram Stoker's Dracula (despite Keanu Reeves as an alleged British solicitor, and a haphazardly grafted love story), and now this, his wildest most undisciplined yet, basically a retelling of the Catilinarian conspiracy transposed to modern-day New York. 

The Wild Robot (Chris Sanders, 2024)

The mild robot

Dreamworks' latest (and arguably last to be fully animated in-house) movie has at least two things going for it: 1) the flattened handmade painterly look of the Spiderverse movies and Puss n Boots: The Last Wish that's currently all the rage; and 2) the fact that it's not Pixar or Disney.

On the minus side are two: 1) It's not Pixar or Disney but sure as hell feels like a Pixar or Disney movie; 2) most everything else.

Broken Marriage (Ishmael Bernal, 1983)

Trench warfare

(Warning: the story of Ishmal Bernal's films Relasyon (The Affair, 1982) and Broken Marriage (1983) are discussed in close detail) 

Film available online (can't link to it directly though-- go look for yourself!), which is one reason why I'm reposting this. No English subtitles, alas.

You might say Ishmael Bernal's Broken Marriage (1983), his follow-up to the successful melodrama Relasyon (The Affair, 1982), isn't quite as commercially or critically successful (the film's star Vilma Santos managed to sweep all acting awards with her performance in the previous production). I suppose it's easy to see why: the earlier film looks at marriage from an unusual point of view (from the outside, or from that of the mistress); the earlier film has a relatively streamlined and somewhat titillating story (a man estranged from his wife moves in with his mistress) with a suitably dramatic finale (death by aneurysm, harrowingly shot and staged by Bernal in a single take). 

Reportedly Ms. Santos, buoyed by the many acting awards earned by Relasyon, was so eager to do well in the new production that Bernal got irritated, locked her in a bathroom, and delivered to her an ultimatum: she was not coming out till she got over her 'hysteria.'

The Substance (Coralie Fargeat, 2024)

The Fountain of Ew

Coralie Fargeat's The Substance (2024), about the decline of celebrity Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) and rise of her showbiz doppelganger Sue (Margaret Qualley), leans hard-- very hard-- into the idea that beauty is a daily impossible burden for women to aspire to sometimes fail to attain and if they do attain must maintain said beauty for as long as they can-- forever if possible. 

Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice (Tim Burton, 2024)

And I'll never have that recipe again

How to do a proper sequel? Used to be a silly question but in this age of endless remakes, reboots, recycling in one form or another it's almost become a major artistic question, if art can or has ever been considered major (was there a time in the '60s and '70s, or were we just fooling ourselves?).

The Killer (John Woo, 2024)

Kill baby kill

So the conventional line is that John Woo's remake of his 1989 classic is handsomely mounted but has nowhere near the intensity and bravura style of the original.

Phantosmia (Lav Diaz, 2024)

A rose by any other name

Lav Diaz's Phantosmia turns on the simple conceit that a man who has experienced trauma will carry a trace of that trauma for the rest of his life, sometimes in the form of a smell. Doesn't have to be a real smell-- people have searched his surroundings at his behest looking for a dead rat or snake, find nothing; the stink is in his mind, a manifestation of guilt for committed sins. 

Sing Sing (Greg Kwedar, 2023)

Lockup drama

Small confession: meant to trudge my way to the movie theater to watch the latest  Alien movie because-- why, exactly? Liked the atmosphere and production design and cast of the first movie; liked the offbeat humor and imagery of the fourth (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, from a script by Joss Whedon)-- otherwise, not a big fan.  

So I went and saw Greg Kwedar's Sing Sing instead.

'Mother' Lily Monteverde (1938 - 2024)

Mommy dearest

First thing you come to know when you meet 'Mother' Lily Monteverde is her laugh.

It's loud. It's raucous. It's her head tilting back, wide mouth opening wider, and that voice-- a little low, a lot rough, barking out a sound that's half-aggressive half-accepting of the absurdity of the world. Sound of a woman who holds nothing back when she laughs, same way she holds nothing back when giving her opinion or judgment or whatever needs expressing at the moment. It's the sound of a queen on her throne, ruling her little fiefdom with lively and inimitable style. 

Deadpool & Wolverine (Shawn Levy, 2024)

Dead on arrival

One thing I loathe almost as much as summer heat is summer movies. "So don't go," I'm told, but at the moment it's 97 F in the shade and the easiest way to beat soaring temperatures is to duck into a movie theater, so...Deadpool & Wolverine. At least the poster looks colorful. 

The Parallax View (Alan J. Pakula, 1974)

Down the rabbit hole

(Warning: plot twists discussed in explicit detail)

Alan J. Pakula's The Parallax View, inspired by the assassinations of both John and Robert Kennedy is perhaps not the best film on the subject-- arguably near the top is Fred Zinneman's Day of the Jackal, a lean hide-n-seek thriller about a coldblooded Englishman (but are there any other kind?) plotting to shoot President Charles de Gaulle; on the apex sits John Frankenheimer's The Manchurian Candidate, about an American vice-presidential candidate doubling as Russian agent (Hilarious idea! Now where have we seen that before?) plotting to assume top spot by having his running mate killed (?!). 

Arguably this film isn't even Pakula's best-- I'd nominate All the President's Men for the honor, the director's crackerjack smart adaptation of Woodward and Bernstein's bestselling account of the Watergate Hotel burglary, and the consequent investigation that helped pull down the Nixon Administration. 

That said, and despite the inherently silly premise (all-powerful secret organization grooming political assassins), the bizarre bits peppering the narrative, I call this Pakula's most emblematic film, and lemme explain why--

The Coffee Table (Caye Casas, 2022)

Black, no sugar 

Watching The Coffee Table-- picture the ugliest piece of furniture on the face of the earth, a pair of gilt nymphs loosely screwed to a gilt base arcing unsteadily towards each other (every time someone walks around, actually every time someone makes an emphatic move anywhere near, the furniture shudders as if flinching), supporting a reportedly unbreakable glasstop. Picture a chubby mustachioed salesman (Eduardo Antuna) looking up at his prospective customers, meekly if gamely trying to sell them on the table's virtues. Facing him on either side are Maria (Estafania de los Santos) and Jesus (David Pareja) and for the next five minutes they bicker-- Maria about how expensive and godawful tacky the furniture is (she's not wrong), Jesus on how he's spent the day following her and doing what she wants and their whole life-- insisting on having a child, naming the child (Cayetano, which he hates) has been devoted to making her happy. Now he wants a table, this table, for himself alone, just because.

Longlegs (Osgood Perkins, 2024)

Three godfathers

Longlegs is haunted by three ghosts-- the eponymous serial killer (Nicholas Cage) who possesses the supernatural ability to pop up inside family's homes and end them; Anthony Perkins (father of the film's writer-director Osgood Perkins), who portrayed perhaps the most famed killer in all of cinema); and director Alfred Hitchcock, whose tremendous success with said film condemned Perkins Senior to a lifelong career of cheap knockoffs and increasingly inferior sequels. 

MaXXXine (Ti West, 2024)

Maxie goes to Hollywood

X had Mia Goth's Maxine shooting a porn flick on a farm owned by elderly Pearl (also Mia Goth) the same time she's being stalked by a serial killer; Pearl as prequel to X sketches the eponymous woman's life as a young farmer's spouse in 1918, uncovering her dreams and frustrations and why Maxine's barebones film production outfit fascinates her so. 

Superhero movies

Ubermensch

You could start a discussion on superhero movies at any point-- from the first Zorro movie in the '20s to Marvel Studios' 2011 Captain America-- but in my book the genre properly began in 1933, with a superpowered vegetarian.

Planet Hong Kong

Cinema of the Overdose

Reading the introduction to David Bordwell’s Planet Hong Kong is like reading a friend’s letter on a rarely seen but fondly remembered common acquaintance. I’ve landed in the old Hong Kong International Airport (not all that terrifying if you’re fond of rollercoasters); I’ve walked down Nathan Road with its countless flashing neons and rushing pedestrians and clacking traffic lights (for the benefit of the visually impaired: slow beat when red, rapid tattoo when green). I’ve seen the Cultural Centre, a graceful hulk of maroon bathroom tiles that always ends up as photo background for every just-married couple to walk out of the Civil Registry. And walking to the back of the Centre, I always pause and take in the view-- the one and only breathtaking panorama of Hong Kong harbor with its choppy waves, toy ferryboats bobbing up and down, glass-and-steel towers raking the bellies of clouds.

Oh and yes I too have eaten in Chungking Mansion. Cheap food, and quite good--recommend the roast duck on rice with hot broth on the side.

Inside Out 2 (Kelsey Mann, 2024)

Public hair

Aaaand just because it's summer and we're all entitled to a bit of fun, thought I'd drop in and check out how Pixar's doing.

In A Lonely Place (Nicholas Ray, 1950, from the book by Dorothy B. Hughes)

Killer inside me

(Warning: details from the novel and film discussed in explicit detail)

Reading Dorothy B. Hughes' 1947 novel In a Lonely Place and watching Nicholas Ray's 1950 adaptation is like experiencing the difference between night and day: Hughes' novel takes place mostly at night it seems, in dense fog; you often confuse the misty Los Angeles evenings for Dix Steele's twilight view-- occasionally there's the glare of a passing streetlamp, but it quickly fades into the haze. 

Ray's film feels as if it takes place mostly in sunlight; even its interiors radiate the glow of studio kliegs-- the film is described as a noir but if we adhere to strict definitions it breaks one rule of noir: not a lot of shadows onscreen. The look of Ray's films can diverge from the norm (see his debut work They Live By Night) but in this case he opts for the standard-issue brightness of a Hollywood production-- why?

The Munekata Sisters (Munekata Shimai, Yasujiro Ozu, 1950)

Sister act

Ozu working for another studio?! The idea seems unheard of, like the director doing a film noir or shooting an explicitly erotic scene. But in fact Ozu's done at least one gangster flick (Dragnet Girl) and three films outside of Shochiku, of which this one was the first (the other two were his 1951 remake Floating Weeds and his second-to-the-last The End of Summer (1961)). As for The Munekata Sisters, Shintoho studios-- basically 'New Toho,' as the actors there had defected from the old studio due to labor disputes-- needed reputable directors and lured Ozu away by offering him more money: 50 million yen, or $140,000 1950 dollars (around $1.8 million today).

Hit Man (Richard Linklater, 2023)

Assassin's creed

Richard Linklater's Hit Man -- adapted from the Texas Monthly magazine piece of the same name written by Skip Hollandsworth-- is that rare news article adaptation that takes an interesting premise (ordinary joe poses as assassin-for-hire for New Orleans PD sting operation) and pushes it to its logical extreme, or at least as extreme as the director can manage. Glen Powell is Gary Johnson, a philosophy professor who teases his students with questions like "What if your self is a construction?" Linklater wastes no time testing that postulate: one day the operation finds itself without a plainclothes officer to deliver the sting, and Gary's colleagues coax him to step in instead.

Utamaro and his Five Women (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1946) in 35 mm

Immortal beloved 

(Warning: plot twists explicitly discussed in detail)

Utamaro and His Five Women begins with a procession-- the camera gliding past men and women in elaborate kimonos with umbrellas held up like banners; cherry blossoms lining the boulevard, arthritic branches holding up tufts of cottony blossoms that suggest a startling depth (you're reminded of Max Fleischer's stereoptical experiments in Popeye). The procession drones on, the men stride forward, the women-- those perched on wooden clogs-- take huge circling steps, their heads bobbing up and down in sinuous waves. It's a fantastic throwaway gesture of virtuosity, as if Mizoguchi had decided to pick up the baton and conduct a warmup passage. 

Furiousa: a Mad Max Saga (George Miller, 2024)

Book of genesis

George Miller's Furiosa may bill itself as a 'Mad Max Saga' but don't be fooled: it's less an action epic than an origin fable, a myth made in the telling. Where Fury Road was a hurtling bristling juggernaut of armor and wheels smashing everything in its way, Furiosa is more like a decades-long odyssey, of a woman seeking revenge, her home, and finally herself.  

Evil Does Not Exist (Aku wa Sonzai Shinai, Ryusuke Hamaguchi, 2023)

Evil never dies

Rysuke Hamaguchi's Evil Does Not Exist grew out of a collaborative project with his longtime composer Eiko Ishibashi, who had asked for a film to accompany her live concerts. The concert film-- GIFT-- ended up running seventy-four minutes long; the source footage however apparently took root in Hamaguchi's head and sprouted into a 106 minute film (relatively short for Hamaguchi-- Drive My Car was 179 minutes and Happy Hour 317 minutes) that Hamaguchi released as a separate but not necessarily independent feature.  

Bona 44 years later (Lino Brocka, 1980)

Bona, 44 years later

There's a lovely symmetry to having the restored print of Lino Brocka's Bona (1980) screened in the 2024 Cannes Classics section, in the same city where the film had its world premiere (at the parallel Director's Fortnight) decades ago. Feels like a combination homecoming, resurrection, revelation all at the same time.

Condemned (Mario O'Hara, 1984)

The perfect noir

Mario O'Hara's Condemned (1984) is Aunor at her most baroque and noirish. O'Hara populates the streets of Ermita (the heart of Manila's sordid night life) with pimps, prostitutes, transvestites, with cruising straight and gay men and women; with couriers, snitches, corrupt cops, gang lords, bodyguards, killers. As in Lino Brocka's Maynila sa Mga Kuko ng Liwanag (Manila in the Claws of Neon, 1975) it's a vision of Manila as one of the lower circles of hell. But not a depressed hell, nor a hell where the inhabitants accept their fate with sad resignation-- this inferno crackles with the energy of the damned dancing their way from one torment to another, stabbing and shrieking and fornicating and, well, not giving a damn.

Bona (Lino Brocka, 1980)

Bona: martyr or monster?

(Plot discussed in explicit detail)

Lino Brocka's Bona is possibly the least-seen of his major works, partly because the two remaining good prints of the picture had been squirreled away abroad (to the Cinematheque Francais and the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art) while Filipinos back home had to content themselves with fading recollections and equally faded Betamax tapes. Everyone remembers how powerful the film was; no one can rightly say they've actually seen it, at least in recent years.

Manananggal in Manila (Monster in Manila, Mario O'Hara, 1997)

RIP Floy Quintos

Melancholy In Manila

What's the definition of ambivalence? Your brand-new Mercedes Benz driving off a cliff's edge with your mother-in-law inside, screaming. Or, in this case, starting 1997 with a horror film by Mario O'Hara in which all but the last ten minutes of the movie are terrific--the catch being that those ten or so minutes are awful beyond words.

Bakit Bughaw ang Langit? (Why is the Sky Blue?, Mario O'Hara, 1981)

The court of public opinion

Mario O'Hara's Bakit Bughaw ang Langit? (Why is the Sky Blue? 1981) opens with panoramic views of Manila. We see Babette Gomez (Nora Aunor) and her family arrive at an apartment complex; movers unload furniture carry it into their new home. O'Hara's camera watches as the family settles in and we come to know each member-- imperious Sofia (Anita Linda) presiding over the operation; sullen Nardo (Mario Escudero) carrying out his wife's orders; beautiful Lorie who barks like her mother, but at a lesser volume; quiet Babette-- their other daughter-- skittering about doing as much of the heavy lifting as the movers.

We meet the neighbors: Marta (Melly Mallari), owner of the "sari-sari" (grocery) store at the complex entrance; Cora (Alicia Alonzo) and her unemployed husband Domeng (Rene Hawkins); Luring (Metring David) with a sideline selling clothes and her son Bobby (Dennis Roldan). Only courtly old Mang Jesus (Carpi Asturias) seems to notice Babette; they talk of the tiny cacti she's raising, and she notes (without any irony) that succulents flourish on very little care and water. Luring offers Sofia clothes and her life's story-- she's raising Bobby on her own and needs to watch him all the time because he can't care for or defend himself (he's a young adult with the mind of a child) so she can't go out to earn a living. Sofia makes a proposal: instead of paying for the clothes, maybe Babette can come feed Bobby while Luring is gone.

And so Babette finds herself with a plate of food at Luring's door looking in (you think of little girls in fairy tales peering into dark dens, wondering at the silence). She finds Bobby upstairs, chained, sets the food before him; he hunches over the plate, eating with his fingers. Later, Babette asks Bobby for his basketball-- to clean it, she explains; Bobby hands the ball over after some hesitation. For the first time O'Hara cuts to a closeup-- of Babette's face then of Bobby's (before this the picture has been all long and medium shots). They have somehow connected.

Civil War (Alex Garland, 2024)

This means war

Alex Garland's Civil War is set in the near future (from Max Headroom: "20 minutes into the future") but traces its roots to the recent past, particularly films on journalists or photojournalists wading into war zones trying to catch the story: Under Fire, The Year of Living Dangerously, The Killing Fields, Salvador.

The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer, 2023)

House & garden

Jonathan Glazer's The Zone of Interest begins with a band of solid black held for an interminable time-- Mica Levi's sound collages growling from the big screen-- then cut to a German family picnicking on a lakeside meadow. They pack up, go home, arrive after sunset, fall asleep (mother and father in separate beds). Next morning father is hurriedly dressing but the children play a little game, blindfolding him and leading him to the front courtyard where they surprise him with a new canoe, and of course if you know anything about the film's premise you're waiting-- but even if you don't know anything you can't help but tense up as you wonder: why is the camera so claustrophobically locked in the direction of the house, why are we seeing the canoe only from one side and not the other? Finally father must leave, steps away from the canoe; cut to that long-anticipated reverse shot-- father climbs onto his horse, a guard tower looming over him as his animal walks him leisurely into work. 

Blade 2 (Guillermo del Toro, 2002

Hot Blood Sundae

Blade 2 doesn’t so much improve on the first one as it does evolve-- like the creatures at center stage-- beyond. Both movies are based on Marvel’s comic book series, about a half-human, half-vampire hunter who uses a stylish mix of whirling chrome knives and state-of-the-art tech to hunt his bloodsucking brethren.

Christ almighty

Questioning The Passion of the Christ

Mel Gibson and his publicists have repeatedly claimed that his The Passion of the Christ is the most historically accurate of all pictures made on Jesus.