The Odyssey (Christopher Nolan, 2026)

Long day's journey into night

(Warning: story and plot twists of the movie-- and the three thousand year old epic poem the movie is based on-- discussed in explicit detail!)

First things first: Got no problem with Lupita Nyong'o's Helen/Clytemnestra or Elliot Page's Sinon (not Achilles as conservative pundits had complained about early on); Helen's fierce bitterness about being pawn and property to Menelaus (Jon Bernthal) and Sinon's hauntingly solemn reproaches to Odysseus for using him as bait are rare bright spots in the movie. 

I do have problems with Matt Damon as Odysseus. 

I Love Boosters (Boots Riley, 2026)

Marximum overdrive

Boots Riley's I Love Boosters is a truckload of fun. Gang of shoplifters (The Velvet Gang-- Corvette (Keke Palmer), Mariah (Taylour Paige), Sade (Naomi Ackie)) prey on a chain of fashion stores (Metro Designers) owned by ultrarich Christie Smith (Demi Moore); they're joined by Chinese factory worker Jianhu (Poppy Liu) and her band of laborers: high-style hijinks ensue. 

Obsession (Curry Barker, 2025)

I'd do anything for love

(Warning: story and plot twists discussed in explicit detail)

Curry Barker Obsession (2025) is basically W.W. Jacobs' "The Monkey's Paw," and "Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp" meet Fatal Attraction and Misery-- nothing startling new, only he's leaned into the sneaky comic spin of the premise, has a terrific cast to inhabit the roles, and the visual chops to tell the story with snap and zing.

Nosferatu 2024, 1979, 1922 (Robert Eggers, Werner Herzog, FW Murnau)

The blood drinkers

(WARNING: story and plot twists discussed in explicit and gory detail)

FW Murnau did a low-budget unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula titled Nosferatu (1922) which Stoker's widow pursued with a vengeance, demanding all prints and negatives be destroyed (despite which the film went on to achieve unholy immortality); Werner Herzog did a remake in 1979 employing ten thousand rats and his own inimitable filmmaking style; now Robert Eggers-- who professes admiration for the Murnau-- has crafted his own version, shifting emphasis from vampire to victim in his 2024 remake. 

And how does Eggers' compare? Well let me tell you.

Twin Peaks Season 3, Episode 8: "Got a light?"

Ignition

(WARNING story discussed in explicit detail--though how comprehensible details may be is a matter of debate, with both discussion and debate an exercise in futility)

The episode's putative title-- "Got a light?" sounds odd on first reading (online you see it under the episode's thumbnail pic) gains significance later on. 

Starts off plottily enough: Evil Mr. C (Kyle MacLachlan) and less evil Ray (George Griffith) have blackmailed their way out of prison, shaken away any electronic tracers*, turned off into a small side road (how can Lynch fill interminable shots of cars nosing down dirt roads with such dread?). They confront each other, demanding money demanding information, with C pointing the 'friend' he pulled from the glove compartment (a special request planted there by the prison warden) at Ray.

Only C's gun somehow fails to fire. Only Ray in a clever twist produces his own gun shooting C twice in the gut. Only when C drops the lights start flickering and shadowy figures emerge from the woods, dancing around C's body, pulling apart his belly, smearing his own gore on his face, squeezing out an egg sac larva with BOB visibly floating inside (Ray: "I saw something in Cooper. It might be the key to what this is all about.").

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. 

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.

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.

El Conde (Pablo Larrain, 2023)

Bloodsucker

I remember mentioning a notable name in the Filipino film industry to one of our better filmmakers, who declared him "an impakto" --Tagalog for 'bloodsucker.'

I looked at him. "Really? How about--" and mentioned someone else. "Another impakto." "And--?" "Yet another impakto!" I tossed off several more names and all he could say was "impakto, the lot of them."

Which conversation I remember while watching Pablo Larrain's latest feature, a rather obvious high concept horror comedy that answers the question: what if Augusto Pinochet was a vampire? Not a political or metaphoric monster draining Chile of its economic prosperity but a literal supernatural leech?

Caridad (from 'Fe, Esperanza, Caridad,' Gerardo de Leon, 1974)

A love profane

If anyone doubted Filipina singer/actress Nora Aunor's popularity in the late '60s to early '70s one only had to glance at her filmography, during which period she was on something worse than a hot streak, doing an unbelievable seventy or so films in seven years, from 1967 onwards. 

The Boy and the Heron (Hayao Miyazaki, 2023)

Angry birds

Both a pain and a pleasure to write about a new Hayao Miyazaki film-- a pleasure because for some three years after the man's previous last film it looked as if he had really retired and for seven years after looked as if he'd never finish the film before, well, you know. But finish he did, and now pain comes from the possibility this may really be his last-- he's 82, the picture certainly feels like a summation, and as high points go this as good as any to bow out on. 

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (Edgar Wright 2010)

Game on

Not a big fan of video games. The last game I took even halfway serious was Missile Command back in the '80s-- something somehow addictive about keeping all those relentlessly approaching nuclear missiles from wiping out everything you know and love, something somehow traumatic about the big flashing THE END that flashed your failure That, plus the cool trackball spinning in one hand, sending the crosshairs skittering across the screen--what's not to like?

Howl's Moving Castle (Hayao Miyazaki, 2004)

Man in a high castle

Hayao Miyazaki's version of Diana Wynne Jones' Howl's Moving Castle  lurches out of mysterious fog right at the start of the film-- a gigantically mutated armored version of the Baba Yaga's chicken-leg house, complete with gun-turret eyes and brassplated tongue. The castle bristles with balconies and smokestacks and batwings (Fish fins? Chinese junk sails?); popped out of one side of its head is a little chapel tipped with crucifix; a brick tail (Anus? Rearward penis?) trails between balljointed legs ending in a door lit by a solitary lamp. It's like Miyazaki had spent a month brainstorming ideas for the castle's look got over a dozen good suggestions (Munchausen whale island, steampunk samurai, flying fortress cyborg) struggled to choose among them hit upon an inspired thought: why not use them all?

Toy Story (John Lasseter, 1995)

Toyed are us

Toy Story is a warm, witty, precisely paced entertainment. It has all your favorite toys, featured in one movie. It has the voice of Tom Hanks and Tim Allen, two proven actors with a pair of Oscars and several hundred million in boxoffice between them. It has wall-to-wall state-of-the-art computer graphic effects designed to pop your eyes out if you’re not careful. It has the multimedia might of the Walt Disney conglomerate behind it for heavy marketing muscle. It’s going to be the biggest hit of the year. 

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. 

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.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (MIchel Gondry, 2004)

Brain wash

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is yet another product of eccentric enigmatic scriptwriter Charlie Kaufman's brain, a light-footed riff on love loss memory forgetting.

Ang Sawa sa Lumang Simboryo (The Python in the Old Dome, Gerardo de Leon, 1955)

Phallic symbol

Gerardo de Leon's Ang Sawa sa Lumang Simboryo tells the story of an outsized man: Tulume (Jose Padilla Jr.), former farmer turned bandit when the Spanish Guardia Civil (Civil Guards) kill his wife (this during the years of Spanish rule). Now he's leader of his own gang, with a bounty of thousands on his head.

Three Thousand Years of Longing (George Miller, 2022)

I dream of Djinnie

George Miller's Three Thousand Years of Longing isn't exactly an action extravaganza like Mad Max: Fury Road-- but then Miller isn't exactly an action filmmaker, or isn't only an action filmmaker. He's done medical dramas (Lorenzo's Oil), children's films (Babe: Pig in the City, Happy Feet), bizarre literary adaptations (The Witches of Eastwick); he's done arguably the best episode of The Twilight Zone ever filmed (a remake of "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet"). His forays into fantasy and horror are at least as interesting for the distinct ways they handle special effects (Babe: Pig in the City looks and feels like Maurice Sendak high on mushrooms) as for what they have to say (the fantasy and especially the horror genre being arguably better at addressing our anxieties than mere action flicks).