Asedillo (Celso Ad Castillo, 1971)

Gun and typewriter

By 1971 Celso Ad Castillo had written and directed a number of features when he was tapped by Fernando Poe Jr. to direct a biopic on one Teodoro Asedillo, a former schoolteacher and police chief turned revolutionary during the American Occupation. 

Apparently the two were feeling each other out. Ad Castillo may be a veteran filmmaker, having written eighteen scripts and nine features previously, but FPJ (as Poe is popularly known) had at this point directed eight, produced fifty, acted in approximately ninety. Ad Castillo must have acquitted himself well; FPJ called him 'my little genius' and asked him to direct three more pictures in quick succession (Ang Alamat, 1972; Sto Domingo, 1972; and Esteban, 1973)

FPJ was said to have impressed Ad Castillo in turn with the scene of Asedillo addressing the people of San Antonio (see pic above) who, thanks to American propaganda, have lost faith in him. The shoot happened in the latter part of the day, involved a high wide shot with plenty of extras, was eight pages long on paper including an intense monologue; on top of which they had already been delayed some three to four hours setting up. FPJ was exhausted; his brow furrowed while reading the script, and no one knew if he was happy or not with what Ad Castillo had written. 

Then the movie star launched into it: a long, involved speech at the end of which he was yelling himself hoarse, and you felt the frustration exhaustion and anger in his voice wasn't all acting.*

Troy (Wolfgang Petersen, 2004)

Looking a gift horse in the mouth

Wolfgang Peterson's Troy is an odd mix-- a summer blockbuster with the patina of a sincere attempt at adapting a literary classic painted all over its bright surface. David Benioff's script, loosely-- very loosely-- based on Homer's epic, tries to re-imagine the story as it might really have happened, that is, closer to what people might conceivably have thought and felt, filtered through what we might feel happened. For starters, Benioff (a newcomer, but not an entirely inept one--he wrote the novel 25th Hour and adapted it for Spike Lee to direct) does away with all the inconvenient gods and goddesses, without whom you get the impression Greeks and Trojans couldn't put one foot in front of the other much less wage a war. Then he incorporates a more cynical, more realpolitik motive for Agamemnon (Brian Cox) to go into battle: not to win back his brother Menelaus' (Brendan Gleeson) stolen wife Helen (Diane Kruger), but to use her kidnapping as a pretext to move on Troy, a bid to add the mighty kingdom to his already impressive collection of conquered territories (an act of arrogant aggression, in effect, by an established world power).

Pressure (Anthony Maras, 2026)

Sunny with a chance of rain 

Anthony Maras' Pressure (2026)-- based on a 2014 play by David Haig-- answers a question no one thought to ask before: can a riveting thriller be made out of weathermen? Not storm chasers (looking at you Twister); not disaster flicks involving climate change (You too Day After Tomorrow and Geostorm)-- I mean weathermen, folk who pore over isobaric maps and stare at thermometers and take windspeed readings. The science nerds.

Apparently the answer is yes if-- big if-- 1) We're talking Operation Overlord, 160,000 troops launched on 7,000 ships supported by 12,000 aircraft, arguably the largest seaborne invasion in history; and 2) Landing point's on the Normandy coast in France, at the center of one of the most unpredictable weather systems on the planet. 

Lord of the Flies (1954) v Lord of the Flies (1963) v Alkitrang Dugo (Clotted Blood, 1975) v Lord of the Flies (1990) v Lord of the Flies (Netflix, 2026)

Pig hunt

(Warning: plot and surprise twists in book and TV series discussed in explicit detail)

I remember reading William Golding's 1954 debut novel as a teen and having nightmares about running through the jungle with other boys in pursuit, waving sticks sharpened at both ends-- did not help the development of my socialization skills, lemme tell you. 

The book comes off as a fable, the characters barely sketched-in symbols, the theme clear enough and neat enough for literature majors to milk for their theses: humans have this ingrown tendency to violence, and we flirt with or ignore it at our peril. Really that simple, the novel's chief virtue and key weakness, and folks who seek to adapt it flirt with this fact or ignore it at their peril. 

La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc (The Passion of Joan of Arc, Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1928)

The stripping of Joan

Finally saw Carl Theodor Dreyer's 1928 silent La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc on projected video (thanks to Alliance Francais), with music but without subtitles (no thanks Alliance, though to be fair they tried their level best to get one), so I watched without having understood a word. Nevertheless: an incredible film, one of the greatest-- silent French or otherwise-- ever.

The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc

The Fashion of Joan of Arc

Carl Dreyer’s 1928 French silent La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc is one of the greatest films-- French, silent, otherwise-- ever;  Luc Besson’s 1999 The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc is possibly one of the silliest-- French, epic, otherwise-- and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Such is progress.

Dreyer’s film is an astonishingly spare work, essentially a hundred and ten minutes of gigantic close-ups strung together and little else. No fat nothing extraneous-- each shot adds to the film’s sense of inevitability, each cut (1,500 of them) accelerates momentum. Besson’s at two hours and twenty minutes has little meat-- as if Besson had tossed in everything learned in grade school about Joan but stopped short before freshman year. Dreyer’s has the courage of a consummate artist with an idea of what he wants to present to the world;  Besson’s has the courage of a consummate hack, piling special effect upon special effect in the hope that heat and pressure would build inside his digitally enhanced big-budgeted compost heap and ignite to yield a vision.

Nightjohn (Charles Burnett, 1996)

The fruit of the tree of knowledge

Charles Burnett's Nightjohn (1996)-- about the perils of slaves learning to read in the early 19th century South-- succeeds in transforming the for-the-whole-family TV-movie (Hallmark Channel produced, Disney distributed) into something more unsettling (screened this for my students back when I was teaching at-risk youths, and one of the most common responses was: "This was on the Disney Channel?").

"Wuthering Heights" (Emerald Fennell, 2026)

Doddering Heights

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

Wouldn't condemn Emerald Fennell's "Wuthering Heights" for taking liberties with Emily Bronte, but would condemn the film for making such weak tea out of her novel.

Agreed the Byronic protagonist should be darkskinned-- though every Heathcliff in most every adaptation has been white (Olivier, Fiennes); agreed taking out Hindley is a grievous wound (combining the man who adopts Heathcliff with the man who most hates Heathcliff makes for a veddy confusing character); agreed cutting out the novel's second half truncates much of the story's power (though most every version including the classic 1939 William Wyler adaptation does just that)-- Fennel coulda woulda shoulda but didn't and if we hew to the principle that adaptations must have leeway for the art to breathe life in another medium then she didn't haveta.

What I do find unacceptable is the softening of the main characters. Emily's Catherine to put it bluntly is a bitch, Emily's Heathcliff a sonfabitch, and their relationship has a strong whiff of incest about it (implied but never stated that Heathcliff is likely Mr. Earnshaw's bastard child-- and Catherine likely his half-sister). I'd even object to Fennell's turning Nelly (Hong Chau) into an underhanded villain, tho there are hints here and there-- the crucial scene in the novel when Heathcliff eavesdrops (why didn't Nelly warn Catherine?) comes to mind. I've heard criticism that the whole course of the novel depended on such a little thing-- a man listening and leaving at just the right moment-- but truth of the matter is anything could have split the two up: a punch in the gut, a slap in the face, a trivial spat. Catherine and Heathcliff are what you'd call 'compelling'-- characters you'd love to read about in a gothic novel but hell to actually live with day to day. They're so stubborn they'd find the slightest excuse to fight; they're their own worst enemies. Shifting the blame on Nelly as Fennell does absolves them of what they've done to each other, lessens the tragedy of their relationship.   

Hamnet (Chloe Zhao, 2025)

To mourn or not to mourn

Chloe Zhao's latest-- adapted by Zhao and Maggie O'Farrell from O'Farrell's well-regarded 2020 novel-- is a tearjerker, most people will agree. The question one might ask: does it earn our tears, or are we overindulging?

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Ang Lee, 2000)

Slouching tiger, limping dragon

Early in the film Chow Yun Fat's swordsman Bai Li Mu hands his weapon named The Green Destiny to fellow warrior Lien Yu Shu (Michelle Yeoh), asking her to give it to a common friend to hide-- he's retiring from a life of bloodshed, he tells her. Cut to the friend's house: Yeoh has the sword wrapped in a cloth when she bumps into another guest, the Governor's daughter Jen (Zhang Ziyi), a woman she has never met before, and what does she do next? Pulls out the sword and starts showing it off.

A Touch of Zen (King Hu, 1971)

Sword and cinema sorcery

King Hu's A Touch of Zen differs from his earlier Dragon Gate Inn and later The Valiant Ones in that the film begins not with a heroic character, but humble one: Ku Shen Chai (Shi Chun), a scholar who wastes his education writing letters and painting portraits on commission. Ku is visited by Ouyang Nin (Ting Peng) who asks for a portrait; Ku, sketching, is struck by the intensity of Ouyang's eyes. When Ouyang abruptly leaves him to follow herbalist Dr. Lu (Sit Hon), Ku is intrigued by his manner, and follows. Hu stages, shoots and edits this surveillance-within-a-surveillance so skillfully that not only are we caught up with it we also get a quick lesson in the town's local geography: we know where Ku's portrait shop is in relation to Dr. Lu's herb stand; we know exactly at what point Dr. Lu disappears (to the consternation of Ouyang Nin); when Dr. Lu reappears behind watchful Ku, we are as startled as he is.

The marvelous sequence, utilizing not a line of dialogue, does several things at once: it strikes the right note of intrigue and mystery, introduces three important characters (Ouyang Nin, Ku, Dr. Lu), sketches their relationship to each other (follower, second follower, followed), emphasizes the fascination Ouyang Nin has for Ku. It also shows Hu the director effortlessly tossing off a masterful piece of cinema for no other reason than that it serves the story.

Quezon (Jerrold Tarog, 2025)

Quezon!

Start right off with a caveat: not a historian, merely a student of film. I can talk of storytelling and visual style, but of historical facts about the period and details of the man himself? At most I can repeat what I've found through online research, perhaps hazard a few inexpert opinions based on what I've read. 

Jerrold Tarrog's Quezon (2025) begins in quietly spectacular fashion, taking its cue from the film that inspired many an aspiring director, Welles' Citizen Kane: a silent short depicting the younger Quezon (Benjamin Alves) during the Philippine-American War; for the rest of the running time fictional journalist Joven Hernando (Cris Villanueva) dogs Quezon's heels, digging into and commenting on the man's life the way Jerry Thompson dug into and commented on Charles Foster Kane. Tarog with cinematographer Pong Ignacio (who lensed the previous two installments of the director's period epic) employs the kind of sweeping camera movements Welles used in his second feature The Magnificent Ambersons, or Bertolucci in 1900 or-- to name a model closer to home-- Peque Gallaga in his wartime drama Oro Plata Mata (mind you, I'm not ranking Mr. Tarog as equal to Welles or even Bertolucci, just citing influences).   

Le Grand Illusion (Grand Illusion, Jean Renoir, 1937)

Goodness gracious

(WARNING: story discussed in explicit detail)

Some find La Grand Illusion (Grand Illusion, 1937) formless, which I suspect only proves Renoir's artistry. The film does have a design, buried in so much minutiae, told in such an unprepossessing manner, that you can't really be blamed for missing it (as if Renoir ever intended you to see it in the first place). The film is structured like a three-act play, with trimmings: a short prologue gives us the setup and introduces two of four major characters-- Boldieu (Pierre Fresnay) calls out Mareschal (Jean Gabin) to join him on a reconnaissance mission; a quick wipe and Boldieu and Mareschal are POWs meeting the third major character, the officer who shot them down, Rauffenstein (Erich Von Stroheim).

One Battle After Another (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2025)

The neverending struggle

Paul Thomas Anderson has taken Thomas Pynchon's 1990 novel Vineland and turned it into an epic production about immigration raids, white supremacy, radical leftist groups, generational conflicts, a father's love for his daughter and vice-versa-- the picture feels so overstuffed with high drama low farce and handheld ordnance you don't feel much if any of the 166 minute running time. 

I'll call it: easily Anderson's best most ambitious most appealing work to date. 

Magellan (Lav Diaz, 2025)

Killing fields

Looked down at my notes after just having finished Lav Diaz's latest Magellan (2025) I see-- circled and underlined, on top of the page-- the words: 'so much killing!'

Ran (Akira Kurosawa, 1985)

Burning down the house

Been years since I saw Akira Kurosawa's Ran (1985) and decades since I saw it projected (an unimpressive 16 mm print in an improvised theater). Watching the 2016 4K UHD restoration on the big screen forty years after its premiere is like watching a storm surge approach shore: you're confronted with an unstoppable wall stretching from end to end, and you're not sure whether to run (where to?) or fall on your knees in worship. 

And then you realize, after so many viewings, like a shock of saltwater to the face: damn, but this film is funny.

Fantastic Four: First Steps (Matt Shakman, 2025)

Take four

You wonder why Marvel's First Family (and first collaboration between writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby) would have so much trouble transitioning to the big screen when predecessors (Captain America) and contemporaries (Iron Man; The Avengers) went on to cause a bigger splash; suspect it all stems from something folks behind those efforts remembered that folks behind this team's previous incarnations forgot: that it isn't the cosmic-ray powers that appeal to readers so much as the motivations they hold for fighting crime, supervillains, various forces of evil and injustice. Not the what, to paraphrase a key lesson taught in Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, as the why.

Sinners (Ryan Coogler, 2025)

The Devil Blues

The first forty minutes of Ryan Coogler's Sinners may be one of the best films of 2025. The rest? Not so much. 

The Brutalist (Brady Corbet, 2024)

The fountainhead

Brady Corbet's The Brutalist is his three-and-a-half hour Vistavision biopic on a Hungarian-born Jewish architect who emigrates to the United States for a fresh start on life-- use the word 'biopic' loosely because Laszlo Toth is nominally based on Hungarian architect Marcel Breuer only Breuer wasn't a Holocaust survivor, didn't scrabble too hard for his living, and didn't fanatically insist on having every detail of his plans exactly carried out; Corbet needed spicier material to work on, hence the changes.

The film is about capitalism, anti-Semitism, racism (kind of), and the immigrant experience in America; it's big in almost every sense of the word, down to the expansive 70 mm frame-- an extraordinary achievement considering this was shot for a slim $9 million. 

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.