Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning

Run, Ethan run!

Gotta hand it to Tom Cruise: he took a nifty little TV series about a group of low-key intelligence operatives that work together as a team to solve near-impossible problems and turned it into a gigantic one-man showcase where a star-producer reportedly risks his life again and again on bigger more elaborate stunt setpieces, in gargantuan productions that, y'know, celebrate the beauty of self-sacrifice and teamwork. 

Thunderbolts* (Jake Schreier, 2025)

The B-Team*

*(Not the real Avengers)

So about that asterisk in the title-- (skip this one paragraph if you haven't seen the picture!) turns out it's exactly what it signifies, a mark meant to refer to a footnote or omitted matter, in this case the movie's real name The New Avengers, suggesting several things: 1) this is about the level of humor we're getting here on out, more meta and complicated and not that much funnier, and 2) this movie and the characters in it are placeholders for when the real thing arrives. 

Which is both unfair and totally appropriate. Thunderbolts* takes the classic premise of misfits so misbegotten they can't possibly work together and somehow contrive that they not only do so but also win the day: think the original The Avengers (2012), or (off the top of my head) Stripes (1981), or before that and without superpowers (or even military hardware) The Bad News Bears (1976); think all the way back to one of the earliest misfit teams ever assembled for impossible missions, Akira Kurosawa's 1954 Seven Samurai, with Florence Pugh in the Kambei Shimada role of putative leader and David Harbour in the Kikuchiyo role of big-hearted comic relief. 

Tuhog (Larger Than Life, Jeffrey Jeturian, 2001)

Skewered

Jeffrey Jeturian and Armando Lao’s Tuhog (Larger Than Life, 2001) is, simply put, a film about screwing-- about a mother being screwed, about her daughter being screwed, about their life's story being screwed over on the way to the big screen by an unscrupulous pair of softcore filmmakers

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. 

'Merika (Gil Portes, 1984)

Alienated

Gil Portes' 'Merika (1984) opens the same way any ordinary life will usually open--in the morning, in bed. But Mila (Nora Aunor) can't seem to get out of bed; she can't seem to bring herself to touch the icy floor with her feet, or brave the chill air beyond her room. She has to sit there, shivering, her comforter wrapped around her like protective coating.

Bulaklak sa City Jail (Flowers of the City Jail, Mario O'Hara, 1984) - restored version

The caged bird sings

(The film is available with English subtitles on the ABS CBN Star Cinema YouTube Channel, and on Apple TV)

If I remember right I saw Mario O'Hara's Bulaklak sa City Jail (Flowers of the City Jail) on its opening run back in 1984 and thrilled to the story of Angela Aguilar (Nora Aunor), a hapless woman jailed for 'frustrated murder.' Based on Lualhati Bautista's novel of the same name, sequences stayed in memory-- Angela's first night reception (where her cellmates practically raped her); the attempted escape through an old mansion's garden statuary; her pursuit by police through Manila Zoo. I remember the lurid red of the nightclub where Angela sings, the bleak glow of cellblock lights, the deep shadows of the zoo. 

And I remember how in screenings and various Betamax and VHS recordings since how those colors have faded, the image blurred, been accompanied by questionable translations (Caged Blossoms?), how watching the film in a special screening at the Hong Kong Film Festival felt like looking through a muddied window-- and this was the only surviving 35 mm print! 

Thanks then to ABS CBN's digital restoration for bringing those colors back-- the lurid reds, the bleak glow, the deep shadows.

Nora Aunor (1953 - 2025)

Philippine cinema's dark beauty

Nora Aunor is arguably Philippine cinema's greatest actress.