There are many lessons learned in Lauren Greenfield’s illuminating documentary on Imelda Marcos. It is probably the most piercingly truthful, critically revealing, all-encompassingly no-holds-barred account of Imelda Marcos and her family. It covers her glory years as First Lady of the Philippines to her eventual downfall up to the current era with her son Senator Bong Bong Marcos recently running and losing the 2016 vice-presidency race.
Category: Movie Reviews
Nope, this is not a Magnolia ice cream flavour of the month. UNBREAKABLE is an epic-length Filipino-style melodrama about female bonding and friendship as it stands the test of time. The plotline is engulfed in tragedies and plot twists that encapture you as an audience despite the uneven subtlety at some points of the story. Nevertheless, there are enough dramatic moments and conflicts peppered throughout the film to keep you involved through its climactic end.
The Oscars are here again, and it has been quite a competitive year, with many deserving hopefuls vying only for five nominee slots in each major category. Even the much-coveted Best Picture award has a healthy set of nine nominees, above the usual eight films, nearing its limit of ten slots.
Every once in a while, the cinematic stars will align and produce a perfect combination of drama, romance, and comedy in a film. A movie that will take the viewers through an emotional journey that will enthral them even way after that movie experience. In HELLO, LOVE, GOODBYE, it has done just that.
Finally, a documentary about Filipino cuisine is launched to the gastronomical delight of food and film critics. Filipino-American documentary filmmaker Alexandra Cuerdo helms ULAM: MAIN DISH. With this, she has deliciously concocted not only an immersion into Filipino cuisine but also an exploration of Filipino culture. It is also a study of the Filipino migrant experience and even a side trip into the history of Philippine politics and government.
THE ISLAND THAT ALL FLOW BY is an unconventional love story between a money-desperate toll booth collector and a puerile truck driver. This TV movie, written and directed by Chan Ching-lin, shines in all aspects with its delicate restrained scripting and excellent performances. It premiered on CTV and CTI Entertainment in April 2016.
Actions speak louder than words in Tsai Ming-liang’s third of his trilogy on urban isolation and loneliness, a confrontational drama involving a father-son entanglement. THE RIVER is known to be the “bleakest” work of the master auteur, and this masterpiece is quite a highlight at the Taiwan Film Festival 2019 in Sydney, Australia.
Filmed in grainy 16mm, Lim Lung Yin’s OHONG VILLAGE is a modern-day retelling of a disconnected and discontented filial relationship in a small ebbing fishing village. The decision to use film gives this drama a vintage quality to it that is Euro-style reflective and melancholic.
You know you are watching a film from a master perfectionist when everything is seamlessly interconnected and plausible no matter how improbable and far-fetched it could have been. In PARASITE, South Korean auteur filmmaker Bong Joon-ho has just done that.
Oscar season is upon us once again and it’s time to enjoy the year’s best in films. The following are my Oscar choices for the main categories, with my ranking for each and an explanation of my choices.