May 4, 2008
SM Cebu Cinema 6
7:00 PM
Attendance: a pitiful 3% of capacity
Previews: Just in time in coming in. Missed all of them.
Story:
More than a story about a woman who waits for the return of her lover whom she had not seen for over a decade, this is a story of a town in Cuyo, Palawan. This is a story of a small towns, traditions, beliefs, culture, and day-to-day life.
Thoughts:
Some brave reviewers called this the rebirth of Philippine cinema. If it's true, I'd say it came out of the womb gasping for breath. First, it opened along side Iron Man, this year's Hollywood curtain call for the Summer Blockbuster Season. People who are skeptical of or hate Tagalog movies will flock to Iron Man. Second, people who dig Tagalog movies and all the negative thoughts they connote will flock to "When Love Begins". The rest will skip the movies altogether and buy any of Shannon Hale's books (Goose Girl, Enna Burning, River Secrets, Princess Academy, A Book of a Thousand Days) that have recently been carried by National Bookstore. Only people who still believed that the Philippine cinema could produce good movies from time to time will go see this. And there were only 10 of us when I went to see it.
And it was confusing. For a simple enough premise, it managed to confuse the audience and probably itself. It tried to be a drama, comedy, romance, and suspense all at the same time, all the while (or perhaps because of it) becoming nothing more than a sketch of a small coastal town in the Philippines. From the first minute down to about five minutes before it ended, the movie beg me to ask questions, the biggest of which is what's the deal with Ploning? And at the very last minute we got the answer, in a monologue, with tears under the rain scene. The answer was wholly unsatisfying because there was no clue whatsoever that it was the reason why Ploning acted the way she did. And so it felt contrived. The writer or writers withheld information so that in the end they can surprise us with the answer.
I saw this movie as nothing more than the writer/director's vehicle for his love of his homeland in Palawan. Yeah, Cuyo is beautiful. Its beach breathtaking (in an undeveloped, natural kind of way). But mixing it with the unfocused and underdeveloped story of a girl named Ploning was an unfortunate decision. Add to this the decision to release it during the kickoff of the summer blockbuster season in the US (and the now common worldwide simultaneous release of big Hollywood movies) and this will inevitably be lost in the crowd. This is different from the usual Tagalog movie fare (not the least of which is the language used in the dialogues), but it shared the same weakness as the other Tagalog movies.
Would I see it again? No. Would I recommend it to my friends? No.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Theater Report: Iron Man
May 6, 2008
Ayala Center Cinema 1
6:10PM
Attendance: 95% of capacity
Previews:
(Missed some on the account of my companions having to buy food from a very slow-moving-line in KFC one level below the theater.)
Kung Fu Panda - looks fun, but Wall-E is the must watch animated feature for me
Indiana Jones 4 - I'm definitely watching this. As a kid I used to confused the theme song of the Raiders of the Lost Ark with the one from Star Wars. ROTLA theme is very catchy. It'd be good to hear it again now in Dolby Surround glory as Indy kicks enemy butts and gets the treasure. But I hope the company picks Narnia 2 as the Movie Night pick of May.
Story:
Tony Stark, billionaire-genius, owner of a big weapons manufacturing company gets kidnapped in Afghanistan and made a horrible discovery that the weapons his company manufactures are being used by enemy combatants to kill, among other, the very people he thought his weapons protect. Ha! I live in the Philippines. This is non-news. Anyway, Ugly Big Villain (UBV) #1 orders him to build a weapon (Jericho Missile System). Instead he, with the help of Token Assistant in A Wrong Place and Time #1, conjured an armor that would lead him to become Iron Man and escape captivity. As he tried to escape it was Ugly Big Villain #2 who tried to stop him with UBV#1 no where in sight. A somewhat confusing switch, if you really think about it. But you don't have much time to think because he escaped, perfected his armor, fell in love, betrayed, and went on to kill both UBVs (with #1 as the first token Enemy Kill), all the while spectacular explosions go off all around. Ok maybe not really all around, but that's how I saw the movie, a one heck of a spectacular fireworks display with deep enough characterizations and a way to start the Summer Blockbuster Season.
Thoughts:
The last sentence of the previous paragraph pretty much summed up what I thought about the movie. It's well worth the 140 pesos I didn't pay for the ticket on the account that it got picked by The Firm as the Movie Night pick for April and was able to get 1 of the 100 slots available. I'd say that it's like the Spider-man and the recent Batman movies. It's character-centric as opposed to just mindless-spectacle.
(Spoilers ahead. Stop reading if you plan to see the movie and don't want to have any idea what happens, though I try to be very vague as possible.)
Just don't think about it that much. Or else you'd realize that later in the movie it's revealed that UBVs and minions were actually supplied by Betrayer #1 with the very weapon that they tried to force Tony Stark to build for them. In fact, in the middle of the movie where UBV #1 gets killed you'd actually see the weapon in action being used by UBV #1 on innocent civilians. Then if you think even harder you'd realized that in what Pepper saw later about the supposedly ransom video for Mr. Stark the bad guys were paid to kill Stark, not kidnap him. Confusion to the Nth power. You'd see the kidnappers trying to up the price of killing Stark all the while asking him to build The Weapon (that Betrayer #1 already supplies them with). So I suggest that you just sit back and enjoy the ride and not to think too much. Or else you'd further realized that the UBVs already have brilliant minds that can read Iron Man armor design. What's stopping them from reverse engineering The Weapon they already had access to? Why do they need Stark? I know. They didn't need Stark. On the contrary, the screenwriters need that "premise" to have a reason for don't-care-much-for-the-world Stark to turn around and become Iron Man the superhero. Just accept it and enjoy. You definitely will.
Would I see it again? No, I'm saving up for Narnia 2 and Indiana Jones 4. Would I recommend it to my friends? Definitely, yes. It's fun. Unless you're saving your money to see "Ploning" starring Judy Ann Santos, an even more confusing movie than Iron Man for those who think too much. I'll post my theater report on Ploning next time.
Ayala Center Cinema 1
6:10PM
Attendance: 95% of capacity
Previews:
(Missed some on the account of my companions having to buy food from a very slow-moving-line in KFC one level below the theater.)
Kung Fu Panda - looks fun, but Wall-E is the must watch animated feature for me
Indiana Jones 4 - I'm definitely watching this. As a kid I used to confused the theme song of the Raiders of the Lost Ark with the one from Star Wars. ROTLA theme is very catchy. It'd be good to hear it again now in Dolby Surround glory as Indy kicks enemy butts and gets the treasure. But I hope the company picks Narnia 2 as the Movie Night pick of May.
Story:
Tony Stark, billionaire-genius, owner of a big weapons manufacturing company gets kidnapped in Afghanistan and made a horrible discovery that the weapons his company manufactures are being used by enemy combatants to kill, among other, the very people he thought his weapons protect. Ha! I live in the Philippines. This is non-news. Anyway, Ugly Big Villain (UBV) #1 orders him to build a weapon (Jericho Missile System). Instead he, with the help of Token Assistant in A Wrong Place and Time #1, conjured an armor that would lead him to become Iron Man and escape captivity. As he tried to escape it was Ugly Big Villain #2 who tried to stop him with UBV#1 no where in sight. A somewhat confusing switch, if you really think about it. But you don't have much time to think because he escaped, perfected his armor, fell in love, betrayed, and went on to kill both UBVs (with #1 as the first token Enemy Kill), all the while spectacular explosions go off all around. Ok maybe not really all around, but that's how I saw the movie, a one heck of a spectacular fireworks display with deep enough characterizations and a way to start the Summer Blockbuster Season.
Thoughts:
The last sentence of the previous paragraph pretty much summed up what I thought about the movie. It's well worth the 140 pesos I didn't pay for the ticket on the account that it got picked by The Firm as the Movie Night pick for April and was able to get 1 of the 100 slots available. I'd say that it's like the Spider-man and the recent Batman movies. It's character-centric as opposed to just mindless-spectacle.
(Spoilers ahead. Stop reading if you plan to see the movie and don't want to have any idea what happens, though I try to be very vague as possible.)
Just don't think about it that much. Or else you'd realize that later in the movie it's revealed that UBVs and minions were actually supplied by Betrayer #1 with the very weapon that they tried to force Tony Stark to build for them. In fact, in the middle of the movie where UBV #1 gets killed you'd actually see the weapon in action being used by UBV #1 on innocent civilians. Then if you think even harder you'd realized that in what Pepper saw later about the supposedly ransom video for Mr. Stark the bad guys were paid to kill Stark, not kidnap him. Confusion to the Nth power. You'd see the kidnappers trying to up the price of killing Stark all the while asking him to build The Weapon (that Betrayer #1 already supplies them with). So I suggest that you just sit back and enjoy the ride and not to think too much. Or else you'd further realized that the UBVs already have brilliant minds that can read Iron Man armor design. What's stopping them from reverse engineering The Weapon they already had access to? Why do they need Stark? I know. They didn't need Stark. On the contrary, the screenwriters need that "premise" to have a reason for don't-care-much-for-the-world Stark to turn around and become Iron Man the superhero. Just accept it and enjoy. You definitely will.
Would I see it again? No, I'm saving up for Narnia 2 and Indiana Jones 4. Would I recommend it to my friends? Definitely, yes. It's fun. Unless you're saving your money to see "Ploning" starring Judy Ann Santos, an even more confusing movie than Iron Man for those who think too much. I'll post my theater report on Ploning next time.
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