Reviews>Film
The Devil May Care
The September Issue takes a pre-season peek behind the dark Wayfarers of Vogue’s ice queen-in-chief. What to expect? A warmer side of Wintour, reports Tals Diaz from the runway
Stitch And Stones
Coco Before Chanel knits a perfumed biopic of the bed-hopping courtesan-turned-billionaire couturier. But Tals Diaz is dismayed by the film’s missing threads
Hurt Beats
He falls in love, she falls in . . . like? Martin Valdes is smitten by (500) Days of Summer, a postmodern rom-com with some feel-goodness to spare
Feather Weight
Rogue snagged a ringside seat during the pre-public screening of Sabungero-a new film that’s bound to ruffle feathers as it explores the bloody underworld of Philippine cockfighting
Disorient Express
In Tokyo!, the directorial trio of Michel Gondry, Leos Carax, and Boon Joon-Ho answer the two-folded question: Do we shape cities, or do cities shape us?
Word of Mouth
A welcome antidote to dark-themed independent projects, Namets! riffs on a familiar local theme of shared love for food in a sweetly offbeat fashion. The result? A fascinating glimpse at the oddities of Negros culture.
Award of Warning
Last October, the 10th Cinemanila International Film Festival championed four movies from the more exciting names in independent cinema. Nicola M. Sebastian zooms in on the winners.
Knock On Woody
Woody Allen, taken to overwriting nuanced characters, may have just stumbled on a new methodology in Vicky Cristina Barcelona: let the actors (more to the point, actresses) act. The film reveals why the auteur has cinematically mellowed in pertinent ways—and become more feral in others.
Fontastic
Helvetica, an imaginative documentary by director Gary Hustwit, explores the fascinating phenomenon behind the iconic font—as well as all the hype behind the type.
One Big Choke
Sam Rockwell Stars In Choke, A Film That’s Brutally Hilarious And Spartanly Horrifying As Your Yearbook Photo. It’s Jump-Cut Cinema At Its Funniest—A Dark, Sleazy Breath Of Fresh Air.
Wide Awake in Blue Pajamas
In the blink of an eye, the former editor of french Elle went from playboy to paralyzed. Using his left eyelid, he literally blinked his autobiography, The Diving Bell And The Butterfly, into existence. Director Julian Schnabel translates the memoir into a deeply moving motion picture.
Shake, Bottle, and Roll
Could Bottle Shock be the next Sideways? Once upon a vineyard, in the not-yet-famous Napa Valley, a struggling American winemaker and a stuffy European connoisseur changed the face of the wine industry—forever.
Pleasure In The Pathless Woods
Director Sean Penn goes sappy in his fourth feature film, Into the Wild, a moody biopic throbbing with audacity, schmaltz, and youthful angst.
Nursery Rhyme
In the 80-minute Ilonggo film, When Timawa Meets Delgado, two nursing students inadvertently reveal the true meaning of the great Filipino migration
The Cutting Blade
On the year of its 25th anniversary, director Ridley Scott released the final cut version of his cyberpunk classic, Blade Runner. An obsessed Filipino fan—and award-winning filmmaker—talks about the cult film’s most recent “incarnation”.
Crash And Burn
Buoyed by Sam Riley’s earnest performance, Control lingers long after the music stops playing.
Knock, Knock, Who’s There?
The art-house biopic I’m Not There—a schizophrenic depiction of the freewheelin’ life and times of rock icon Bob Dylan—may be a little baffling, but a cross-dressing Cate Blanchett is simply brilliant, man.
The Music is the Message
The charming, Sundance-winning Once is a beautiful marriage of music and film.
Lone Star Noir
No Country For Old Men is a black comedy of sorts that unspools a subtle type of violence rarely seen in our CGI-soaked times.
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Ballet of Bullets
Clive Owen plays a bulletproof Brit hunted by a nerdy mercenary in the over-the-top action-thriller Shoot ‘Em Up.
Innocence is Bliss
Innocence triumphs over evil in Guillermo del Toro’s adult fairy tale, Pan’s Labyrinth.
London’s Burning
Alfonso Cuaron’s Children of Men is an apocalyptic thriller with a message of hope.
