VIEWING DATES: October 30 to November 4, 2023 It’s been 25 years since I came across the AFI’s Top 100 Movies and started my collection; 16 since I binged the entries upon completion. Late last October, I decided to recreate … Continue reading AFI Top 100 Revisited (#100 to #95)
FOURTH TIME’S A CHARM. Jimmy Kimmel’s Oscars journey didn’t have the smoothest start. He was host when Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway erroneously announced La La Land as Best Picture in 2017. He returned a year later, only for the … Continue reading Highlights from the 96th Oscars
I was 13 when I learned about the AFI Top 100. Before then, my exposure to the classics were limited to what free TV had to offer on Sundays and posters on Pancake House’s walls. It was a formative period, … Continue reading The AFI Top 100 Revisited: Memories of a 3-Month Movie Marathon
Many things in Oppenheimer can’t be absorbed upon first watch, or, for that matter, written about in first writing. Such is the Christopher Nolan Experience. It can’t be wholly captured in one go and by no means does it end … Continue reading “Oppenheimer” Review, Or: How We Learned to Stop Worrying About the Running Time and Love the Bomb
It was easy to take the animated route, much like the home video fluff of the 2000s or a substantial chunk of Netflix’s children’s section. They could have even given the Toy Story incarnation a spin-off and have Woody and … Continue reading Woke in Plastic, It’s Fantastic: A Review of Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie”
First things first, expect loose ends. “Part One” in the title should provide enough hint. But those loose ends don’t mean you won’t have your fill. Besides, it’s Mission: Impossible. It’s a franchise built on excess, spectacle, and sensory overload. … Continue reading When Partial Feels Complete: A Review of “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, Pt.1”
It was 1975 when Georgios “Yog” Panayiotou, then 11, and Andrew Ridgley, then 12, met as schoolboys in Hertfordshire, England. What then felt like a random connection later unfolded into a deep kinship. Because, besides having immigrant dads (one Greek-Cypriot, … Continue reading Fantastic Friends: A Review of the “Wham!” Documentary
We knew this was coming. In fact, it was before it even began. Before Raiders of the Lost Ark premiered in 1981, George Lucas and Paramount Pictures had already struck a deal for five movies. So, Indiana Jones was never envisioned to be just a trilogy, even … Continue reading Whip and Whimper: A Review of “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny”
Sarah Polley started acting at age six, but it took her foray into filmmaking to finally be heard. In the mid-2000s, the Toronto native wrote and directed her first feature, the earnest indie drama Away From Her. The film made … Continue reading Dignity Over Blind Faith: A Review of Sarah Polley’s “Women Talking”
It’s been more than 20 years since the original Matrix redefined the concept of being “woke”. Face it, though. That movie was really better off as a standalone. But given the magnitude of its turn-of-century success, the 2003 sequels had … Continue reading The Matrix Rectifications
The concept of alternate dimensions shouldn’t sound foreign to comic fans. Marvel alone has countless. As far as the Spider-Man movies are concerned, Into the Spider-Verse already gave us the crash course in 2018. In the animated feature, Latin teenager … Continue reading “Spider-Man: No Way Home” Scores a Sentimental Home Run
There are two ways to explain the title. As an acronym, it stands for “Child of Deaf Adults”, which obviously alludes to the protagonist. As a non-acronym, it signals the conclusion of a song. Contradicting as the two definitions may … Continue reading Silently in Tune: A Review of “CODA”
It’s established that Lin Manuel Miranda had a stellar 2021, from In the Heights becoming a movie to tick, tick…BOOM! marking his first foray into film directing. Behold his best shot at gold among that repertoire: Walt Disney Animation Studio‘s … Continue reading A Tale of Mixed Messages: A Review of Disney’s “Encanto”
Realistically, it takes more than 525,600 minutes to catch a break. One person who knew that well was Jonathan Larson. For years, the songwriter-playwright grappled with self-doubt, rejection, and writer’s block before finally scoring with Rent, a Gen-X update of … Continue reading Exultation in Chasing Time: A Review of “tick, tick…BOOM!”
He wanted Spectre to be his last. In a 2015 interview with Britain’s Time Out, Daniel Craig memorably did not mince words when asked about the prospects of making another James Bond film under Eon Productions. “I’m over it at … Continue reading “No Time to Die” has No Time to Waste
It seems like a tall order to premiere one year after The Crown Season Four. That season introduced Lady Diana to the series, from her assimilation into the Royal Family to the media frenzy that hounded her marriage with Prince … Continue reading Princess on the Edge: A Review of “Spencer”
To reveal the final line won’t really be a spoiler. It’s technically a mirroring of fact. Aside from the film being subtitled “Part One”, it was also revealed to cover only the first two-thirds of the book. So, even with … Continue reading Sandwalking in the Right Direction: A Review of “Dune: Part One”
A Review of Marvel Entertainment’s Black Widow Anyone who knows what transpired in Avengers: End Game is bound to wonder: “Why now?” or “Why start Phase Four with this?” Then again, it’s quite obvious. This is Scarlett Johansson’s final hurrah … Continue reading The Perils of Family Espionage
A Review of “A Quiet Place Part II” We didn’t really ask for a sequel. Apparently, neither did John Krasinski, who was content with his 2018 directorial debut being a one-off. Well, obviously, studio wishes prevailed and Krasinski’s sentiments soon … Continue reading Of Sustained Muffled Terrors
A Review of Amazon Studios’ “Cinderella“. From growing up in Havana (Oh-Na-Na) to storming the pop charts, Camila Cabello’s life can be categorized as a Cinderella story itself. It feels apt for her to be top-billing one, and it also … Continue reading Cinderella Adaptation Fatigue
Planet Chuckie 