Top Gun: Maverick: a review

Before anything else, I'll get this out of the way first: I think anyone who knows me intimately knows I like fighter planes. Thanks to the original Top Gun, various anime series (mostly Macross) and the Ace Combat series of video games, I have a love of planes that I rarely express in public (I had a classmate who also loves planes, but of the commercial airliner kind.)

Since the original film came out more than 30 years ago, the world has changed. The Berlin Wall fell, and with it, the USSR, leaving the United States to find another enemy to fight. The idea of 'terrorism' eventually became the next target, but compared to the monoliths of the Cold War, it's hard to fight an idea, let alone a collection of barely connected organizations that mostly operate in small groups, and often in secret. The role of the fighter jet is nearing its end, supplanted by drone warfare and other similar tools of war.

It is here where Top Gun: Maverick starts, with an aging Maverick (and an equally aging Tom Cruise) ending a short lived test flight by being himself - just recklessly pushing things beyond the limit until things break. Either way, Maverick would have been on his way out, as the program was about to be scrapped anyway to give way to funding for drone technology. This plot point isn't visited again in the movie, which implies that despite any heroics that take place during this movie, the obsolescence of this way of life will only continue.

And obsolescence is one of the biggest themes of this movie: Maverick is tasked with teaching a number of (younger) hotshots like him how to fly an extremely dangerous mission, one that top brass doesn't believe is survivable. Because of story-related limitations, they will not be flying the F-35, currently one of the US' most advanced multirole fighter aircraft in service now. Instead, Maverick's team will be flying the F-18 Super Hornet - a respected workhorse of an aircraft that has served the US for more than 20 years, but is overshadowed by its faster, stealthier more maneuverable, more heavily armed successors - a plane much like Maverick himself.

You can see the haunt in Maverick's face whenever he is reminded of his storied past - and his fixation is perhaps not of glories now gone, but instead of memories of friends that are no longer here. He is a dinosaur, the last vestige of a way of life that is quickly disappearing. In a way it is similar to Cruise's turn in The Last Samurai (2003), albeit in this film the culture is his own and not appropriated from somewhere else. The competitive spirit of the first film is all but gone in this film. There are no pissing contests to speak of, because there is no true opponent - even in the film, the 'enemy' is vague, nameless and indistinct. They are merely targets to be destroyed; objects (or rather, objectives) to be met.

And yet, Top Gun: Maverick also examines fatherhood, or rather, a pseudo-fatherhood shaped by generational trauma. The sons of Top Gun are often sons without fathers: in the original film Maverick's character was shaped from a father that left him too soon; his recklessness is a product of faux machismo, toxic masculinity so to say, created to hide his own insecurities. On the other hand, Rooster (Miles Teller) had his career shaped both by the loss of his own father and by the influence of the man involved (though to be fair, not responsible) for his father's death. Maverick and Rooster's relationship is not clean-cut - there are no speeches or melodramatic moments between the two, to the point where one could argue the relationship is 'underdeveloped'. But that's often how fathers and sons go: often it boils down to the formation of an unspoken understanding, much like any father and son relationship.

In my plane-obsessed mind, there's an interesting kind of symmetry in this kind of relationship to the other themes of the film: the father, like an old but trusty F-18, scared of his own impending obsolescence, has difficulty imparting his wisdom to his younger, healthier son, an advanced and state of the art F-35. That's probably stretching the metaphor a bit. In any case, 'it's not the plane that matters, it's the pilot', and for these macho hotshots, self worth might have been the best thing to have all along.

Carousing with Corpses: This is (not) a review of Ang Bangkay

 

sorry Fred, I stole your shtick.

Foreword:

This piece is primarily concerned with the cinema experience of Vince Tañada's Ang Bangkay and only tangentially the movie itself. Most of the things that go on in this review really happened, but some events have been embellished for obvious reasons. For those looking for a more traditional review imbued with 100% more sanity, I recommend Jason Tan Liwag's review of the film. Enjoy.

THE PERFORMERS:

John Tawasil (age redacted): guy who reviews movies on the side

Jason Tan Liwag (looks young): guy who reviews movies and is much more of a pro about it

The cast and crew of Ang Bangkay (which creates a nested list of characters if you think about it)

Various hangers-on, including a handful of beauty queens

THE STAGE: 

Shangri-la Plaza Red Carpet Cinemas, located on the upscale mall's 6th floor. While previously the height of upscale film viewing in the metro (arguably), the pandemic has taken its toll on the surroundings. The elevators providing access to the (still closed) second floor cinemas are inoperable and the concessions stores are a far cry from their heyday.

ACT 1: WHAT IS DEAD MAY NEVER DIE

John looks ambivalent as he scans the press kit given to him by the gala's organizers. He muses that at the very least, whether the movie is good or bad, he's gotten a document envelope out of it. He takes a look at the disabled access stairs leading up to the theater entrance; it forms a U shape around the side of the walls of the building. For some inexplicable reason, a glass wall was constructed to close off the U shape, creating an enclosure with no practical use other than to serve as a trap for various things to fall into.

Jason:    Ah...!

Jason's press kit has fallen into the enclosure. He is now trying to fish it out with an umbrella.

John:    Let me help you there.

With a bit of straining and positioning, John helps fish out the unfortunate press kit. After a bit of small talk, he takes a look at the people set to watch the film. He does not recognize any of them. He notices the large posters for a medical aesthetics group in the background and wonders how heavily they supported the film financially.

Jason: let's go inside?

John nods and enters the theater. The air is a bit dry and musty, as if it hadn't been used in a while. He asks the ushers where their designated seats are.

John:     I usually sit at the back.

Jason:    I just wish I could see the crowd's reactions. 

They are directed to a number of seats to the right of the theater. With a bit of mirth, John notices that one of the seats is labeled "Wife of John Tawasil." He had asked his wife (also a film enthusiast) if she wanted to join, but she refused. A faint sense of dread begins to overtake him, and he wonders if his wife was wise to refuse.

John watches the screen. A commercial for the medical aesthetics group is playing on endless loop. He wonders where the other trailers went. The repetition numbs him. Time passes.

Jason:    I'm sorry, I'm not used to these galas. When is the program supposed to start?

John looks at his watch. It's a little past 4 in the afternoon.

John:    Based on past experience, I'm betting sometime around 5:30.

John would later realize that this was a gross underestimation.

More time passes. 5pm comes and goes, and so does 5:30. As the minutes pass, he grows ever more nervous. He hears a cough in the distance, then two. He notices several people not wearing masks at all - the masks are not even half-worn, they simply don't exist. A person on the row next to him removes her mask to cough, then puts it back on, completely invalidating the need for masks.

It is nearing 6pm. John frowns under his mask. Only he will be witness to his dissatisfaction. Suddenly, there is a flash of hope: it looks like the program is about to start. The cast and crew are introduced. Each person is given a lengthy introduction with their accomplishments.

Jason:    is this supposed to be (what these kinds of introductions) are like?

John:    unless they are the main stars, no. Usually only the name of the person and their role in the film.

One of the cast members comes out. His main claim to fame is winning the award for Best Host. Whatever that means.

One of the people involved in the gala lineup, a beauty queen, is made to speak. John isn't sure either way, but he could hear a similar discomfort in her voice as she is instructed to remove her mask to speak.

Beauty Queen 1:    I'm not used to removing my mask, it's like part of my ensemble already, you know?

John (internally):    Is there some kind of health bulletin I'm not aware of?

John could feel the virus worming its way into his nostrils. Three more people cough; the dry air inside the musty theater isn't doing anyone any favors. Meanwhile, Jason is furiously scribbling in his notepad.

Another beauty queen enters the front of the stage, proudly proclaiming that the film has successfully entered Cannes. The lead and director of the film quips:

Vince Tañada:    Cannes? Maybe the trash Cannes.

This elicits a laugh from the audience. John raises an eyebrow. Though the tone was clearly deprecatory, he remembers the saying that jokes are often half-meant.

"ah yes, Arial Bold and cutting off text at the bottom of the picture is totally acceptable"

ACT 2: PEOPLE DIE IF THEY ARE KILLED

The film begins. Aside from a short title card providing the historical background of the film, there is another title card proudly announcing that this screenplay got a Palanca Award. John would later investigate, read the entire script and confirm that yes, indeed, this film won that award in 2012, but NOT for a screenplay - it would be for a full length play. Given the quality of other winners he had seen in the past, including a mediocre work written by a guy with non-reflective tape under his eyes, he would also later doubt the taste of Palanca judges for the rest of his life until his untimely death in 2047 involving several pool noodles, a copy of the May 1987 edition of Sports Illustrated, and a rubber duck.  

The film focuses on its protagonist, Segismundo Corintho, as he begins eviscerating and embalming a fresh looking corpse. In the middle of the proceedings, he vainly runs his gloved hand through his hair, no doubt leaving blood, bits of human and oily debris in his hair. As someone who is very familiar with the conduct of eviscerating dead bodies, John recoils in horror. His suspension of disbelief has been ruined in the VERY FIRST SCENE OF THE FILM. He has no recourse but to laugh. Yes, he realizes in horror, the title card was a huge red flag. This is one of those films.

John also muses that Segismundo Corintho joins the cavalcade of honorable cinematic names such as Flipper Purify, Cleveland Heep, Johnny Goodboy Tyler and Pistachio Disguisey. Truly a pantheon of venerable cinematic names.

The rest of the film, at least for the first third, is filmed in excruciating closeup, as if the actors were breathing down your neck and violating all kinds of personal space. For a film that wants to escape the realms of theatrical form, it is doing a very bad job at it.

John reflexively covers his face with his press kit folder, as if to shield himself from the film. It does not work.

The film continues on. Segismundo's wife has just died, and he is lamenting her death. He imposes his will over the household and on all the people living in it. The main housekeeper, Miding, is his enabler. The film and the play it is based on is an examination of toxic masculinity, and of twisted and evil men bringing that toxicity into everything in their lives. In many respects, it is plausible for people to make connections between this film and the classic 1981 film Kisapmata, but as Jason would write in his review of the film, the similarities are superficial at best. Days later, in retrospect, John would think of the Vivamax film Mahjong Nights as a better point of comparison, and even then he thought Mahjong Nights was arguably the better made film. If only Ang Bangkay explored -

Something catches John's eye. it is the glare of a cellphone screen. Right in front of him, someone is furiously texting their friend over some inanity. In 1181 AD, Chinese and Japanese astronomers took note of a "guest star" that shone brightly in the night sky for six months, and was so bright that you could read off of it. Scientists believe that it might have been the light of a distant supernova, yet even then, that light probably did not hold a candle to the cellphone screen's brightness. 

Turned off by the boring film that is screening in front of him, John draws closer to the cellphone screen. Is someone dying? Is this disrespectful texter actually in grief over the impending loss of a loved one? Did her car get stolen and she is trying to report the incident to the police? He draws in closer. The glare is a little too much but he can make out the words "sarah g." He inwardly gasps. Did anything happen to YES! Magazine's Most Beautiful Star? Did she release a new single????

John has had enough. This lady did not respect the film, even though he thought it was bad. He leans in as uncomfortably close as he can. In the distance, two people cough.

John:    Does that phone have Candy Crush? Let's play it together. Tell your friend hello from all of us in the back row.

The woman looks at John with a sour face and turns off her cellphone. She would later leave the theater premises. John's jaw trembles in anger he didn't know he had. In the distance, he could hear shouting.

Voice:    Miding!

John realizes that it is not coming from the movie. For now, he sets it aside.

In the meantime, Segismundo is threatening neighbors with random outbursts of insanity. For the Nth time, he notices his hair. John leans towards Jason and aggressively whispers.

John (whisper):    WHY IS HE BLONDE????

Jason can only give a shrug in reply. John notices a defeated look on his face. After watching more of the film, John will confirm that Segismundo's hair is blonde, but his eyebrows (and pubes! more on that later) are not. He would later research this and find that hair bleaching techniques have been around since the 1700s so it is not outside the realm of possibility. He still thinks its super weird though.

John settles in, but the silence is broken by a loud series of coughs behind him. The person behind him is coughing, and it's a hacking, phlegmmy cough that at least suggests "upper respiratory tract infection." He grows even more nervous. He hears a cough from the masked-but-not-really-masked lady to his side, who removes her mask with every hack. He looks around the theater and sees people sitting side to side. He notices the woman seated directly next to him. John begins to lean towards Jason, who had correctly agreed to position himself one seat apart. John covers his face with the press kit envelope, but this time it's not to protect himself from the film - it's to protect himself from other people. It is his third time in cinemas, and this was easily his worst time back. He thought these people must be in some sort of timewarp, where it's 2019 and the virus didn't exist. He knows his own risk factors, and he knows that if he catches COVID, it would not leave easily.

John flashes back to 2005. He is on a plane to a small island in Malaysia. Unfortunately a typhoon stands in their way, and the hapless captain of the plane has decided to brave the storm. What is originally a 20 minute flight has now taken at least an hour. During this flight the plane shakes violently. John has already vomited twice; during his second vomiting episode he is no longer in possession of a barf bag and vomits all over the seat in front of him. He hears loud, nervous prayers from the other passengers on the plane. He would later learn that another, later flight flew under similar circumstances and had crashed, leading to the deaths of everyone on board. He had never stared death in the face that closely again until now. 

He is not a particularly religious man, but John begins to pray silently. A voice begins to ring in his head.

Voice (distant):    Miding...!

ACT 3: AND THEN JOHN WAS A ZOMBIE

Minutes pass. Miding is telling her underling Oryang about one of her past romances. Miding is being coy about it even though that person is likely dead. At around the halfway mark, the camerawork has improved a bit, but that is like comparing getting punched in the balls with getting your balls blown off by a Remington Model 870 shotgun.

The coughing fits from the back have not stopped, and each cough has increased in both intensity and frequency. Despite assuring himself that "well. this is probably just an allergic reaction," John grows ever more fearful. He is seriously considering walking out. The last time he walked out of a film was during the three hour cut of Ligaw, a film so wretched and boring that it made him physically sick. Though Ang Bangkay is no Citizen Kane (an understatement to end all understatements), he has endured infinitely worse films than this.

In another scene, Segismundo beholds his naked body, barely draped in shadow. John wonders why this is a thing. It's not even a remarkable body; it's less a Greek statue and more a joke cast of a dadbod made for a out of shape accountant on his 43rd birthday. He remembers the enclosure that he saw earlier that blocks off the access ramp to the theater: a completely useless addition that only contributes negatively to that thing. There is no more appropriate metaphor. Perhaps God truly exists and his mission is to create opportunities like this. John would later question Jason on this scene's utility. "Perhaps we have to analyze the film further" was, to paraphrase, one of the conclusions from that conversation. Later John realizes that this is a very charitable take.

The coughing lady behind them leaves, never to return. John looks around and more people are staring at their phones. Perhaps they've already seen a cut of the film, or perhaps they just don't care. The film is certainly not doing their attention spans any favors. The compulsion to walk out still remained in his mind. The voice in his head is clearer now: Segismundo is calling out to him.

Voice (now closer):     Miding!

As he grows more and more unhinged, Segismundo begins to tighten his grip on the poor members of his household. He exerts pressure on his daughter Isabel, controlling her so that she could not marry. He conspires with another person to prevent a marriage from happening; it is obvious Segismundo wants Isabel for himself.

After witnessing his maid Oryang engaging in naked congress with another man, Segismundo rapes the poor woman later on. The rape scene in itself is disturbing enough, but the accompanying O Fortuna-ish soundtrack makes it sound like Segismundo is a privateer firing cannons at several pirate ships, not sexually assaulting someone. John mutters under his breath as he covers his face with his press kit folder once more.

John (to himself):    Rape isn't supposed to be bombastic.

Unsure how to react, he laughs at the ridiculousness of it. Minutes pass and he feels his phone vibrating. It is Jason, and he is completely out of the film. Through text, he tells John that he wants to leave. It looks like all he's looking for is an excuse to leave, and John obliges. John stands up, leaving a film behind for the first time in six years.

John and Jason engage in a postmortem outside, where John's wife is waiting for him. She acts as an outsider perspective on the film as the two discuss it with her.

John:    It's not that the film is bad... well it is, but the cinema experience was equally horrible. 

John's wife:    Would you have walked out if the cinema experience was good?

John hesitates for a moment.

John:    I think I might have stayed.

John recalls a writing cliche among video game critics describing certain games as games that "really make you feel like you're X," X being whatever character or profession applies. It was later popularized by youtuber videogamedunkey, who gave the phrase its current memetic status. Of Arkham Knight, critics claimed that it "really made you feel like Batman." Of the 2018 Spider-man video game by Insomniac games, people on the internet joked that it "really made you feel like Spider-man."

Ang Bangkay, with its amateurish camera work and editing, wasted acting potential and general incompetence, is an aberration. It is a mediocre play that has been made into a worse film. in its current form, it literally has no reason to exist. And worst of all, the cinema experience only served to add a layer of dread-infused verisimilitude to the whole affair. Ang Bangkay the movie really makes you feel like a corpse.

As the night draws on, John and Jason go their separate ways. But as he leaves the mall, Segismundo's voice stops him.

Segismundo:    Miding! MIDING!

John turns his head and sees Segismundo, with his bleached hair, dad bod and curly pubes on full display. He is the only one who can see him. He recalls the fan fiction work DOOM: Repercussions of Evil by Peter Chimaera. Like Ang Bangkay, it takes an existing fictional work and adapts it to, perhaps, service a man's vanity. Like Ang Bangkay the movie, it is a staggering failure of form, full of grammatical and continuity errors. Like Ang Bangkay the movie, it delves superficially into certain themes while also injecting appendiceal scenes that exist purely for shock value.

Segismundo:    I will shoot at him, 

And Segismundo fired the rocket missiles. John plasmaed at him and tried to blew him up. But then the ceiling fell and they were trapped and not able to kill.

John (shouting!):    No! I must kill the demons.

Voiceover:     No, John. You are the demons.

And then, John was a Zombie.

THE END

Maidenless behavior and other stories

It's been a slow two months for me in terms of movie watching. It's not because movies these days are bad (some are pretty decent) and not because I couldn't watch any (more on that later) - it's because I've been preoccupied with a couple of very time occupying activities.

First of all, I've recently played and finished Elden Ring. For a dude who has previously played three Soulsborne or Souls-like games but stopped after a few hours, this is a big freaking deal. Since everyone and their cat has played this game, I won't bore you too much with expansive paragraphs describing what the game is about, so I'll just say this: in this game, you roam around a HUGE open world, kill some bosses and become Elden Lord. Maybe. Or Maybe Not. It depends on you. 

"The game in its first few hours is difficult" is an understatement, at least to me. A lot of it is just trying to survive and earning enough to get better weapons and levels. But after a certain point, I got enough stuff to start making a little headway. As someone who was trained in the JRPG style of grinding and steamrolling everything by exploring every possible nook and cranny before advancing the story, the difficulty curve began to flatten over time. It didn't totally plateau, since endgame bosses ramp up in difficulty after a certain point, but it was at least manageable. Now I will be the first to admit: in a PvE situation where I'm only fighting against the computer, I am not a wholly honorable man. If there is a way to defeat an enemy using cheap or underhanded tactics, I will do it, sometimes even if it's more cumbersome than fighting something the "intended way," whatever that means. I buy, sell and eat cheese wholesale; discovering strategies like that brings me the most joy.

Ultimately, the game is only as easy or as hard as you want to make it. Choice is the most important thing in this game. You absolutely have the power to fight this guy, or go off on an adventure for a few hours somewhere else and come back, or fight someone else. Sometimes you don't even have to come back at all.

The thing I liked the most out of Elden Ring, after 200 hours of playing it, is that emphasis on player choice. Gameplay and story (as equally simple and esoteric as From's stories can be) are both closely intertwined, unlike other games whose gameplay and story choices don't exactly line up. I'm looking at you, The Last of Us 2, but that's a story for another day. Is Elden Ring a perfect game? No, no it is not. But the way it approaches its open world and how it masters the gameplay loop it has been trying to perfect for more than a decade easily makes it one of the year's best games.

Speaking of maidenless behavior, it was around 2013 when I began to drift towards media and videos of a certain ideological inclination. I had joined the movement our of righteous indignation at a tangentially related matter, but the group I involved myself in had other things in mind. Little did I know that movement I was getting into was part of one of the opening salvos of a culture war that would consume the world in the 2010s, culminating in the 2016 US presidential elections. My S.O. (then fiancee, now wife) noticed the videos I was watching and asked me, concerned, "isn't that alt-right stuff?" back when the term was in its infancy. I answered with "this is what the media isn't telling us" or something to that effect. I said that unironically back in 2013-2014. Obviously I don't feel the same way now - it came to a point where I took a step back, looked at everything critically - including the 'other side' - and saw the movement for what it is.  It boggles my mind that I drifted towards that kind of thinking. 

But on the other hand, it's not entirely far-fetched; I remember the days when I was deep into this emerging movement, there was a sense of community. It was us versus them, yes, but the "us" was definitely an "us" - formed by solidarity over sometimes completely arbitrary or tangential reasons, but we were together. It felt good being with these people for a while. It was a true manifestation of humankind as a social species, even if this bonding was over things that, looking back, repulse me to my core. There is nothing more dangerous than a misplaced sense of self-righteousness, but it happens often, and in media, people who are entrenched in this mindset make the best villains - the people who think they are the heroes of their own stories.

Matt Reeves' take on Batman approaches the caped crusader and the villains who oppose him through this lens. The central villain of this movie, The Riddler (Paul Dano), is a man who believes in his own hype, a fan of the Batman who is exposed to dangerous ideas, is introduced to a cult not unlike what we see today in America and in some parts of the world, and acts upon these ideas with his intellect. Reeves' Riddler does not believe he is a villain, he believes he is doing the things he does for the better good. He found a community with conspiracy theorists and these dangerous ideas made him even more dangerous.

As for the titular Batman, I recall a well known picture from Greg Rucka's Wonder Woman Annual no. 1, where Wonder Woman, in an attempt to suss out imposters, uses the Lasso of Truth on herself, Superman and Batman to state their true identities. Wonder Woman and Superman respond as one would normally expect, but Batman states that he is the Batman.

Reeves' The Batman may take place during the caped crusader's first few years on the job, but it too is an origin story: not for Batman, but for Bruce Wayne. When in the climax of the film, Batman realizes that his vigilantism and the Riddler's self righteous crusade aren't all that different, he decides to become something more. The Batman's existence and the existence of most, if not all his enemies stem from a system of justice that is deeply dysfunctional, inequitable and corrupt, if not outright non-functional. Perhaps what Batman decides at the end is not to supplant that system entirely with his vigilantism, but to become a beacon of hope, to hopefully fix and restore trust in the system - effectively removing the need for a Batman at all. I don't know if that's really what the film meant to say, or even if it did so properly, but I'd like to believe it's something like that.

Japan Film Festival Online 2022 - Masked Ward, The Floating Castle

 

Shugo Hayami (Kentaro Sakaguchi) is asked by his colleague to go on duty at a relatively small nursing hospital. At the same time, a robber in a clown mask robs a nearby convenience store. The robber makes their way to the hospital, where they hold Hayami and the other medical staff hostage. But there is more than meets the eye for the robber, Hayami, and the staff of the hospital than is readily apparent...

The main draw of Hisashi Kimura's Masked Ward is its pulpy, twisty mystery. It helps if you go into this movie blind, trying to solve all the mysteries within. Kimura is better known for his television work, and he manages to use some of the things he learned in his crime and mystery drama work in this film.

Masked Ward is not particularly weighty, but it's a good time as long as you don't take it too seriously. Veterans of the mystery genre will no doubt find some elements of the film predictable, but getting to the solution is just as fun as the solution itself.

I'm not exactly the biggest Japanese history nerd, but a lifetime playing games like Samurai Warriors lets one learn things through osmosis. The Siege of Oshi is one particular battle during the Warring States period that seems more like historical fantasy than historical fact. In that siege, a force of 20,000 men led by Mitsunari Ishida tried to get a castle with a complement of 500 to surrender to Ishida's lord, Hideyoshi Toyotomi. Hideyoshi was a cunning tactician and former retainer of Nobunaga Oda, one of Japan's most well known historical figures. In contrast, Mitsunari wasn't the best of military commanders, and - spoiler alert - the Siege of Oshi becomes one of his most notable failures.

Sounds interesting, right? One could frame this as 300 but in Japan and non Japanese audiences would be none the wiser. However, The Floating Castle is a weird film. As a blockbuster action spectacle, it loses steam midway through and sputters to a lackluster end. As a historical film, The Floating Castle is heavily fictionalized, and it does some of its characters dirty; Kaihime, arguably one of the most badass historical figures in The Floating Castle, is relegated to a damsel in distress type who does very little in the siege proper, whereas in historical records she played a large part in successfully defending the castle from invaders.

Aside from a fun sequence in the middle of the film (arguably the only battle sequence worth watching), it's not a very satisfying watch - unless you like the bumbling buffoon the film places as its central protagonist.

Japan Film Festival Online 2022 - Awake, Time of Eve

 

In the West, narratives about AI tend to have certain connotations built into them, in that these AIs tend to be malevolent, or they grow beyond their programming to annihilate humanity (whether with malice or not, that's beside the point.) In the context of AI defeating humans in sports, Western films and documentaries are lowkey horror stories about the relentless march of computers in the race to best the best human minds (such as 2017's AlphaGo) or conspiratorial films looking at the "human element" involved in the use of such machines (such as 2003's Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine.)

All that said while Atsuhiro Yamada's Awake, also based on a true story, seems similar to Game Over, it's actually a coming of age story about two people who view the game of Shogi (basically Japanese chess) in markedly different ways. For Eiichi Yokota (Ryo Yoshizawa), the game is something to be mastered; the purity of a perfect move that can beat even the best human masters is his ultimate goal. For Riku Asakawa (Ryuya Wakaba), it's simply winning and facing strong opponents. They've been on each others' minds for a while now (Eiichi more than Ryuya) and this leads to an inevitable showdown as Ryuya faces off against Awake, a computer program designed by Eiichi.

What follows is a relatively low key state of affairs as Eiichi and Riku train and deal with their own personal and sports-related problems to prepare for the final showdown. It's not as energetic as other sports movies, even Japanese sports movies - closer to Fumihiko Sori's 2002 film Ping Pong (though not as good). The AI here is more of a tool (and in a way, an avatar for Eiichi himself, as Eiichi's own character flaws are reflected in his creation). Ultimately, like most films of its kind, the journey is far more important than the destination.

Unlike their humanity-eradicating siblings in media both domestic and otherwise, the A.I. in Yasuhiro Yoshiura's Time of Eve are benevolent and benign, only wanting to live their lives in peace. They follow Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics, and are fully devoted to their masters, even if they are treated with indifference or even malice. To allow them to operate without restrictions and prejudice, cafes were created so that they can express themselves and interact with others. After growing suspicious of his family's android servant, high schooler Rikuo comes across one of these cafes: Time of Eve.

Yoshiura has a knack for attentive worldbuilding, tending to sprinkle little details about the world that rewards the repeat watcher. Not only that, he also inserts many small references to the science fiction works that inspired the work itself.

The movie is stitched from a series of original net animation videos, and despite attempts to make the movie flow better by adding new scenes, its stitched-together nature shows. The film feels more like a series of vignettes about the people Rikuo meets inside the cafe and their relationships with fellow androids and other people, and Rikuo's own relationship with his android Sammy. The vignettes are generally good, but the film egregiously fails to let its characters have a genuine moment by inserting comedy in some of its most serious scenes.

The film doesn't have a true dramatic arc; it ends with a lot of questions unanswered. Ultimately the whole affair feels like a slice of life more than anything else, and while that approach isn't bad per se, there are some elements to the storytelling that Yoshiura has done better in his other, subsequent works.

Japan Film Festival Online 2022 - Patema Inverted, Happy Flight

 

Here are some more reviews of films from the ongoing Japanese Film Festival Online:

Beginning as a four episode ONA (Original Net Animation),  Yasuhiro Yoshiura's Patema Inverted is high-concept science fiction anime  film with a lush and vast world and spectacular worldbuilding. Princess Patema is an adventurous girl who lives in an underground city. One day she falls from one of the city's endless pits and finds herself upside down, about to fall into the sky (it makes sense once you see it). Thankfully a boy, Age, manages to catch her and hide her from the authorities of his dystopian government. According to that government, people like Patema are sinners and must be eliminated to preserve societal harmony.

What follows is a fun, almost Ghibli-esque adventure as Patema and Age learn the truth of their world. It's all fun and interesting stuff, but what sets Patema Inverted apart from its Ghibli counterparts are the characters. The film tries its darndest to pair the two protagonists with each other, but they barely interact before one is kidnapped. If anything, Age has more interactions with another underground dweller, Porto, than Patema herself. Perhaps the film would have been better served in a longer, serialized format, but the filmmakers had to make do with what they had. That said, many filmmakers (including Yoshiura himself, in his later works) have done so much more with less.

As a work of animated art, the film is wonderful. Yoshiura uses the most of the "inverted" gimmick to disorient viewers both literally and figuratively - the third act twist, in fact, is almost worth the watch for that alone. Unfortunately Yoshiura hasn't been making a lot of stuff since this film and Time of Eve, as he mostly made short films or helped out with big films like one of the Rebuild of Evangelion movies, so this is a prime time to check some of his works out.

Air travel brings with it a certain kind of nostalgia nowadays, since most people don't have the urge to go on a trip either because travelers generally don't want to risk it or many places aren't open for tourists. 

Happy Flight, a relatively early film from Shinobu Yaguchi (Waterboys, Survival Family) evokes a time that seems so distant considering the world we live in now: a time when air travel was unconstrained and a regular part of daily life. As many other reviews have no doubt noted, the poster is misleading: this is not a romantic comedy featuring Haruka Ayase and Seiichi Tanabe, but an ensemble piece. In fact, Ayase (perhaps the most high profile actor in this ensemble today) has only a minor arc compared to the arcs of the other characters.

The film follows a group of workers in the air travel industry as they handle a flight from Haneda to Honolulu. And it's not limited to the people inside the aircraft, either: everyone from air traffic controllers on the ground, to check-in staff, to flight planners, to mechanics, to people scaring away birds from the runway - all of them have a story here. Just as people say it takes a village to raise a child, it takes something even bigger to fly a plane.

Though the film only touches lightly on interpersonal relationships (to be fair, I don't think the film has time for that given how many characters it has) it hyperfocuses on the many interconnected parts that guide a plane through the skies. Through that, Yaguchi still manages to tell some interesting stories: Haruka Ayase as the inexperienced but well meaning flight attendant, Shinobu Terajima as a veteran guiding Ayase's character, Ittoku Kishibe as an old pro trying to get used to computerization as air traffic management moves towards the digital age.

With an engrossing third act, Happy Flight is a late 2000s classic and one of the festival's most entertaining films. Give it a try if you have the time.

Japan Film Festival Online 2022 - Oz Land, Sumodo

 

The Japan Film Festival Online is currently ongoing with its 2022 edition, featuring some well-known classics, films from past festivals and new gems waiting to be discovered. Join me as I talk shortly about selected films from this year's edition.

An eternal staple of Japanese film festivals and eigasais past are what I call "ganbatte!" films, where a newbie is introduced to a new job that is completely out of their element, learns the ins and outs of that job and learns to love it.

Oz Land in particular is about Kurumi Namihira (Haru), a hapless hotel employee who gets assigned to an amusement part in the sticks. She isn't particularly versed in amusement park operations so she struggles to get used to the job, but there's something rewarding about making people happy that eventually appeals to her.

The film seems to veer into romcom territory by introducing the character of Ozuka (Hidetoshi Nishijima of Drive My Car fame), who is responsible for most of the park's more interesting ideas. But ultimately the focus is on how Kurumi gets used to the job. 

Unlike other similar films, however, the film doesn't feel as immersive, and the sense of community is very limited, even within the scope of the handful of employees running the park. A crucial pair of pranks that bookend the film would probably be okay in Japan, but would be quite a bad look anywhere else.

Still, it's a pretty fun watch especially for fans of the two leads, who deliver fine performances and is worth the watch if only for that.

Sumo Wrestling is a sport that's not as well known outside Japan as other sports, but this documentary shows, it's a serious discipline that deserves attention. Sumodo follows sumo wrestlers from two different stables as they train and prepare for an eventual clash at Kokugikan Arena.

The training is brutal, even when compared to other martial sports: hours of continuous sparring and training with nary a break in between. It's far from the stereotypes that western media has presented to us, and there's a reason why these men are so massive but rarely have any problems with that weight gain until they stop competing. I do have some reservations with how the wrestlers fight through their injuries to compete - an attitude taht is dangerous for any sport - thankfully it hasn't resulted in any permanent damage to them.

The film also looks at the lives of these wrestlers outside their martial discipline, limited as it may be. There are hints detailing how training has changed over the years, in terms of public perception (training before was harsher on the mental health of the trainees) and it would have been an interesting subject to delve into, but the coverage does not dig too deep into it.

Sports in itself is storytelling, and the intersecting paths of the Sumo wrestlers create some amazing stories, twists and comebacks that one would think would only happen in the imagination of a creative writer. All in all, it's a fun ride.

2021 in review: here are some of my favorite films of the past year

 

I've seen my share of non-Filipino films this year (a mix of films from film festivals and whatever I could scrounge up on streaming), but to be honest I'm not going to diverge a lot from popular consensus -  so if you are looking for edgy, out of the box lists, this isn't the place to go, I think.  Also, most of these films are going to be Asian films (particularly films from Japan), because look at the description of this blog, good sir or madam. 

Here are some of my

FAVORITE mostly japanese non-filipino MOVIES OF 2021

starting with no. 15:

15. The Power of the Dog (dir. Jane Campion) - there's a weird power to masculine authority that holds everyone in its sway, even if that power is a complete fabrication. While its plot is pretty straightforward, The Power of the Dog's characters contain multitudes.

14. Compartment no. 6 (dir. Juho Kuosmanen) - If there's one genre of film that I'm a sucker for, its the not-really-romance genre where two strangers meet in a state of transition and form a unique connection with each other. Compartment no. 6, Cannes' 2021 Grand Prix is IMO one of the most interesting examples of that genre.

13. The Con-Heartist (dir. Mez Tharatorn) - the most mainstream film in this list. I've always been impressed with the best Thai mainstream films: they're funny, they use the genre well and the actors are pretty decent. This film, a budget comedy version of 2017's breakout Bad Genius, is supremely entertaining in its own right - perhaps one of the most entertaining films I've watched this year.

12. The Falls (dir. Chung Mong-hong) - Much like his critically lauded A Sun, Chung Mong-hong's latest film is about families, moving on from painful traumas, and the fact that the process of healing never stops, and doesn't excuse one from an uncertain future.

11. Ride or Die (dir. Ryuichi Hiroki) - This film has its share of detractors (including a number of prudes who remain fixated on the film's sex scenes) but it's been half a year and this film keeps on haunting me. More than anything else, it's a story of two profoundly broken people who have an equally broken relationship with each other.

10. Rebuild of Evangelion 3.0 + 1.0 Thrice Upon A Time (dir. Hideaki Anno) - saying goodbye is never easy, and for all its flaws, Hideaki Anno's grand finale to Evangelion manages to say goodbye so perfectly. If I were not as objective as I'm trying to be right now this would be number 1, easily.

9. Aloners (dir. Hong Seung-eun) - the 2010s and early 2020s have seen a world that, is more connected than ever before thanks to the internet yet is equal respects just as disconnected, its people occupying little isolated modern caves that lie isolated from anyone else. Aloners captures that world perfectly, a haunting portrait of loneliness and isolation in modern times.

8. Yuni (dir. Kamila Andini) - I've been seeing more and more films about women (and by women) coming from Indonesia these past few years, for better or worse, perhaps either a coming to terms or a call to change. It's eerie how much the story of Kamila Andini's Yuni feels like it could have come from the Philippines, as if we share the same traits despite our many cultural differences.

7. Memoria (dir. Apichatpong Weerasethakul) - Memoria is a lovely, weird meditation on trauma, the creation and re-creation of memory, and cinema itself. It's not going to be for everyone, but when it clicks, it's magical.

6. We Couldn't Become Adults (dir. Yoshihiro Mori) - another film that's not going to be for everyone, but is totally my jam. Yoshihiro Mori's latest film perfectly captures a snapshot album of a city in flux, and the people who live in it that are swept along the tides, leaving behind a life filled with regrets.

5. It's A Summer Film! (dir. Soushi Matsumoto) - many films have been made about filmmaking, and Soushi Matsumoto's high school sci-fi comedy continues that proud tradition. It's a love story where cinema itself is the object of affection, a loving tribute to the people who love, make, and watch moving pictures.

4. Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes (dir. Junta Yamaguchi) - one other way to express one's love if cinema is to create something that pushes the boundaries of what the craft can do. Yamaguchi's one-take marvel isn't just a gimmick made into a film - it's a film about creating your own future and not letting either the past or future dictate your present.

3. The Worst Person in the World (dir. Joachim Trier) - much like no. 6, Trier manages to capture the ephemeral, transitory nature of youth and how it passes us in the blink of an eye. It also sports one of the best performances of the year in Renate Reinsve.

2. Petite Maman (dir. Celine Sciamma) - a far cry from the smoldering flames of Celine Sciamma's Portait of a Lady on Fire yet no less powerful, Petite Maman is one of the director's most tender films, a warm and quiet examination of grief, love and motherhood.

1. (Tie) Drive My Car / Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (dir. Ryusuke Hamaguchi) - For the longest time these two films occupied the #1 and #2 films on my list. I had a very difficult time choosing one or the other; ultimately I decided, why not both. A remarkable achievement for a director with an already remarkable body of work, Drive My Car and Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy is a showcase of Ryusuke Hamaguchi's different strengths. The former is an epic yet deeply personal exploration of grief, letting go, and the nature of performance itself. The latter is a collection of smaller, equally intimate stories of chance and second-chance that play out in wonderful, almost magical ways. 

***

Thanks for joining me for another year (mostly virtually) at the movies. If the fates are kind, let's see each other again next year. Keep safe and take care.

2021 in review: here are a bunch of other things about Filipino Cinema, including films that aren't so good

Screw that SEO with that title baby last page of google search power hahahuhu this is why no one reads this lol

The esteemed science fiction author Theodore Sturgeon once said, "90 percent of everything is crap." I am admittedly not as absolutist as Mr. Sturgeon here; in the realm of yearly Philippine Cinema, for me it's more like 50%, crap, 30% okay, 15% above average, and 5% good. I like to balance things, I guess I live up to being a Libra.

Unlike previous editions of this roundup, I don't have a list of unfavorite films, ranked much like my favorite films of the year list. The reason for that is most of the not so good films in 2021 are boring and unremarkable. Very few films this year evoked the sheer brain melting insanity of entries from previous years. I guess I'm a little bit grateful that I didn't lose too many brain cells this time around.

In lieu of that list, let me tell you a few stories (some good, some bad, some maybe hilarious) concerning some local movies and movie scenes I saw in 2021.

Chapter 1: The Steward of Statistical Outliers

Joel Lamangan arguably made a couple of decent films in the nineties and very early 2000s, but he seems to be stuck in the melodramatic formula of the era that gets progressively stale year after year. Add that with what looks like a flatlining sense of filmmaking ennui and we get a lineup of strange, dated films with little thought or effort behind them. I find that people who still like him are more preoccupied with text than form, or are still stuck in the nostalgia of old Filipino cinema, or both.

That looked to have been the same with 2021, given films like the brain dead on arrival Silab, or the wretched but at least partially substantial Lockdown, but there was one film in particular that to be honest I genuinely enjoyed, and consider one of his better films since 2017's Bhoy Intsik. It's called Bekis on the Run, and although the title is a bit inaccurate (not a lot of Bekis, and if they are there, they aren't on the run that much).

Most of the good stuff lies at the beginning, when two brothers (Diego Loyzaga and Christian Bables) rob a construction site. The two ladies inside the office (Kylie Versoza and Tabs Sumulong) aren't having any of that today, and it becomes a comedy routine. Eventually the two ladies are convinced that they don't get enough money from this joint and decide to side with the robbers.

During their escape, Tabs distracts some would be pursuers by flashing her boobs at them. I have to reiterate, Kylie Versoza (the obvious choice, given this is Vivamax) doesn't flash the pursuers, and neither does the two brothers. Tabs Sumulong does it. Rian Johnson is shaking because he just got outsubverted. Not the T&A we expected, but probably the T&A we needed all along.

Chapter 2: Satan Take The Wheel

At first, I didn't know if The Horror and the Herald was a faith based film. I don't think it is anymore, as it seems to hint at a larger eldritch horror as the source of all its problems. That said, in my own words, it is "One of the most profoundly stupid movies of 2021 (not just in the Philippines, but anywhere, in all parallel universes, till the end of time)." I'm standing by that lol.

The film is about Moira, a woman who joins a charismatic prayer group (simps 4 Christ basically). She connects with one of those simps and brings him home. But she is possessed by a demon (???) who takes the form of a black shadow with a glowing chest.

This decision is met with derision from Moira's father, a brain dead potato with the IQ of a banana, and her grandmother, whose past time seems to be calling her daughter in law and granddaughter whores because they... like holding hands? Jeez grandma you need to eat grass or something. Moira's possession leads her family to consult a local priest for an exorcism. Said local priest is pretty much incompetent.

While the other characters run around the house like headless chickens, Moira gains some cool powers, which mainly entails shining a really bright light on people that kills them somehow. They probably also order squid buffet along the way because everyone starts vomiting black liquid.

Anyway, everyone fails because no one has the mental capacity to solve the problem. The world presumably ends. I cheered tbh. Best film 5/5

Chapter 3: Would You Like To Develop My App?

If you have been following my blog for any extended period of time, you might have come across this post, which details my (albeit temporary) return to the cinemas. In retrospect, that post isn't as substantial as I would've wanted and I guess I shouldn't have posted it in its current form. I guess I just wanted to share.

It's time to talk about the film I watched during that magical moment: Perry Escaño's Caught in the Act. Let me preface this by saying: this, in my opinion, is not the worst local film of 2021. I don't even think it's bottom 5. It's quite entertaining, actually, if you consider the fact that (to paraphrase game developer and writer of many video game things Tim Rogers) it is a movie made entirely of failures.

To describe the film in its most simplistic, reductive form, it is a film about four students who want to develop an app. The app is a crime prevention app, and most of the film is about the development and conceptualization of this app. But if one considers to look at the details, the app (like most of the rest of the film) doesn't work as intended.

The app works by user-contributed crime reports, which are then sent to the police for further investigation. That's as simple as it gets: citizen sees crime, app collects data (location, etc) then sends it to the police. Simple, right?

WRONG lol. The students do not coordinate with the police beforehand, and the user report they do manage to send (with difficulty, mind you, as they witness the crime in an area with poor mobile internet) arrives at the police as an anonymous message, with the clueless policemen thinking someone hacked their computers. That also points to serious security vulnerabilities with the police network.  Not only that, one of the policemen is in cahoots with the criminals and would've deleted the message if he had the chance! Also, the students actively search for actual crimes instead of just doing a dry run with police coordination just to see if the app works. Who wrote this? Was this even written by thinking, sentient humans or some AI algorithm that simulates human thought? What if that scriptwriting AI was the app all along?

If the movie was intended to be propaganda for certain individuals who "eliminated crime" in the areas they govern, then that's also another failure on the movie's part, as literal drugging and kidnapping take place in that same area (some of it even perpetrated by the students!) In fact, the crime likely would not have been solved if not for the fact that one of the students is horny for teacher.

Chapter 4: I am beside myself with shock

With two memorable films this year, Mel Magno's hit it out of the park with Run and Sin: The Movie (no, not the 2000 anime film of the same name lol), both films about gay men who run away from unaccepting parents only to find themselves in romantic relationships that are ultimately doomed in some way or another.  In Run, it's a homophobic dad isn't above killing people to get what he wants. In Sin: The Movie it's something else entirely.

In Sin: The Movie, a hotel clerk who can't seem to do his job properly falls in love with a customer who is, by most accounts, an asshole. That assholery seems to be hereditary, also said guy has a lot of hangups because he's closeted and he uses hotel staycations as a means of escape.

The usual Mel Magno tropes apply here: ridiculously overwrought music, various non sequitur scenes that don't contribute anything to the story (a couple are quite creepy). But what sets this film apart from Run is the twist at the end. It's been done before, but not like this. Let's just say it takes calling your partner 'bro' to a whole new level.

When that scene came, I literally had to rewind just to make sure I heard it correctly. I've never been as flabbergasted by a film this year, and I think that counts for something.

There are so many other stories about 2021 Philippine cinema that I can share, but I don't want to waste your time any more. Up next, my favorite (non-Philippine) films of the year. Most of them are Japanese, 'cause I'm a weeb.

2021 in review: here's a bunch of local films that were pretty good

 

Well, that went by quicker than expected. If we're talking about local full length films, 2021 is a generally unremarkable year. However, short films made a big mark here and abroad, doing most of the heavy lifting for Filipino cinema. Most of the year's releases were released through streaming services, and a good chunk of them were just okay. The closure of cinemas for most of the year made the industry rethink where and how to deliver their films to the viewing public, with varied results. 

Vivamax was clearly the winner of this year of experimentation, I think it's due to a number of things. To get people to subscribe to a streaming service, one needs a large library of content and a reason for people to return. To date, Viva has produced the most feature length films of the year and have quickly built up a library of new films to complement their existing library of classic films. Some may consider the pito-pito style of filmmaking negatively, but it's a sound economic decision. The downside to that is with an abundance of content made quick and on the cheap, there are inevitably going to be a lot of subpar movies. Taking into account all of Vivamax's offerings for the year, I find that limitations on production and budget aren't as detrimental to the films as a seeming mandate for these films to create sexy content. Mandates like this have been done in the past and can be done well, sure, but the amount of dreck that this produces is usually substantial. However, in Vivamax's case, the people behind the service know what drives people back to the service - as long as the content is entertaining, it doesn't matter if others perceive it as quality or not. Also, sex sells.

Other streaming services competed with Vivamax for their share of the business, while all these services stood in the shadow of giants like Netflix. KTX and ticket2me provided services with release windows that tried to emulate the cinema experience, while services like Upstream stuck to their pay per view model. Methods for payment also became easier. You can pay for a month of a library of movies and series with only a few clicks.

Film festivals largely went online, like in 2020. Cinemalaya kept chugging along, albeit with a drastically reduced lineup, and other smaller festivals kept operating. Other film festivals, because of production issues, budgetary problems and the general unavailability of cinemas, were nowhere to be found. This trend continued until QCinema near the end of the year, just in time to herald the reopening of cinemas. Its hybrid format with offerings both online and in theaters (with some going theater-only) may be used as a model for future film fests. I'm not privy to any attendance numbers, but not even a mortal threat could get cinephiles out of those cinemas.

Several filmmakers went by the year without making any films, while others probably broke records making theirs - Darryl Yap (like him or hate him) made ten films this year. And here I thought Joven Tan making four films in a year was already a lot. As for the quality of those films, let's just say quantity over quality prevailed in this case. Staples of the film circuit made a number of films as well - Lav Diaz made the reflexive and introspective Historya ni Ha, while Brillante Mendoza took a break from drug war content to make the sexy film Palitan for Vivamax and sports drama Gensan Punch (later released on HBO). Gensan Punch in particular, a paradoxically quiet sports movie about a man struggling to reach his dreams despite the restrictions of an unbending bureaucracy, may be one of his best in several years.

The BL genre that flourished in 2020 evolved with a number of series, though to a casual viewer like myself, I didn't notice a lot of series in the mainstream consciousness (I could be wrong, of course). A number of movies and series got sequels, series adaptations or second seasons, while two series in particular - Ideafirst's Gameboys and Black Sheep's Hello Stranger got full length movie adaptations. Both break out of their zoom cinema forms into more conventional cinematic structures since production has picked up since the pandemic began. Gameboys feels like the fuller, more realized film and a bridge to a still-in-development Season 2, though Hello Stranger isn't without its charms.

And once again, the MMFF reared its head, with (for once, since 2016) a pretty decent lineup but (as always) a marketing policy that is all but non-existent on the MMDA's part and a foolish decision to keep the festival only in theaters. It's unfortunate that it all backfired on their faces (for a multitude of reasons) since there were really a bunch of good films in MMFF 2021's slate. As it is right now, the MMFF is a dinosaur that can't keep up with normal trends. I'm not confident, but I hope they've learned their lesson for 2023... if they're still around.

All in all, it was a year in transition, still in the middle of a worldwide pandemic, with no end in sight... yet. As more people become vaccinated and as the virus evolves to become endemic instead, hopefully that ending will come. For now, I'm okay to stay in my little bubble for the time being.

Let's go to the films. All in all, I've seen more than a hundred Filipino films this year. Apologies for not giving an exact number, since I neglected to log all of the shorts I watched and some don't even have entries on letterboxd. Of those films, I have seen 75 full length feature films out of approximately 83 that were released this year. Six of the films that I haven't watched belong to the MMFF, one isn't available anymore (that would be Ilocano Defenders: War on Rape) and one that's a remake and I've seen the original (Roman Perez Jr.'s The Housemaid.) Otherwise, I've seen them all, even super obscure ones that probably no one else has seen. Have you seen the all-OFW psychological thriller Lamentasyon? Do you know that among these 83 films there's an apocalyptic local horror film called The Herald and the Horror, and that it's the only local 2021 film that's on Amazon Prime of all places?

This woman is supposed to be on the side of the protagonists. I cheered when her character died.

The list doesn't count films like Yellow Rose (though I've watched that too), or restored classics, but it DOES include Joven Tan's singular offering this year - Ayuda Babes starring Gardo Versoza, and it does include Joel Ferrer and Miko Livelo's barely feature length Ero (hero without an H, not ero as in erotic).

Before we go on to the feature length list, here are some

2021 shorts that were pretty good, if not excellent though by no means comprehensive since I saw like what, 30 shorts this year? Out of possibly hundreds?

Okay here we go.

Ampangabagat Nin Talakba Ha Likol is one of the year's most visually and conceptually creative shorts, and one of the highlights of QCinema 2021. It touches on feelings and emotions both personal and very universal - anxiety, fear, frustration and anger.

Filipiñana is pretty amazing, a short form examination of the absurd gap between the haves and the have nots, of power, control, and the desire for that control.

My favorite short of QCinema 2021 is Kaj Palanca's Henry, an (IMO) underrated short that's filled with many small details that pop out the more you watch it.

As someone who has some experience with these kinds of retreats, Kids on Fire resonated with me in a weird sort of way. Also, Mystica in a Cinemalaya movie, I can finally say that's a thing.

After the wonderful To Calm the Pig Inside comes Sol, a narrative companion piece to Joanna Vasquez Arong's 2020 film and a solid film about the many ways tragedy shapes us and the people we love.

There are many more films that deserve mention (Ang Pagdadalaga ni Lola Mayumi, City of Flowers, Don't Worry, We Still Hear You, Black Rainbow to name a few) though like I said, I haven't seen enough shorts to make a comprehensive list.

On the other hand, in no particular order here are five

2021 full length films that I think were pretty good 

Age of Blight (various directors) - okay, this is more of an omnibus rather than a full feature, but I'm counting it. It's a very interesting look at the slow nightmare that was last year. There are individual segments that stand out among the rest (the above picture included) but overall I think it's a solid work.

Big Night (dir. Jun Lana) - MMFF 2021's best picture is one of the most interesting takes on this current administration's drug war, a kafkaesque labyrinth of absurdity that is equal parts funny, frustrating and terrifying.

Dito at Doon (dir. JP Habac) - While many other films this year went the conventional route in terms of romance, this romance-but-not-really caught my attention. It's a disaster film of the saddest kind, showing how this pandemic has changed our relationships in both subtle and profound ways. But at the same time, through its rejection of the zoom format it's a bit of a defiant stand against that idea as well.

Kun Maupay Man It Panahon (a.k.a. Whether the Weather is Fine, dir. Carlo Manatad) - a strange, phantasmagorical depiction of coping, loss and grief, it's also a film about how some tragedies are so profound that we cannot make heads or tails of them, and how the systems that are made to govern or protect us are so fundamentally dysfunctional that they might as well be gibberish.

On the Job 2: The Missing 8 (dir. Erik Matti) - I have cheated yet again, since this was not released in the Philippines as a movie, but as a series (edited together with the first On the Job.) It's a genre-flavored fun (yet also depressing) little snapshot of the country as it is today.

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More to come when I discuss a couple of films that were, to be honest, pretty bad. Stay tuned.