The sun is also a star

Technical assessment: 2.5 

Moral assessment: 3 

CINEMA rating: V13 

MTRCB rating: PG 

Natasha (Shahidi) a no-nonsense Jamaican teenager aspiring to be a scientist is making a last ditch attempt to prevent her family from being deported the following day. Meanwhile Daniel Bae (Melton), an American-Korean who dreams to be a poet but needs to be a doctor to please his parents, is scheduled for an interview in Dartmouth.  The two cross paths when Daniel saves Natasha from being run over by a car. The initially awkward meeting turns into an opportunity for Daniel to prove to Natasha that he can make her fall in love with him in an hour. The hour turns into a day and the experiment becomes real as the two fall for each other while learning and dealing with their family issues.  

The premise of accidental meeting between opposite strangers who find their stark differences cause the inevitable pull into that “meant to be” situation is generally overused and specifically uninspired in this version.  The success of “accidental love” relies on the naturally undeniable chemistry of the lovers achieved through a down to earth relatable characterization. You feel them. You root for them. Their presence makes you smile. This saccharine overdosed interpretation does the opposite. You don’t believe them. Their presence makes you cringe. The use of coincidence as a plot device is just too much even for those willing to suspend disbelief for the sake of the remarkable performances of Shahidi and Melton. The weak screenplay and weaker directorial choices are further obscured by interjections of songs in the attempt to elevate the gooeyness of the love story. While the original book offers debate about human existence from philosophical and scientific explanation, the movie simply makes these ornamental conversations. 

There seems to be two strong agendas in the film: the unjust predicaments of immigrants forcefully deprived of their chance to be better on the one hand, and the racial discrimination on the other. While Natasha believes that her future depends on holding on to a foreign country she considers home, Daniel wears his Korean ancestry with pride. It is very easy for this generation to stereotype success with Western culture and with what is measurable. As if these hold the exclusive franchise to all great things. But the movie proves it wrong. Natasha accomplished something in Jamaica while Daniel proved that he can be successful when he follows his passion. While the movie is decent and charming, audiences predisposed to young romance will find it enjoyable.--PMF  

DIRECTOR: Ry Russo-Young;  LEAD CAST: Yara Shanhidi, Charles Melton; PRODUCER: Elysa Koplowitz Dutton, Leslie Morgenstein; SCREENWRITER: Tracy Oliver;  BASED ON: The Sun is Also A Star by Nicola Yoon;  MUSIC: Herdis Stefansdottir; GENRE: Romance;  COUNTRY:  USA; LANGUAGE: English  RUNNING TIME: 100 minutes 

Long Shot

Technical assessment: 2.5

Moral assessment: 2.5 

CINEMA rating: V16 

MTRCB rating: R13 

Fred Flarsky (Seth Rogen) is an uncompromising journalist in a progressive newspaper. So uncompromising that he quits his job when an abominable media mogul with questionable ethics takes over the paper. His friend takes him to a party to cheer him up. There he chances upon Charlotte Fields (Charlize Theron), now state secretary and future presidential candidate, but in the past was, in fact, his babysitter. Fields hires Flarsky as her speechwriter. On the campaign trail, they fall in love. But Charlotte’s stand on the environment threatens the business interest of the current president—who by the way isn’t running for reelection because he’s going back to the movies—and his cohorts, including the media mogul who blackmails Charlotte by releasing a video that will compromise Fred’s reputation if she doesn’t soften her stand on climate change mitigation. In the end, she follows her convictions, becomes the first female president of the United States, and Fred the first gentleman. 

Though not her best, Theron’s acting gets us on her side. But where’s the romance, where’s the chemistry between her and Rogen? Raunchy yes, but romantic, no. Whatever sweet reverie the story ushers us into is quickly doused by bawdy language and coarse bed scenes. The camera does not attempt to create a starry mood at all. Which perhaps is intentional, as an allusion to the muck in politics. Long Shot wades into themes of ecology and women empowerment, but loses its way because it can’t decide whether to dissect Charlotte’s uphill battle to create a seat on the table that’s dominated by men or to portray her as an unlikely pair to Fred whose priority is obviously not to match her glamour. 

While it is good that parts of the film try to challenge women stereotypes, it fails to make a convincing case because it is constrained by the rom-com formula. Its potentially good premise is drowned in the plot. One good thing in Long Shot, though, is that in the end, Charlotte stands up for her cause and does not allow herself to be manipulated by people in power and by her ambitions. But here’s a subtlety that a less vigilant audience may miss. There’s substance abuse in the movie that peels off Charlotte’s inhibitions so that she succeeds in negotiating the release of hostages.  There’s also premarital sex between Charlotte and Fred.  Championing cause for the environment while polluting the environment of the temple of the Holy Spirit through drug abuse and illicit sex?  A no-no for Catholics.  At the risk of extrapolating too much, CINEMA dares say: integrity and honesty should be integral in the character of everyone, especially those who wield power or wish to serve the people and promote the common good.—MOE

Director: Jonathan Levine  Lead Cast: Charlize Theron, Seth Rogen, June Diane Raphael, O'Shea Jackson Jr.   Screenwriters: Dan Sterling, Liz Hannah  Producers: A.J. Dix, Evan Goldberg, Beth Kono, Seth Rogen, Charlize Theron, James Weaver  Editors: Melissa Bretherton, Evan Henke  Musical Directors: Marco Beltrami, Miles Hankins   Cinematographer: Yves Bélanger  Genre: Romantic Comedy  Distributor: Pioneer Films  Location: Canada, Colombia   Running Time: 120 minutes 

Avengers: Endgame

Technical assessment:  4  

Moral assessment:  3.5 

MTRCB rating: PG 

CINEMA rating: V13  

Three weeks after Thanos (Brolin) snaps his finger and disintegrates half of life, Captain Marvel (Larson) rescues Tony Starks (Downey) and Nebula from outer space and reunites with the remaining avengers on earth—Romanoff, Captain, Rocket, Patriot, Banner and Thor. Together find Thanos, hoping to retrieve the Infinity Stones and undo the destructions. However, Thanos reveals he has destroyed the stones and gets beheaded by a frustrated Thor. Five years hence, Scott Lang escapes the quantum realm and convinces the Avengers to travel back in time and retrieve the stones. They recruit Banner—who  successfully merged his intelligent side with Hulk’s body—and Thor—now an overweight alcoholic still reeling from his failure to save humanity. Stark refuses to help as he is now a father of 5-year-old Morgan. But after talking to his wife Pepper (Paltrow), he decides to perfect the time travel technology and joins the team to retrieve the Infinity Stones in various times before Thanos does.  This brings certain closures and  requires painful sacrifices from our heroes. 

Avengers: Endgame completes the narrative arcs of the 22-movie long individual journeys of its characters. While we can take Endgame as a standalone film, understanding it from 2008 Iron Man (and we are almost sure most viewers saw the previous films) allows viewers to appreciate the struggles and triumphs of its characters. And this is the greatest strength of the moviethe slow unfolding of individual stories tightly woven into the main conflict and the antagonist’s own arc (even Thanos is given a backstory). The other elements—the imaginative design, the gripping action scenes, the impressive CGIs, the emotional score and the seamless editing—are subservient to and supportive of the storyline, pushing it forward, bathing it in drama and comedy as needed and underlining its message with powerful punches in the soul. By the time fans watch Endgame, they would have been so emotionally invested that each triumph (like when the disappeared heroes return) is a celebration, each death is a heartbreak and each conclusion is bittersweet.   

Taking the film as a whole, we can talk about sacrifice and selflessness. Natasha kept the team together in the beginning and let herself go in the end to save humanity. Starks, the conceited self-serving genius millionaire whom Cap said in the very first Avenger can never sacrifice for others, ultimately did. The battlecry, “Whatever it takes!” resonates real struggles ordinary people fight everyday. Thanos is not the just the intergalactic Titan but a representation of people and situations that oppress. Avengers showed that it is not the superpowers per se that can defeat the oppressor but teamwork, selflessness and embracing one’s higher purposes even if you can turn your back on it. Individually, we learn from Captain America’s willingness to live an ordinary life instead of remaining the superhero the world worships. We see how Peter Quill will not give up on his one true love even if she does not recognise him. We see how Thor grieved and became depressed because from successive failures to save Asgard from Hela (in Ragnarok) and the world from Thanos (in Infinity Wars) and relinquished his throne to a person he felt deserved it more.—PMF

Avengers: Endgame (2019)                                                             

DIRECTOR: Anthony Russo, Joe Russo

CAST: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson Jeremy Renner, Don Cheadle, Paul Rudd, Brie Larson, Karen Gillan, Danai Gurira

Bradley Cooper, Josh Brolin

SCREENPLAY BY: Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely,

BASED ON: The Avengers by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby

PRODUCERS:  Kevin Feige

GENRE: Action, Adventure, Fantasy

MUSIC BY:  Alan Silvestri

EDITED BY: Jeffrey Ford, Matthew Schmidt

CINEMATOGRAPHY: Trent Opaloch

PRODUCTION COMPANY:  Marvel Studios

DISTRIBUTED BY: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

COUNTRIES: United States   

LANGUAGES: English

RUNNING TIME: 3 hours 1 minute

The Curse of La Llorona

Director: Michael Chaves   Lead Cast: Linda Cardellini, Raymond Cruz, Marisol Ramirez, Patricia Velasquez, Roman Christou, Jaynee-Lynne Kinchen  Screenwriters: Mikki Daughtry, Tobias Iaconis  Producers: Gary Dauberman, Emile Gladstone  Editor: Peter Gvozdas  Musical Director: Joseph Bishara  Cinematographer: Michael Burgess  Genre: Horror  Distributor: Warner Bros.  Location: California, US  Running Time: 1 hr 33 min

Technical assessment: 3

Moral assessment: 3

CINEMA rating: V14

MTRCB rating: PG

A portrait of three mothers. The first is moved by survival. The second by revenge. The third by remorse. Anna (Linda Cardellini), a caseworker for social services, rescues two boys from their home. They were locked up by their mother Patricia (Patricia Velasquez) who claims she is protecting her children from the evil spirit La Llorona. At the orphanage, the two boys are found dead, and Patricia blames Anna. Vindictive, Patricia summons La Llorona to go after Anna’s children Chris and Sam (Roman Christou, Jaynee-Lynne Kinchen). Anna seeks the help of Father Perez (Tony Amendola). The priest tells her the tale of La Llorona (Marisol Ramirez), the weeping woman in Mexican folklore who killed her children in a fit of jealousy to spite her husband. Her guilt has transformed her into a malevolent wraith claiming the lives of children. Only one person can help Anna and her children: Rafael Olvera (Raymond Cruz), a curandero, a faith healer.

Part of the Conjuring universe of horror films, La Llorona sketches a similar eeriness of dark interiors, a slithering presence, then a swoop. For the most part, silence escalates suspense. But compared with other Conjuring movies, this one does not haunt you. There is no gore, no graphic depiction of torment. There is even an attempt to inject humor with Rafael’s “ta-da” as he performs some shamanic rituals. Cardellini as Anna is engaging, her son (Roman Christou) is natural—but no one in the cast succeeds in drawing us into the horror. We don’t feel we’re in the 70s even with Anna’s flared pants; we don’t see the shift to the 1600s when La Llorona killed her children. For a horror movie to horrify, it needs to catch you off-guard, it needs to inch its way from the known to the unknown. La Llorona is static; the plot is all too familiar.

Although benign in its genre, this horror film may confuse young audiences. How do you explain La Llorona’s motivation to kill her children whom she loves the most when it is her husband she wants to hurt? It’s a twisted narrative that requires parental guidance, more so because it’s the image of a mother, the protector, that is demolished here. Deranged Patricia, another mother, makes the plot more disturbing for children when she “prays” to La Llorona for the wraith to kill Chris and Sam. Anna of course redeems the message: strong and loving, she risks her life for her children. There is one other value we find in the story, but it is nested in the controversial issue of the use of shamanic rituals. It is the constant affirmation of the Divine, faith, and God’s power to save us from evil. The curandero is a former priest. He says to Anna: I may have left the church but my faith in God remains.—MOE

Hotel Mumbai

DIRECTOR: Anthony Maras  LEAD CAST: Dev patel, Armie Hammer, Nazanin Boniadi, tilda Cobham-Hervey   PRODUCER: Basil Iwanyk, Gary Hamilton, Andrew Ogilvie, Jomon Thomas  SCREENWRITER: John Collee, Anthony Maras  BASED ON: Surviving Mumbai by Victoria Midwinter Pitt  MUSIC: Volker Bertelmann  GENRE: Suspense-Action  COUNTRY:  India 

LANGUAGE: English  RUNNING TIME: 125 minutes

Technical assessment: 3.5

Moral assessment: 3

CINEMA rating: V14

MTRCB rating: R16

It was an ordinary day’s work at for Taj Mahal Palace Hotel waiter Arjun (Patel) and chef Oberoi (Kher). As the day progresses, guests arrive. This includes Iranian-British heiress Zarah (Boniadi), her husband David (Hammer), the infant son Cameron and his nanny Sally (Cobham-Hervey) and a former Russian operative Vasili (Isaacs).  A man known as The Bull masterminds and directs his terrorist group to simutaneously attack several areas of Mumbai in the evening. This leaves the hotel helpess as the local police are not equipped to handle such situation. In the ensuing events, David and Vasili are executed by the terrorist as Arjun and Oberoi bravely guides and protects the hotel guests and helps the Special Forces to track the terrorist and end the seige.

Hotel Mumbai depicts the horrors that took place in 2008 with heart and dignity to the fallen and its hereos. The film interweaves structure, tension and drama through Maras’ direction, although at times too graphically violent for comfort. Seeing how terrorists easily kill people like swatting flies and then take a pizza break as if the former is just a slice of a day’s work transmits chilling horror. There is a noticeable dose of technical proficiency despite the formulaic presentation. Maras wastes no time to build the suspense, beginning from the very first scene as terrorists casually enter the city and blend in like casual tourists.

Sometimes, altruism comes from people whom you least expect would be willing to give up everything when they themselves have nothing. At first, we are led to believe that affluent couple Zarah and David will be the protagonists who will save others but then we realize that Arjum—who went to work shoeless—and Oberei turn out to be the ones willing to die for the sake of people they do not even know. While viewers bathe in gruesome violence scene after scene, we see two seemingly unnoticeable people bring compassion and sacrifice. Two selfless souls whose acts were enough to make us see the value of life. The violence is too intense for a young audience but the message is powerful for older and mature viewers.--PMF

Born Beautiful

DIRECTOR: Perci Intalan  LEAD CAST: Martin del Rosario, Paolo Ballesteros, Lou Veloso  SCREENWRITER: Jun Lana, Rody Vera  PRODUCER: Jane Basas, Perci Intalan  EDITOR: Maynard Pattaui  MUSICAL DIRECTOR: Emeron Texon GENRE: Horror Thriller   

CINEMATOGRAPHER: Tey Clamor  LOCATION: Philippines  RUNNING TIME: 108 mins. 

Technical assessment : 2.5 

Moral assessment: 2 

MTRCB rating: R16 

CINEMA rating: V16 

May pinagdaraanan si Barbs (del Rosario). Una, namatay ang kanyang pinakamatalik na kaibigang si Trish (Ballesteros) sa naunang pelikula. Sumunod ay tinamaan at sinunog ng kidlat ang isang pang baklang kaibigan.  At ngayon ay napagitna siya sa dalawang lalaki nag-aagawan sa kanyang pagmamahal. Dahil dito ay inisip niyang nagdudulot ng kamalasan ang kanyang pagiging bakla. Pagpapasyahan niyang mamuhay bilang isang lalaki sa pamamagitan ng “conversion theraphy session”, subalit lalo lamang itong magpapagulo sa kanyang buhay. Mabuti na lamang at ang espiritu ni Trisha ay laging handang magbigay ng payo kapag kailangan na niya. 

Katulad ng naunang pelikulang Die Beauiful, pinilit na siyasatin ni Intalan ang masalimuot na pinagdaraanan ng isang transgender sa kasalukuyang panahon. May kurot ang bawat tawa, may sugat ang bawat salita.  Kahit sa makabagong pananaw ngayon, mahirap pa rin ang pinagdaraanan ng mga taong hindi nakaayon ang mga pagpili sa idinidiktang pamantayan ng lipunan. Kaya sa mga naglalakas loob na tumaliwas, kailagang pagtibayin ang loob at patigasin ang puso. May malalim sanang mensahe ang naratibo kung naging maayos lamang ang pagkakatahi ng mga eksena at pagbuo sa katauhan at mga motibo ni Barbs.Sa halip ay itinuon ito sa katatawanan at nagmistulang sala-salabat na sitcom lamang ang mga tagpo. Nakatatawa, oo. Pero pagkainom mo ng tubig ay sabay na ring mahuhugasan kung ano mang kwento o kwenta ang meron dito. 

Kung ang layunin ng mga gumawa ng Born Beautiful ay palawigin ang pagkakaunawa sa mga isyu ng LGBT o bigyan sila ng karampatang panahon para hindi lamang maging pangbasag sa seryosong mga eksena—hindi nila ito nabigyang katarungan. Katulad ng nabanggit, mas malakas ang direksyon na ibenta ang komedya at hatakin ang mga manunuod sa magaspang na katatawanan. Maraming kabastusan na hindi naman talagang kailangan. Kahit na nasa hustong gulang at pag-iisip ang manunuod ay mahihirapan pa ring himayin ang mas makabuluhang pangyayari na maaring pagsimulan sana ng mas matalinong pag-uusap ukol sa LGBT.--PMF