Sunday, April 21, 2024

Peter Pan

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Mr. and Mrs. Darling are the proud parents of three wonderful children named Wendy, John, and Michael. Also part of the family are their nannies: a dog named Nana and a househelp by the name of Liza. The family lives a rather ordinary life in London without much fanfare, at least not until the arrival of Peter Pan. Peter Pan is a young boy who still has all his first teeth and is part of the Lost Boys, a tribe of youngsters like him who reside in Neverland. Peter visits Wendy’s room one night and convinces her, along with her brothers, to fly with him back to Neverland to be his and the Lost Boys’ mother. Despite the initial hesitation of Tinkerbell, Peter Pan’s fairy sidekick, they all make it back to Neverland and face off with Captain Hook, a villainous ship captain who has an axe to grind with the young boy.

Saturday, April 20, 2024

Fahrenheit 451

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In a dystopian future where houses have become fireproof, the concept of a fireman is repurposed to serve a more sinister role, which is that of starting fires instead of extinguishing them. The unfortunate victims of such raids are not people but rather books, which society and the current powers-that-be have deemed useless and too dangerous for everyone’s sake. Anyone caught harboring books gets a visit from the firemen and are put under arrest right after the arson, with some opting to burn with their library instead. One such fireman is Guy Montag, who comes home from work on a seemingly normal day running into an eclectic young girl called Clarisse who makes him reflect about his choices in life as well as his role in the status quo’s tyranny. Once he starts asking questions, much to the chagrin of his suicidal but mostly aloof wife Mildred, he begins to search for answers for a reality he does not remember ever signing up for.

Saturday, April 13, 2024

Beowulf

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King Hrothgar of the Danes has had a long and prosperous rule, but is now left to worry in old age as his great hall, Heorot, is terrorized by a monster named Grendel whose emergence from his lake is becoming more and more frequent as he feasts on the king’s men. The horror is felt throughout the kingdom and all hope now seems to be gone when a brave warrior from the north docks on the king’s shores. Beowulf comes from the land of the Geats and has a debt to pay to the Danish king dating back to their forebears. He gives his word that he will get rid of the monster. The king promises fortune and fame in exchange. True enough, he accomplishes his mission and everyone rejoices, celebrating his bravery and heroism, until Grendel’s equally monstrous mother decides to pay Heorot a visit to avenge his son.

Saturday, April 6, 2024

Hamlet

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One cold night at the castle of Elsinore in the Kingdom of Denmark, two guards see a ghost at the ramparts that they assume to be that of the previous king. His son Hamlet, prince of Denmark, is led to see his father’s ghost and ends up having a conversation with him. The old Hamlet tells the young about his brother Claudius, the new king, and how he murdered him so he could take over the kingdom and snatch his wife, Hamlet’s mother Gertrude. The young prince then undergoes a cycle of psychotic visions and rants, contemplating whether to avenge his father and depose his uncle. His madness spirals out of control, resulting in an accidental death and the souring of his romance with Ophelia, daughter of Polonius, the chief counselor of the king. The king decides to send his nephew to England for execution, but he eventually makes his way back to Denmark to settle things between them for good.

Friday, April 5, 2024

Mrs Dalloway

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Clarissa Dalloway goes for her early morning walk as she contemplates how her day will unfold. The wife of a politician, she is accustomed to hosting parties attended by the who’s who of London society. The beautiful yet mundane morning prompts her to reflect about the choices she has made in life, in particular her marriage to Richard instead of her childhood friend Peter Walsh, an Anglo-Indian who has proposed to her back then who is now on the verge of divorcing his wife to marry another woman he met in India. His unannounced visit in the afternoon comes as a shock to Clarissa, disturbing her party preparation and repair of her dress. Meanwhile, WWI veteran Septimus Warren Smith is suffering from PTSD after his harrowing experience in the war. His Italian wife Lucrezia gets the brunt of his husband’s hallucinations and misses home, wondering whether she made the right decision to marry him.

Saturday, March 30, 2024

Ilustrado

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Self-exiled “Panther of Philippine Letters” Crispin Salvador is found lifeless and floating on the Hudson River. His untimely death is met with nonchalance back in his native Philippines, quickly dismissed as a suicide by both his detractors and rivals alike. The investigators arrive at the same conclusion, but not everyone is convinced. One of those with doubts is Miguel, his protégé at Columbia who has become more than a close acquaintance through the years. The plot thickens when the student receives an email, presumably from his recently deceased mentor, asking him to fly back to Manila to find his daughter Dulcinea who might just be in possession of his unfinished obra maestra, a manuscript with the working title “The Bridges Ablaze” that promises to expose prominent figures back home. As Miguel deplanes, he is confronted not just by the quest for finding his teacher’s estranged daughter, but also by the life he has decided to leave behind when he decided to settle in New York.

Wednesday, February 21, 2024

Poor Things

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What’s supposed to be the end of a life becomes the beginning of a new one after a failed suicide attempt, albeit with some mental degradation involved that requires relearning the basics. Now known as Bella Baxter (Emma Stone), she becomes the experiment of renowned surgeon Godwin “God” Baxter (Willem Dafoe) who tries to treat her as a mere science project yet can’t distance himself enough emotionally to not serve as her new father figure. He enlists the help of his best medical student Max McCandles (Ramy Youssef) to chart her progress and is eventually designated as her fiancé after witnessing their fondness for one another. Due to the unique and delicate condition of his ward, God employs promiscuous lawyer Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo) to draft a special nuptial contract. Out of curiosity, he goes out of his way to get to know the subject of the document and is immediately smitten by her, taking advantage of her naivety and convincing her to run away with him to Portugal, which serves as her first stop in discovering the world and, in effect, rediscovering life itself.

Thursday, February 15, 2024

I Am Not Big Bird

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Bank clerk Luis Carpio (Enrique Gil) is proposing to his girlfriend of five years only to be turned down because of his small dick and vow of celibacy before marriage that he is committed to. Feeling dejected, he turns to his two best friends for solace. July (Red Ollero) mans an internet card stall at some random highway while Macky (Nikko Natividad) is a closeted homosexual who is outed to his military officer father out of the blue after a botched hookup. Looking for an escapist getaway to avoid facing their problems in life, the trio decide to book a flight to Thailand in order to forget. They find themselves a tour guide in Prajak Tithi (Pepe Herrera) who lures them to a shady nightclub to be scammed. Things go awry when Luis is mistaken for legendary porn star Big Bird (Enrique Gil) who is wanted by his scorned business partner Deborah (Wipawee Charoenpura) for one final hit porn flick.

Wednesday, February 14, 2024

Madame Web

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1973. A pregnant scientist doing research on radioactive spiders in the Peruvian Amazon is betrayed by her guide and fatally shot. A group of tribesmen with spider-like abilities takes her in and saves her unborn child through a spider bite. 30 years later, Cassandra Webb (Dakota Johnson) believes her life has turned out just fine doing the rounds in the foster care system. A near death experience as a paramedic triggers something within her, resulting in heightened senses and precognitive visions, one of which is the murder of three girls by a man in a black spider suit. Ezekiel Sims (Tahar Rahim) has not aged in the last three decades but is hounded by recurring nightmares of three young Spider-Women teaming up to murder him. Soon, all of their paths finally cross. Cassandra takes it upon herself to be the protector of Julia (Sydney Sweeney), Mattie (Celeste O’Connor), and Anya (Isabel Merced), who will all grow up to be a different variant of Spider-Woman.

Wednesday, February 7, 2024

Mean Girls (2024)

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Homeschooled for much of her life, Cady Heron (Angourie Rice) returns to America after spending most of her childhood in Kenya. She immediately feels out of place in a typical high school setting ruled by cliques. Eclectic duo Janis (Auli’i Carvalho) and Damian (Jaquel Spivey) are about to reluctantly adopt her when the queen of the plastics herself, Regina George (Reneé Rapp), lays eyes on her. The rest is history. The trio hatches a plan to knock Regina off her ivory tower by turning her drones against her, namely: confidante extraordinaire Gretchen Wieners (Bebe Wood); and not-so-bright Karen Shetty (Avantika). As their scheme wreaks havoc on the unsuspecting high school populace, it is up to Math teacher Ms. Norbury (Tina Fey) and Principal Duvall (Tim Meadows) to do their best to patch up the delicate web of high school drama. Will their intervention be enough or does someone have to be run over by a big yellow school bus to drive the point home?

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