Goth: Love of Death

Two high school students come together to investigate a string of murders---not because they're teenage sleuths who want to catch the culprit, but because they want to admire and inspect the killer's handiwork. Visually stunning, like an amalgamation of nightmares and dreams, Takahashi Gen's movie adaptation of the Otsuichi light novel, Goth, succeeds in establishing a mood and tone which befits its source material but draws back from delving...

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Insiang

Here's another Lino Brocka film that I had the good fortune to see last year.  This melodramatic tale of parental betrayal and revenge set in the slums of  Tondo has the distinction of being the first Filipino movie to ever be screened in the Cannes Film Festival and is considered by critics to be one of the best examples of film noir to come out of the Philippines.  It's in better shape than most films to come out from the 70s,...

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Now You're One of Us

Finding a good book these days, it seems, is also a matter of destiny... sometimes, you buy a book on impulse only to find out later on that they cut the price in half and there's still a whole shelf of it available at the store. Other times, you ignore that one book that turns out to be the last remaining copy and by the time you decide to go back for it, it's gone and already on the special order list, or worse, it may even be out of print. I...

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Maynila sa Kuko ng Liwanag

There's still an ongoing debate as to which film can be categorically called as Lino Brocka's greatest masterpiece but this movie certainly ranks as the late director's most popular work. Often featured in film festival circuits and lauded for its depiction of the various social ills that beleaguer our country, "Maynila sa Kuko ng Liwanag" occupies a rather prestigious place in Philippine cinematic history. It's one of the few films that earned...

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