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posted on Wednesday, October 21, 2009 in Movies 
Academy Award-winner Matt Damon is Mark Whitacre, the highest-ranking corporate whistleblower in U.S. history, in Warner Bros.’ critically acclaimed “The Informant!” The true-to-life film will be shown exclusively at Ayala Malls Cinemas (Glorietta 4, Greenbelt 3 and Trinoma) starting October 21.
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by Philbert Ortiz Dy posted on Wednesday, October 21, 2009 in Movie Reviews 
The sum total of all films made about the war in Iraq has not amounted to much. Though the intentions are noble, they usually devolve into intellectual exercises that merely paint dividing lines between ideologies, generally failing in terms of both dramatization and realization. But The Hurt Locker is a very different, one that doesn’t concern itself at all with the politics of the situation, living simply on the incredible tension inherently present in the lives of the men and women who are now serving there, caught in a cycle of violence from which they may never escape. It’s a brilliant piece of filmmaking, and a perfectly engrossing thriller.
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posted on Wednesday, October 21, 2009 in Movie Releases 
Check out the movies opening this week!
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by Philbert Ortiz Dy posted on Monday, October 19, 2009 in Festivals, Movies, Indie Films, Local Movies 
As I was watching the Young Cinema shorts in exhibition in the middle of Bonifacio High Street, I couldn’t help thinking about the problems of the set up. Outdoor screenings are great in theory, but like anything else, they come with their drawbacks. I had envisioned the outdoor screenings to be somewhere out in one of the empty fields that the Fort still has. The middle of High Street is a problematic location for several reasons. First of all, they don’t turn off the street lamps for the screenings, which makes it difficult to see the darker films. Michael Angelo Dagñalan’s Karoler, with its dark corridors and unlit streetscapes, could barely be seen. Secondly, there’s a nearby Seattle’s best that plays its coffeehouse muzak a little too loudly. When you have a bunch of short with minimalist soundtracks, it just becomes difficult to immerse yourself in the mood of the pictures when some light jazz is playing in the background.
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by Philbert Ortiz Dy posted on Sunday, October 18, 2009 in Festivals, Movies, Indie Films, Local Movies, Movie Reviews 
This year’s festival, being held in the vast openness that is the Fort, took the opportunity to hold outdoor screenings at Bonifacio High Street. The first outdoor screening was the young cinema program, featuring short films by young Filipino filmmakers from all over. Considering how cold it is in the Market Market cinemas, it was kind of a nice to be able to avoid air conditioning for a while. Outdoor screenings do have their drawbacks, though. Some of the entries to the program were shot on film, and logistics pretty much dictated that we were going to see everything on video.
by Philbert Ortiz Dy posted on Saturday, October 17, 2009 in Festivals, Indie Films, Local Movies 
Cinemanila’s new home is Market Market in the Fort. On any given day, three Market Market theaters are assigned for the festival, with extra screenings held at Fully Booked U-View. For those who’ve never seen it, it’s a small multi-purpose viewing room equipped with an HD projector found in the basement of Fully Booked Bonifacio High Street, just behind the Manga section. Outdoor screenings will also be held at the Bear Area of Bonifacio High Street, marked B3. The weather’s been pretty good lately, and those screenings ought to go off without a hitch.
by Philbert Ortiz Dy posted on Friday, October 16, 2009 in Movies 
The opening of Cinemanila has historically been a rather low-key affair. Sure, it would often be packed, and a good amount of wine would be served, but the opening itself would really just be a couple of speeches extolling the virtues of the festival and local cinema. That’s not the case this year, perhaps marking a change in the direction of the festival. What’s clear is that Taguig is taking the hosting of CInemanila seriously. It feels like the city has something to prove.
by Philbert Ortiz Dy posted on Thursday, October 15, 2009 in Movies 
The guest of honor at this year’s Cinemanila is screenwriter and director Paul Schrader. Schrader is often introduced as a frequent collaborator of Martin Scorsese, and in fact, the Cinemanila website itself mentions this fact within the first three sentences of its press release. But that sort of does a disservice to the full breadth of work Schrader has produced.
by Philbert Ortiz Dy posted on Thursday, October 15, 2009 in Movies 
Outside the main competition, the festival gets pretty interesting as well. The one film nobody can avoid is Quentin Tarantino’s latest, Inglourious Basterds, his sorta-kinda-not-really-remake of Enzo Castellari’s Quel maledetto treno blindato.
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