Category: Fantasy

‘Wicked: For Good’ stays true to its story, for better and worse | movie review
“Wicked: For Good” brings the story of Elphaba and Glinda to a satisfying conclusion, even as its source material’s flaws glimmer through.

“Wicked: For Good“ is, much like Act 2 of the stage show, a mixed bag. It highlights the strongest aspects with raw and visceral musical numbers that underline the emotional struggles of the characters. At the same time, however, it emphasizes its weaknesses as it clunkily weaves “The Wizard of Oz” into the story. Still, and most importantly, the relationship between Elphaba and Glinda hits all the emotional notes that made Wicked such an enduring story. Cynthia Erivo continues to captivate on the screen, but it is Ariana Grande’s magnificent performance as an emotionally-torn Glinda that gives the movie the complexity and depth to become greater than the sum of its parts.

“Wicked: For Good” is in theaters Friday.

For better (good?) or worse, “Wicked: For Good” is exactly the movie you’re expecting. For fans of the stage show, it highlights its strongest aspects. The musical numbers have the same raw, visceral emotionality just blown up in scale while the characters’ complex journeys are even more deeply felt. With that, however, it emphasizes its notorious weaknesses. In particular, the way the plot twists to tie to “The Wizard of Oz” still feels clunky. Despite its failings, and most importantly, the relationship between Elphaba and Glinda hits all the emotional notes that’s made “Wicked” such an enduring classic. Perhaps even more so in the movie version.

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Part one of the Wicked duology has the easier job. Not only is its tie to “The Wizard of Oz” tenuous, the archetypes of the characters are simple and familiar. Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) is the brainy outsider that rails against injustice and Glinda (Ariana Grande) is the self-absorded popular girl with an unexpected heart. “For Good” takes those archetypes, and throws them into a complex situation that mirrors the very real structures of oppression in our society. Structures that director Jon M. Chu emphasizes even more with propaganda against Elphaba flying through the streets of Oz and added scenes of prejudice that could be taken straight out of a Holocaust movie. Yeah, things get a little convoluted.

The story’s clear ties to the darkest instincts of society sometimes rub against the silliness of a world where munchkins co-exist with talking animals. It’s maybe even more stark with the additions to the plot by screenwriters Winnie Holzman (who penned the stage version) and Dana Fox. Among those additions is a new song sung by Elphaba called “There’s No Place Like Home” where she encourages the animals, who are forced into hiding, to fight for their homeland. Like many of the changes to the story, it feels gratuitous and out-of-place in an attempt to emphasize a theme that is already underlined in the source material. Unlike the changes to the first movie that felt in service to the characters’ journeys. Holzman should have trusted her original writing because what works most often in the movie is what is taken directly from the stage.

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The second act of Wicked has always felt like Glinda’s story as she struggles between two truths: that she enjoys the adoration brought to her by working with The Wizard (Jeff Goldblum) and Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh), and the fact that she knows that her friend is a good person. Ariana Grande’s magnificent performance underlines that paradox as she tries to hold on to her newfound power in Oz while protecting her friend. Part of that involves ignoring what is happening around her with the glimmer of hope that it’s not as bad as Elphaba says and that it is not too late to change course. But Grande never lets that hope come off as delusion. For a character as high off the ground as Glinda, she always feels grounded in something real.

As the story progresses and alliances shift or are revealed, the main trio of Elphaba, Glinda and Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey) circle each other with fiery passion fueled by their histories. Like in “As Long As Your Mine,” which feels even more like a showstopper in the movie. Bailey exchanges his character’s bravado for real bravery as he bares his genuine feelings for the first time. As the camera swirls around the couple, it feels like classic romantic movie magic. That is juxtaposed against “No Good Deed,” which burns with anger and pain as Elphaba, delivered with unrestrained ferocity by Erivo, faces her past and present failings in a desperate attempt to save what she loves. Chu finds the emotional core of each of these numbers and amplifies them to the cinematic proportions they deserve, even as his direction fails in other aspects.

The final act, torn directly from the stage version, finally reaches the levels of greatness set by the first movie. And that is because at its core “Wicked” is a story about two women that in finding compassion in their differences drive each other to be better people. Erivo and Grande seem to understand that as they sing the title number to each other. Somehow they fill the space between the characters with all the hopes, regrets and words unsaid between them. It is movie musical magic. Despite its flaws, the booming crescendo of the piece, which has the characters facing uncertain futures, is deeply felt. It leaves you missing them as the screen fades to black. It is the raw and plain power musical theater captured on film.

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November 18, 2025
‘Three Thousand Years of Longing’ needed another wish | Cannes movie review
Tilda Swinton plays an academic who frees a Djinn (Idris Elba) from centuries-long imprisonment and is granted three wishes in Three Thousand Years of Longing.

George Miller has never made the same movie twice in his storied career and Three Thousand Years of Longing is no exception. The movie is a visual feast as it hops across millenniums to tell the story of how a Djinn (Idris Elba) found his way into the hands of a lonely academic (Tilda Swinton). Elba’s grainy baritone voice over the lush visuals that Miller renders with the same imaginative spectacle that he did Fury Road draws you in and underlines the movie’s power of storytelling theme. However, whenever the movie trails from that thread and explores that potential romance between Swinton and Elba’s characters the spell is broken. Stories have power, but stories are only as good as their ending. Three Thousand Years of Longing needed one more wish.

Three Thousand Years of Longing is about a genie—or more specifically, a Djinn—and his worst enemy: an intellectual. Many of the myths we know about the concept of a genie tell us that they’re tricksters looking to leave their hapless “master” worse off than before. In that way, they’re cautionary tales. Interestingly, the Djinn at the center of George Miller’s newest film—played by Idris Elba—does the opposite. More than anything, he wants Alithea (Tilda Swinton), the scholar traveling through Istanbul who frees him, to make the right wishes. Still, this is a cautionary tale. One of love and loneliness rather than greed.

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It’s been seven years since Australian director Miller premiered Mad Max: Fury Road at the Cannes Film Festival and reminded us why he is one of the greatest directors working today, especially in the fantasy genre. Naturally, his return to the festival was one of the most anticipated movie premieres of the year—mine included. With a blank check from the incredible critical and awards success of Fury Road, I was anticipating nothing but the most impressive world-building wrapped in a visual spectacle that has to be seen to believe. Instead, Three Thousand Years of Longing left me yearning for much more like the characters at its center.

Alithea, a dedicated and eccentric scholar, journies to foreign lands to speak about her theories of how fantastical stories in our history have been rendered obsolete by science and now relegated to the pages of comic books. However, science can’t quite explain away the visions of ghosts of history haunt her including one of King Solomon who seems a bit angry at Alithea’s presentation at a conference. After exploring Istanbul with a colleague, she comes across an odd glass bottle. Warped, lined with a swirling blue design, and, of course, sealed shut.

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When she returns to her hotel room, the bespeckled Alithea inadvertently opens the bottle while cleaning it with her electric toothbrush. A thick dark mist envelopes her hotel room to reveal an enormous Djinn, a ghostlike creature from Arabian mythology but is used interchangeably with a genie in the movie. Elba’s hulking figure and striking face coupled with prosthetic pointed ears and yellow eyes make for a striking effect. He reveals to Alithea that he’s been imprisoned for hundreds of years and that now he owes her three wishes for setting him free.

Alithea, the ever-analyzing historian that she is knows from mythology that these wishes rarely turn out well and refuses. Djinn, sent into a frenzy, cautions that if she does not make her wishes nothing good could come of it recalling how it is what caused his imprisonment for the second time. He reveals to Alithea that he has been imprisoned three times over the past three thousand years.

So begins Three Thousand Years of Longing’s ode to storytelling as Djinn recounts in poetically-written narration his journey through millennia. From the Queen of Sheba (Aamito Lagum) to a poor concubine during the age of the Ottoman Empire, Miller brings each encounter to life as vivid magical landscapes that quite literally shimmer on the screen. However, we’re not given time to luxuriate in each world. This is a story that Djinn is telling us. As with all orally passed down stories, there are gaps as it jumps from moment to moment rarely letting the emotions of the events to seep through. It’s like there’s a barrier between the storyteller and the audience—it’s why Three Thousand Years often feels cold.

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Based on B.S. Ayatt’s short story The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye, Three Thousand Years of Longing feels like a blank check movie in that most studios wouldn’t immediately greenlight a $60 million fantasy romance told mostly in voiced-over flashbacks. You’d expect an epic. However, the movie feels slight because of its structure—especially compared to Fury Road. Though, that slightness is a benefit to the second half of the movie, which shifts—somewhat abruptly—from epic fantasy to a quiet romance.

There are two key ingredients to make a romance work: chemistry and overcoming adversity. Unfortunately, neither work here. Not to the fault of Elba or Swinton, who as always give masterful performances. Particularly Elba who has to literally portray three thousand years of longing and trauma—something he carries on his face throughout the movie. The movie structurally doesn’t give us the chance to fall for the characters as they fall for each other as we switch back and forth between times and places. We don’t have a reason to root for Djinn and Alithea’s love story by the time the movie focuses in on it. It’s a shame since the part of the story is what would have it work. Despite Djinn’s warnings and Alithea’s logic, they still fall into the same traps that Djinn has seen for millennia. It implies that matters of the heart are often clouded because it’s our nature as humans. However, Miller is never able to consummate that theme and the story.

There’s magic to be had in Three Thousand Years of Longing. And if you know Miller’s work—Mad Max, Babe, Happy Feet, The Witches of Eastwick—you know that you’re going to see and feel it. The world he builds is nothing less than spectacle. But behind the sparkling vivid imagery is emptiness. Ironically, the movie leaves us longing for more. More character, more emotion, more humanity. What made Fury Road such a monumental achievement was its ability to consummate a genre story with deeply complex human themes. Three Thousand Years frankly fails on both accounts. Well, here’s hoping for the Furiosa movie.

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May 25, 2022
‘Barbie’ is hot pink-splashed post-modern meta romp | review and analysis
Barbie leads a perfect life, until something goes horribly wrong. To save herself, she needs to leave her pink utopia Barbieland and venture into the real world. Ken’s there too.

Barbie looks camp right in the eye and turns it into a hot pink-splashed post-modern meta exploration of existentialism, feminism, the patriarchy and masculinity packaged in a satirical surreal musical comedy homage to classic. It isn’t just a movie of our time. It is the movie of our time.

Barbie is in theaters now.

Before I begin: I want to vocalize by full support of the Writers Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild as they fight for a fair deal.

I’m so happy I live in a world where a major studio gave a female filmmaker a $145 million dollar budget to make a post-modern meta-exploration of existentialism, feminism, the patriarchy and masculinity packaged as a satirical surreal musical comedy homage to classic cinema based on a children’s toy. They’d probably faint if I tried to explain this to a Victorian child. Barbie is a movie of today. Or, more aptly, Barbie is *the* movie of today.

Writer-director Greta Gerwig (Lady Bird, Little Women)—she co-wrote the movie with her husband Noah Baumbach—captures our current societal, political, and cultural moment with confident hot pink-splashed ease as she double winks at the audience with the surreal absurdity of Barbieland. That is the most remarkable achievement of the movie. Barbie knows that we know that they know that we know exactly what they’re doing. It’s like a movie of a dream sequence in a movie in a dream. Things don’t quite make sense, but it adds up. In the case of Barbie, it adds up to a sharp, incisive, and profound reflection of our world—that also happens to be a hilarious summer romp that we’ve been craving.

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We begin in Barbieland, a picturesque bright idealistic world made of plastic. It’s basically the “how society would look if” meme if it was pink. Every morning the “Barbies” wake up, brush their teeth with comically-sized toothbrushes, “shower” with no water, and float down from their roofs to begin their day of… well, being perfect. Barbie is president (Issa Rae in a charming supporting role). She also holds every seat on the Supreme Court. She’s a doctor. A lawyer. Barbie is everything. As narrator Helen Mirren puts it in a cheeky voiceover, “all problems of feminism and equal rights have been solved” in the real world because of Barbie… or so the Barbies in Barbieland are led to believe—more on that later.

All the visual gags and well-publicized hyper-stylized quirks are as delightful as you’d imagined (Her heels don’t hit the ground! They drink from cups with nothing in them! Gravity is more of a concept than reality!). The specificity and absolute absurdity of the world-building is joyous, as is the “giant blowout party with all the Barbies, and planned choreography, and a bespoke song.” Margot Robbie as our protagonist Stereotypical Barbie (her words not mine)—aka the Barbie you think of when someone tells you to think of a Barbie—is perhaps the most charismatic and perfect of them all (if that’s even possible).

But then at the end of their perfect Disco-inspired musical number to Dua Lipa’s “Dance the Night” a though creeps into Barbie’s head: “Do you guys ever think about dying?” Cue the record scratch.

The next day, Barbie’s perfect morning isn’t quite perfect. Her “shower” is cold, waffles burnt, and, most alarmingly, her feet are flat (*gay gasp*)! She laments, “I would never wear heels if my feet were shaped this way.” There are countless of those precise observational quips. This leads her to Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon)—a Barbie who was played with too hard and can’t seem to keep herself out of the splits—who explains that someone playing with her in the real world is making her this way (she even starts to get *gulps* cellulite on her thigh). Weird Barbie offers her a red pill and a blue pill. Well, in the world of Barbie it’s a pink sparkly pump and a Birkenstock. Go to the real world and fix the problem or stay here and suffer—she chooses the pump. Weird Barbie makes clear it wasn’t an option to begin with. So Barbie takes a car to a bike to a rocket to an RV to a boat into the real world… oh, and Ken (Ryan Gosling) is there too.

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Like Singin’ in the Rain—a clear inspiration for the movie—delightfully wrestled with the change from silent movies to sound, Barbie wrestles with the change from Barbie’s ignorant utopic existence in Barbieland to the bleak reality of the real world where she’s ogled on by men in a world ruled by them. Ken, on the other hand, is like a teenage boy discovering the Joe Rogan podcast. His eyes are “opened” to the possibilities of being a man and a world ruled by the patriarchy—and learns its limits. His world shifts from only have a good day if Barbie looks at him to seeing he can have that power all to himself—what could possibly go wrong?

Gerwig bakes the themes of the movie into the world and story seamlessly. She makes the concept of Barbie inseparable from gender and gender roles—her very existence is rooted in the experience of being a woman. In a climactic scene, Gloria (America Ferrara), a Mattel employee in the real world, lists the all the reasons why being a woman is so frustrating (you have to be skinny, but you can’t say you’re skinny you have to say you’re “healthy”; you have to strive to be successful, but you can’t be mean). It calls into question Barbie’s place in the real world—is she there to just make women feel bad that they can never achieve that level of success? Though Mattel is directly involved in the movie, they are just as much of a target of the movie’s dismantling of the paradoxes that make up our society—represented here by a bumbling CEO played by Will Ferrell and low-level intern Aaron (Connor Swindells).

Like any hero’s journey, Barbie’s adventure leads her back to Barbieland where things are looking different—and with more horses. From there, Barbie evolves to a battle of philosophies that call into question the foundations of our society.

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While Robbie’s performance is pitch-perfect playing up the plastic perfection (and realistic ignorance) of Barbie as she discovers what it is to be human (it’s giving Tyra Banks in Life Size), it’s Ryan Gosling’s performance as Ken that perhaps best encapsulates the high wire act that Gerwig accomplishes between the energetic larger-than-life tone and complex societal themes. In a scene that is destined to be his Oscar clip, Gosling portrays a devastated Ken experiencing real emotion for the first time while throwing himself around the Barbie dream house in what can only be described as a slapstick tantrum over the nearly impossible balancing act of existing not for something but yourself.

It’s difficult to watch Barbie and not be enamored by the sheer audacity of it all. It looks camp right in the eye and turns it into an artful, wildly entertaining, sharply funny deconstruction of the very fabric of our existence and the existence of our society. That isn’t even a hyperbolic statement. The intro parody of 2001: A Space Odyssey isn’t only brilliantly hilarious, it’s the perfect cinematic comparison. Barbie exists in a different meta-plane than other movies. By the time an Avengers: Endgame-level battle is levied between Gosling’s Ken and Simu Liu‘s Ken using sports equipment that eventually devolves into a “Greased Lightning”-inspired musical number it feels like you’ve seen the bounds of cinema expanded. As Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made For?” underscores and an emotional montage on screen you can help but be moved by this movie about a doll.

So take the sparkly pink pump and step into Barbieland.

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July 18, 2023
‘Hocus Pocus 2’ is 90s nostalgia done right | movie review
Our three favorite witches are back in Hocus Pocus 2 as they try once again to beat the sunrise (and a group of meddling teens) to attain immortality.

Like every other 90s kid, I grew up watching Kenny Ortega’s 1993 fantasy comedy Hocus Pocus every Halloween season. My sister and I would buy the Pillsbury precut spooky-themed sugar cookies, light up a fire, and settle in on the couch every year well into adulthood. I’d hazard a guess that we’ve seen the Sanderson Sisters resurrected in modern-day Salem more than I’ve seen any other movie. There’s real magic (pun intended) captured in the movie. It’s like capturing lightning in a bottle. A perfect spooky-not-scary tone, both intentionally and unintentionally hilarious lines, outlandish running gags, and three iconic performances from Bette Midler, Kathy Najimy, and Sarah Jessica Parker came together to make the perfect Halloween classic. To say Hocus Pocus 2 had a lot to live up to is an understatement. However, director Anne Fletcher and screenwriter Jen D’Angelo not only delivered a worthy sequel to the original. They also perfected the 90s nostalgia sequel.

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More often than not, sequels to 90s IP that we have nostalgia for fail—Space Jam: A New Legacy, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Independence Day: Resurgence (they just love a subtitle).

There are two reasons. First, because they try to mimic the original—whether out of reverence or an unsubtle attempt at leveraging our nostalgia for money—yet often misunderstand what we loved about it. Second, they try to one-up the original, again resulting in a misinterpretation of what made it good in the first place. Hocus Pocus 2, on the other hand, doesn’t ape the original. It doesn’t try to outdo it either. It completely understands the tongue-in-cheek tone and weaponized it in an updated way without feeling like a grab for relevancy.

At the same time, it expands the lore of the first movie as it opens with more backstory for our three favorite witches—Winnie (Midler), Mary (Najimy), and Sarah (Parker). We learn that from their youth they have been outcasts, albeit aimless. That is until Mother Witch (Hannah Waddington) gives them the famous booooOOOOOk that gives them their powers—while also warning them against using a magica maxima spell to become all-powerful. In the present day, we meet our own rambunctious group of outcasts, Becca (Whitney Peak), Izzy (Belissa Escobedo), and their recently estranged friend Cassie (Lilia Buckingham). However, unlike Max in the original film, Becca and Izzy are ostracized for being into the occult.

Well, maybe the other students—including Cassie’s boyfriend Mike (Froy Guttierez)—are onto something.

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That’s because while performing a ritual for Becca’s birthday on sacred ground with a candle they’re gifted from Gilbert, owner of the Olde Salem Magic Shoppe in the Sandersons’ home, they accidentally resurrect the sisters… again. This time, though, they enter with a musical number. Like “I Put A Spell on You” from the original, they sing a version of Elton John’s “The Bitch Is Back” reworked as “The Witch is Back.” As Becca and Izzy are hiding watching the witches sing their song they wonder, “who are they performing for?” That question is answered when Mary suddenly appears beside them and says, “you!” In an attempt to save themselves from the sisters, the girls convince them they are actually 40, witches, and can help them get the souls of children.

Of course, hijinks ensue. In what is easily my favorite scene of the movie and an instant classic, the Sanderson sisters take on all of our nemesis: a Walgreens.

Just like the “black river” in the original, Winnie hilariously takes on the automatic door—”the gates parted for her,” she snarls in amazement when Becca walks through—before our young heroines convince the sisters that the beauty products have the souls of children in them to keep them youthful. As they start to eat the product, Sarah delivers my favorite line of the entire movie, “retinol, what a charming name for a child.” And while a lesser movie would try to hit the original’s jokes beat for beat, Hocus Pocus 2 creates its own gags and jokes—including lines I’m going to quote forever.

However, what this also did is immediately signal to us that this isn’t going to just be a retread of the original’s plot. There’s added complexity including a revenge storyline involving the town’s mayor (Tony Hale), a coming-of-witch plot with Becca, and a reintroduction to our old friend Billy (Doug Jones). While the plot of the original was relatively simple, Hocus Pocus 2 expands the parameter of the world in new ways while maintaining its campy tone.

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That’s not to say there aren’t references back to the original like an onstage performance by the trio—complete with drag queen versions of them played by Kahmora Hall, Ginger Minj, and Kornbred—a trap set up by our teenage heroines, and the sisters’ unconventional broom choices (did Roomba have a sponsorship?). However, the movie doesn’t rely on them to keep the movie interesting. It forges its own way while allowing Bette Midler, Kathy Najimy, and Sarah Jessica Parker to have fun and live in these roles that have been so iconic in their careers.

Hocus Pocus 2 is nostalgia done right because it doesn’t rely on our nostalgia to keep it afloat.

Instead, it casts its own set of spells to bewitch us in the same way it did 30 years ago. Watching this movie with my sister decades older in her home in New York City (but still with the cookies) just felt right. Like it fits in with the same routine we’ve been doing for years. I already can’t imagine a Halloween without it. Call me a sap, but this was the sequel my inner child didn’t know it needed—but maybe it’s just really just a bunch of hocus pocus.

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September 29, 2022
‘The Tragedy of Macbeth’ transports you to the Twilight Zone | movie review
Joel Coen adapts his version of The Tragedy of Macbeth as a minimalist psychological thriller with Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand taking on the borrowed robes of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth

Where to watch The Tragedy of Macbeth:

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The Tragedy of Macbeth immediately justifies its existence by removing all markers of time and place. Director Joel Coen, tackling his first solo film after working with his brother Ethan as the Coen brothers, sets the play on minimalist sets of massive concrete walls, dresses the characters in abstract costumes, and captures the action in crisp black and white that makes it feel like the movie is taking place somewhere else entirely. Everything is impressionistic. We get just enough to give us the general time period but not enough to latch on to specifics. The effect is offputting but needed. This isn’t your grandma’s Shakespeare adaptation.

As much as we rolled our eyes at our English teachers as we analyzed nearly every Shakespeare play line by line, one has to admit that there’s a reason his work has endured and is still adapted today. There’s something so modern about his writing. His sardonic wit and peculiar surrealism fit in perfectly with A24’s singular brand of quirky but melancholic dramedies about the human condition — and that’s what Coen created here.

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Macbeth, whose borrowed robes are taken up by Denzel Washington, and Lady Macbeth (Frances McDormand) fit in nicely in the indie studio’s pantheon of complicated anti-heroes — Spring Breakers’ Alien, Ex Machina’s Ava, or most aptly Uncut Gems’ Howard. And stylistically the film fits in too. There’s a sort of rhythm to it all where one scene bleeds into the next, sometimes literally. It has the fluid motion of a play but takes advantage of the full scope that film provides. It at equal times feels epic and intimate, sometimes too intimate. Even claustrophobic.

The foggy landscapes and cavernous spaces add to the eerie dread-filled atmosphere while the haunting soundscape, aided by Carter Burwell’s menacing score, pushes The Tragedy of Macbeth closer to the psychological horror that it is meant to be. You could not understand a single thing that leaves the actors’ mouths, and sometimes I didn’t, and still be swept up in the emotion of it all. Some of which could be attributed to the performances.

While Washington and McDormand do fine work with some of the most iconic monologues ever written — the dagger and damn spot monologues are chilling — it’s the supporting characters that make the greatest impact and make the movie eminently rewatchable. Kathryn Hunter, who plays all three witches using some clever cinematic flourishes, is a dominating presence. Her shapeshifting role, sometimes literally, finds her contorting her body, face, and even her voice in unnatural ways. Her performance, like much of the film, toes the line between a real human monster and a devilish creature.

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Alex Hassell’s Ross, a side character with little impact in the text, finds a way to act as the chaotic neutral to Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s chaotic evil. His sleek silhouette cinched at the waist, which is the peak of the movie’s costume design by Mary Zophres, slips in and out of corners and shadows like he’s a harbinger, and catalyst, for the dread that is to come.

There’s mysticism in all of Shakespeare’s works, even the ones based in history. Whereas other adaptations place magic in the real world, Coen lets magic set the tone for The Tragedy of Macbeth. The way it moves, the way it looks, and the way it feels is otherworldly. Like you’re dropped into the Twilight Zone in the 17th Century.

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December 29, 2021
‘Whether the Weather is Fine’ is Filipino cinema at its finest | TIFF movie review
Filipino film Whether the Weather is Fine takes a quirky approach to its story of the aftermath of a Typhoon

Carlos Francisco Manatad’s Whether the Weather is Fine will surprise you with its melancholic surrealist drama and absurdist comedy approach to a real-life disaster and capture you with its heart.

Whether the Weather is Fine, which had its North American premiere at the 2021 Toronto International Film Festival, is perhaps the best indication that the Filipino film industry is alive and well. The film focuses on the City of Tacloban, Director Carlos Francisco Manatad’s hometown, amidst the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan — it was one of the strongest tropical cyclones ever recorded and one of the deadliest. However, the first two shots of the film tell us that this isn’t going to be your standard disaster movie.

The first real shot of the movie is of a clear blue sky outlining the irony of beautiful weather following the destruction. The second shot introduces us to Miguel (Daniel Padilla doing terrific work), who inexplicably wakes up on the couch of a destroyed home. A few feet from him lies a corpse and from his pocket, he pulls out a fish. It’s that tongue-in-cheek tone that immediately sets Whether the Weather is Fine from any expectations you may have based on its premise.

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Eventually, Miguel finds his girlfriend Andrea (Rans Rifol) and his mother Norma (Charo Santos-Concio) amongst the destruction. With an eerie loudspeaker warning of an incoming second storm, the trio decides it’s time to move on. How each of them accomplishes that differs.

Manatad captures the dreamlike state victims of disaster find themselves in with magical realism. All senses are heightened. It’s like the world doesn’t entirely make sense. And that’s because it doesn’t — much like Joe Talbot’s terrific The Last Black Man in San Francisco. When something as life-altering as Typhoon Haiyan happens, what you once knew no longer applies.

Through it all, the film maintains a darkly comedic tone as each of the characters tries to find what they’re looking for — escape, a purpose, forgiveness. The increasingly surreal and bleak scenes — helping a dog leading one character to become the messiah, an impromptu song and dance — become set-dressing to the engrossing journey each of the characters goes on.

However, it’s in the moments of hope that Whether the Weather is Fine comes together. There are two musical sequences that highlight what the film ultimately trying to say. There’s something about the Filipino spirit that is unbreakable. Something as a Filipino-American I’ve always tried to capture. Manatad tells us that through all the absurdity of life, sometimes all you need is an escape. And sometimes that escape is breaking out into song.

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September 22, 2021
‘The Changeover’ review — A well-made gothic YA fantasy

The Changeover is a well-made fantasy YA movie that features a terrifying villainous turn by Timothy Spall.

The Changeover — based on Margaret Mahy’s 1984 novel of the same — is refreshingly a young adult adaptation that doesn’t have aspirations for a franchise. In the vein of Twilight, the movie tells the story of Laura (Erana James), a teen who seems to know when something bad is going to happen before it does. She doesn’t realize it, but this is because she’s a witch.

Portrayed as a low fantasy — meaning that magical events intrude on an otherwise normal world — The Changeover takes place in New Zealand following an earthquake. Laura and her younger brother Jacko (Benji Purchase) are often left to their own devices following the suicide of their father and their mother Kate’s (Melaine Lynskey) rigorous work schedule to support the trio.

One day, walking home from school, Laura loses Jacko just to find him with a creepy man named Braque (Harry Potter’s Timothy Spall). The chance encounter triggers extrasensory perception for danger, but before she can get Jacko out of the shipping crate that Braque uses as an antique shop he places a stamp on the young boy.

In the next days, Jacko begins to develop strange behaviors — speaking in a voice that isn’t his, purposefully burning his hand on the stove — before falling ill and ending up in the hospital. Doctors think they pinpoint the illness, which would require a blood transfusion if either Laura or her mother is a suitable donor.

However, Laura knows something more supernatural is afoot. So, she turns to the mysterious school hunk Sorensen Carlisle (Nicholas Galitzine) — your Edward Cullen-esque lover interest — for help. He reveals that he is part of a coven of witches and that Braque is a magical parasite that is feeding on Jacko’s lifeforce through the stamp to obtain eternal life. He knows how to save Jacko, but it would require Laura to undergo the dangerous process of “The Changeover,” which is a ritual that gives her her full powers as a witch.

Erana James and Timothy Spall in THE CHANGEOVER

The Changeover is coming late in the lifespan of teen fantasy romances that saw commercial successes like Twilight and Warm Bodies and flops like Beastly and Red Riding Hood. However, it still is a refreshing exercise in the genre. Not only is it well-directed by Miranda Harcourt and Stuart McKenzie, but it also features great atmospheric sound design and cinematography.

However, so much of the success has to be credited to Timothy Spall’s skin-crawling performance as the villain of the piece. There is real horror in the movie. Something that Twilight never achieved — despite being about vampires and werewolves — because it was too involved in the central relationship. Where those movies were 75/25 on romance to story, The Changeover is more like 25/75. The biggest issue is that when the relationship is muscled in it feels out of place and awkward.

The movie soars when it is a gothic horror fantasy filled with tension and dread. Thankfully it’s that for most of the running time. Sometimes it takes a detour through teen fantasy soap territory — music montages and declarations of love and all — but not enough to derail the movie.

At a lean 92 minutes, it’s hard not to recommend giving The Changeover a watch. It doesn’t always work, but when it does it’s magical.

The Changeover will be in theaters and on demand on February 22nd.

February 18, 2019