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Ferdinand S. Topacio
Ferdinand S. Topacio
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Parasite lost or parasite found?
by Ferdinand S. Topacio - May 3, 2023 - 12:00am
Is love in the mind or in the heart? This is the question that the movie Parasite In Love tries to answer, but in a roundabout way that touches on medical science, psychology and, along the trip, makes pointed commentaries...
I Will: A most modern ‘millennial’ play
by Ferdinand S. Topacio - October 25, 2022 - 12:00am
It is to the great credit of director Antonino Rommel Ramilo that he was able to assemble a cast of superlative talents for his latest foray into stage, I Will: The Musical, the biography of well-known vlogger and...
Elvis has left the movie
by Ferdinand S. Topacio - October 7, 2022 - 12:00am
Baz Luhrman’s frenetic, hyperactive directorial style made Moulin Rouge (2001) one of the most visually innovative movies of the first decade of the 2000s. Fast forward to 2022, and that same style, practically...
The lasting theme of love and loss
by Ferdinand S. Topacio - August 12, 2022 - 12:00am
It’s all been done before, a couple whose romance is ill-fated because one of them is terminal: the original was Love Story (1970) and its unabashed imitation Walk To Remember (2002).
Half-hearted and half-baked
by Ferdinand S. Topacio - July 20, 2022 - 12:00am
Joel Lamangan used to be one of our most celebrated directors. Note that I used the marginal modal past term, meaning it no longer is the case.
The gripe
by Ferdinand S. Topacio - February 15, 2022 - 12:00am
The movie starts off in medias res: Mara (played by Louise delos Reyes) is having a night out with her friends. Suddenly, she wanders off (“I need alcohol,” she says), and walks around the streets aimlessly....
Bull’s-eye!
by Ferdinand S. Topacio - October 20, 2021 - 12:00am
Shoot Shoot is an honest film, in that it does not pretend to be anything else but something that will make you laugh — or at least strive mightily to do so — for one hour and a half. It is headlined...
Parang luma
by Ferdinand S. Topacio - October 1, 2021 - 12:00am
Yam Laranas’ Paraluman is a throwback to the art of “art” filmmaking circa 1980s as exemplified by the works of Celso Ad. Castillo, Danilo Cabreira, Mel Chionglo and their ilk: Simple stories of...
You can bet on it
by Ferdinand S. Topacio - September 22, 2021 - 12:00am
Taya is all about making bets, and the disasters that ensue when one loses. Sixto’s uncle takes a chance on having a married paramour, and loses his life. Lepot, too, when he borrows money from the mob, hoping...
All’s well that ends well
by Ferdinand S. Topacio - August 17, 2021 - 12:00am
Set at a time before the full-on onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the country, Ikaw At Ako At Ang Ending creates an atmosphere of sadness and foreboding, but not of the tearjerker variety. Viewers will not reach...
Remembering Ricky
by Ferdinand S. Topacio - May 17, 2021 - 12:00am
Most of the most important people in our lives are those we don’t remember meeting: Parents, siblings, childhood friends, people who were suddenly “just there” as far as we knew.
Paradise lost
by Ferdinand S. Topacio - April 15, 2021 - 12:00am
From the land of catchy K-pop songs, from cutesy bands and rosy rom-coms, comes another out-of-the-box movie that shows why South Korean films are quickly gaining global popularity.
Every school girl’s fan-tasy
by Ferdinand S. Topacio - January 8, 2021 - 12:00am
With an ending directly lifted from Emmanuel Borlaza’s 1983 opus Laruan (with a cigarette-smoking Charlie Dizon waiting with determined loathing as approaching police sirens blare in the background, much like...
Don’t miss it
by Ferdinand S. Topacio - January 4, 2021 - 12:00am
An old house with a shadowy past in a bucolic Japanese village.
Nine best non-Hollywood works on Netflix
by Ferdinand S. Topacio - July 21, 2020 - 12:00am
With cinemas closing and movie production grinding to a screeching halt during the lockdown, Filipinos forced to stay at home had to turn to alternatives to satisfy their craving for films.
Pwede na rin
by Ferdinand S. Topacio - March 7, 2020 - 12:00am
In Hindi Tayo Pwede , the redoubtable tandem of Joel Lamangan and Ricky Lee explores the shopworn themes of hurt and healing, of remembrance and recovery, through the instrumentality of a cross-genre film: That of...
Truly mind-bending
by Ferdinand S. Topacio - February 26, 2020 - 12:00am
“Truth is rarely pure and never simple,” so once said playwright Oscar Wilde.
An intoxicating mix
by Ferdinand S. Topacio - February 7, 2020 - 12:00am
When has-been meets never-been, what will they become?
My 10 best films of 2019
by Ferdinand S. Topacio - December 26, 2019 - 12:00am
2019 was a bumper year for Filipino movies.
Not just a movie
by Ferdinand S. Topacio - August 22, 2019 - 12:00am
Just A Stranger is that rare Filipino movie with no real heroes.
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