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BLITZ REVIEW
A jazz hideaway in QC side street
by Juaniyo Arcellana - May 30, 2026 - 12:00am
You’d never know it was there unless you heard the band playing inside, the club entrance separated only by a black curtain from the street across which a sari-sari store may be selling cigarettes to a young...
‘Sisa’ and the sad fruit of empire
by Juaniyo Arcellana - March 23, 2026 - 12:00am
It is La Koronel and her gaze that remind us how cinema can be a force of nature, not that a simple movie can change the world, but because we can never walk into a movie house the same way again when they’ve...
A small oasis for cinemagoers
by Juaniyo Arcellana - February 18, 2026 - 12:00am
Once in a blue while the Film Development Council of the Philippines goes out of its way to give the average Filipino filmgoer a treat, at the same time help foster a deeper appreciation for the more than hundred...
‘Akupangktyur, sayawan at tuksuhan’: The revolution according to Khavn
by Juaniyo Arcellana - November 1, 2025 - 12:00am
The revolution won’t be heard on Spotify, neither can it be seen or viewed on YouTube or TikTok.
Smashing, post invasion
by Juaniyo Arcellana - October 5, 2025 - 12:00am
They came, they played, they conquered, Smashing Pumpkins did, despite absence of billboard advertising or promo giveaways pre-show, preferring instead word of mouth, or the subliminal marites of its own silent...
Ballad of the fallen colonial idols
by Juaniyo Arcellana - September 9, 2025 - 12:00am
So deeply ingrained in the psyche of the colonized are the tropes of former colonizers, such that it takes more than a literal sea change to exorcise all past ghosts, short of rewriting history itself at the risk...
Beatles night for Nitoy
by Juaniyo Arcellana - July 8, 2025 - 12:00am
Recent years have not been kind to musicians, particularly guitarists who have passed on one after another since the pandemic: Wally Gonzales, Noli Aurillo, Jun Lopito, Rolly Maligad, not to mention drummer Chong...
A Filipina dancer in Singapore
by Juaniyo Arcellana - May 23, 2025 - 12:00am
Philippine representation is not lacking at the ongoing Singapore International Festival of Arts, as Pia Angela Custodio is among the international dancers in “Colony,” a dance recital slated for final...
Versions of ‘Superstar’
by Juaniyo Arcellana - May 4, 2025 - 12:00am
First I heard the song Superstar, written by Leon Russell and Bonnie Bramlett back when your mother wasn’t yet born, was on the radio, fittingly enough, and the voice was Karen Carpenter’s. Hers was an...
The Reds’ reinvention of the Lilith myth
by Juaniyo Arcellana - March 21, 2025 - 12:00am
A parricide, escape into the woods, where an evil cult awaits to feast on human flesh as sacrifice and ritual. Mikhail Red continues his exploration of horror cinema with “Lilim,” based on the mythological...
Masaker his left foot
by Juaniyo Arcellana - February 16, 2025 - 12:00am
After around 40 years of writing reviews, you’d think it was time to hang up the old gloves, time to get sick of it, but not necessarily when an album like the Brockas’ Masaker comes trotting on Spo...
Birdman in Guiguinto
by Juaniyo Arcellana - December 8, 2024 - 12:00am
Once upon a time in faraway Guiguinto, there was an autobiographical art exhibit told in cartoon panels, curiously titled “The Sky is the Langit” and curated by Erwin Romulo, and a launch of The Book...
Eddie Romero’s ‘Ganito’ selected for UNESCO memory of the world
by Juaniyo Arcellana - November 24, 2024 - 12:00am
On the centennial of National Artist for Film Eddie Romero, the Dumaguete born director’s seminal “Ganito Kami Noon, Paano Kayo Ngayon?” has been selected for inclusion in the UNESCO Memory of the...
Bottle, gun, paint, film
by Juaniyo Arcellana - October 27, 2024 - 12:00am
This year marks the 25th anniversary of the first acknowledged Filipino digital film, “Still lives” by Jon Red a.k.a. Juan Pula, which at the time it was released in 1999 was unaware it was ushering in...
Into the mystic
by Juaniyo Arcellana - July 23, 2024 - 12:00am
Book author and anthropologist Tita Pambid Domingo laments that everything, even the once occult amulet, can be seen on the internet, and if this is the case there is no reason holding back showing her husband Reuben...
Last exit from Lantana
by Juaniyo Arcellana - June 30, 2024 - 12:00am
On the third Friday of June just days before the Feast of San Juan, Mowelfund held its first screening of the “Dokyu Wave” series at the Conrado “Dengcar” Baltazar Theater in its office off...
James Taylor in Manila redux, 30 years later
by Juaniyo Arcellana - April 11, 2024 - 12:00am
Good things come to those who wait, not least to James Taylor and his fans who turned the Mall of Asia (MOA) Arena on April 8 into one giant folk house and speakeasy when the artist-musician had a sequel show to...
Letter to a ruined country
by Juaniyo Arcellana - April 2, 2024 - 12:00am
The more I listen to Khavn and the Kontra-Kino Orchestra’s The Woman Who Went Mad, the more it sounds like a love letter to a ruined country, hypothetically our own, what with its sparse instrumentation, vocals...
Friends still here and friends no longer with us
by Juaniyo Arcellana - March 3, 2024 - 12:00am
I know this is late, but received word of director Tikoy Aguiluz’s death on the eve of an out-of-town trip, and so was unable to attend his wake.
So long to Sky Cable
by Juaniyo Y. Arcellana - February 15, 2024 - 12:00am
News is out that Sky Cable will sign off by month’s end, making it the second major broadcast carrier and communications conglomerate to write 30 in as many months, after CNN Philippines last January. PLDT’s...
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