12 Years a Slave (2013)

Many of us, especially Non-Americans, will never truly understand the horrors and atrocities associated with slavery. While hundreds of books have been written over the past century, slavery is still not a subject that Americans are entirely comfortable talking about or bringing up. It is a black-eye in their history that they would rather not discuss it and just move on. So you can just imagine the difficulty and controversy that comes with trying to make a film about slavery. Most recently, Quentin Tarantino tried his hands at it with Django Unchained. Although it was greatly entertaining, the added spaghetti western element, and the over-all style of the film really didn't give enough attention to the slavery part of the film. In fact, I dare say no Hollywood film has truly tackled the issue of slavery in the United States that would really allow the audience to connect with the characters, and perhaps really know how it feels to live in that time. Ironically, it took a British director, and a British leading actor to truly get the message across. It took a film like 12 Years a Slave to really show slavery in all its inhumanity and degradation.

Lincoln (2012)

With exactly a month to go before the Academy Awards, I'm trying my best to see as many (if not all) of the best picture nominees as possible. Coming from the Philippines, this poses a challenge since some of the films may be released here after the Oscars. Some may not even be released at all if it didn't win anything, or if the distributors think that it wouldn't appeal to the local audience. I hope I'm wrong on this, but I think an example of the latter would be Steven Spielberg's Lincoln. I just finished watching it yesterday and I still can't properly put into words just how beautiful and incredible a film it was.

A brief background on the film first, since I don't think I'd be spoiling it for anyone since everything shown on the film is part of American history. The film is set during the tail-end of the American Civil War. President Abraham Lincoln has just been elected to a second term and he has made it his ultimate mission to finally abolish slavery by having the thirteenth amendment to the American Constitution passed in congress within the next month. It seems like a pretty easy law to pass since his party has the majority in congress but so many factors and vested interests from various parties are making it harder and harder to guarantee the bill's ratification.

Life of Pi (2012)

This will be a rough draft review of Life of Pi. I won't be writing that much about the film due to lack of time, but I do intend to polish it up as soon as I can. I am sure that almost everyone out there has seen Life of Pi so there is no need for me to elaborate on the plot. Also with all the good reviews about it, people who have not seen it need little more convincing. While I admit that Life of Pi is an above average movie, far better than the majority out there, I was not totally wowed by it and personally don't think it is worthy of all its accolades.

I think it is universally accepted that the movie was an absolute visual masterpiece, and I would have to agree with this. Visually, Life of Pi was unbelievably beautiful; so many stunning scenes and images that were really breathtaking. My personal favorite was the aerial shot of the ocean with all the jellyfish.

The Descendants (2011)

It seems like ages since I've written my thoughts about a film down for people to read. If I remember correctly, the last film I wrote about was Grindhouse: Planet Terror back in the old Multiply website. So forgive this initial attempt at a comeback if it lacks any semblance of a valid movie review. As I write more, I'll try to do better I promise. It is also befitting that I re-start this hobby of mine discussing one of the most critically acclaimed movies of the year - Alexander Payne's The Descendants

The end of the year is usually where Hollywood studios release their bets for Oscar gold. Because of the Metro Manila Film Festival though, we get these films a few months delayed. This for me is both good and bad since by this time the nominations have been announced, so we only get those films that were actually nominated and not those that were snubbed but still worth watching. So when Giulz and I found out that The Descendants was now showing, we made it a point to watch it and see if the film lived up to all the hype and if George Clooney's performance was as good as his nominations merited. By the end of the film, the answer was a definite yes to my queries.

The plot of The Descendants is pretty straight forward- An absentee father attempts to mend his strained relationship with his two children because his wife is near death due to an accident. Seems cliche, pinoy-like even, but there truly is so much more to the film than the main plot. This movie is so far from the usual family drama where the absentee parent, in this case Clooney, is solely to blame for all the family's dysfunctionality, will spend the whole film being the nicest parent there can be, and they will live happily ever after. Much like his other films, Payne initially introduces us to the simplicity of the plot, slowly sucking us in, and then