Different strokes Noel Vera Stephen Shainberg's "Secretary," a film adaptation of a short story by Mary Gaitskill, turns on a nice little premise: Lee...
Land of the giants by Noel Vera Morgan Spurlock's "Super Size Me" may not seem so much like a serious documentary as it does one of those reality-TV stunts,...
Mudslinging 101 Noel Vera "Documentary" filmmaker Michael Moore is hardly one to inspire sober thoughts about fair play and unimpeachable journalism; if...
Dead in the water Noel Vera Bibo Bergeron, Vicky Jenson and Rob Letterman's "Shark Tale," about a fish (Will Smith), who falls afoul of a group of mobster...
Playing with fire Noel Vera Jay Russell's "Ladder 49" is, you might say, his take on "Backdraft," Ron Howard's 1991 paean to firefighters. There are ...
Father of "The Bride" Noel Vera I remember seeing this years ago on a Betamax tape, right after seeing the original (I had the films taped off HBO, way back...
Bad signal Noel Vera "Cellular" is directed by David Ellis, who's got a longer list of credits as stuntman and stunt coordinator than he has as filmmaker ...
Take two Noel Vera Richard Linklater's "Before Sunset" isn't many things: it isn't profound, or dramatic, or earthshaking in anyway, nor was it meant to be....
King Kong revisited Saw King Kong again after--ten? twelve?--years, and better still, recorded it. Crummy VHS copy, but that's better than staring wistfully at...
The passables Noel Vera Brad Bird's "The Incredibles," his first film with Pixar, is an eclectic mish-mash of pop-culture influences, from Alan Moore's ...
Staying alive Noel Vera Mike Mitchell's "Surviving Christmas" defies description, but the words "car wreck," "train crash," and "bridge collapse" come to mind....
Pshaw Noel Vera Australian filmmaker James Wan's "Saw" is a mighty blunt instrument, about a serial killer out to make a philosophical point (yes, yet another...
A family movie Noel Vera Don Mancini is lucky enough to have written all five of his "Chucky" pictures; that way he's retained control over his characters'...
Pretty Kelly Noel Vera Ned Kelly, as people even remotely familiar with the name like to say, is a cultural icon in Australia. Though how much of an icon-- the...
Not another stupid Christmas movie Noel Vera Terry Zwigoff's "Bad Santa" is like a cure for all those sticky, sickly-sweet X'mas movies you see every year full...
"Da King" of Philippine Cinema Noel Vera Fernando Poe Jr. has at one point been described as the Filipino Arnold Schwarzenegger, America's one-time premier...
The horror, the horror Noel Vera Saw "The Shining" on DVD--remastered and restored, it says, but as far as I can see not letterboxed (apparently what Kubrick...
One more Noel Vera Frank Sinatra did "Ocean's Eleven" in 1960 as an excuse to have a lark, roping in Lewis Milestone (a filmmaker who started in the silent...
Twelve great Filipino films Noel Vera Back in January 2000 I wrote a piece for Menzone Magazine listing down what I thought were the thirteen most important...
Fock this movie Noel Vera Best parts of "Meet the Fockers:" The beginning. Being handed a taxicab, facing a row of green traffic lights during rush hour,...
A very long endurance test Noel Vera I was never a fan of Jean-Pierre Jeunet's "Amelie." I was, however, a fan of Jeunet's early features, back when he was ...
The muzak of the night By Noel Vera To Lord Lloyd Weber and Monsieur Schumacher; I need no introduction. You may have trouble believing it is me truly writing;...
Side dish Noel Vera Perhaps the best description of Alexander Payne's "Sideways" comes from the film itself, in the scene where Miles Raymond (Paul Giamatti)...
It's a compilation of my articles, from 1994 to 2004, and it's coming out in April, to be printed by the Singapore-based Big O Magazine. The book launching...
The exhilarator By Noel Vera The general line about Martin Scorsese nowadays is that he's sold out--gone mainstream, gone soft on us, used his edgy visual ...
Million-dollar heavy By Noel Vera It's the best-picture Oscar winner of 2004, and it's easy to see why: plodding, self-important, sentimental, it's just the...
Curdled By Noel Vera Criticizing Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson's latest is like shooting fish in a barrel: when you hear rumors of recasting and reshoots, or...
Belated news--broke early March, but got around to posting it only now: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/plaridel_papers/message/10178 EMBARGO DATE: 16 February...
If it only had a heart Noel Vera Easily the best portions of "Robots" is the detailed world the filmmakers make, of a completely mechanized city gone partly to...
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