Welcome to What to Watch Right Now, our weekly rundown of the best things to watch right now. The constant stream of shows, videos, and films to watch online can become a sludge to wade through, so here are a few things you can watch courtesy of the Rolling Stone Philippines team. Whether it’s a new film, a video essay, or even a home video release you should own (physical media is now available!), we hope it can ease the burden of selecting which streaming platform to use or discover a new cinematic odyssey.
This week, movies like Lino Brocka’s Orapronobis and Andoy Ranay’s Sosy Problems had us thinking about the state of Philippine politics (ah, the duality of man). While One Battle After Another, the latest from Paul Thomas Anderson, obviously had us hooked, we also turned to the best of Regina Hall’s oeuvre — specifically, Scary Movie — with some level of nostalgia. Now that Wes Anderson’s getting the 4K UHD treatment via the Criterion Collection, we revisited the director’s homage to journalists, The French Dispatch. Finally, FKA twigs’ music video for “Cheap Hotel” is the surreal, sleazy palate cleanser that we all needed after this week.
One Battle After Another
A dark comedy of our times that never forgets the grim reality behind the laughs..
“He can’t keep getting away with it!” says a Paul Thomas Anderson meme, commenting on how the director has kept his winning streak over since he began with 1996’s Hard Eight. But his command of the form only took a masterful turn with 2007’s There Will Be Blood. With only 10 feature-length films to his name, Anderson has built a brick of a filmography, assembling films with great precision and depth without forgetting that films can be emotionally entertaining as well.
His latest, One Battle After Another is another Thomas Pynchon adaptation (which he began with 2014’s Inherent Vice). This time, he takes the blueprint of the author’s Vineland, into an action-packed romp about how a revolutionary life comes head-to-head with being a parent. Leonardo DiCaprio is Bob Ferguson, a bumbling pothead protecting his daughter Willa, from a military man (a Marvel Man-ed up Sean Penn), who is also aspiring to be a member of a very exclusive white supremacist club.
One Battle After Another straddles satirical lines yet it is decidedly fun: a dark comedy of our times that never forgets the reality behind the laughs. The long running time hurts the film a little bit, but great performances from DiCaprio, Penn, Teyana Taylor, Chase Infiniti, and Regina Hall make the film so much worth it. — Don Jaucian
The French Dispatch
A kooky, and sometimes, confusing, anthology film that burns as an homage to dedicated journalism.
Now getting the 4K UHD treatment via Criterion Collection, Wes Anderson’s homage to his favorite journalists from The New Yorker, French Cinema, and, well, France itself. The anthology structure is kooky and, sometimes, confusing, yet it burns as an homage to dedicated journalism. The stories revolve around the obituary of Arthur Howitzer Jr., the editor of the fictional journal The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun.
From there, the film moves like a magazine: small essays and poetry serve as breathers, while the three main stories are narrated by the journalists who penned them: “The Concrete Masterpiece” by the eccentric J.K.L. Berensen (Tilda Swinton), about a prisoner who creates astonishing works of art; “Revisions to a Manifesto” by Lucinda Krementz (Frances McDormand, who seems to be channeling Mavis Gallant), about a group of students engaged in a protest, and “The Private Dining Room of the Police Commissioner” by Roebuck Wright (Jeffrey Wright, a James Baldwin-esque writer), about the exploits of a police officer who also happens to be an excellent chef.
A Wes Anderson anthology calls for an assemblage of excellent actors: Timothée Chalamet, Owen Wilson, Benicio Del Toro, and Lea Seydoux, to name a few. It’s chaotic, bizarre, and rousing, just like opening the pages of a great journalist’s dispatch. — Don Jaucian
Orapronobis
Revolution, but at what cost?
The year is 1986, and things should be getting better, given the success of the People Power Revolution. But in Lino Brocka’s violent look at Filipino life in the early years of former president Corazon Aquino’s administration, everything is still going to the dogs. A militant cult called Orapronobis (yes, yes, very ironic, it’s “pray for us” in English) continues to hold its bloody court in the provincial town of Santa Filomena. Ex-revolutionary Jimmy Cordero (Phillip Salvador), despite having left the underground movement for a normal life, finds himself drawn into the town in the hopes of investigating the cult’s acts of terror.
Orapronobis isn’t an easy, happy watch by any means. But it is an important one, especially considering how it shows that oppression continues even if you remove its dictatorial figurehead. While Brocka’s 1989 drama doesn’t blame the Aquino administration, it does point its finger at those who used her revolution for their own violent means. An HD version of Orapronobis may be hard to find, but for those fine with finding the faces in a mess of pixels, look for the full-length movie on YouTube. — Mel Wang
The Scary Movie Franchise (or just Regina Hall compilations)
Regina, Regina, Regina
Now that Ms. Hall is most likely, probably, definitely going to win a major award for her performance in One Battle After Another (or at least, she better), seeing her on the big screen can’t help but make her OG fans look back on her time as Brenda in the Scary Movie franchise.
Brenda Meeks is, hands down, the best part of four out of five of the Scary Movies (she’s not in the fifth one). She can churn butter like you won’t believe, drop kick Samara when that ugly demon girl crawls out of her TV (“This bitch is messing up my floor!!!”), and scream all about how much she loves “SHAKE-AH-SPEAR” in a cinema (as Hall notes in a recent chat on Good Hang with Amy Poehler, Brenda doesn’t know any Shakespeare). — Mel Wang
Sosy Problems
So many Evian bottles, a fridge-load
It will take more than 100 minutes to watch the hand of justice smack the government officials who took part in the flood control fraud, but in the meantime, you can entertain yourself with the 2012 comedy Sosy Problems, available on GMA Pictures’ official YouTube channel.
The film follows a group of spoiled socialites, played by Bianca King, Rhian Ramos, Solenn Heussaff, and Heart Evangelista, who desperately try to save their beloved polo club from being turned into a “yaya mall.” All girls also face their own conflicts, but none are as timely as King’s Danielle Alvarez, the daughter of a former congressman who faces charges of graft and corruption. When we’re introduced to her, we even see that her family’s many luxury cars have been sequestered. Sana all. —Pie Gonzaga
‘Cheap Hotel’ Music Video
‘Caprisongs’ 2.0 is upon us
A year after dropping the sleek and grimy EUSEXUA, FKA twigs is back with EUSEXUA Afterglow, to be released in November. Its first single “Cheap Hotel” sees the English singer returning to her ethereal downtempo, and it comes with a seven-minute long music video. Here, she’s seen partying with friends in the titular cheap hotel as a man on the phone tries to figure out how to get to her. It’s mostly sleazy, but in true FKA twigs fashion, the video turns surreal in the middle and even weirder towards the end. —Pie Gonzaga
