Much of the discussion around cinema in 2024 has focused on how people don’t go to movie theaters anymore. Between high ticket prices, poor cinema management, and the possibility of the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB) cutting scenes from movies, it felt rare all year to hear anyone touting the box office performance of any release.
Of course, every now and then, a movie will make a lot of money, and pundits will ask the question if this means that people have come back. The answer is always “no,” with every success proving to be an exception to the general trend of people more than willing to wait for movies to show up on streaming services or at the “suking tindahan” (sundry store).
This doesn’t mean good movies are in short supply: Local festivals continue to chug along, supporting brave new visions and bringing some of the best films the world has to offer. International co-productions, particularly here in Southeast Asia, have resulted in some really interesting films. Hollywood, in spite of everything, is still capable of producing entertaining blockbusters that thrill and even provoke some thought. But in this economy, it really is tough to justify the cost of a ticket. Now, a movie has to be more than good; It has to be worth it.
The Movie You Will Hear the Most About During Awards Season
‘Anora’
Sean Baker
It won the Palme d’Or, the highest award at the Cannes Film Festival. Critics are buzzing about the lead performance by Mikey Madison. It’s also the most accessible film from Sean Baker, a filmmaker with a particular talent for depicting the lives of marginalized people. This feels like the kind of movie Academy voters eat up: raucous and entertaining, while still very much conscious of the realities of the world. We live in a world where the Oscars aren’t taken very seriously anymore, but this is one contender that actually deserves all the attention it’s been getting — basically reframing Pretty Woman as a more rigorous study of class, and an indictment of the one percent and their ability to live a life without consequence.
Best Blockbuster Sequel
‘Dune: Part Two’
Denis Villeneuve
The first of Villeneuve’s Dune movies was already impressive: a massive production that had to impart the arcane concepts of the story’s universe, while still providing a propulsive narrative and IMAX-worthy visuals. There were a lot of expectations built up for this sequel, and it inexplicably surpassed them. This second half of the story is practically pure payoff, delivering moment after moment of extreme cinematic satisfaction. All the while, it remembers to stay at a human level, at crucial moments staying close to its hero, the camera lingering on his physical components, reminding us that the Lisan al Gaib remains a fragile construction to the end.
Best Blockbuster Sequel that is the Fifth Part of Something They Decided to Call a Saga
‘Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga’
George Miller
There will never be another filmmaker like George Miller. At 79 years old, he is still capable of the kind of madness that might produce a film like Furiosa, which seems to take its cue from stuff like the Bible. It’s an elemental tale that pits hope against sorrow, embodying humanity’s optimism in this one woman who literally holds on to a seed that represents a future that doesn’t seem possible. She is pitted against a bloody good Chris Hemsworth playing a villain, who exists to do awful things to try and drown out his sorrow. There are also these guys on hang gliders that attack a kitted-out truck at some point, and it’s easily the best action sequence of the year.
Best Film For Making People in Creative Fields Weep Like Babies
‘Look Back’
Kiyotaka Oshiyama
At just 56 minutes, Look Back packs in a remarkable amount of emotion — most of it delivered through some pretty wonderful animation. Adapting Tatsuki Fujimoto’s manga of the same name, it follows two girls who form a bond over making manga, starting out as a one-sided rivalry before becoming a genuine collaboration and partnership. At its heart, it asks why anyone would want to make manga, portraying the craft as a tedious, repetitive endeavor that seems unrewarding. But they might as well ask why we try to do anything creative: The answer is found in a slight smile, in a hand extended, in all the small moments spent with someone who makes every day worthwhile.
Best Filipino Film(s)
‘Tumandok’
Richard Jeroui Salvadico, Kat Sumagaysay
‘Alipato at Muog’
JL Burgos
Cinemalaya exists so that these films can be made. It’s not like you can go up to Viva Films and pitch Boss Vic del Rosario a movie about the encroachment of the ancestral lands of the Ati for the sake of business interests; or a documentary about your brother who’s been missing for decades as part of the government’s unspoken policy for suppressing dissenting voices. Despite the difficulties it encountered this year, the festival keeps creating a platform for filmmakers who really want to say something.
Best Film That’s Pretty Hard to Describe to People
‘All We Imagine As Light’
Payal Kapada
Sometimes, it’s just hard to say exactly what makes a movie great. All We Imagine As Light works so gently, quietly immersing us in the lives of its Mumbai nurse protagonists and just letting us vibe with the rhythm of their unique struggles. It feels like there isn’t a whole lot that happens, yet it feels like everything is happening all at once: the 21 million-odd lives of the residents of Mumbai speaking so clearly through these characters, sketching out a society that in some ways is so modern, and in other ways so beholden to the past.
Best Film Where Kristen Stewart Goes ‘Huh?’
‘Love Lies Bleeding’
Rose Glass
There is a moment in Love Lies Bleeding where Kristen Stewart’s character Lou is so baffled by the situation thrust upon her that all she can really do is go, “Huh?” It is incredibly effective in a movie that starts as a pretty standard period crime drama before letting loose its true madness.It documents a female bodybuilder’s quest to grow larger through steroids, pretty much losing her mind along the way. It’s just much trippier than one might expect; at times, it elicits the same baffled exclamation from viewers — and that’s great.
Best Performance by an Actor Involving His Character Doing Horrible Things
John Lloyd Cruz
‘Moneyslapper’
Bor Ocampo’s Moneyslapper is a pretty grim portrait of the Philippines as a whole, and John Lloyd Cruz is absolutely let loose playing Daniel — a guy who returns to his hometown of Porac, Pampanga some years after winning the lottery and leaving everything behind. What follows is pretty unpleasant with Daniel rubbing his wealth in the face of the people who abused him, and generally being a bad dude impoverished in spirit. Cruz is magnetic in the role, even if it’s something difficult to look directly at what his character is doing.
Best Short Film
‘Kinakausap ni Celso Ang Diyos’
Gilb Baldoza
The QCinema Film Festival’s inaugural QCShorts International Best Film winner is revelatory in a couple of ways. First, it stars singer-songwriter Bullet Dumas, who proves to be quite acapable actor. He delivers a deeply sympathetic performance that gives the film a good chunk of heart. Second, it reveals to us the unique voice of filmmaker Gilb Baldoza, who is able to speak of labor issues while grounding everything in the kind of disarming sentiment that makes tough truths go down a lot easier.
Worst Thing Happening in Filipino Movies Right Now
The MTRCB
For some reason, the MTRCB has decided it hasn’t been banning enough movies lately. It started with Quark Henares’ Marupok AF, which was given the dreaded X rating because of what the ‘F’ might mean in the title. Then there’s RC Delos Reyes’ Dear Satan, which was banned over the depiction of Satan as someone who, in some way, might be redeemed.
And then there’s the aforementioned Alipato at Muog, which got the X rating over fears it undermined faith in the government. Now, we’re not even sure if we can get Antoinette Jadaone’s Sunshine in theaters since it’s dealing with touchy issues. They’ll claim, of course, that they’re not infringing on freedom of expression; that they’re just rating films appropriately. But it’s hard to see all this as something other than government censorship.
Best Film Disowned by its Own Country
‘Việt and Nam’
Trương Minh Quý
Speaking of censorship, Việt and Nam was also banned in its own country, with Vietnam’s Film Department claiming it depicted a “gloomy, deadlocked, and negative view” of the nation. This is an absurd summation of a complex film that ties queer desire with the complex struggles of young people facing an uncertain future. Anyway, because Vietnam rejected it, this is actually now considered a Filipino film, having been produced by our very own Epicmedia Productions. So, that’s something!
Worst Film
‘Kuman Thong: Black Magic Baby’
Xian Lim
Many films could have taken this title this year. The Sinag Maynila Festival gave us Banjo, a very misguided action movie that plays as a vanity project for its director-cum-star. Mikhail Red’s Nokturno was a real disappointment, even if Deleter wasn’t very good, either. The Bea Alonzo-starring 1521: The Quest for Love and Freedom finally hit theaters, and it was just as bad as the trailers indicated.
But nothing was as bad as Xian Lim’s sophomore feature Kuman Thong, which is one of those horror films where nothing anyone does makes any sense. But also, it is a boring slog, where nothing of consequence happens in the whole first hour of the movie. At least those other films were bad in kind of interesting ways. You can’t even say that about Kuman Thong.
