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Menagerie

Rant and Rave: Why care a lot about I Care A Lot?

While male characters have long been afforded complexity onscreen through the likes of Michael Corleone or Charles Foster Kane, female characters are relegated to the sidelines as love interests, mothers, or friends—one-dimensional roles that serve to prop up men’s character development. J Blakeson’s I Care A Lot flips the script with a ferocious female anti-hero…

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Menagerie

A menagerie of love: Eros, agape, and everything in between

Love is a many-splendored thing. It is infinite in its mutability, pervading and shaping our art and stories since we first comprehended our existence. The complex beings that we are, it is only fitting that what compels us is equally complex too. This Valentine’s, The LaSallian presents love in all its confounding forms with the…

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Menagerie

Rant and Rave: Malcolm & Marie crashes and burns

As the movie industry faces restrictions during the ongoing pandemic, Netflix’s Malcolm & Marie was the perfect opportunity for a back-to-basics movie-making approach—one set, two powerhouse actors, and an explosive script. Arriving home late at night after rising director Malcolm’s (John David Washington) successful movie premiere, his celebratory mood is disrupted by his girlfriend Marie’s…

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Rant and Rave: The desert’s no home for a ‘Yellow Rose’

Since its introduction to popular culture in 1931, a steady influx of migrants from across the globe travel to the United States of America with the worthwhile goal of living the so-called American Dream. They leave their homelands, risking discrimination and deportation, in search of a better life in the land of the free and…

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Rant and Rave: MMFF 2020 welcomes the old and new—Part Two

The parade of films for the 46th Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF) continues. One feature simply wouldn’t do to showcase all the diverse films that the festival has to offer. Thus, The LaSallian presents the second part of the MMFF 2020 review. Suarez the Healing Priest, Sarah Writer-director Joven Tan’s Suarez: The Healing Priest is…

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Rant and Rave: MMFF 2020 welcomes the old and new—Part One

For 46 years, the Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF) has been a fixture of Filipino Christmastime. Starting December 25 each year, families would flock to cinemas like clockwork for a lighthearted Christmas spectacle—you have the Vic Sotto ensemble film with the banal jokes and the revolving door of fresh-faced loveteams, the gaudy self-deprecating Vice Ganda…

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Rant and Rave: Ma Rainey’s black bottom sings the blues

Movements across the globe have called for massive reforms in oppressive institutions in the wake of George Floyd’s murder at the hands of the police. As art has always reflected social and cultural changes, perhaps Netflix’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom couldn’t have come at a better time. Boldly chronicling racial injustice with the revolutionary legacy…

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Rant and Rave: Flashbacks on Four Sisters Before the Wedding

The 2013 film Four Sisters and a Wedding wasn’t a smash hit because of its star-studded cast nor the memes it has spawned years after it premiered. By tackling themes of love, life, and family, the heartwarming tale was relatable for every Filipino who wanted to be reminded of home. With fans dying to know…

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Rant and Rave: It’s a win for the gays at The Prom

As an institution that has shaped cultural consciousness with its vibrant marquees and flashy performances, the absence of Broadway during the pandemic has been painfully felt by many. While actors, producers, and fans alike still dream of the day they can finally come together and experience the magic of theater once again, not all hope…

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Rant and Rave: Mank

The moment audiences saw Citizen Kane’s groundbreaking snowglobe shot, the clever play with lighting, and the long pan back in 1941, its place as one of cinema’s greatest was cemented. It would go on to define many of the textbook filmmaking techniques we  see today.   The film’s praises were sung to 24-year-old newcomer director Orson…