#11: Narcissus didn’t drown, he was pushed in
Cinema as a vessel for the reproduction of reality calls into attention the bodies it chooses to represent. In the case of queer representation, the lesbian stereotypes present in media can act as a marker for their real-life counterparts to use as a basis for their own formed identity. Considering the proclivity of cinema to…
#10: The Male Gaze
There are days when I want to watch a moving film with sharp commentary on man’s mere being. There are days when I want to clutch my pillow close to my chest and hold my breath as the protagonists escape a masked killer. There are days when I want to lose myself in oversaturated worlds…
#9: Cinematic Ideology
Film existing as a product of thought also places it within the parameters of just being a product. This means that it follows the conditions of the economic system that it is in. Consumers buy tickets to see films, filmmakers have a budget to produce and market films. As is the case, the economic relations…
#8: We’d have to talk about the French eventually right?
Andrew Sarris (1962) had gone to great pains to emphasize that “Truffaut had gone to great pains to emphasize that the auteur theory was merely a polemical weapon for a given time and a given place”, and I am willing to take both of them at their word. I am also willing to include a…
#7: Realism and Bazin
Contrary to previous anecdotes, I’d say I’m a pretty mundane person. As of late, that is. When the pandemic hit, I noticed that I had retreated into a simple routine. I wake up. I pray. I do a light workout on the balcony to stretch my muscles and feel the warmth of the sun. I…
#6: Hollywood, happy endings and my other favorite illusions
I love me a cliché. I would actually argue that most of my problems branch out from my incessant need to be a main character in a movie. The sudden waves of melodrama? Simply character development. The fireworks in rocky relationships? Simply part of the plot! Inevitably, we’re bound to hit a happy ending but…
#5: What’s black and white and red all over?
When I was younger, an episode of Full House saw the youngest daughter Michelle Tanner partaking in a go-cart race. If my memory serves well, she had a rival and as the race is about to start the rival makes time for one last insult. Michelle retorts by saying that her dad told her if…
#4: Talk Cinema To Me
I am a simple woman. Jesse McCartney speaks and I listen. In his 2009 masterpiece Body Language, McCartney taught me one of the many forms of communication. All pop culture icons aside, there is a hidden language in everything. In the case of cinema, the audience is her bewildered lover and she is the multi-lingual…
#3: On Filipino Film Criticism Over Generations
A little bit about me. I spent most of my life moving around. In my 22 years of living I have stayed in countless apartments, houses and family homes. I used to be so jealous of the kids that grew up in the same house with the same neighbors their whole life. While I don’t…
Response Paper #2: On the Functions of Criticism
The image of a critic seems to only be unfortunately afforded two possibilities. The first is clad in black turtleneck, bespectacled and almost always shrouded within a dark cloud. They are confined in their office with renaissance pieces, old hardbound books, curtains drawn dramatically and ironically bad lighting. I like to call these the antagonist…
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Charyzah Esparrago 