PDI Review: 'Othello' by CAST; 'Six' - The 2024 International Tour in Manila

Was also supposed to review "Request sa Radyo" (the one-woman, one-hour show with 10k tickets), but guess who got uninvited? Here's the PressReader link.

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'Othello': Theater we need more of, no matter how imperfect

Maronne Cruz (Emilia) and Gab Pangilinan (Desdemona) during curtain call at "Othello."

In Company of Actors in Streamlined Theatre’s (CAST) production of “Othello,” the Shakespearean play has become a literal in-your-face confrontation of gender-based violence. 

The play’s basic premise is almost straight out of Filipino primetime melodrama: Iago, a junior military officer, manipulates his commander Othello into thinking his wife Desdemona is cheating on him.

Directed by Nelsito Gomez in the 100-seater Mirror Studio, this production unfolds mere feet from the audience. Watching it not only feels like being a co-conspirator to the signature Shakespearean silliness dotting the proceedings, but also like a voyeur witnessing the unflinching violence inflicted by the story’s men on their wives.

The physical proximity renders the production’s best quality more immediate: Above all, this “Othello” is a triumphant dissection of gender power relations. 

In Maronne Cruz’s portrayal of Desdemona’s maidservant Emilia, the play finds its most consummate vessel, the actress intelligently communicating, through superb command of affect and language, a trapped existence between the old world of patriarchal submission and the possible new world of feminist defiance. 

Further, Gomez’s choice to stage the play in modern dress, with modern props (e.g., beer bongs in a party scene), while having the actors spout Shakespeare’s original lines, helps convey the notion that gender-based violence has always transcended eras, generations, and continents.

Racial politics

However, an imbalance afflicts this production as it sidesteps the text’s other crucial element. For while on the surface, Iago’s manipulation of Othello appears rooted in the former’s discontent with how the commander runs the military, the unmistakable subtext is that Iago’s—and, for that matter, most of the other characters’—disdain for Othello is racially motivated. 

Othello is a Moor—the term for the predominantly darkskinned Muslims in a predominantly White, Christian Mediterranean Europe. When Iago (Reb Atadero, deliciously devious) exclaims repeatedly that he “hates the Moor,” one very well knows it isn’t merely because he despises Othello’s governance.    

Barely touching the play’s inherent racial politics, this “Othello” becomes a missed opportunity to comment on the present, with the Caucasian superpowers actively abetting the genocide in predominantly Arab-Muslim Gaza. Perhaps this is ultimately a wise decision, what with race being a considerably less topical issue than sexual violence in the Philippines. 

The more alarming consequence of this reluctance to grapple with racial politics is this production’s inadvertent perpetration of dangerous racial stereotypes. Tarek El Tayech’s Othello, hounding this play like a colossus, speaks his lines with an ostensibly Middle Eastern accent; beyond such physical flourishes, the production hardly complicates the race-based otherness of its titular character.

Retooling the classics

At the end of Act I, vowing to punish Desdemona for her purported infidelity, El Tayech’s Othello momentarily unshackles himself from archaic Shakespearean English and breaks into Arabic prayer, with Atadero’s Iago looking on. Nothing else is made of that supposedly crucial scene, imbuing it with an exoticizing effect that makes one question the necessity of this one-time-only linguistic shift. 

As Othello slowly descends into jealous madness throughout Act II, eventually battering and strangling his wife, El Tayech’s portrayal only makes Othello look like a crazed abuser: the stereotype of the uncivilized, hostile, predatory Arab Muslim come to life.

Still, its flaws notwithstanding, this “Othello” is further proof that its director should keep pursuing his modern-day retoolings of the classics. Notably, Gomez was responsible for last year’s “Uncle Jane,” his present-day adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya” that was, in my view, 2023’s best play—so precise and expansive as a rumination on hope and hopelessness in the time of COVID-19.

In the larger scheme of things, this is the theater we need more of—one that incessantly tickles and provokes the mind, no matter how imperfect.  

Dazzling technicals

Meanwhile, in the 1,700-seater theatre of Solaire Resort and Casino, Parañaque City, the Broadway and West End sensation “Six” has made its Philippine premiere. This is musical theater as a pop concert—and the production, supercharged with some of the most dazzling and precise uses of technicals Manila theater has witnessed of late, delivers without question.

Essentially an 80-minute revue, the musical is about the six wives of Henry VIII (hence the title), but the wives have morphed into pop star archetypes (one pays homage to Beyoncé, another to Ariana Grande), the stories of their individual rise and fall in Henry’s court (and heart) comprising individual songs.

It’s a concept that should come across as basic, but what “Six” really is is satisfying fun, serving one bop after another, to use the urban slang, and dishing out Tudor history like addictive pieces of gossip—all while approximating a theater nerd’s idea of a rollickingly good time at the club. 

Never mind that, in a bid to ensure the audience really gets its message, it ends up over-explaining its themes of feminist empowerment, as if doubting the intellect of its Gen Z and Alpha audiences.

But maybe being easy isn't always a bad thing. Exiting the theater, I overheard a mother ask her son, "Do you know what the patriarchy is?" Truly, the real magic of the theater lies in the cross-generational conversations it sparks after the curtains have fallen.

PDI Review: 'One More Chance' by PETA; 'Bar Boys' by Barefoot Theatre Collaborative; 'Buruguduystunstugudunstuy' by Full House Theater Company

Wrote about three shows. It's really the summer of our theater-loving hearts' content.

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3 new original Filipino musicals pack in the crowds

Curtain call at 'One More Chance' with Sam Concepcion.

Only two years ago, Manila theater was still groping its way to a sustainable reopening from the COVID lockdowns. Now, it may well be having its biggest year yet. 

In the last three months, six professional productions have been playing near-simultaneously to oftentimes packed houses. Four of them—Peta’s “One More Chance, The Musical,” Barefoot Theatre Collaborative’s “Bar Boys,” Tanghalang Pilipino’s “Pingkian” and the touring production of “Miss Saigon”—sold out their respective runs. It’s a feat unheard of in recent memory. 

‘One More Chance, The Musical’ 

“One More Chance” holds the even rarer distinction of selling out its entire three-month run before opening—a first in the Philippine Educational Theater Association (Peta) history. No doubt, pedigree aided this mammoth success: The musical’s eponymous source material is only one of the biggest romcoms of the 2000s, starring John Lloyd Cruz as Popoy and Bea Alonzo as Basha. 

Thankfully, the musical has rectified the movie’s faults and kept things real. Eluding blind fandom worship, Michelle Ngu-Nario’s adaptation stresses the toxicity of its protagonists’ relationship and makes no excuses for Popoy’s red flags, instead exposing him for the possessive, insecure man that he is. With Popoy and Basha now (almost) on equal footing, the story becomes a clear warning against putting up with an awful partner. 

Already a retooled version, the performance I caught still hit three hours. Yet, the production actually felt tight—if anything, proof that this show works. 

Its excesses can be obvious—for instance, portions of Michael Barry Que’s choreography that only dull the show’s momentum. But at its best, the show’s overindulgent quality also becomes its asset. When Neomi Gonzales rolls in a riot as a faux-assimilated balikbayan from Korea, or when Via Antonio launches into one of her hilarious diatribes, you wish the scene would keep going. 

Directed by Maribel Legarda, this production scours the agonies and ecstasies of imperfect love in the hands of a very capable cast. Stars are literally born in CJ Navato (as Popoy) and Nicole Omillo (as Basha), each making a theater debut of compelling technical and emotional precision. It’s the utmost praise to say their pairing makes you forget the movie even exists. 

(Update: I've seen the show a second time. Sam Concepcion's Popoy is my current pick for stage performance of the year so far: It's simply a consummate leading-man turn, his triple-threat skills on full, marvelous display. And so rare, as well, to see a performance whose main currency is physicality. Bravo!)

(Correction: This isn't Navato's theater debut. He already performed in Peta's "Charot!" in 2019.)

Most crucial is the musical’s intelligent use of the band Ben&Ben’s songs to tell its story, further attesting to musical director Myke Salomon’s mastery of the jukebox musical genre. Here, Salomon pulls few surprises, but his work is seamless, resulting in a musical that’s flush with all the right emotions in all the right places. 

‘Bar Boys’ 

In the recently concluded “Bar Boys,” Salomon composed his first original score for Pat Valera’s adaptation of the eponymous 2017 film. Together, Valera (also colyricist) and Salomon have made a work that could be unnecessarily busy and repetitive, evincing spots in glaring need of editing. 

However, this musical was also almost miraculous in the way it improved upon the source material without losing its essence. The movie, about four men aspiring to be lawyers, hardly made anything cohesively meaningful out of the tropes and issues crammed into it. Building on that structure, Valera has written a thoughtful rumination about justice, manhood and personhood in Marcos Jr.’s Philippines. 

At three hours, the production seemingly imbibed the frenetic energy of law students cramming for an exam. Most bothersome were the venue’s acoustics: Where I sat, it felt like being pummeled by sound. 

Nonetheless, one left this show convinced by the earnestness of the sheer talent on display, and the musical’s unrelenting belief in the little guy’s potential to fight for change despite the daunting odds. 

As the financially strapped Erik, Benedix Ramos was a revelation. Ramos not only aced a delicate balancing act of standing out while being part of a quartet; his performance of the story’s underdog also became a forceful, unifying persona of the musical’s themes—the bar boy, as it were. And in supporting parts, Sheila Francisco (as a stern professor) and Juliene Mendoza (as Ramos’ stage father) were peerless in their command of the grammar of musical theater. 

‘Buruguduystunstugudunstuy’ 

Meanwhile, at Newport World Resorts, Full House Theater Company has premiered “Buruguduystunstugudunstuy,” the jukebox musical built on the songs of Parokya ni Edgar. Fancying itself a feminist paean, the musical concerns four women who are magically transported to a distinctly Filipino fantasyland, where they undergo journeys of self-discovery. 

Evidently, budget’s not a problem: Dexter Santos’ production is a sensorial feast, maximizing its venue’s massive stage and LED capabilities to evoke its disparate storylands. GA Fallarme and Joyce Garcia’s video design is the best this theater has seen. Stephen Viñas’ choreography fulfills Santos’ ambitions of physical spectacle. And Raven Ong’s costumes alone are worth the price of admission: In one scene, out of plastic bags and garbage, Ong conjures gowns fit for the biggest stages of drag. 

All for what, though? Thrillingly inane in Act I, the musical stumbles in its thematic labyrinth and disintegrates in Act II. It’s “feminism” by way of insultingly hokey lessons, with playwright Rody Vera not only sneaking in an outdated male-rape joke into the script, but also somehow bungling the gender politics: For all the purported feminism, it’s never made clear if one of the protagonists is lesbian or trans, as if this musical thought those two identities were the same. 

Musical director Ejay Yatco’s adaptation of the Parokya discography isn’t entirely successful, either. The most successful jukebox musicals make preloved songs sound like they’ve been made for the musical, not shoehorned into it. Here, Yatco’s haphazard work only convinces you of Parokya’s incompatibility with coherent musical storytelling. 

Moments of comedic brilliance are few and far between, chiefly through the performances of Pepe Herrera, Noel Comia Jr., Tex Ordoñez-de Leon and Jillian Ita-as delivering my favorite blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment of the year so far, as a schoolteacher early in Act I. In the end—in keeping with its mouthful of a title—this musical only feels endless and exhausting. 

Familiar material 

Still, attention must be paid to the fact that all three shows—all original Filipino works, it bears emphasis—have been running at the same time and filling up their houses. Chalking this all up to “revenge theater”—to audiences’ presumed hunger for live performance post-COVID—seems a too-easy recourse. 

A better framing might be: People flock to material they are familiar with. Not only does it help explain why “Miss Saigon” was a hit; it also accounts for the unprecedented success of “One More Chance” and “Buruguduy’s” popularity. 

It also underscores the constant need to liberate our theater. Accessibility is a negotiated process. To build a genuinely interested audience—beyond Metro Manila’s loyal minority—one may need to start from what people already know, before aiming for what one wants them to watch. 

When Newport’s “Ang Huling El Bimbo” was streamed online for 48 hours in 2020 as a pandemic fundraiser, it hit seven million views. A pirated recording circulated online. Fan accounts (of people involved in the show) were born. One can only wonder how many people ended up watching “Bar Boys,” “Buruguduy,” 9 Works Theatrical’s “Rent,” or Barefoot’s “Mula sa Buwan” and “The Last Five Years” simply because “El Bimbo” alumni were involved in those shows. 

Twelve years is also a lot of time for change. A new generation has come of age, so to speak, with money to spare for trips to the theater. Here, writer Exie Abola was right on the money in saying that theater must also be thought of as “a commercial enterprise,” and not just an artistic one. How do we get people with money to not just choose the theater, but be excited about it? 

In this aspect, Peta made an ingenious move partnering with many corporations to market “One More Chance” and help turn it into a summer blockbuster. 

And I’ll never tire of saying this: Barefoot has perfected the art of selling a show. Their whole thing begins from the show’s announcement. And while some companies still struggle with social media, Barefoot has embraced it. 

These are all just partial answers, of course. But the confluence of 2024’s sold-out productions demands further introspection. This is what we want the state of local theater to be all the time. The question now is how to replicate and maintain it. 

PDI Review: 'Rent' by 9 Works Theatrical

Look who's back in the Inquirer. (Crazy turn of events these past few years, but here we are.) I'll post a link to the website(?) version if and when I find out how. Anyway, I saw this show twice and liked it even less the second time around. I also want to point out that it's somehow indicative of how much time has passed that the first three plays I saw in Manila when I first moved there have all been restaged already.

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'Rent' is due: Spectacular at times, but sorely misses the point

The 2024 cast of 9 Works Theatrical's 'Rent' on media night curtain call, joined by members of the 2010 cast.

Fourteen years since it was last mounted professionally in Metro Manila, Jonathan Larson’s “Rent” is back at the Carlos P. Romulo Auditorium, Makati City, once again produced by 9 Works Theatrical and directed by Robbie Guevara. 

This return is much welcome: For a new generation of Filipino theatergoers (no doubt brought up on “Hamilton” and “Dear Evan Hansen”), it is a rare chance to see what The New York Times once hailed as a work that “shimmers with hope for the future of the American musical.” 

What audiences have actually been seeing, however, is a production that looks spectacular at times, sounds terrific for the most part—but sorely misses the point of Larson’s work. 

The simple key to understanding “Rent” is in its opening, titular song: “We’re hungry and frozen/ Some life that we’ve chosen,” sings its two principal characters, Roger and Mark. Both impoverished artists at the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in New York City, they embody what it means to be alive despite the odds. Their apartment has no heating in winter; they always barely have enough money; unwelcome developers are gentrifying their neighborhood; and an untreatable disease is decimating their community. 

Such is the world of hardship and injustice they and their self-proclaimed bohemian friends must fight against and survive. 

Yet, in Guevara’s take-two on this musical, that primal hunger to keep on living even amid the direst circumstances is largely absent. Swaddled in runway-ready fast fashion, the performers of this “Rent” cosplay an idea of eking out a living; of struggling with poverty and disease; of defying the claws of gentrification in their neighborhood. 

One hardly grasps the genuine despair hounding Larson’s characters on paper, almost as if this production has never met an impoverished person in real life. 

Mere spectacle 

The shallowness of its supposed evocations of hardship becomes all the more glaring when one considers this production’s directorial priorities. Given the continuous rise of HIV cases in the Philippines, Guevara has intended to put HIV front and center in this production—an “in your face” treatment, as he put it. 

In theory, it’s an admirable, worthy, even timely cause. Onstage, however, it has resulted in the reduction of poverty and disease to mere spectacle. In one sequence where the characters sing about their existential fears (“Will I lose my dignity?/ Will someone care?/ Will I wake tomorrow from this nightmare?”), Guevara choreographs a literal tableau of suffering. On Mio Infante’s multistory, scaffolding set, the actors have been arranged as if on museum display cases: In one “box,” someone violently dies of AIDS; in another, someone—presumably addicted to drugs—visibly struggles with the temptation of injecting a needle. 

This spectacularization of disease and poverty crescendos in the production’s interpretation of the character of Mimi. Mark and Roger’s neighbor (and Roger’s eventual love interest), Mimi is a striptease dancer living with HIV and addicted to heroin. In this production, she appears to be just that—reduced to her addiction and disease. In almost every scene, she is portrayed as drunk, high or a combination of both. In her Act II solo “Without You,” a song about the myriad difficulties of sustaining love and relationships, this production has her starting the song by—no kidding—singing to a small baggie of heroin. 

Such exoticizing touches imbue this production with distracting literal-mindedness. More significantly, they only highlight how this “Rent” is antithetical to the spirit of Larson’s work. The point of the musical is to humanize the ones who struggle with disease, addiction and poverty; this production gawks at its characters with the bright-eyed curiosity of privileged kids on an “immersive” school trip to a slum. 

To this production’s credit, it features what should go down as some of the year’s most thrilling voices: for example, theater newbie Garrett Bolden’s in the role of Tom Collins, Mark and Roger’s “anarchist” professor friend. 

But, again, under Guevara’s ministrations, Bolden and almost every one of his cast mates are unable to embody their characters’ deepest hurts and troubles. Most troubling is the inert central relationship between Anthony Rosaldo’s Roger and Thea Astley’s Mimi (the former in only his second theater role, the latter in her stage debut). 

Both struggling with HIV, Roger and Mimi strike up a relationship on borrowed time, epitomizing the musicals’ “no day but today” ethos. In Rosaldo and Astley’s hands, this relationship unfortunately never goes beyond the surface, leaving the audience bereft of the crucial emotional scaffold to hold on to throughout this musical. 

Tokenistic gesture 

Surprisingly, the task of instilling dramatic depth to this “Rent” has fallen on the laps of the two actors portraying Mark, the narrator, everyman and constant witness to the crumbling relationships in the story. 

Mark himself undergoes an existential crisis of his own throughout the musical—one so convincingly fleshed out, in their respective ways, by Reb Atadero and Ian Pangilinan. In their hands, Mark becomes the most compelling character in the story, a real person who’s only trying to help sort out his friends’ sadnesses while fighting his own. 

It’s also worth mentioning that on the night I saw him, Atadero singlehandedly delivered a crash course on clarity in stage performance. 

And appearing in only a few scenes, Lance Reblando is sensational as the drag performer Angel, stealing the show especially in her gravity-defying take of “Today 4 U.” 

Alas, the presences of Atadero, Pangilinan and Reblando are never enough to conceal this production’s shortcomings. Too often, this “Rent” sacrifices literal clarity in favor of literal spectacle. The big Act I group number “Christmas Bells” makes clever use of none of the show’s technical assets to, for starters, better identify who’s singing what line and where on the brightly lit stage, instead pouring its energies into a snow machine. 

At three levels, Infante’s set is so structurally convoluted, performers literally disappear in it navigating its stairs and corners for longer than necessary, even when they are singing. Shakira Villa-Symes’ occasionally ostentatious lighting has a penchant for evoking an actual rock concert more than the world of the musical. 

Meanwhile, an arrangement of chairs in the colors of the rainbow—an obvious nod to the LGBTQIA+ community, who are an integral part of this musical—appears in exactly two parts of the show, becoming a tokenistic gesture designed to end up in social media posts. 

Those chairs also speak to the larger ethos of this “Rent”: a nice treat to the senses that never goes below the surface. It’s no day but today for a filtered Instagram post.

The Year in Film and TV (2023)

What a crazy, terrific year for chaotic bisexuals! In 'Passages', Franz Rogowski is possessed by the spirit of the protagonist in Mike Bartlett's 'Cock' and cheats on Ben Whishaw (of all people!) with the lady from 'Blue Is the Warmest Colour'. In 'Anatomy of a Fall', Sandra Hüller is almost out-acted by (of all creatures) a dog. In 'Afire', the bisexuals die in a forest fire; in 'Saltburn', the bisexual is on fire. And 'Poor Things' establishes, once and for all, that people are (born) bisexual unless proven otherwise. ('Maestro' also has a bisexual, but I'm not a fan of this movie.)

Speaking of "movies," I saw only 167 in 2023, according to my Letterboxd. That includes miniseries and short films. By comparison, I logged 209 entries in 2022, and 384 the year before that. What does this mean? Simple, really--we're really back, and by 'we', I mean the world. I started my thing with USyd in March (I'm supposed to be writing my thesis now, but here we are). I went to India, to Delhi and Jaipur and Agra, and saw cows and monkeys roaming the city streets like they owned them. I went to Hong Kong and walked the alleys of Sheung Wan during typhoon signal T9 (thanks, Sedricke!). I went to the Thai-Myanmar border with scholars from many parts of the world and saw the refugee camps and daily, illegal crossings across the Moei River. I returned to Dumaguete and finally met Sir Mike in person; I returned to Taiwan and ran into a former schoolmate in Jiufen. Oh, and I also went to the theater--lots of times. The best productions I saw were in Sydney: Belvoir's 'Scenes from the Climate Era' and Red Line's 'A Streetcar Named Desire', but I digress.

In mid-October, as we slowly realized that Israel's out to nuke the whole of Gaza and was just using the 7th as a pretext, I lost my appetite for anything facilely White, American, Caucasian, Jewish, which is why I've yet to watch the second season of 'The Gilded Age' (I'll get to it next week, promise). We truly are living in a fucked-up age, and it continues to amaze me how some people--some dearest and nearest to me--seem so blithely unaware of that fact. I'm not a doomer; I'm a realist (I have a prominent Capricorn placement). COVID has been allowed to rip through society. The Marcos-Duterte empire shows no signs of slowing down. The people of Palestine are being genocided by Israel and the US before our eyes. It's January--and hot as hell in Iloilo, when in past years it had been cool. What a time to be alive.

Anyway, the usual disclaimer: This list considers the stuff I watched in 2023 and the leftovers from 2022. Richard Bolisay, in his Substack, said it best: "The best part of list-making is the limitation..." In other words, get over yourselves and stop acting like you're American critics who need to watch all the awards contenders before making a yearender, and just make that goddamn yearender. Nobody cares. It's just a list. This year, I have a top 14--but really, the only placement I'm a hundred percent sure of is my number one. After that, it's anybody's game.

1. 'How To with John Wilson' Season 3 (HBO; created by John Wilson)

Decades from now, a new generation of cinephiles and TV-philes will hopefully look back at 2023 and unearth this gem of a show, and be introduced to its singular brilliance. John Wilson is more than a filmmaker; he is scribe, anthropologist, historian, comedian, court jester, investigative journalist, private detective, and psychiatrist rolled into one. All hail the great documenter of humanity's endless capacity for absurdity.

2. 'Interview with the Vampire' Season 1 (AMC; Rolin Jones, showrunner)

When I think of this show, the word that comes to mind is SCREAM. Imagine Patti LuPone and Nathan Lane having a baby and forcing that baby to do a musical directed by Martin Scorsese after he's had one too many shots of tequila. This is 'Mean Girls' in the golden age of bisexual liberation. As the vampire Lestat, Sam Reid is so mother, father, and GOAT in this. Of the mediocre tenor in the opera he's watching, he wonders, "Are they pulling talent from roadside gas stations?" Like I said, GOAT.

3. 'Afire' (dir. Christian Petzold)/ 'Anatomy of a Fall' (dir. Justine Triet)

I'm chalking this joint placement up to recency bias. Two European films that knock it out of the park with, among other things, their portrayals of writers and their relationships with people. In the first, the writer seems determined to be a pain in the ass to everyone around him. In the second, the world is a pain in the ass to the writer, whose pain-in-the-ass husband's death is being pinned on her by a French court where lines from a novel can apparently pass for evidence. If Sandra Hüller wins the Best Actress Oscar, I'll stop wearing underwear for life.

4. 'Taylor Mac's 24-Decade History of Popular Music' (dirs. Rob Epstein & Jeffrey Friedman)

Just an incredible, incredible celebration of queerness, and as a recording of live performance, one of those "I wish I could have been there" pieces of art.

5. 'The Other Two' Season 3 (HBO Max; created by Chris Kelly & Sarah Schneider)

This is a show that really gets its audience, knows exactly what they know, and has a firm grasp of the insane times they're living in. Staged dinner at Applebees, anyone? (Molly Shannon deserves all the awards and has gotten none, which is how you know the human race is doomed.)

6. 'Somebody Somewhere' Season 2 (HBO; created by Hannah Bos & Paul Thureen)

It is almost miraculous that, amid the noise, the theatrics, the varying 'largeness' of shows like 'Succession', 'Abbott Elementary', and 'The Last of Us', there exists 'Somebody Somewhere'--a show about welcoming the silences, small and deafening, that life throws at us seemingly at random. Bridget Everett and Jeff Hiller, as an odd couple in the American Midwest, drink, laugh, fight, make up, make noise, and make do. I love them so much.

7. 'May December' (dir. Todd Haynes)

He's a queer one, Julie Jordan Todd Haynes. I mean, getting Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore to do a lisp-off?

8. 'Oppenheimer' (dir. Christopher Nolan)/ 'Poor Things' (dir. Yorgos Lanthimos)

Two very movie movies that I saw in the cinemas, and which I think should be seen in cinemas and no place else. Both shot by their cinematographers like rent's overdue, both anchored by fearless lead performers--Cillian Murphy and Emma Stone--who deserve to sweep their respective awards races. And, incidentally, both epitomizing Powhatan's immortal line: "These white men are dangerous."

9. 'Succession' Season 4 (HBO; Jesse Armstrong, showrunner)/ 'Abbott Elementary' Season 2 (ABC; created by Quinta Brunson)

Both of these shows could be ranked higher, of course, but I wanted to highlight the others first. I was there in 2018 when very few people hereabouts were talking about 'Succession', and I was there when Jeremy Strong finally bellowed, "I'm the eldest boy!" This final season really went all in on the King Lear-ness of it all, to phenomenal results. Meanwhile, no other show has embodied 'joy' quite like 'Abbott'. I suspect we'd be a calmer, better world if only more people watched it.

10. '20 Days in Mariupol' (dir. Mstyslav Chernov)/ 'All That Breathes' (dir. Shaunak Sen)

Two vastly different documentaries about the wreckage--human and animal--left behind by empire's endless capacity for evil. The latter should have won last year's Oscar for Documentary Feature; the former should be winning this year's.

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The rest of my 5-star titles, in alphabetical order:

'Brand X' (dir. Keith Deligero)

Perfect short film. Absurd Bisaya humor on point. Must watch with the biggest crowd imaginable.

'Fleishman Is in Trouble' (FX on Hulu; created by Taffy Brodesser-Akner)

A triumph of writing and structure, its seamless, intelligent use of narration worth studying for other filmmakers, and finding the consummate vessel in the amazing Lizzy Caplan (a.k.a. Janis Ian!).

'Joyland' (dir. Saim Sadiq)

A film that revels in the beauty of storytelling--narratively, visually, textually, dramatically--and so thoroughly earns our joy in watching it.

'No One Will Save You' (dir. Brian Duffield)

Duffield is now two for two in my book, as someone who adored 'Spontaneous'. And I've been saying this since 'Unbelievable': Kaitlyn Fcking Dever is a Fcking Actress!

'Past Lives' (dir. Celine Song)

A Sondheim song come to life.

'Retrograde' (dir. Matthew Heineman)

A documentary that perfectly captures America's habit of betraying its "friends."

'Rye Lane' (dir. Raine Allen-Miller)

Fun, funny, trippy: a film that dares to and more than succeeds in evoking the rush and high of falling in love. 

'Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse' (dirs. Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers & Justin K. Thompson)

The highest praise I can give this film is to call it a 2.5-hour acid trip, as if it were repulsed by the mere idea of letting the viewer's senses settle even just for a fraction of a moment.

'What We Do in the Shadows' Season 5 Episode 5 (FX; dir. Yana Gorskaya)

Formally titled 'Local News', but better known as 'The Abduction of the Journalist Joanna Roscoe'--the comedic peak and lone highlight of an otherwise mid season.

'Women Talking' (dir. Sarah Polley)

A coup de cinemá in the way it deploys language as primary vessel for imagination, in the way it deploys imagination to conjure radical alternatives, in the way it turns gender polemics into cinematic language. Rooney Mara is best in show here--she with the mystical face of one who's just gotten off The Mayflower.

PLUS--24 four-star titles I wholly recommend:

'12 Weeks' (dir. Anna Isabelle Matutina); '11,103' (dirs. Mike Alcazaren & Jeannette Ifurung); 'Argentina, 1985' (dir. Santiago Mitre); 'Babylon' (dir. Damien Chazelle); 'Beyond Utopia' (dir. Madeleine Gavin); 'Bold Eagle' (dir. Whammy Alcazaren); 'Bottoms' (dir. Emma Seligman); 'Cunk on Earth' Season 1 (BBC Two/ Netflix; created by Charlie Brooker); 'Dead Ringers' (Prime Video; developed by Alice Birch); 'The Horror of Dolores Roach' Season 1 (Prime Video; created by Aaron Mark); 'Joy Ride' (dir. Adele Lim); 'Kapag Wala nang mga Alon' (dir. Lav Diaz); 'Kokomo City' (dir. D. Smith); 'The Last of Us' Season 1 (HBO; Craig Mazin & Neil Druckmann, showrunners), although episode 3--'Long, Long Time'--was a 7-star, heartbreaker of an episode; 'Lucky Hank' Season 1 (AMC; developed by Paul Lieberstein & Aaron Zelman), although episode 5--the dinner party--was topnotch: Suzanne Cryer's out-of-nowhere scream upon finding out she's getting published in The Atlantic was too real; 'Mga Handum nga Nasulat sa Baras' (dirs. Richard Jeroui Salvadico & Arlie Sweet Sumagaysay); 'Nimona' (dirs. Nick Bruno & Troy Quane); 'Palengke Day' (dir. Mervine Aquino); 'Passages' (dir. Ira Sachs); 'R.M.N.' (dir. Cristian Mungiu); 'Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie' (dir. Davis Guggenheim); 'Talk to Me' (dirs. Danny & Michael Philippou); 'The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar' (dir. Wes Anderson); 'You Hurt My Feelings' (dir. Nicole Holofcener)

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What follows is a list of my 30 favorite screen performances of the year, in many ways the MVPs of their respective films or TV shows. I have opted to exclude performances I have already mentioned earlier--for example, Kaitlyn Dever in 'No One Will Save You'. So make of this what you will, but also go check them out.

1. Murray Bartlett ('The Last of Us' Season 1)

2. Rose Byrne ('Platonic' Season 1)

3. Hong Chau ('The Whale'; 'Showing Up')

4. Daisy May Cooper ('Rain Dogs' Season 1) 

5. Kieran Culkin ('Succession' Season 4)
6. Jennifer Ehle ('Dead Ringers')
7. Claudia Enriquez ('12 Weeks')

8. Milo Machado Graner ('Anatomy of a Fall')
9. Lily Gladstone ('Killers of the Flower Moon')
10. Ryan Gosling ('Barbie')
11. Taraji P. Henson ('Abbott Elementary' Season 2)

12. Stephanie Hsu ('Joy Ride')
13. Cedrick Juan ('GomBurZa')

14. Jane Krakowski ('Schmigadoon' Season 2: 'Schmicago')
15. Ronnie Lazaro ('Kapag Wala nang mga Alon')
16. Justina Machado ('The Horror of Dolores Roach' Season 1)
17. John Magaro ('Past Lives')
18. Rachel McAdams ('Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.')
19. Charles Melton ('May December')
20. Carey Mulligan ('Maestro')
21. Park Ji-Min ('Return to Seoul')
22. Pedro Pascal ('The Last of Us' Season 1)

23. Chris Perfetti ('Abbott Elementary' Season 2)
24. Rosamund Pike ('Saltburn')
25. Margaret Qualley ('Sanctuary')
26. Bella Ramsey ('The Last of Us' Season 1)

27. Margot Robbie ('Babylon')

28. Sarah Snook ('Succession' Season 4)
29. Ben Whishaw ('Passages')
30. Ramy Youssef ('Poor Things')

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I have 10 more things to point out:

1. Lawrence Ang's editing of 'Leonor Will Never Die'. 

2. Justin Hurwitz's all-timer, Oscar-losing score for 'Babylon'. 'Voodoo Mama', 'Gold Coast Rhythm', and 'Manny and Nellie's Theme'--and variations of the last two thereof--on loop.

3. Nicholas Britell's closing themes for 'Succession' Season 4 made the closing credits an event in themselves. 

4. Say what you will about 'Barbie', but that production design is insane. 

5. The Trinity test scene alone in 'Oppenheimer' makes the price of admission worth it, but unquestionably the highlight of the film is the one with the small crowd of White Americans going gaga over news of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. Through sly use of light and sound, Nolan evokes pure horror.

6. The animation of 'The Boy and the Crow' is the best I saw in 2023; it's a shame this short film feels like an abruptly abandoned idea.

7. The wonderful deployment of theatrical sensibilities in 'The Wonderful Life of Henry Sugar'.

8. The pitch-perfect playing of literary types by the ensembles of 'Lucky Hank' and 'You Hurt My Feelings'. Writers being petty and nasty and butthurt? Sign me up!

9. Prime Video's 'Dead Ringers' as a written thing--to quote James Poniewozik of The New York Times, "a wondrous monster that firmly answers the questions too many adaptations fumble with: Why bother and why now?"

10. The second season of Netflix's 'Heartstopper' was a chore to go through, but its explication of bisexuality--the accompanying dread, confusion, uncertainty and self-doubt, and the world's biphobia--was dazzling and piercing in its truthfulness.

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Finally, here are three non-2022/23 titles that I saw for the first time this year and rated five Letterboxd stars:

'Reds' (1981, dir. Warren Beatty)
'Jaws' (1975, dir. Steven Spielberg)
'The Talented Mr. Ripley' (1999, dir. Anthony Minghella)

And four non-2022/23 titles rated four Letterboxd stars:

'All the President's Men' (1976, dir. Alan J. Pakula)

'Back to the Future' (1985, dir. Robert Zemeckis)

'Citizenfour' (2014, dir. Laura Poitras)

'Dead Ringers' (1988, dir. David Cronenberg)

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Links to my past lists, which are best read as time capsules documenting what I'd seen and where I was at the time I wrote them:

The Year in Film and TV 2022/ 2021/ 2020/ 2019

The Decade in Film 2010-19

The Year in Film 2018/ 2017/ 2016/ 2015/ 2014