Sidenote: Finally! I’m back to reviewing. Yay! 🙂

Four years after we last witnessed the dream love story between Miggy Montenegro and Laida Magtalas in You Changed My Life, Cathy Garcia-Molina closes the whole story, this time with the third installment of the prominent fairy tale story via It Takes A Man and a Woman (which is already killing the box office after only one day of release).

In this story, we see couple Miggy (John Lloyd Cruz) and Laida (Sarah Geronimo) go separate ways, as each recovers from their break up two years ago. Miggy is still a disappointment to his family’s business reputation, while Laida, now with an accent and a  better fashion sense (though still donning a wig), moved to work in New York. A special assignment that involved the two of them stands as a test on whether they’ve finally moved on or if they’re still stuck with their relationship from the past.

Well, let’s get this one out of the way: I’m a big fan of the Miggy-Laida pairing. So I do think that the moment I entered the cinemas, I’ve already expected that I’ll like it.  But it was exactly what I was looking for. The first few minutes of the film set up the “relationship over” part between the two of them, but when the Laida Magtalas version 2.0 started to speak, I don’t think that you can still resist to not smile and laugh all throughout. As a matter of fact, I think that’s what the film’s biggest asset is, despite Sarah and John Lloyd’s antics in it, the whole movie has this sense of familiarity that is easy to warm up to. It stayed in its comfort zone, and that definitely worked for the best. I particularly love all the mentions and tribute to the first two movies. By now, you already probably know that director Cathy Garcia Molina has mastered what it takes to bring out the kilig and sweetness in the scenes in her movies, and the movie is another testament of that. They just know when to push the buttons and how to make the audience laugh, cry, and say “aww.”

If there are things that I’m not highly keen about the film, it’s probably the long screen time. The movie clocks in at a few minutes post two hours. There were also too much contrived scenes in it (particularly the one at the near end of the film) when you know that it really has zero chance of happening in real life. But of course, I’d still give in. It was cheesy, contrived, and forced, but I’d be damned if I’ll deny that I wasn’t smiling throughout. The pairing of John Lloyd and Sarah knows how to work this thing off, and their sweetness was thisclose in making me give them a free pass.

Another thing I liked is the ensemble nature of the movie. The characters of Matet de Leon, Joross Gamboa, and Gio Alvarez were more in demand here than the two previous movies, and the chemistry among the group is just on an all time high that it was just fun to watch them interact on screen. Isabelle Daza was in a very thankless and limited role, so she was decent to say the most, but there was one scene when she “competed” with Laida that made the whole theater laugh. Then again, I don’t think I can let this review pass without reiterating (time and again) how John Lloyd and Sarah’s impeccable chemistry is the heart and soul of this film. They really just know how to make this work.

If this is really the ending to the trilogy, then I’d say it ended on a really high note. The pairing of Laida and Miggy is definitely in for the books and deservedly so. It Takes A Man and a Woman is one of those films that highly succeeded in what it wanted to portray, bringing in the smiles, the tears, and the kilig, while also serving the perfect closure to both their love story and the film installment itself.

Grade: 3.5/5

Hi everyone! I’ve just released the winners for my 2012 Tit for Tat Film Awards a few days ago. The 2012 batch is the 18th edition of the awards that I did, so in order to brief you with the past winners, we’d be taking a stroll back the past 17 years. With that said, we’d only do the top six major categories one at a time, Let’s start this by tackling the first acting category: supporting actress.

 

As a recap, here are the past 17 winners:

1995: Kate Winslet, “Sense and Sensibility”
1996: Juliette Binoche, “The English Patient”
1997: Julianne Moore, “Boogie Nights”
1998: Lisa Kudrow, “The Opposite of Sex”
1999: Chloe Sevigny, “Boys Don’t Cry”
2000: Marcia Gay Harden, “Pollock”
2001: Maggie Smith, “Gosford Park”
2002: Catherine Zeta Jones, “Chicago”
2003: Shohreh Aghdashloo, “House of Sand and Fog”
2004: Natalie Portman, “Closer”
2005: Amy Adams, “Junebug”
2006: Catherine O’Hara, “For Your Consideration”
2007: Jennifer Jason Leigh, “Margot at the Wedding”
2008: Marisa Tomei, “The Wrestler”
2009: Melanie Laurent, “Inglourious Basterds”
2010: Jackie Weaver, “Animal Kingdom”
2011: Sarah Bayet, “A Separation”
2012: Anne Hathaway, “The Dark Knight Rises”

Who are your own personal picks among the wide supporting actress performances? Add them here below! 🙂

And as always, you can follow me on Twitter: @nikowl

Hey everyone! As a movie fan, it is not enough for me to simply just be an awards prognosticator. After all, while the whole guessing game is fun, there are also personal involvement that is related with the whole predicting game. Thus, I”ll finally be revealing my own choices for the past movie year. I have been doing this for many years now, though this is the first time I did all Oscar categories (and then some), so it’s a new approach that I’m doing here. I nominated five choices per each category, and I assigned a gold, silver, and bronze winner in each of them. Take note that these are all personal picks (from the nominees to the winners), and I’m in for some healthy discussion, so you are free to leave comment below. Anyway, here we go with all 22 categories for my Tit for Tat Awards for movie year 2012! 🙂

NOTE: You can right click the photo and open it in a new tab in order to read the commentaries. I tried to upload it in its actual size, but WordPress is limiting it to the size you’re seeing below. Thank you! 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As a recap, here are the complete winners for this year:

BEST PICTURE: Holy Motors
BEST DIRECTOR: Leos Carax, Holy Motors
BEST ACTOR: Denis Lavant, Holy Motors
BEST ACTRESS: Rachel Weisz, The Deep Blue Sea
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Garrett Hedlund, On the Road
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Anne Hathaway, The Dark Knight Rises
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Michael Haneke, Amour
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: Joachim Trier, Eskil Vogt, Oslo, August 31
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE: Wreck it Ralph
BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM: Holy Motors
BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE: Searching for Sugar Man
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: The Turin Horse
BEST COSTUME DESIGN: Mirror, Mirror
BEST FILM EDITING: Zero Dark Thirty
BEST HAIRSTYLING AND MAKE UP: Cloud Atlas
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE: Beasts of the Southern Wild
BEST ORIGINAL SONG: Who Were We? (Holy Motors)
BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN: Moonrise Kingdom
BEST SOUND: Zero Dark Thirty
BEST VISUAL EFFECTS: Life of Pi
BEST BREAKTHROUGH PERFORMER: Eddie Redmayne, Les Miserables
BEST ENSEMBLE: Moonrise Kingdom

What would be your picks for the best in motion picture for the year? Pipe them in below! 🙂

As always, you can follow me on Twitter: @nikowl

Hey everyone! We’re starting early this year. Now that the Oscars are finally over, we’re shifting to the monthly predictions of what can be called as the cream of the crop in the television world. Since Mad Men has not started yet, all placements are still tentative for the show. But here’s my first official batch of predictions (and four next in lines)  for this year in the ten main categories.

Any reactions? Pipe them in at the comments below. 🙂

And as always, you can follow me on Twitter: @nikowl