Review of HOME ALONG DA RILES, DA REUNION: The Cosmes in Conflict and Conciliation

June 18, 2026

The children of the late Kevin Cosme (Dolphy) still regularly eat together in their old house along the railroad tracks. Kevin's long-time love Azon (Nova Villa), whom the kids called their Tita Nanay, lived nearby. Her adopted daughter Maybe (Maybelyn dela Cruz) is now a barangay official prepping the residents for an impending demolition of their neighborhood.

Eldest son Bill (Smokey Manaloto), an office worker, is still single. Second son is Bob (Gio Alvarez), a motorcycle driver, married to Lorie (Aurora Halili), and living with his rich mother-in-law Bridge (Ces Quesada). The youngest son is Baldo (Vandolph Quizon), married to Jenny (Jenny Quizon) with sons Vito (Vito Quizon) and Baldolito (Ahmad Aboukowick). Adopted son Estong (Boy2 Quizon) was still inseparable from Baldo, partners in a food stall business. 

The only rose in the Cosme brood is Bing (Claudine Barretto), third in line. Now 45 years old, she surprised her brothers when she announced that she was about to get married to a boyfriend whom she had been keeping a secret for 6 years. Hurt, the brothers tried to foil the engagement when the guy, Baby Boy (Pepe Herrera), finally came to meet them. 

The original TV series "Home Along the Riles" ran on ABS-CBN for more than 20 years, from December 1992 to August 2003. While I do have a general idea about the show and its actors, but somehow, I never really got to see a single full episode of it. I also did not watch the two previous feature films about the series, released in 1993 and 1997. Honestly, I was not sure if this reunion movie directed by Boy2 Quizon will have something for me or not. 

From the beginning, we already see the arc of Nova Villa's Azon for the whole film -- missing her one and only love Kevin. She expressed a couple of times that she's just waiting for him to fetch her, even seeing "him" and hearing him sing "Gaano Kita Kamahal." Her comedy moments had to do with waking up from dreaming about Kevin. They gave her a weird episode of getting a massage in a spa, which would later get raided -- not funny.

Claudine Barretto mainly played the straight guy here. It was her sudden surprise announcement of her coming wedding incited the main conflict of the film. While it was clear why she did not want her brothers to know, it was difficult to explain why she did not confide this with her Tita Nanay -- in fact, they did not even try to make a plausible reason. Her one moment of spontaneity came after the priest asked "You may or may not kiss the bride." 

The interaction of Bing's immature brothers among each other and to Baby Boy was in the vein of typical 90s style of naughty comedy. I do not know how these boys used to quarrel on TV, but the climactic violent argument they had seemed very out of character. Those words said, especially those very hurtful insults coming from Bill, came out so randomly from out of the blue, and were not the type that can easily be forgiven as it happened. 

Also returning is Dang Cruz as Azon's inimitable househelp Roxanne, who stole her scenes with her crazy antics. We also see cameos from Kevin's former officemates like Cita Astals (Ma'am Hillary), Joymee Lim (Linggit) and Sherilyn Reyes (Sheryl), as well as unexpected guest appearances like Gardo Versoza, Zanjoe Marudo, Small Laude, the whole Creamline volleyball team, and most surprisingly, Claudine's ex Mark Anthony Fernandez. 

The chaos of the wedding and the demolition all led to one profound moment of sincere family reconciliation in a church. If you are expecting a certain someone to make an appearance from beyond, you'd be right. The production really set aside budget for that one important special effect that should not be carelessly done. Even if you are not familiar with the Cosme family at all, this final heartwarming moment will make you care about them. 6/10 

Review of TOY STORY 5: Trouble with Technology

June 16, 2026

Bonnie (Scarlet Spears) was feeling lonely because she found it difficult to make friends with the kids in her neighborhood. When Jessie (Joan Cusack) went next door to investigate, she discovered that the other kids were all stuck in their own rooms playing video games on a gadget. Jessie was alarmed when Bonnie's parents (Lori Alan, Jay Hernandez) bought Bonnie her own gadget -- a green tablet with a frog design named Lilypad (Greta Lee). 

Sheriff Jessie had designated Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) to be her deputy. However, this time, she called Woody (Tom Hanks) to ask for his help how to address the Lily problem. In her efforts to protect Bonnie from bad friends, Jessie and her horse Bullseye got transported back to the house of her old owner Emily. There was a new family there with a girl named Blaze (Mykal-Michelle Harris), whom Jessie felt would be a perfect friend for Bonnie. 

The first Toy Story (1995) made history as the first feature-length film to use computer-generated imagery only. It introduced us to Woody and Buzz Lightyear, who were the two favorite toys of Andy. They met Jessie in TS2(1999). As Andy went to college in TS3 (2010), the toys were brought to a daycare, where first they met Bonnie. In TS4 (2019), Bonnie made a toy from a spork she named Forky, while Woody gets reunited with BoPeep (Annie Potts).

After TS3, we all thought that they already had the perfect heartwarming ending. When TS4 came, a lot of us thought that Pixar should not have done this anymore. However, it proved us wrong again by coming with yet another emotional ending. This TS5 again played around with previous themes of old toys being abandoned by their owners as they grew up, but here, it tackled the high incidence of children glued to the screens of gadgets. 

In order to make it possible for Woody, Buzz and Jessie to achieve their elaborate plans, director Andrew Stanton, who co-wrote the screenplay with Kenna Harris, came up with a random side-story of a platoon of high-tech Buzz Lightyear toys marching to Star Command. Blaze also just so happened to own some old abandoned electronic toys (which just so happened to have working AAA batteries) and shelves of doll horses that she collected. 

Jessie was the main toy character of this story, with her own learning arc, and female-empowerment moments to boot. Multiple units of Buzz opened and closed this one, with a climactic action highlight, plus a romantic subplot. Woody was basically a special guest this time, with the recurring joke about his bald spot as his most memorable gag. The rest of Andy's old toys were still fun to watch in the limited screen time they had. We will all recognize how gadgets like Lilypad dominate our time these days. 

The Pixar artwork, with the vibrant colors and innovative designs, was as topnotch as ever, with a special style to depict the girls' whimsical play fantasies. The screenplay was both nostalgic and funny as we expect from this franchise. The jokes (even Smarty Pants' toilet humor) and the aww moments still connected well with both adults and kids in the audience with us. Stanton was still able to squeeze out an emotional ending this time, we can feel the stretch of the story in this one. But overall, I liked this one better than TS4. 8/10

Review of DISCLOSURE DAY: Extraterrestrial Exposé

June 11, 2026

Cybersecurity expert Daniel Kellner (Josh O'Connor) is being hunted down by a covert agency called Wardex, led by Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth). Kellner had stolen a set of files which he had to deliver to Hugo (Colman Domingo), and Wardex wants them back. Wardex had technology which allowed Scanlon to locate and talk to people remotely. Scanlon cannot connect with Daniel, so he instead connected with Daniel's girlfriend Jane (Eve Hewson). 

In the meantime, Kansas City TV weather girl Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt) was having breakfast when a cardinal flew into their apartment and stared at her for sometime, until it was shooed away by her boyfriend Jackson (Wyatt Russell). After this, Margaret suddenly had the ability to speak in different foreign languages and to connect emotionally with people she never met. During her weather report on TV, she began talking in a strange clicking sound. 

In his 50 years of making movies, Steven Spielberg has films about his fascination with alien lifeforms, including "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" (1977) and "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" (1982). Spielberg returns to this genre after 20 years, coming up with the story that David Koepp crafted into a screenplay and directing it with his signature engaging storytelling style and cinematic flair, though this one had no children and less heartwarming drama.

The main cast was A-list, among the busiest actors these days. Blunt's Margaret was initially light and comic, but she eventually became the heart of the story. O'Connor was relatively lower key but convincingly committed to his cause. Think what you may of Hugo's intentions, but Domingo played him like a saint. Firth gave Oscar-grade gravitas to the antagonist role. We needed more background on Hugo and Noah to understand their motives more. 

This film was about people who believed that everyone in the world should know that extraterrestrials exist going up against people who wanted to hide the existence of extraterrestrial life on Earth. As Jane used to be a nun, a Catholic perspective was added into the mix, including a verse from Genesis that I had not heard quoted that way before. It presents a thought-provoking dilemma to us in terms of morality and ethics. 

The first two hours had Daniel and Margaret running around Midwest states avoiding Wardex, with car chases and train crashes along the way. All this action built up momentum for a riveting climactic 30 minutes, capped by a wheelchair scene that can polarize the audience if Spielberg was being profound, or melodramatic. However after all that, Spielberg still forgot to tell us where the cardinal came from, its source of power and its selection criteria. 8/10 

Mini-Reviews of OBSESSION and BACKROOMS: Yield to Young YouTubers!

June 9, 2026

In the last two weeks, there had been a couple of horror movies that are making a lot of news. Both of them have been directed by young directors who had their start releasing their original content on YouTube. The first one was written and directed by Curry Barker, 26 years old. The second one was directed by Kane Parsons, 20 years old. What is more remarkable now is that their two low-budget films have now grossed more than $200M worldwide at the box office. 

1. OBSESSSION

Director: Curry Barker

Writer: Curry Barker

Bear (Michael Johnston) worked with his friends Ian (Cooper Tomlinson), Sarah (Megan Lawless) and Nikki (Inde Navarrette) at a music store. He had a big crush on Nikki but was very shy to tell her. Bear saw an item in a crystal shop called "One Wish Willow," a stick that claimed it can fulfill one wish of the person who broke it into two. When he dropped Nikki at her home one night, Bear broke the stick and wished for Nikki to love him more than anyone in the world. Right after, Nikki invited him into her house, then into bed with her. 

Curry Barker only spent $750,000 budget for this film so its multi-million fortunes now is most impressive. Michael Johnston may be too awkward (on purpose?) as Bear, but Inde Navarrette impressed as her poor unhinged Nikki broke us emotionally. Curry's concept of the "One Wish Willow" carried the film through, showing the horrible consequences of causing love to happen by unnatural means. There are scenes of violence here that startle and shock, so fasten your seatbelts as this horror-romcom does not hold back. 8/10

2. BACKROOMS

Director: Kane Parsons

Writer: Will Soodik 

Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor) owned a furniture store called  Cap'n Clark's Ottoman Empire, which was not doing very well. Aside from this, he was also having issues with alcoholism and his divorce for which he was seeing a therapist Mary Kline (Renate Reinsve). One day while investigating electrical disturbances in his store, he saw a glowing slit in one of the walls of the basement. He fell right through that wall and wound up in a whole new wide space of maze-like corridors, lit up by bright overhead fluorescent lights with odd stuff scattered around.  

It started with a  dizzying 1990 video of a man that was stumbling around a strange maze of brightly-lit corridors which reminded me of the "Blair Witch Project," which really gave me a bad case of vertigo. Fortunately, "Backrooms" was not like this all the way through. To the end, it never really explained what was really going on, but it did try to connect the labyrinthine passageways to human psychology as we forge our way through the unknowns of our lives. Oscar-caliber Ejiofor and Reinsve and the unnerving production design elevated it.  7/10

Review of COLONY: Melding Minds into Monsters

June 2, 2026

One morning at the Doongwoori Building in Seoul, Chains Bio CEO Dr. Kang Woo-cheol (Kim Jeong-tae) gave an exciting presentation about his company's latest work about collective intelligence. After his talk, Kang was confronted by a disgruntled former employee Dr. Suh Young-cheol (Koo Kyo-hwan). During their heated argument, Suh unexpectedly stuck a syringe into Kang's neck and injected a substance which quickly turned Kang into a zombie. 

From there, a zombie epidemic quickly broke out inside the Doongwoori Building which housed a very busy shopping mall. Among those caught in a store were scientists Prof. Kwon Se-Jeong (Gianna Jun) and her ex-husband Prof. Han Kyu-seong (Ko Soo), security guard Choi Hyun-Seok (Ji Chang-wook) and his wheelchair-bound sister Hyun-hee (Kim Shin-rok), and Officer Lee (Lee Joong-ok), a policeman who responded to Suh's bioterrorism threat.  

The best-regarded South Korean zombie movie is "Train to Busan" (2016). Directed by Yeon Sang-ho, and written by Park Joo-suk, this had a touching father-daughter story in the heart of the zombie chaos on a train. Four years later, Yeon wrote and directed "Peninsula" (2020), billed as the sequel to "Train to Busan," this time about a soldier tasked to retrieve a truck of money in zombie-infested South Korea. This was a disappointing follow-up for sure.

This year, Yeon is back again, writing and directing yet another zombie film. This new movie features a new type of "tech-based" zombies. These zombies were described in jargon to be exchanging information by way of organic semi-conductors in slime. The way the zombies were acting in synchrony as if being conducted remotely was an interesting concept, and their eerie choreography was well-executed, especially that mesmerizing "ant mill" scene.

It was great to see Gianna Jin, iconic star of "My Sassy Girl" (2001), back on the big screen again after a 10-year hiatus. Koo Kyo-hwan, star of box-office romance hit "Once We Were Us" (2025), made for an intimidating antagonist. Ji Chang-wook showed off both fighting skills as he plowed through the zombie horde with a kitchen knife, as well as his dramatic chops in his scenes with Kim Shin-rok playing his disabled I.T. sister. 

There were thought-provoking dilemmas presented to create more conflict -- are the zombies patients or as monsters? is the immune perpetrator the villain or the vaccine? That "imperfect communication is the main source of tragedy" makes for a profound basis for drama. While uniting all the minds in the world sounds like an altruistic goal, putting them under the vision and control of one deranged person is obviously not a good idea. 7/10