Movie Reviews
After a review, ‘Barbie’ movie will show in the Philippines, after all
Jam Sta Rosa/AFP via Getty Images
MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines film regulator has ruled that Warner Bros. upcoming Barbie movie will be allowed to be shown in theaters across the country following a review of a map shown in the film that appears to depict China’s controversial nine-dash line.
The scene in-question is when Barbie, played by Margot Robbie, shows up at another Barbie’s house for help with her existential crisis. In the background of that scene a colorful map of the “real world” is shown, very briefly, with a dotted line protruding from the eastern coast of the Asian continent.
The nine-dash line is what China uses when it arbitrarily claims nearly all of the South China Sea as its own. Many Southeast Asian nations, including the Philippines, have long been locked in a territorial dispute with China over crucial waterway — saying that Beijing’s claims threaten their sovereignty.
Considering the context, “the Review Committee is convinced that the contentious scene does not depict the ‘nine-dash line,” the Philippine Movie and Television Review and Classification Board said in a statement released Tuesday. “Instead the map portrayed the route of the make-believe journey of Barbie from Barbie Land to the ‘real world,’ as an integral part of the story.”
Warner Bros. defended the map, saying it “is a whimsical, child-like crayon drawing” that was not intended to make any kind of statement. Still, many saw the map as the studio giant pandering to China’s movie market, which is worth billions of dollars and growing.
Philippine Senator Francis Tolentino, who initially pushed last week for the movie to be reviewed by regulators, called the decision “sad.”
Sen. Francis Tolentino, who wanted the ‘Barbie’ movie banned in the PH, says he was saddened by MTRCB’s decision.
“Tayo po ay nalulungkot dahil bukas ‘yong ika-7 anibersaryo ng pagkapanalo natin sa arbitral court na pinawalang-bisa iyung 9-dash line.”
pic.twitter.com/JsLQnmtz6X— ABS-CBN News (@ABSCBNNews) July 11, 2023
“We respect that MTRCB, if this is 8 dash line, 7 dash line, or 9 dash line,” Tolentino told reporters. “What I see here is China keeping on claiming the Philippine waters, and this is trampling on the rights of our fishermen and even of the Philippine Coast Guard.”
The move means that the Philippines will not be joining Vietnam in banning the movie over the map. Barbie joins a growing list of movies banned in Vietnam for including maps that show the nine-dash line, including DreamWorks’ Abominable and Sony’s Uncharted.
The decision to allow Barbie to show in Philippines theaters comes within days of the Philippine Coast Guard reporting a large swarm of nearly 50 Chinese vessels gathering near Iroquois Reef — which is solidly in Philippine waters. Philippine officials, who are concerned that the swarm means China might be preparing to try to take over the reef, have ordered an increased presence of coast guard and military to try and deter Beijing from any action.
Movie Reviews
Video: KSL Movie Show – Young Women and the Sea Movie Review – KSLNewsRadio
Listen to Steve & Andy this Friday from 11:00 am – 1:00 pm as they review the Young Women and the Sea. Discover the jounrey of the first women to swim across the English Channel!
Listen live at kslnewsradio.com/listen/
Movie Reviews
Boy Kills World: Bill Skarsgard stars in blood-soaked thriller
2/5 stars
Exploding onto the screen like the bastard son of a dozen 1980s action movies and an arcade full of beat-’em-up video games, Boy Kills World is a whirl of blood-soaked martial arts and jet black humour that barely pauses for breath.
Over the course of two hours, Boy tears through the hierarchy of a near-future dystopia in the hopes of destroying the regal Van Der Koys, responsible for murdering his family.
The hook to Boy Kills World is that, because of his debilitated senses, Boy narrates his every waking moment through an incessant internal monologue, in a voice lifted from his favourite childhood video game, Super Dragon Punch Force 3.
Comedian and voice artist H. Jon Benjamin (Archer, Bob’s Burgers) provides Boy with the vocal identity for his relentlessly self-aware, comic-book-style voice-over.
Hilda Van Der Koy (Famke Janssen) rules with an iron fist, staging an annual “culling”, whereby a dozen enemies of the state are ceremonially executed in front of the people.
Such a fate befell Boy’s own mother and sister, and he has spent the years since living in hiding, honing his body into a lethal weapon under the brutal tutelage of Yayan Ruhian’s unforgiving Shaman.
Once Boy is set in motion, there is no stopping the swathe of bloody carnage he unleashes.
First-time writer-director Moritz Mohr shot the film in South Africa, which lends it a visually distinctive otherworldliness, but beyond this cosmetic exoticism, Boy Kills World ploughs a painfully familiar path.
Its sustained tone of fast-paced choreography, splashy violence and knowingly irreverent humour soon becomes exasperating, leaving it with no other option than to barrel towards a wholly predictable finale.
Skarsgard’s performance must be commended for its physicality, but ultimately Boy Kills World becomes as much of a physical ordeal to watch as for its hero to survive, and will surely prompt all but the most resilient of viewers to tap out long before justice is served.
Movie Reviews
Movie review: The Teacher's Lounge – Law Society Journal
Idealistic young teacher Carla Nowak (played with anxious intensity by Leonie Benesch) is a new arrival at a German secondary school. Well-meaning and empathetic, she is the conductor of a peaceful classroom. A shot of Carla from behind, her arms beautifully outstretched, suggests this is her daily orchestra. She is organised and dedicated, if a touch closed off from her fellow teachers.
But when a student of Turkish origin is accused of stealing money, and Carla’s own surveillance of the teachers’ lounge indicates the guilt of Friederike Kuhn, an administrative staff member, we realise she’s far from in control. Carla’s star pupil, Lukas (Mrs Kuhn’s son), resents the accusation aimed at his mother. The students rally around him and the teachers, divided by internal disagreements, seem almost powerless to assert control.
Long gone is the strict discipline of The 400 Blows or Dead Poets Society. The students in the film seek neither escape to the outside world nor solace in the rich inner worlds sparked by poetry. As they have been taught, these students seek answers. They seek justice. As the editor of the student newspaper boldly declares that, outside of truth, “everything else is just PR.”
The path to maturity for the students seems not to lie in compromising their ideals but in sticking to them ever more fiercely. It’s a wonderful inversion of what the Germans call “Bildung,” the tradition which examines the formative years of youth, marked as it is by a certain moral education. But the students cede no ground. They are uninterested in the murky give-and-take of the adult world. Their world is zero sum.
Indeed, it is the teachers’ uncertain sense of themselves as disciplinarians and moral leaders that provides so much fuel for the plot. They do not know who they are, and the students grasp it quickly. Carla in particular has ideals, but does she really believe in them? Çatak satirises the speed at which the right to privacy, freedom of the press, and the concept of innocent until proven guilty are upended in the search for a thief. It’s quite an achievement, especially given that thrillers are rarely satirical, and satires seldom thrilling.
The film moves so briskly that viewers can be forgiven for failing to notice that on Carla’s surveillance video, Mrs Kuhn’s blouse is patterned with little stars. It’s a knowing nod to Germany’s tragic past. That Mrs Kuhn also represents a slightly different power struggle within the school – between the teachers and the administrative staff – adds more complexity to The Teachers’ Lounge. One can only hope that the next films concerning the consequences of accusation are so richly engaging.
Verdict: Five stars
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