Tag / 1974

by Jaime Rebanal

Ali: Fear Eats the Soul – Review

✯✯✯✯✯

Something snapped inside of me after having revisited Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Ali: Fear Eats the Soul in so many years: it was the urge to let out a storm. I wasn’t exactly sure at first, but I still recall my first experience with Fassbinder’s Douglas Sirk-inspired melodrama and I found it to be a stunning, if difficult experience at that. It was difficult because what I saw from Ali: Fear Eats the Soul wasn’t only a film that tells of a romance that was made impossible at the hands of societal norms. It was a frightening experience that brought back my own fears – and I froze on the spot like I always do at the hands of my own paranoia. I froze because I was reminded of everything in my life that I’m most afraid of and think about on a regular basis. I just sense fear eating me away at every minute, my soul is slowly leaving day by day – and I can never escape.

Continue reading →

Advertisement
by Jaime Rebanal

Black Christmas – Review

✯✯✯½

Bob Clark’s name is easy to recognize around the holiday season for having directed both a slasher film set around the season as well as arguably one of the most popular films all about the nostalgia of being a kid at Christmas. But Black Christmas isn’t solely known for being one of the most popular horror films about the holiday season, but also it has been widely considered the first slasher film alongside its reputation as one of the most successful Canadian films from the period. With its reputation as the first slasher film and eventual influence on later films of the period, the question that begs to be answered is how well does it hold up today?

Continue reading →

by Jaime Rebanal

Death Wish – Review

✯✯

Most certainly a product of its time, but not in a good manner at that. Michael Winner’s nihilistic Death Wish is a ruthless film on all counts where it is expected most, but in the end, it never seems to be a film that goes beyond that. That wasn’t the worst thing I found about Death Wish, but it was also difficult enough trying to keep myself staying invested. It was difficult to stay on board with all of the ugliness that was on display, for apparently the philosophy wasn’t what Brian Garfield had intended with his original novel – and that isn’t even the worst part of Death Wish from my own perspective. Perhaps it already has found itself speaking to what America had been going through at the time, but considering how quickly have times changed decades within its own release – it’s clear how much of this does not hold up.

Continue reading →

by Jaime Rebanal

Lenny – Review

✯✯✯✯✯

I think it was only most fitting that Bob Fosse of all people was the man who went behind making a film about Lenny Bruce. But how exactly would a biopic be able to capture a sense of what the man was truly all about? Maybe it was the fact that Bob Fosse was already working himself up to the point he’s captured a sense of what the man was like on the inside, for he was editing this at the same time he was choreographing Chicago, something he went ahead and fictionalized eventually in All That Jazz, his own invitation to a glimpse at the creative process of an artist. And that’s only a fraction of what made me love Bob Fosse as much as I do, because like All That Jazz which came later, he didn’t want to take someone else’s story and turn it into any other disposable biopic. I’ve known the name of Lenny Bruce for a while already, and I’ve already found a newfound respect for him thanks to what Bob Fosse had painted of him in Lenny.

Continue reading →

by Jaime Rebanal

Going Places – Review

✯✯½

Probably a “not for me” case that we’re coming to look at here because there was so much about Going Places that seemed almost appealing to me in some way, yet I found so little coming out. This sexy comedy-drama by Bertrand Blier has a lot to say, but I can’t help but feel like whatever it was that Going Places had intended for only ended up getting lost. And I’m not going to deny that there were moment during Going Places that have ever had me waiting for something more, but then there was another point to where I was wondering why all of that joy only had made a really sudden stop – the last thing I would have wanted a film with this sort of premise to do. I still kept hope for where Going Places would head with its stance on the actions of its characters and how it defines them but then came the point I just decided it was completely not for me after all.

Continue reading →

by Jaime Rebanal

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre – Review

✯✯✯✯✯

Tobe Hooper’s iconic The Texas Chain Saw Massacre changed the face of the horror genre from the day in which it had come out, and to this day it remains one of the most important American films of the genre. For even to this day it remains every bit as terrifying an experience as it might have been during the original release in which it had been met with a mixed reception, and there’s never a sign in which its mark upon culture has been lost. Over the many years that have come by, others have tried to give the same story their own spin but they failed at retaining what it was that had made Tobe Hooper’s film the classic that it is, and what it is sure to remain for all of time. Continue reading →