Tag / 1986

by Jaime Rebanal

‘Castle in the Sky’ Review: The Adventurous Spirits in Miyazaki’s Vision

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The first film to be released under the Studio Ghibli name, Castle in the Sky may be among Hayao Miyazaki’s more straightforward films but that never takes away from how thoroughly exciting it is from beginning to end. Much like Spirited Away and Kiki’s Delivery Service, Castle in the Sky was a film that had been a favourite of mine when I was very young but it was also one that I never came back to until just recently. As I watch the film again as an adult, Castle in the Sky doesn’t only hit me again with that same magic like it did as a kid but I’m still in awe at how perfectly constructed it is – which is just about everything I could ever want from any of Miyazaki’s films.

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by Jaime Rebanal

‘Blue Velvet’ Review: The Hypnotic Aura of David Lynch’s Strange World

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David Lynch’s films are so easy to characterize for carrying a weird aura that only he could ever perfect, yet the world that we’re seeing in Blue Velvet is one that is as ordinary as they get. Yet it’s also what makes everything about Blue Velvet so wonderful too, because it invokes his viewers to look at the world that they know a whole other way, beneath the cracks of the perfections in the “ordinary” as David Lynch brings you to see the underworlds that take the screen. It’s all a part of what makes Blue Velvet so intriguing too, because it’s characteristic of everything that has fascinated David Lynch through his long career in the form of a neo-noir mystery, yet it also happens to be one of the very best films of that sort too. Some can even say that a film like this best captures what also is best described as David Lynch’s America, for his subversion of the idealized lifestyle brings you on a journey of innocence slowly fading away through the exposure to a dark underworld unlike any other. You’re taken into a strange world by David Lynch, but maybe that might very well be the world we live in and we’ve convinced ourselves that everything happens to be moving along like it’s all fine.

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by Jaime Rebanal

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 – Review

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In order to follow up his original masterpiece, Tobe Hooper goes behind the camera once again for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 – a drastically different turn from its predecessor. Whereas The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is otherwise known as one of the scariest films to have graced the screen and to this day remains one of the most iconic horror films of all time, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 takes a vastly different route and now becomes a black comedy. And what Tobe Hooper presents is nothing short of entertaining from start to finish, a perfect follow-up to his original masterpiece which straight up goes against the rules, just in the very best sense of the word. Continue reading →

by Jaime Rebanal

Howard the Duck – Review

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Howard the Duck – a crowning achievement for George Lucas’s career. Make no mistake, this notorious flop certainly is an absolutely awful film in so many ways, but there’s a lot about what it leaves behind that turns it into a thing of glory. All the wrong reasons alone add up to why Howard the Duck is a delightful product. This is the sort of failure that’s absolutely fascinating to watch because of how much it is doing wrong because the appearance to which it provides is something so bizarre it keeps one’s attention as it moves along. One such level of enjoyable badness is quite the achievement especially when all the glory of such a failure is coming into play. And that is where Howard the Duck is truly something unlike any other. Like I’ve stated, it is rather undeniably a bad film, but wow, is it truly something to be embraced. Continue reading →

by Jaime Rebanal

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off – Review

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Generally speaking, I do not care for the films of John Hughes. When we look at most coming-of-age movies from the 80’s and their depictions of teenagers, Hughes’s films often come off to me as extremely smug to the point they don’t seem to ring true (that also includes what’s often noted as his most beloved film, The Breakfast Club) and what I won’t deny is that Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is exactly that. Yet unlike most of his oeuvre with the teenage comedy, I actually rather highly enjoy Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Yes, it consists of what I normally would dislike in a John Hughes film but something about it left a charm that entertains someone like myself. Continue reading →