Tag / 2012

by Jaime Rebanal

Wadjda – Review

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When you think about how much Wadjda has achieved in history, it’s quite a miracle that this movie was made. Aside from being the first film shot entirely within Saudi Arabia, it is also the first film to have been directed by a Saudi woman. But even to think that it will seem conventional from an outsider’s perspective of Saudi culture, there’s a much greater level to which Wadjda speaks for because of what ground it breaks for their own society. It’s a film that came right out from a country where we know that cinema in general had been banned for years, but the transgressive nature behind what we already can see as a simple coming-of-age tale is among many factors that make Wadjda all the more admirable.

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by Jaime Rebanal

Frances Ha – Review

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I remember the first viewing of Frances Ha well enough and how it treated me then. At the time, I was unfamiliar with Greta Gerwig and my first impression only had me thinking that what I was watching was cute and funny. The more I watch Greta Gerwig, I slowly realize what it is about the way she writes her characters that keeps me watching them as their stories are being told for us on the screen, and what I think about from then onward is the state of her own life in which she is living in. Frances Halladay is old enough to own an apartment, find a job for herself, but she spends her days living in Brooklyn as if she were younger. But it isn’t her own fault either, rather instead she lives the way that she does because it’s the result of her own environment as Gerwig and Baumbach write her to be. It is the very feeling that you know the circumstances of such a lifestyle so well enough that pulls yourself closer to Frances Ha.

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by Jaime Rebanal

Shut Up and Play the Hits – Review

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A good deciding factor in what you will end up thinking of Shut Up and Play the Hits is your own opinion of LCD Soundsystem. With the release of american dream last month (a great album if you were to ask me), I figured that I would go ahead and watch them deliver a final blow for many fans to see them for the last time in 2011. The whole time I watched Shut Up and Play the Hits, to say the least, I would have wanted to be there to see an incredible show being put up – just as I can only imagine an LCD Soundsystem concert would be like. But knowing they were bound to reunite, it would still be interesting enough to see what they had done for fans one last time. To say the least, it really seemed just like what any final show should have been like, a truly great live performance.

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by Jaime Rebanal

Safety Not Guaranteed – Review

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Colin Trevorrow’s debut film Safety Not Guaranteed was a film I remember having enjoyed upon my first sighting of it, when I was going out of my way to seek out quirky independent films as a means of passing time. Coming back to it now after seeing what more had Colin Trevorrow become after the abysmal nostalgia-sucking experience of Jurassic World didn’t help any better, for what I’ve once seen in Safety Not Guaranteed now comes off as a stereotypical indie film just the way I see everything coming about. The quirky characters and equally quirky premise, starring actors who’ve already made names for themselves in other smaller films – this easily could be great. But after a long period of time having gone without seeing Safety Not Guaranteed only ever showed an incomplete film to my very own eyes, in the sense that it seems to build up to become so much more – and then suddenly everything just stops.

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by Jaime Rebanal

Moonrise Kingdom – Review

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As far as critical success is concerned, Moonrise Kingdom is Wes Anderson’s most popular and for fans of the director it would be easy to see why this has stood atop all the rest. Although Rushmore still remains my favourite of his own work, Moonrise Kingdom showcases his own talents in arguably the most accessible manners for audiences of all sorts, but nevertheless it seems as if this is where he has only found the quirkiness that defined his own films working at its very best. Perhaps I’ve already come to the point that I’ve watched so much of his films enough to consider myself an apologist, but they’ve always worked with the same charms as he tells stories of all sorts. In just how it captures the joys and quirks of being a child, Wes Anderson has struck gold once again with Moonrise Kingdom by telling a whole other story on the inside here.

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by Jaime Rebanal

Prometheus – Review

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Ever since James Cameron laid his name on the Alien franchise with his more action-oriented sequel, Aliens, I’ve only grown less fond of the direction that the series has moved for. The very idea behind Alien was always one that I enjoyed most when it was confined, and although a fantastic sequel in itself, Aliens was also home to what would eventually become one of the biggest problems with the Alien franchise as a whole: the universe ended up becoming far too big for its own good. With Prometheus it feels nice that Ridley Scott wants to return the franchise back to the roots of where it all had begun, yet it still suffers what’s plagued the universe ever since Aliens had come along. The success of the original Alien was clear from how little we knew about how the creature worked before it started killing off its victims, but as more films come by, said approach has become worn out and lost.

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by Jaime Rebanal

Spring Breakers – Review

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On some count this is arguably Harmony Korine’s most accessible film but it has also been divisive especially in regards to many misreadings and varying interpretations upon meaning by the general public. On my first watch, I didn’t expect particularly much because all I knew of it was that it was a different turn for teen star Selena Gomez and not too long prior to watching Spring Breakers as my first Harmony Korine, I was only washing away the bitter taste left in my mouth by Project X. Initially I went in expecting another sort of party comedy along those lines, where debauchery takes over the film’s running time – and I was proven wrong, but I didn’t get it then. I was merely fascinated by all the neon, although I suppose it’s a part of the point that Korine intended to get across.

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by Jaime Rebanal

The Cabin in the Woods – Review

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I’ve always carried an indifferent reaction towards Drew Goddard’s The Cabin in the Woods, which pained me because I grew up on Joss Whedon. At that point when I first saw The Cabin in the Woods, I was never sure why exactly did I end up leaving on such a mixed reaction and on a revisit that I hoped would have improved my thoughts, all that happened was not so much of a boost but instead a reinforcement in regards to why I felt that way towards the film. And the sad thing is, this is a movie that I know I want to like especially because I’m in on what it’s intending to do, because it has so many clever ideas at hand. What I don’t like, however, is extremely apparent especially when one looks at how it goes on about with them, leaving behind nothing more than a disappointing mess of wasted ideas. Continue reading →

by Jaime Rebanal

Sadako 3D – Review

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I’m not a fan of the Ring films (that also includes the original by Hideo Nakata) but to see that in Japan, a 3D film had been made with the source – the only thing that I could ever expect it to be was something so stupid from start to finish but with that set in motion, I would at least hope for something to enjoy amidst the stupidity. Sadako 3D was none of that, it was a stupid film to the point it was only mind-numbing and extremely boring. Being someone who is not a fan of the Ring movies certainly does not help in my case, but finding things to enjoy in Sadako 3D was already difficult enough with all the lack of logic, since there was almost nothing offered that even seemed like enough to be stupid fun. Continue reading →

by Jaime Rebanal

The Place Beyond the Pines – Review

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The Place Beyond the Pines is a very interesting case for myself because it’s a film which I remember being extremely fond of back when I first saw it, and over time and many revisits I’ve found myself liking it less and less each time. That’s not to say that I’ve rewatched it enough to think of it as a bad film, because it’s very far away from such a distinction but it certainly feels as if after having worked so well once, it ended up losing its own way within another point and in the end, a film which I remembered as something I thought rather highly of chimes out as a film which only left me all the more disconnected from it. It feels rather disappointing seeing what Derek Cianfrance is capable of when he directed Blue Valentine. Continue reading →