Tag / ben foster

by Jaime Rebanal

2018: Another Year of Cinema Come and Gone

This year was a real game changer for a person like myself. To kick things off, it was the first year in which I was able to attend TIFF as a press member rather than as any other audience member. It was a defining moment for myself, though I don’t want to brag a little too much about what happened there. It was just a good year for cinema in general. That’s all I can really say, and I want to bring more attention to the many films that I absolutely loved this year – and so many of them came around this year and so forth. We’re already nearing the end of a decade, and through the good and the bad, the cinema has always been able to provide nothing but the greatest pleasures through and through. Although as we look through the films that have come to define 2018 as a whole, there were many surprises that came along the way just as there were disappointments – all of which came in between the very best and the worst in cinema through the year. So without further ado, let us begin. Continue reading →

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by Jaime Rebanal

Ain’t Them Bodies Saints – Review

✯✯½

It’s easy to find influences from Terrence Malick spreading everywhere, for David Lowery’s debut Ain’t Them Bodies Saints is only making itself clear its own homages to Badlands and Bonnie and Clyde among a few. But the fact that it lays upon these influences only is one thing that keeps me from coming closer, for it tries its best to feel soothing as a sight for the eyes and a sound for the ears, and yet on the inside it still feels so thin. I’m not even sure that writer-director David Lowery seemed especially interested in going beyond these stylistic influences to make something all the more compelling. It’s easy to see why Ain’t That Bodies Saints has drawn such a divided reaction towards the manner to which it is channeling Malick for some say it is a loving homage and others say it is a flagrant copy, and unfortunately I happen to be on the other side of the fence.

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by Jaime Rebanal

Inferno (2016) – Review

✯½

We’ve gotten this far ahead inside of a world where Robert Langdon is thought to be potential for an iconic film character and yet his previous two films are either laughably ridiculous with the turns of their mysteries or horrendously boring at their worst. Inferno, while not nearly as tedious the experience that The Da Vinci Code was, just goes down the way Angels & Demons had suffered in the sense that they twist far too much either it can get too ridiculous for their own good, stinting itself from retaining one’s interest. We’re three films into this series already and they forgot what is the key element to Robert Langdon that should have been present with The Da Vinci Code.

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by Jaime Rebanal

Warcraft – Review

✯✯

The best way I can describe Warcraft is that it’s a film that merely exists for people who are already familiar with its source, because given my lack of experience with the game series I felt as if I were lost because there was so little that I knew about who or what. Yet I still admire it on the count that passion can certainly be felt at least in Duncan Jones’s direction, trying to recapture what I can only assume fans will recognize out of the Warcraft games. The problem at hand, though, is that it seems like the lack of recognition towards those who have no connection with the Warcraft games like myself, will end up finding nothing more than an alienated experience out of such and in turn so little of the film ended up doing much for me. Continue reading →

by Jaime Rebanal

The Finest Hours – Review

✯✯½

Another one of those frustratingly inspirational by-the-numbers “based on a true story” films once again. I’ve taken issue with films of this sort whether it’s blatant Oscar bait like The Theory of Everything, but this isn’t particularly any surprising when you have Disney as the producers of said film. Directed by Craig Gillespie, who was prior responsible for Million Dollar Arm (which I already rather disliked), what he’s created is once again another by-the-numbers biopic but while it’s not inherently a bad film, not enough is present that would have me considering it a good film either. Continue reading →