Tag / bill paxton

by Jaime Rebanal

The Circle (2017) – Review

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James Ponsoldt’s directorial credit should already have been enough for me to think that there was something decent inside of The Circle, but what also caught me was the fact it came from a novel by, and was co-written by Dave Eggers. This name already caught me eye more than anything else about The Circle because Eggers also was a co-writer of Spike Jonze’s underrated but wonderful Where the Wild Things Are. Now that The Circle has come out I’m just wondering how everything had gone so terribly wrong for both Ponsoldt and Eggers because both filmmakers have created fairly thoughtful material prior to this and now comes the worst Black Mirror episode disguised as a feature film. Then again, at least Black Mirror even at their very worst had something to say and yet this one doesn’t even know in the slightest what it wishes to do and at its worst, has to preach everything in your face to the point it becomes so irritating.

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by Jaime Rebanal

Near Dark – Review

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In recent years one would recognize Kathryn Bigelow for her more politically-oriented collaborations which have received Academy Awards recognition: those two films being The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty. I’ve admittedly put off Near Dark for the longest time because vampire fiction generally never grabbed my interest enough, but eventually I came around to having watched it only to have my expectations blown further away. Near Dark is not only one of the most compelling pieces of contemporary vampire fiction put to the screen, but it works the way many other monster films in the 80’s have done so: all to a truly glorious effect. Continue reading →

by Jaime Rebanal

Edge of Tomorrow – Review

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I wouldn’t have thought that Edge of Tomorrow would have turned out nearly as fun as it was from looking at the ads alone, but I saw it in theaters anyway particularly because I happen to like Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt, in spite of their runs of misses throughout their careers. In an age where action blockbusters have grown to become rather repetitive, Edge of Tomorrow shines from the many coming out during the summer, for it managed to provide the fun which I was awaiting amidst a sea of mediocrity. Watching Edge of Tomorrow did indeed prove an assumption from the advertising to be wrong, and revisiting it now after not having seen it since theaters proved it still held up rather well as one of the better blockbusters from recent years. Continue reading →