Tag / claire foy

by Jaime Rebanal

A Conversation with Sarah Polley

In December of 2022, I had the pleasure of chatting with writer-director Sarah Polley about her new film Women Talking. The film, based on Miriam Toews’s novel of the same name, tells the story of the women in a Mennonite colony coming to grips with the fact that they have been sexually assaulted by the men in their lives, and debilitate while the men are absent from their community about what their options are in order to create better lives for themselves: leave the colony, fight for their own rights, or stay and do nothing.

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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 →

by Jaime Rebanal

Claire Foy is a Great Lisbeth Salander, but The Girl in the Spider’s Web is Not a Great Lisbeth Salander Story: Review

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David Fincher’s original trilogy based on the late Stieg Larsson’s Millennium series of novels unfortunately had gone without completion, prompting Sony to reboot the entire franchise by instead adapting a book continuing off the series without Larsson’s involvement. But because Rooney Mara’s presence as Lisbeth Salander was one that would have been so difficult to replicate, you can only ask yourself what Claire Foy would be able to bring to the table – especially since this is such a drastic change for her. Although before getting into that, I must admit I was very much looking forward to Claire Foy’s take on the character of Lisbeth Salander because I really like her as an actress and it makes me glad to see that she’s getting more recognition in leading roles on film. It was for this alone I was not worried about seeing her as a replacement for Rooney Mara, but excited because she already looked as if she can play the part – and I certainly got one promise kept on the spot. Sadly, all I kept wondering to myself was whether or not this truly was a Lisbeth Salander story that I was watching, no matter how much did I love seeing a new take on the character.

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by Jaime Rebanal

Neil Armstrong Biopic First Man is One Giant Leap for Damien Chazelle and Ryan Gosling: TIFF Review

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I’ll be perfectly honest, the idea of a biopic being made about Neil Armstrong was not something I could so easily be sold on but of course expectations would have been made higher with the fact that Damien Chazelle would be set to direct. Following up on La La Land, Chazelle doesn’t solely focus only on the trip to the moon and back, but the journey right from Earth all about what it would have taken to ensure that the moon landing would be as perfect as it was. But in capturing the life-threatening journey that would have ensured the safety of one man in order to make a giant leap for mankind through as much as a small step on the moon, what Damien Chazelle has created in First Man celebrates how far humanity can go if they really strive to remain together to achieve something that would come to define history.

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by Jaime Rebanal

Unsane – Review

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Being an autistic 19-year-old college student, watching Unsane felt so much more uneasy than I would have suspected. What I knew about Unsane prior to walking into the theater was that it was Steven Soderbergh’s own shot at the horror genre, with the added twist of being shot entirely on an iPhone. I knew Soderbergh would be the sort of filmmaker who could do so much more as he works with the fact that the film is shot entirely on an iPhone, but I did not expect that said aspect would not only be present as a mere gimmick but in order to encompass everything about Unsane that allows it to work so beautifully.

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