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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Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria is a Beautifully Indulgent Nightmare: Review

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Dario Argento’s Suspiria is one of the greatest horror films ever made, so the idea of a remake being directed by Luca Guadagnino was something that already seemed tempting just on the basis of him being one of Italy’s most exciting working filmmakers. But what Luca Guadagnino had in mind for Suspiria was never going to be the same one you would already have remembered that someone like Dario Argento would have had everyone remembering over the years, so the idea of a new experiment that would pay tribute to the original film rather than outright remake it was something that could easily have gone either way. Luca Guadagnino has always remained one of the most interesting filmmakers of his own sort and as polarizing as the results may be, I can’t help but find that what Guadagnino created using the story of Argento’s film as a template for this new experiment would also be beautiful in its own way. It’s no ordinary horror film, one that isn’t guaranteed to win over new fans from anyone who is unfamiliar with the source material, but also not the other way around – yet Guadagnino comfortably makes it feel like it’s his own thing and to say the very least, it’s outstanding.

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Suspiria – Review

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Dario Argento’s magnum opus, Suspiria, is not only proof that he is one of the greatest filmmakers to have lent his eye to the horror genre but it still remains one of the most captivating films ever to have been made. Of the many filmmakers out there who are best known for what they have laid upon the horror genre at a consistent rate, ranging from names such as Mario Bava to Wes Craven to John Carpenter, Dario Argento is my favourite. While Carpenter’s consistency even when he ventured away from horror is one thing to which he receives my grandest admiration for, I hold Argento in much higher regard for whenever he lends his touch to the genre, they are always so distinctive not just as horror films amidst a subgenre, but instead we always see them as Dario Argento films. And if one film from the bunch highlights itself from all the others, it would be none other than his 1977 masterpiece, Suspiria.

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