Tag / dave bautista

by Jaime Rebanal

‘Dune: Part Two’ Review: A Labour of Love for Frank Herbert

✯✯✯✯✯

It would be very difficult to adapt a very dense book like Frank Herbert’s Dune into just one film. It only fits that Denis Villeneuve would adapt the first of these books into a two-part film, and the end result is that these two films are maybe the most ambitious films that he’s made in his career to date. Where the first film left on a note where it was feeling like an appetizer, Dune: Part Two feels as if it were letting that scope grow even more than you’d remember having seen. That alone might be a perfect testament to what makes Villeneuve one of the most exciting filmmakers working in the blockbuster scene right now.

Continue reading →
by Jaime Rebanal

‘The Boy and the Heron’ TIFF Review: Late-Period Miyazaki Reminiscing About His Youth

✯✯✯✯✯

When The Wind Rises opened in 2013, Hayao Miyazaki once said that it would be his swan song. The same can also be said about the time when Miyazaki said he planned to retire after Howl’s Moving Castle, but it’s a bit too clear that every time he’s said this, it’s clear he loves the medium so much for him to truly retire from filmmaking. But the pause in between The Wind Rises and this film, The Boy and the Heron, makes it feel like Miyazaki is using the medium to look back at his own journey into adulthood. And given how late into his career he is right now, it also gives The Boy and the Heron a bittersweet angle just as he’s accomplished in all his best films.

Continue reading →
by Jaime Rebanal

‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3’ Review: A Fond Farewell for a Beloved Team

✯✯✯✯

This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the film being covered here wouldn’t exist.

All good things must come to an end, and here is the final entry in what might have consistently been the best series within the Marvel Cinematic Universe in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. For me, these films have always been the most entertaining entries of the Marvel Cinematic Universe because they feel like singular entities within an interconnected franchise, all in part from James Gunn’s work as director and screenwriter. But of course he can’t stay bound to one franchise like this, as we’d seen him bounce from Marvel to DC with The Suicide Squad, so it was only about time that he give a crew that he loved one last go on the big screen. To say he delivers a beautiful send-off is one thing, but in a sea of superhero films that all serve a sort of homogeny, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is an absolute delight.

Continue reading →
by Jaime Rebanal

Avengers: Infinity War – Review

✯✯✯

There are many stories being told within Avengers: Infinity War and I think that happens to be the best way for something of this sort to be shown to the screens because it gives every character what’s needed in order to create an emotional resonance with its viewers. In the past ten years, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been telling individual story after another but have always been dependent on one another in order to form something of a larger scope and as all stories come together to form one singular Avengers story. The ambition is clear enough from how all of these characters established by their own entries are coming together once and for all, so the question to be asked is how does the film live up to the scope it promises? It’s a step up from both the last Avengers film and the Russo brothers’ last Marvel film, but I feel hesitant to go beyond saying it pays off completely after the Marvel Cinematic Universe has only recently released their two most interesting films since the first Guardians of the Galaxy.

Continue reading →

by Jaime Rebanal

Blade Runner 2049 – Review

✯✯✯✯✯

The mere idea of a sequel to Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner was always going to be troubling to me because the original is one of my favourite science fiction films, let alone one of my all-time favourite films. Seeing what Denis Villeneuve had done for the science fiction genre with his recent Arrival had only left me raising my hopes, and to say they were met is an understatement when talking about Blade Runner 2049. For not only is Blade Runner 2049 a sequel that expands beautifully upon the creativity that was shown in its predecessor but one built with the same thought and care which made the original as remarkable as it is. It isn’t a sequel that merely retreads a path that people are familiar with, but one that expands upon the ideas its predecessor had established forming not only a worthy sequel after a long period of time, yet also one destined to become a landmark of its generation in the same way the original film is.

Continue reading →

by Jaime Rebanal

Guardians of the Galaxy – Review

✯✯✯✯

I think it would be clear enough that I’m not a fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This was perhaps a prime factor regarding why my own opinion of James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy had turned out more favourable than my general opinion of their output and after having gone without seeing it since its theatrical run, it was nice enough to find that it still remained as strong as it did. With this and Captain America: The Winter Soldier, 2014 has proven itself to be the strongest year for the MCU because their offerings then didn’t end up feeling like they were constricted by the grating formula to which Marvel has been sticking to over all the years, which was really refreshing to have found for films that have carried their name. This freedom was what the MCU had needed after all these years and James Gunn only utilizes it in the best manner.

Continue reading →

by Jaime Rebanal

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 – Review

✯✯✯

For once I found myself skeptical of a Marvel Cinematic Universe film because the first Guardians of the Galaxy actually proved itself to be something that stood out amidst the rest of the crowd because it surprisingly happened to be one of only two films thus far from them that I really liked (the other being Captain America: The Winter Soldier). Naturally, the thought of a sequel would actually be met with warmth compared to the rest of their output but skepticism would also rise in regards to what it would end up turning the film into, and to some extent it’s what I got as always from the most typical MCU film. As promised from the return of James Gunn as writer and director another vibrant and colourful film would come back like the first but perhaps sticking to the same schtick that the first one carried only wore out the charm it had, at the film’s very worst moments.

Continue reading →