Tag / ellen burstyn

by Jaime Rebanal

‘Lucy in the Sky’ TIFF Review: Noah Hawley’s Directorial Debut Falls Short of the Diamonds

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Picture yourself in a boat on a river with tangerine trees and marmalade skies, somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly, Natalie Portman arrives with kaleidoscope eyes. Television legend Noah Hawley of Fargo and Legion promises as much with his feature film directorial debut, but even the thought of a film about a woman’s journey to outer space and back sounds too good to be true after fittingly being named for a Beatles song. Yet as Lucy rises up to the sky, you’re wondering where all the diamonds are, for Lucy in the Sky doesn’t shine as much as you’d want something that sounds like a jewel to do so. It isn’t a bad movie per se, but given the sort of potential that this could have been considering the talent involved, Lucy in the Sky should have been a diamond – but it just never quite gets to that level.

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by Jaime Rebanal

The Yards Review: The Understated Richness of James Gray’s Crime Drama

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The Yards is a very personal statement from director James Gray, but it also shows where the American filmmaker’s delicate and painterly style has found itself more fully realized. It’s a personal testament for him, especially in its own setting within the train yards of New York City – but how the backdrop even plays a big factor in allowing something so grand and cathartic to come forward also says a lot for what the filmmaker can be like at his very best. This only being the American filmmaker’s sophomore film, The Yards is a very special sort of crime drama, one whose most beautiful moments have went completely understated, yet there’s always something to be drawn into. If there’s ever a more fitting description for the work of James Gray, you can already feel as if the core of what makes his films so beautiful is there, but maybe it’s not flashy – though I think they’re better off that way. And fittingly enough, I felt convinced enough that I had for the longest time been underestimating his work.

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by Jaime Rebanal

The Tale is a Difficult, But Important Watch

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CW: sexual assault

I don’t know what else to say. There was something that was at the back of my head that has always haunted me for my whole life, and I had not been able to share it because I was so afraid of what people would have made of me since. But as you continue reading this, I want you to imagine this, from my own perspective. During my high school years, I was still closeted for my sexuality and then there came a point in which a nameless face that is stuck in my memory had caught me out of the blue and forced me to strip down and lean against the wall, telling me that if I were queer, I would be feeling something more from his fingers running through my body. I still have memories of the experience ingrained into my head, but at this point I had made myself forget the face because I don’t want it to haunt me. It was haunting enough that it was an act to truly test if I were really a queer, for I had already been threatened to be outed in that moment. I was scared for my life. When I watched The Tale, I already felt so much of the most painful memories flashing right back to me, something I thought I had suppressed so far into the back of my head, and it was all the more difficult.

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by Jaime Rebanal

The Fountain – Review

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There was a point I remember having loved the films of Darren Aronofsky, and back then I remembered not liking The Fountain much. But now I’ve only found his films to be strenuous experiences aside from The Wrestler, and with all of this in mind I was not especially compelled to give The Fountain another go. To say the least, I’ve only found myself warming up to The Fountain more on rewatch, because it seems to be a case where Aronofsky is both maintaining his own style and telling a story that I’m not even sure can be repeated in the same manner. Aronofsky had always been a director who appears to do so much for the eyes yet his narratives are not quite the same level, oftentimes to the most excruciating results (Requiem for a Dream and Black Swan), but The Fountain is a story that only feels right being as showy as it is, it’s Aronofsky at his most expressive.

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by Jaime Rebanal

The Last Picture Show – Review

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This is a film I’ve always had some sort of a connection with in spirit. Even though I’m not one to speak from the generation to which it presents, there’s a specific pleasantness to which Peter Bogdanovich’s The Last Picture Show creates that has always enamoured me from the first moment I saw it. The Last Picture Show is a film that is drenched in nostalgia, but of a time and a paradise where we saw everything was easier for our own selves. The Last Picture Show‘s title alone hints at a sort of resentment to what the world around it has become and how its people have found such a comfort. Life without films, life without glory, The Last Picture Show paints such a beautiful picture.

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by Jaime Rebanal

The Exorcist – Review

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William Friedkin’s iconic The Exorcist has otherwise set a staple for the horror genre within the years to come for it exemplars what forms a truly perfect horror film. Marketed as “the scariest film of all time,” what follows may not be something that lives up to that title (I never found it scary from day one and to this day I still don’t), but something that excels in its own craft and remains a milestone for horror films of all sorts. Already a showcase in terms of the tremendous special effects, The Exorcist remains a film to define the horror genre for many reasons. Whether one finds it scary or not, to deny the exceptional crafting of such a powerful film is rather ludicrous. It is no surprise as to why it is considered the scariest film of all time in some circles, for even if it may not be my favourite of the sort, it truly is as perfect as the horror genre can ever get. Continue reading →