Tag / film-noir

by Jaime Rebanal

“Pokémon: Detective Pikachu” Review: Bizarre Charms Don’t Reach Their Peak But Remain Entertaining

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It’s only fitting enough for me to preface this review by stating this, I have been a lifelong Pokémon fan since childhood. But the old animated films have never aged well, which always disappointed me as someone who had been sticking so closely with the series with every new game that were to come out, so it always left me wondering how these films could fare if they were to be done in live action. With a universe of this scope having so much potential for so many more stories to be done based around the wonders of the Pokémon themselves, a comedic noir made to show its inspiration from films like Who Framed Roger Rabbit wouldn’t even be a bad start. To say the least, they’ve already managed to get everything about what made a world uniting humans and Pokémon so wonderful right from the surface, but there’s nothing about the story being told in Pokémon: Detective Pikachu that really feels as if it’s using up all the most of what this world can offer. It’s certainly not a bad way to start, because watching this as someone who has been a lifelong fan of the games it already gave me the urge to find my old games once again – though something still feels missing elsewhere.

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by Jaime Rebanal

Kiss Me Deadly – Review

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Robert Aldrich’s Kiss Me Deadly is a convoluted detective noir, just the way I always like everything playing out. Yet the realization behind whatever it is that we’re presented in Kiss Me Deadly gives the idea that indeed there’s more to it than just being a complicated detective story. As a matter of fact, what we have here is one of the most perfect representations of the paranoia surrounding a specific fear of a nuclear apocalypse. It’s there we see Kiss Me Deadly isn’t completely the noir that it promised itself to be, maybe it was more a horror film about the devastation that Americans had been afraid of, especially amidst the paranoia in regards to the Cold War.

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by Jaime Rebanal

Sweet Smell of Success – Review

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Every last line of dialogue in Sweet Smell of Success signifies greatness. Yes, it comes out of 1957, but that doesn’t make it any less significant today, especially within the world of journalism for it still bites on every viewing. This is a perfect example of one of the very highest points you can imagine film-noir achieving, as this is truly a pitch perfect film in every regard, but knowing what relevance it maintains today, it is all the more incredible an achievement. Alexander Mackendrick’s film is not merely any ordinary film-noir with an excellent script, it boasts what we can go ahead to see as one of the very finest of its own kind and it’s also rather cynical, but to its own merit. Continue reading →

by Jaime Rebanal

In a Lonely Place – Review

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What we know and recognize from film-noir, Nicholas Ray turns everything around on us with In a Lonely Place, but in the meantime also shows us some of the very best that can come out from such a style. This is a chilling film one second, and the other it’s a stark melodrama. But where Nicholas Ray works around melodrama is something unlike what can be found in most of classic Hollywood. It’s out of nowhere, but like Douglas Sirk, it can truly be among the most effective you will have witnessed. In a Lonely Place goes to show what can be pulled off with so much raw power within every frame, but as we go into the bare bones, something much more is exposed that certifies its own status as one of the greatest American pictures to have ever been made – it showcases cinema at some of its very best.
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by Jaime Rebanal

The Nice Guys – Review

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One cannot review Shane Black’s The Nice Guys without saying the term at least once, so it shall be said right here: nice. I’m a fan of Shane Black for the most part (although I greatly dislike Iron Man 3) and knowing what he can perform when experimenting with neo-noir and comedy in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, it seemed he would head back to said roots with The Nice Guys. It was everything I would have expected it to be, and at that, I had quite the blast watching The Nice Guys. I’d already hold trust in Shane Black when it comes to writing buddy cop comedies since it seems what he’s able to present just feels so vibrant in all the glory shining on the screen. Continue reading →

by Jaime Rebanal

Sunset Boulevard – Review

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Sometimes a thing that can haunt our minds is how we fear that at one point, we’re to be forgotten. It may not be nearly as big as what’s taken over the mind of Norma Desmond, but Billy Wilder shows us perfectly what if this specific fear came to hit the mind of someone who was so well-known and beloved at one point. Her name has faded away into obscurity thanks to the many new stars in the world of film that have taken over Hollywood, but where Sunset Boulevard triumphs is not only in its haunting look at the industry, but the biting cynicism and satire that can be felt all throughout. It gives the film industry a treatment it deserves, because forgetting about our past is a most unforgivable crime especially when it comes to what these films have left upon what we have now.

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