Tag / jamie lee curtis

by Jaime Rebanal

‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ Review: So Much Said, So Little Time

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The directing duo Daniels (Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert) make their second feature film together with Everything Everywhere All at Once, whose title may just as well be an apt descriptor for what the viewers can expect themselves to experience from watching it. In fact, a film like Everything Everywhere All at Once seems to try and reach out as many people, going from those who were fascinated by the concept of the multiverse to film lovers, and maybe even to the inner child in most of us, for the ride that’s provided goes through most facets of life, from the happy to the mundane, while being thoughtful and ever so frantic. But underneath all of that, there’s something so much sweeter. If anything, it best states the film as a labour of love, all in a package that’s only set to overflow.

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by Jaime Rebanal

‘Knives Out’ TIFF Review: Rian Johnson Caper Toys Expectations to the Max

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Nobody quite makes caper films like Rian Johnson does. Making his feature film debut in 2005 with Brick, Johnson has already established quite a name for himself in the genre through films like The Brothers Bloom and Looper, before he went on to direct Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Going back to working on a smaller scale with Knives Out, it feels like this is the sort of film that Rian Johnson has always wanted to make for a while – and it really shows. Mixing all of his greatest passions together with his knack for always throwing in surprise after surprise for his viewers, Knives Out only manages to provide far more when you least expect it, and it makes for a wholly entertaining experience. Like all the best thrillers from the classic Hollywood era, it’s clear as day that Rian Johnson is having so much fun with what he’s been given and he knows how to transfer that feeling over to his own audiences too. The knives do come out in this twisty comedy-thriller, but how deep in they go, you’d have to find out for yourself.

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by Jaime Rebanal

David Gordon Green’s Halloween Sequel is the Push the Franchise Needs Now: Review

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Retconning the previous sequels, David Gordon Green follows up John Carpenter’s original film forty years later with Jamie Lee Curtis returning to the role of Laurie Strode. If there’s anything to be said there, Jamie Lee Curtis certainly hasn’t lost a bit of what it is that we’ve loved about Laurie Strode over the years, but of course it only fits that so many years since the original Halloween we would have a radically different approach to her character after the trauma that she had endured after her friends were killed in cold blood by Michael Myers. Yet of all people who would be perfect enough to bring Laurie Strode a perfect return to the big screen, it had to be the people behind Eastbound & Down to allow it to be every bit as graceful as it should sound. As odd a combo as it may sound to have Green, Danny McBride, and John Carpenter working together, it strangely works.

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by Jaime Rebanal

John Carpenter’s Halloween Remains One of the Best Horror Films Ever Made: Review

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In the many years since John Carpenter’s Halloween has come out, many sequels may have come by under its name but it is with good reason why the original still finds itself standing strong even as the roots of its story may have been imitated by many. No matter how overly elaborate the imitators may present themselves to be, John Carpenter’s Halloween still reigns supreme because of how its simplicity even manages to set up something far more frightening underneath everything else. Even as an age of horror films defined by massive splatters of gore may have come along the way, it’s easy enough to see why John Carpenter’s film still overshadows many – for it didn’t only pave the way for many filmmakers to follow when working in the slasher subgenre. But it isn’t only the horror genre where Carpenter excels with Halloween, because what it accomplishes on a budget of only $300k is absolutely impressive because of how tightly woven it is from first frame to last.

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