Jaime’s Film Diary: February 28, 2020

In order to continue keeping this site as active as possible while I have not been able to write as many full-length film reviews as I had planned initially, I figured that another solution would have come by in placing my Letterboxd entries starting from the week before here as a placeholder for eventual full-length reviews that are set to come by, if I were able to find the time to write another one. But as is, these are quick thoughts that I figure would be nice to keep afloat so that the site will remain active on a regular basis.

First-time viewings are noted as such. You can follow me on Letterboxd right here.

Continue reading →

Advertisement

Man on the Moon – Review

✯✯✯✯

“Man on the Moon” has always been one of my favourite songs from R.E.M.’s Automatic for the People, because it was as beautiful a tribute to Andy Kaufman as one can create. It was only fitting that when Milos Forman were to direct a film based on Kaufman’s life, he wouldn’t only take the title from the R.E.M. song but he’d also have them score the film. And to play Andy Kaufman himself, he’d cast a comedic actor who’s already odd in his own ways, Jim Carrey. But as I’ve never known so much about Andy Kaufman prior to watching Man on the Moon for my first time as a younger kid who would look up to Jim Carrey’s comic persona, only to find myself appreciating the man all the more after looking into his performances and my appreciation for Man on the Moon had only grown stronger. And it still remains a side to Jim Carrey that I wish was more common.

Continue reading →

The Bad Batch – Review

✯½

Although I wasn’t so much a fan of Ana Lily Amirpour’s debut film A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night I had a great feeling from the style that she would only build up to become something more but from her second feature, The Bad Batch, I’ve only found myself growing increasingly cautious in approaching her future work now. For as much as I found myself able to admire A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night as a form of visual experimentation, there seemed to be something far more restrictive coming in regards to what The Bad Batchwas trying to do with its own narrative – for at its worst it either becomes needlessly disgusting or outright boring, yet at its best we have a charismatic performance or two. If anything felt more fitting in describing what The Bad Batch felt like, it was an exploitation film that seemed to overreach beyond what it really was at its core.

Continue reading →

The Truman Show – Review

✯✯✯✯✯

Peter Weir’s high-concept The Truman Show shows another side of Jim Carrey to his viewers, a face who was more easily recognizable through comedic roles going from Ace Ventura to Dumb and Dumber. If The Truman Show, however, were not Peter Weir’s best film (that honour goes to the exquisite Picnic at Hanging Rock), it might also be his funniest one, also in the sense that he has indeed created a clever attack upon running governments within the form of a reality television show that is taken to the extreme. Where I’ve no doubt lies therein, The Truman Show, as the following decade has approached, became one of the most important films of its own era.

Continue reading →

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind – Review

✯✯✯✯✯

A quick thought off the top of my head that came to me while I watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind that ultimately hit me much harder now, given how I usually live out as a pessimistic soul always living in fear of the worst. In person, I’m an incredibly shy introvert who always resorts to the comfort of my own self and thus I have always found communication with those outside of my circle so difficult, something contradictory to how I am online. Recently, I confessed to a friend whom I talked with very often on social media that I had a crush on her. And there’s an inner awkwardness that just gets to me again because I was unsure how she felt with this knowledge coming to her even with her responding that she was flattered, and the likeliness of us meeting up in real life. And already, I’ve drawn myself away from the film itself, but I keep entering a certain mood swing after what Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is leaving me to think of. Continue reading →