Tag / john cusack

by Jaime Rebanal

Being John Malkovich – Review

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As human beings, we all carry some sort of fascination with celebrity culture and it’s natural to wonder what the sort of lifestyle must be like. If any film managed to sum up what it’s like to carry that sort of fascination to the point we end up living it, then Spike Jonze’s Being John Malkovich would be the first film I point to. The bizarre concept to which it carries is already one factor as to why it stands out on its very own, but even more impressive comes from how it was the feature film debut of director Spike Jonze, who had directed many music videos prior, and screenwriter Charlie Kaufman. But knowing how such films are outright impossible to repeat in this day and age, it’s among more reason I still find myself in awe of a film like Being John Malkovich, for it goes beyond its own quirks to become one of the very best films of its time, let alone one of the best debut efforts of all time.

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by Jaime Rebanal

Bob Roberts – Review

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Tim Robbins knew what was coming. Back in 1992, the same year in which he starred in Robert Altman’s The Player, he wrote, directed, and starred as the titular character in this mockumentary Bob Roberts – a political comedy which may or may not have revealed something telling about where the nation is set to go. That’s the scary part of the effectiveness of the satire that Bob Roberts is presenting, at first the image that we are looking at is so funny and then when looked at in comparison to world events, suddenly all that humour becomes something more than just a funny moment – it was a warning. It was funny then, but when we look at where we have all gone now, it might not have been so much of a joke as it initially may have been seen as.

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by Jaime Rebanal

The Thin Red Line – Review

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Terrence Malick breaks a twenty year hiatus by presenting audiences with The Thin Red Line, a poem set during WWII beautifully detailing the humanity of the soldiers from C Company and their trial amidst the Battle of Mount Austen. Where The Thin Red Line becomes a truly special film to experience arises from how it is no ordinary Hollywood war film, but in some manner, a universal tale that in the end creates a beautiful resonance within one’s mind. At near three hours, Terrence Malick takes his audiences on a journey amidst the lunacy that would be present within the war and in the end, an easy contender for the best WWII film of all time. It may not be my favourite of the sort, but when talking about such, it certainly is not a film that I would leave out. Continue reading →