Tag / kurt russell

by Jaime Rebanal

‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’ Review: A Love Letter to a Land of Dreams and Culture

✯✯✯✯½

When watching the films of Quentin Tarantino, there’s always that energy of wanting to show off his love of cinema on every frame but given the setting of his latest, it could either have been his most self-indulgent effort to date or maybe the love letter he’s been meaning to bring to the screen for a long while too. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, fittingly titled after Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time trilogy, is every bit a blast from the past of the final years of the 1960’s as one could ever expect Quentin Tarantino to make a film about Hollywood in the era to be, but it also might be the director’s most beautifully entertaining film to grace the screen since Inglourious Basterds. If anything else best sums up what makes Once Upon a Time in Hollywood such a delight to watch, you’ll find all of it speaking clearly from the first frame to the last: for it still remains intact with the eagerness on display out of love for the films that have formed everything we’ve loved seeing in Tarantino’s work too. Though I’ve always enjoyed Quentin Tarantino’s work as a whole, I haven’t loved his films as much as I used to as a teen who was getting into movies, but Once Upon a Time in Hollywood reminded me why I’ve always been so captivated by the stories he’s brought to the screen.

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by Jaime Rebanal

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 – Review

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For once I found myself skeptical of a Marvel Cinematic Universe film because the first Guardians of the Galaxy actually proved itself to be something that stood out amidst the rest of the crowd because it surprisingly happened to be one of only two films thus far from them that I really liked (the other being Captain America: The Winter Soldier). Naturally, the thought of a sequel would actually be met with warmth compared to the rest of their output but skepticism would also rise in regards to what it would end up turning the film into, and to some extent it’s what I got as always from the most typical MCU film. As promised from the return of James Gunn as writer and director another vibrant and colourful film would come back like the first but perhaps sticking to the same schtick that the first one carried only wore out the charm it had, at the film’s very worst moments.

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by Jaime Rebanal

The Thing – Review

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Mankind’s greatest fears put against itself, removing all sense of connection with the outside world. If that is not enough to describe John Carpenter’s The Thing, then another way of going about would be talking about how it is one of the greatest horror films to have ever been made. It would already be easy enough to commend the incredibly consistency to John Carpenter’s own body of work in comparison to many other great artists who have extensively left their touch on the horror genre, but if there were one that stood atop all, then The Thing is the clear frontrunner. Although it is easy to commend Halloween for the incredible influence that it left upon many slashers that followed, it was not until 1982 when he accomplished the very most of his capabilities; a stunning achievement to be remembered through all of time.

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