Tag / lynda la plante

by Jaime Rebanal

2018: Another Year of Cinema Come and Gone

This year was a real game changer for a person like myself. To kick things off, it was the first year in which I was able to attend TIFF as a press member rather than as any other audience member. It was a defining moment for myself, though I don’t want to brag a little too much about what happened there. It was just a good year for cinema in general. That’s all I can really say, and I want to bring more attention to the many films that I absolutely loved this year – and so many of them came around this year and so forth. We’re already nearing the end of a decade, and through the good and the bad, the cinema has always been able to provide nothing but the greatest pleasures through and through. Although as we look through the films that have come to define 2018 as a whole, there were many surprises that came along the way just as there were disappointments – all of which came in between the very best and the worst in cinema through the year. So without further ado, let us begin. Continue reading →

by Jaime Rebanal

Widows is the Most Captivating Heist Film in Years and Stretches Beyond Genre Conventions: TIFF Review

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Steve McQueen’s fourth feature film marks the British filmmaker’s first foray into genre filmmaking fresh off his Best Picture win for 12 Years a Slave, and arguably a case for what may also be his best film yet. Based on the ITV miniseries of the same name created by Lynda La Plante, what McQueen and Gone Girl writer Gillian Flynn have created is not just any other thriller but a very special one indeed – one where it feels every position carries a sense of power over one another. It’s a thriller that carries all the best elements of the genre, but also something so much more thoughtful in its presentation it feels outright irresistible. Yet this is only a fraction of where Widows’s greatness comes by, if more needed to be said about why Steve McQueen is one of this generation’s best working filmmakers. But knowing that a filmmaker like Steve McQueen and a writer like Gillian Flynn can join forces in creating what also happens to be one of the most emotionally visceral thriller films to be released in recent memory.

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