Tag / mahershala ali

by Jaime Rebanal

The Growing Potential within ‘Alita: Battle Angel’: A Review

✯✯✯✯

A combination of the creative forces of Robert Rodriguez and James Cameron already sounds like it could be odd enough as is – considering we’re also looking at a filmmaker known for making stylized B-movies working together with someone who tries to make the most out of what he can with massive budgets. It’s a pairing that already sounds odd enough as is on paper, yet the actual results already leave me wanting more. Many films have also tried and unsuccessfully adapted anime to the big screen for English-language viewers, with films like 2017’s Ghost in the Shell or Death Note being the biggest culprits, yet what Robert Rodriguez and James Cameron bring you in Alita: Battle Angel is something that feels almost like it could easily have been something out of the ordinary. But I already see great potential arising out of this story having come to the screen, with having found its footing – but only time will tell if we’ll ever get a chance to see this story reaching greater lengths. It’s a blockbuster that would without doubt benefit from having a sequel coming along the way, because there’s a lot to admire about the world building present in here – and even allowing its own ideas to resonate and grow into something greater.

Continue reading →

Advertisement
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

The Joys of Spider-Man’s Long Lasting Legacy with Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse: A Review

✯✯✯✯½

I’ve never been the biggest Spider-Man fan growing up, even to the point I find Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy quite overrated minus Spider-Man 2. Yet watching Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse I never found myself watching Spider-Man in the same way that I’ve always done so for way too long. As a matter of fact, this is also the first time in which I’d actually felt I was watching a take on Spider-Man that I’ve been waiting on for way too long, one that feels like the sort of superhero film I’d wanted to see all my life. It’s a superhero film that embraces everything that made the subgenre resonate so perfectly in our minds, because of how much it embraces its comic book roots. And for being the perfect throwback in that sense, not only does Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse make for an incredibly satisfying viewing experience, but it also feels like a film that reaches out to best carry the spirit of what makes its comic book roots so distinctive – and one that even utilizes its own medium to become something far more in the end. It’s only fitting enough to admit that this is the most excited I’ve been for a sequel to a superhero film in a while, if they were ever going to make one at that.

Continue reading →

by Jaime Rebanal

The 91st Academy Awards: Comments and Concerns

It has been an absolutely astonishing year for the cinema. But for as amazing a year as 2018 had been, we’re also left with facing one of the most insulting awards seasons to have come by in recent memory. You’d think that given last year’s set of nominees they actually would have been growing progressively better, especially having given a film like Moonlight the top honour for the 2016 ceremony (and a well-deserved one at that), but after the Golden Globes came by, I was already worried that we’d already be in store for one of the absolute worst in recent memory. To think that the Oscars would already have gone far beyond that “popular film” award in order to try and raise their viewership, as if the ceremonies themselves haven’t already been stale enough (i.e. overlong montages praising the industry and shallow activism that amounts to nothing), who knew that we’d be in store for one that was so out of touch – particularly in last year’s amazingly bad timing (with it being only barely ahead of the Olympics rather than in February like they usually were)? As a supposed celebration for the cinema comes by within the year, there are many things here to be concerned about.

Continue reading →

by Jaime Rebanal

Green Book Review: An Entertaining, If Hokey Tale of a Near-Impossible Friendship

✯✯✯

Despite their sense of humour not always being the most tasteful, I can’t help but admit that I’ve had a soft spot for some of the films by the Farrelly brothers and seeing that a new film was to be directed by Peter Farrelly solo, maybe there was already something interesting set to come along the way. Being a more dramatic turn for the sole Farrelly brother, Green Book is a film that already evokes the feeling of being made to garner awards attention and given the subject matter, there was already a part of me that was set to become skeptical of what the film would have become. But perhaps those expectations would have ended up leading to the film actually pleasantly surprising me in Green Book, for it’s also been rather easy for me to get skeptical of films that end up winning the People’s Choice Award over at the Toronto International Film Festival (beating out If Beale Street Could Talk and Roma). It’s the definition of a crowd-pleaser, in part to its own benefit and maybe even to a bit of a hindrance.

Continue reading →

by Jaime Rebanal

2016: The Standouts

It’s inevitable that after a passing year one must go about with talking upon what they’ve witnessed while time had gone on and with 2016 gone, a great year of cinema has indeed passed upon us and we’re only hoping for even more with a new one. In this blog entry, what I wish to cover are some of the best and worst films that I caught all throughout 2016 as of February 25, 2017. Continue reading →

by Jaime Rebanal

Hidden Figures – Review

✯✯✯

In truth my expectations were never going to turn out incredibly high for Hidden Figures because it seemed like a rather safe approach upon a subject whose importance still remains intact with America’s history and I got exactly that. In some ways, Theodore Melfi’s Hidden Figures just came out to remind me of Tate Taylor’s The Help, in the sense that I was getting a feel-good film for American people that would make modern audiences feel better about what direction they’ve gone since, but in another it was a film whose good intentions went blanketed by stereotypes of the period appearing so bluntly – and it never sits well with me when these conflicting messages come about.

Continue reading →

by Jaime Rebanal

Moonlight – Review

✯✯✯✯✯

Finding oneself is already difficult enough when we know it’s still a search even deeper down into one’s own soul contrasting the image we see on the outside. It became clear to me from that very idea what I was set to love about Barry Jenkins’s Moonlight and soon enough I was more than just enamored with the experience in which it provided. Where I come from it was never easy to get past one layer of my own self that would set my own image, but I’ve found comfort somehow as time went on and as I was watching Moonlight, everything flashed back right in front of my eyes like a bullet.

Continue reading →