Tag / marina de tavira

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 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.

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by Jaime Rebanal

Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma May be Small, But Every Moment Feels Grand: TIFF Review

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This one’s been sitting in my mind for quite a lengthy period of time – perhaps it’s only going to sit there for all I know. But that’s one thing I’ve always loved about a film director like Alfonso Cuarón, because in those long shots we only see life moving the way it is in Roma, yet another impressive effort only continuing a stream of success for the Mexican filmmaker. But of course there’s a lot of patience coming along the way with waiting for a new film by Cuarón, with this being his first film since his Oscar-winning Gravity but it also marks the first time in which he has made a film in his native Mexico since Y Tu Mamá También, with him returning to small-scale filmmaking. But even if that was the case that Cuarón presents with Roma, there’s so much to be admired in this passion project for the Mexican filmmaker – you already feel his personal touches all over this film. That’s what already makes Roma so special, because you feel how special this story is to Alfonso Cuarón.

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