Tag / matt damon

by Jaime Rebanal

Jaime’s Film Diary: March 15, 2020

As expected, I’ve been keeping my Letterboxd up to date – so here’s yet another update for here in regards to what I have been watching as of late.

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by Jaime Rebanal

Suburbicon – Review

✯½

How exactly can one describe what Suburbicon is about? Is it a satire of the ideal “peaceful neighbourhood community” along the lines of Pleasantville? In some sense, but maybe you can also give Suburbicon the fitting name of Unpleasantville in the meantime. At the same time, it also happens to be a commentary on race relations in America, as they call themselves the “greatest nation on Earth.” But not until it is also a murder mystery about one family, and what it leaves on a mild-mannered man, his son, and the boy’s aunt. It’s easy to ask oneself how all of these three manage to tie up together with one another and the only way you can answer it is by saying that Suburbicon tries to be all three at once and ends up becoming a much bigger mess.

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by Jaime Rebanal

Margaret – Review

✯✯✯✯✯

Kenneth Lonergan’s Margaret is a film that feels troubled at the center much like the history behind its release: going towards lawsuits that ultimately delayed its release until 2011 (it was scheduled for a 2007 release) along with several edits having been made, leaving no sense of a definitive vision behind. Yet with all this having been said, it still works beautifully and almost in a sense feels like a journey that mirrors its struggle to reach the big screen. But there’s something more to which it calls for by referencing a specific poem through its own title, through its final verse, “it is Margaret you mourn for.” The doom that Margaret would have almost found itself at the risk of facing is still present in hand, but to what degree is it paying off? In Kenneth Lonergan’s film, it could not ever be more affecting than what he shows us here. Perhaps it may be a mess, but it also reinforces what works so perfectly about Margaret.

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by Jaime Rebanal

Jason Bourne – Review

✯

If I were to be perfectly honest, I don’t like Jason Bourne as a character. Even though I like The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum, a thought still runs in my head that I can’t say I love them because Jason Bourne has never hit me as all that interesting of a figure. Part of me was willing to trust Paul Greengrass returning behind the camera because his films were the only films in the series to have kept my interest because there’s a feeling that more conflict that surrounds the character overall even if the cinematography especially during some sequences can be rather jarring. In the case of Jason Bourne, it takes every last one of my pet peeves with the previous films and puts all of them into one product, in turn resulting in a true disappointment in every sense of the word. Continue reading →

by Jaime Rebanal

Ponyo – Review

✯✯✯½

Despite my usual love for the films of Hayao Miyazaki, Ponyo has always been one of my least favourites from him. Regardless, there’s still a lot about it that I like and I can’t really call it a bad film by any means, because it’s still enjoyable while it lasts. Sure, it still has a whole lot of really goofy elements behind it but I think there’s enough to keep one waiting for more to come along. It’s rather disappointing especially when you compare it to a masterwork much like Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, or My Neighbor Totoro, but it should provide enough to keep one satisfied. It feels like a film so wallowed with its approach which shouldn’t be a bad thing, but in this scenario it had me thrown off although not to the degree which Howl’s Moving Castle had done so (the only Miyazaki film which I found rather difficult to absorb). Continue reading →