Tag / ray wise

by Jaime Rebanal

‘Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me’ Review: The Death of Innocence in a World of Blue

✯✯✯✯✯

NOTE: This is a revised review that best represents my current thoughts on the film as opposed to my previous review. You can read the original right here.

Twin Peaks is one of the most influential television series ever made but the prequel film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me has never enjoyed the same sort of acclaim – having been met with harsh reviews and also having flopped at the box office. I’m fairly biased in the favour of Twin Peaks as it is my favourite television series of all time but throughout the show you could always tell that Lynch had a particular love for the character of the deceased Laura Palmer. In fact, there are few people whose entire mystery has impacted an entire culture the same way that Laura Palmer has done so, and no one understands the effect her death has left upon many that same way David Lynch does. Yet few people knew her as a person too, which emphasizes the tragic beauty of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me.

Continue reading →

by Jaime Rebanal

Bob Roberts – Review

✯✯✯✯½

Tim Robbins knew what was coming. Back in 1992, the same year in which he starred in Robert Altman’s The Player, he wrote, directed, and starred as the titular character in this mockumentary Bob Roberts – a political comedy which may or may not have revealed something telling about where the nation is set to go. That’s the scary part of the effectiveness of the satire that Bob Roberts is presenting, at first the image that we are looking at is so funny and then when looked at in comparison to world events, suddenly all that humour becomes something more than just a funny moment – it was a warning. It was funny then, but when we look at where we have all gone now, it might not have been so much of a joke as it initially may have been seen as.

Continue reading →

by Jaime Rebanal

Batman: The Killing Joke – Review

✯✯

I think it would be fitting for me to admit beforehand that even with how much I highly admire Alan Moore’s work in general, I believe The Killing Joke to be among his most overrated works (Alan Moore himself admits that it’s not very good) and when I heard a film was to be made based on this comic, I was skeptical because outside of Watchmen, Alan Moore adaptations never translate well on the screen. While The Killing Joke could be seen as one of the easier works to capture on the screen, this is where I’m left worried because what I would not want out of a film adapted from such a controversial comic was that it would end up sensationalizing the graphic content which it was depicting. My worst fears came true when I saw The Killing Joke, but worse things have also come out at the exact same time. Continue reading →

by Jaime Rebanal

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me – Review

✯✯✯✯½

It’ll be rather difficult for myself to speak of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me from the perspective of an outsider as Twin Peaks is my favourite television series. It’s clear that coming into Fire Walk With Me without having watched the series prior is not particularly as great an idea given as the ideas will remain clear especially to Twin Peaks fans, and for those unfamiliar, the results will just be on a mere baffling end for it is not accessible to anyone who has not seen the series. Normally I’d refer to the criticism that it’s a longer episode of the series for film, but Fire Walk With Me isn’t that, for there’s a lot that still works even without any connection to the series. It was what I would have wanted as a fan, though if it were a single episode, it wouldn’t be ranked among my favourites. Continue reading →