Tag / tom waits

by Jaime Rebanal

‘Licorice Pizza’ Review: Tomorrow May Not be the Day According to Paul Thomas Anderson

✯✯✯✯✯

Over the years, Paul Thomas Anderson has made a name for himself as one of the best American filmmakers working today, with films like There Will Be Blood, Phantom Thread, and The Master all under his belt within recent memory. With Licorice Pizza, Anderson finds himself returning to familiar territory as he brings audiences a coming-of-age comedy set within an era of Los Angeles that he grew up within. Perhaps the labelling of a “nostalgic love letter” to the 1970’s would be the first way of describing the concept of a movie all about growing up in this era of Los Angeles, but the picture being painted here is a much darker and more brilliant one than what meets the eye.

Continue reading →
Advertisement
by Jaime Rebanal

‘The Dead Don’t Die’ Review: Jarmusch’s Zombie Comedy is Dead on Arrival

✯✯

Jim Jarmusch is one among the most unique American filmmakers working today, for his deadpan sense of humour and otherwise outwardly visual style makes him stand out from many others. But even being too involved with that sense of being so distinctive can take a director like Jim Jarmusch somewhere, and in the case with The Dead Don’t Die it seems to have gotten the better of him. If anything, this almost feels like an actively lazy effort from Jarmusch which isn’t something that I would have expected from him, and even as a longtime fan of the filmmaker I was hoping that even for as messy as the results would have been, The Dead Don’t Die would at least be something I can find enjoyment from. And the joys are definitely present within the film after all, but there’s a point to which you also find yourself getting quite weary because Jarmusch isn’t really doing terribly much here that wouldn’t already feel as if it came out from a feature-length effort of an overeager student filmmaker. Which I suppose is the point, but it didn’t work at all for me.

Continue reading →

by Jaime Rebanal

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, the Coen Brothers’ Western Anthology Hits and Misses, but Mostly Hits: Review

✯✯✯✯

The Coen brothers’s anthology The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is a portrait of the many sides of the west, but like any other anthology film there’s always that challenge coming by as to how can all stories ever remain so compelling. You can only get so much charm out of the sort of wit that’s typical of the Coen brothers, but where the film already finds some of its very best footing it also comes right in between some of the weaker portions of the film. That’s not to say I was never entertained by The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, but I had only ever found myself susceptible to dozing off because certain stories didn’t capture my interest as much as another one did. But knowing that the Coen brothers had initially intended this as a miniseries, with every segment representing another facet of the American west, maybe it’s also reflective of what one could also expect from how each story mixes together here. You’ll already know which stories you would want to stick with, just as you would which ones you’ll also find yourself caring less about – but there’s always something entertaining to come out from each story.

Continue reading →

by Jaime Rebanal

The Old Man & the Gun’s Unabashed Sentimentality Sets the Perfect Sendoff for Robert Redford: TIFF Review

✯✯✯✯

David Lowery’s latest film pays an homage to the days of classic Hollywood crime films often led by a charismatic actor just simply being themselves on the screen, and in The Old Man & the Gun, we have one last spin for Robert Redford. At least what’s supposedly going to be, at that – but as a modern day tribute to the films that we’ve come to love Robert Redford for over the years, there’s a sentimental value present in The Old Man & the Gun that may also make the ride more heartfelt as it keeps going. But of course to those who have stuck so closely with the films of Robert Redford for as long as they have, we don’t simply view Redford as being any other “old man,” he personified a gentlemanly attitude that not many other actors could copy – and it’s not hard to be won over by that charm. Yet if this were truly going to be Robert Redford’s final film, you can still feel how much he really loves living in his prime; as if that wouldn’t already make a longtime fan feel so warm inside.

Continue reading →