Tag / war

by Jaime Rebanal

‘Civil War’ Review: A Pointless Conflict Has No Answers

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It’s the near future, America is at war with itself – perhaps this all feels a bit too close to home. For someone like Alex Garland, who’s a British-born filmmaker, he’s looking at such events from a distance, and that’s about all he can really make a film like this from. It ends up becoming both one of the most interesting things about Civil War, while also being its greatest curse at that. With how the film unfolds, especially in regards to how journalists cover a nation at war, it opens up another realm entirely when talking about how the events become sensationalized to pander either to left-wing or right-wing readers. That, in turn, ends up becoming the biggest problem which Civil War poises.

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by austinshinn

‘Godzilla Minus One’ Review: A Thundering Lizard

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Last year I went on a long series of tirades against the movie Smile. I ranted that I hated the film for disgustingly depicting suicide for fun and trauma as an impossible to survive burden. I may have gone a bit too far but I hold to my central point. That movie is deeply nihilistic and upsetting for it.

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by Jaime Rebanal

‘The Zone of Interest’ TIFF Review: Tragedy Unseen, Horror Restrained

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What does it feel like to stare into the face of evil? In the new film from director Jonathan Glazer (his first since 2013’s Under the Skin), we’re made to witness the events of the Holocaust not through the point of view of those who perished but a family of the perpetrators of one of the most heinous crimes against humanity in history. There are many reasons as to why the approach that Jonathan Glazer takes for making a film like The Zone of Interest would be unique, but perhaps it’s also that numbness that ends up making you feel uneasy. By the end of it all, you can’t help but shake off the feeling that it only hits harder more so today, when traces of fascism still bleed their way into contemporary life, all coming off so ordinarily too.

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by Jaime Rebanal

‘Come and See’ Review: Carrying The Burden of Survivor’s Guilt

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To call Elem Klimov’s final film Come and See one of the finest of war films would not be enough in order to describe what the experience of watching it would feel like. There has never been a more raw, more horrifying depiction of pure evil onscreen, one that ever made you feel like you were a part of everything that unfolded as the war kept going. Make no mistake, this is not an easy film to watch, but you’ll never come out from watching Come and See feeling like you’re the same person again – if anything it stays with you the moment it finishes, and provides one of the most visceral of any cinematic experiences that you can imagine.

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by Jaime Rebanal

‘Da 5 Bloods’ Review: A Potent, if Indulgent Affair from Spike Lee

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After watching BlacKkKlansman, the images that Spike Lee brings you at the film’s end stick with you. In many ways, Da 5 Bloods is as perfect a follow-up to said film as one can imagine, now starting with the hard-hitting footage of history leading up to the Vietnam War. As these bits of history lead into a story about African American veterans coming back together, Da 5 Bloods makes itself out to be Spike Lee retaining that sense of urgency – even at the cost of some pretty evident self-indulgence on his own end. Yet there’s still something worth looking into as Spike Lee doesn’t ever let go of that same energy as he continuously finds ways to adapt it into the days coming by.

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by Jaime Rebanal

‘1917’ Review: A Faceless, if Harrowing War Experience

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This WWI film directed by Sam Mendes is a visceral theatrical experience, one that feels ready to place you on the battlefield, whether you are ready or not. It’s also one that I was feeling skeptical about because it has also been way too long since I was last wowed by a mainstream war film from recent memory, but the idea that Sam Mendes were to make one to look as if it were in one continuous long take became the most intriguing selling point for me. And for every bit as it is the film’s main selling point, 1917 doesn’t seem to have all that much to offer beyond that. Which isn’t to say that the film is bad, but where it peaks in the technical department it seems to be lacking elsewhere.

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by Jaime Rebanal

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp – Review

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A prime example of everything that a war film should be all in a little less than three hours. Something that, ironically, feels hard enough for Hollywood to capture so it was up to directing pair Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger of Britain to make The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp amidst the Second World War. Many of their typical trademarks are present in here as always but their names as always are synonymous with quality. But something like The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp shows a different spin on the war film, for it also blends elements of romance and comedy. This sort of humanistic angle on a war film is one thing that makes such films as powerful as they are and even if it weren’t Powell and Pressburger’s best film, it surely will go down as one of them for nevertheless it still stands as one of their most beautiful works to date.

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by Jaime Rebanal

Darkest Hour – Review

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I remember when I watched Atonement in a history class, and it was a rather awful experience. Beyond the often noted tracking shot taking place on the battle of Dunkirk, I also found the whole film to be indulgent and frustrating – and the romance to be contrived. I recalled that experience because watching Darkest Hour, the first thing that I was thinking about was that this movie was tailor made for that exact same history class because the teacher did not care in the slightest about his own students. Darkest Hour just felt like that movie for history class that you ended up sleeping through and it was the reason you ended up failing your assignment, because you were supposed to write an essay about what you were watching and yet you couldn’t help but doze off because you felt nothing.

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by Jaime Rebanal

Dunkirk – Review

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Christopher Nolan’s films are loved and hated in equal measure, for he’s already established a dedicated following that has blown him up to the heights of being one of the greatest filmmakers of his time – and at the same time he has also established a crowd of detractors who renounce the praises of his fans. Personally I’ve found myself in the middle, for he was once a filmmaker I loved as I was getting into movies although his work after The Dark Knight I have already found for myself had not held up nearly as well as I remembered. It was one among many reasons I was skeptical coming into Dunkirk, for I was only worried that I may have soured on Christopher Nolan far too much with his most recent films not doing particularly much for me as he once did – only to find myself in for a pleasant surprise. I saw another side of Nolan that I’d also want to continue in his future films, for it felt refreshing to watch as I was seated in the theater.

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by Jaime Rebanal

The Beguiled – Review

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In the same year where Don Siegel and Clint Eastwood have formed a name for themselves through the iconic Dirty Harry comes something of a much slower, more melodramatic pace in The Beguiled. But unlike their usual pairing this wasn’t an action film, just a slow-moving wartime drama. If anything had come out from watching what it was that The Beguiled had presented though, it comes from how this transition had proved more on behalf of Clint Eastwood’s end as an actor given as he would already have been made a more recognizable name from the fact he was made a star from western films or action films. In The Beguiled, a more refined side to him is shown and the results from this rather unexpected Seigel-Eastwood collaboration are at the very least, extremely pleasing. Maybe in some extent it’s from the point of view I’m less interested in, but nevertheless it was nice to see another side to Clint Eastwood here.

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