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Raymond Maspons
Raymond Maspons is a class of 2017 Film & Media Studies major. He was raised in Miami, but born in Los Angeles. One of his particular interests is the unique and subversive thematic or formal qualities that often appear in genre films. Since elementary school he has spent a significantly large amount of his life watching movies and television, and not doing trivial things like homework.
Arts & Life

‘Big Little Lies’ brings big talent to the small screen

There’s something that happens to actors as they age. No, not Botox. I’m talking about something magical here. If they’re talented and they stick with it, churning out films year after year, they start to radiate a certain on-screen glow. Acting becomes a second skin to them. They slip into their characters with the ease…
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Arts & Life

The Daily Film Staff’s Oscars 2017 picks

Picking Oscar winners is always a dangerous game. The Academy is notoriously fickle and highly conservative. Members refuse to acknowledge changing social mores (cough, #OscarsSoWhite, cough) and yet can have their ballots swayed by gaudy advertising blitzes. And historically, the Oscars are also pretty terrible at predicting which films will actually be remembered years from…
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Arts & Life

Plot twist: ‘Split’ is really good

“Split” has a hell of a premise. You can just imagine a bunch of Hollywood bigwigs sitting around some marble table, hearing the poor writer pitch it. “Okay, so there are like these three girls, okay? And one day, they get kidnapped by this creepy man, right? There are taken to some underground cellar, and…
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Arts & Life

Raymond’s top five films of 2016

5. “Midnight Special” I’ll be honest, despite the internet’s opinion that 2016 was the worst year in all of recorded human history, it wasn’t that bad when it came to film. There were a decent number of stellar works this year that could have taken this first spot – and if I had been in…
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Arts & Life

Film review: The Miami of ‘Moonlight’ mystifies

Calling “Moonlight” a masterpiece would be pointless. Not because it doesn’t deserve the praise — it clearly does – but because by the time it officially hits theaters, it will have been heralded by every major paper and critic of note. If you in any way care about cinema as an art form, you should…
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Arts & Life

Film review: The nutty ‘Accountant’

Like its namesake, “The Accountant” is a very awkward film. It has the A-list cast and handsome, competent direction of a Hollywood prestige picture, but the slight tone and nutty plotting of a B-movie. When critics complain that they don’t make films like this anymore, they really don’t make films like this anymore. But they…
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Arts & Life

Film review: Crime western ‘Hell or High Water’ is worth watching

“Hell or High Water” is a remarkably entertaining film that opened during the tail end of this summer. It was written by James Sheridan, the same screenwriter behind last year’s stellar “Sicario.” Both films share a few superficial similarities. They’re crime-thrillers. They’re set in modern-day rural America. (You know, the part of the country most Hollywood…
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Arts & Life

Director Jeremy Saulnier and actor Anton Yelchin talk “Green Room”, acting technique

In 2013, writer-director Jeremy Saulnier became an overnight indie sensation with “Blue Ruin,” the enthralling story of an average man seeking vengeance against the family that killed his father. Coming six years after Saulnier tried to establish himself with the little seen horror-comedy “Murder Party,” “Blue Ruin” was an all-or-nothing gamble for the then-unknown director…
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Arts & Life

Film review: “Batman v. Superman” vs. intelligence

Zack Snyder’s “Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice” is a bad film. Not a good film weighed down by some reasonable flaws. Not an okay film that is occasionally enjoyable. Just a bad movie, plain and simple. The plot is a mess. The dialogue borders on self-parody. The directing is juvenile. It’s awful, and it…
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Arts & Life

Memo to the Academy: “Brooklyn”

While this Oscar Season has been unusually scattered, momentum does seem to be building around Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s “The Revenant”. After winning big at BAFTA and the Golden Globes, it has become the film to beat – provoking a widespread series of fractured reactions. The Screen Actors’ Guild supported “Spotlight”, one of the socially conscious but…
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Arts & Life

Film review: ‘Deadpool’ kicks ass, takes name

“Deadpool” is stupid, hard-R rated fun. It’s a blast of fresh air in a genre that is becoming increasingly convoluted and sanctimonious. The plot of the film is basically a conventional origin story. Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds), a seemingly normal man, is given superpowers when a scientific experiment goes horribly wrong. Coping with his new life,…
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Arts & Life

Film review: Heartbreaking romance ‘Brooklyn’ is simple, sweet

“Brooklyn” is a delightfully small film. It is not an action-packed spectacle. Everything that occurs in “Brooklyn” could reasonably happen in real life. It is not even a melodrama – where the events are realistic, but the emotions are heightened. Rather, “Brooklyn” is a very focused character study. And its pleasures come from seeing normal…
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Featured

Who should be the next James Bond?

Michael Fassbender is the objectively perfect James Bond. First, he is incredibly good looking. This might be a rather superficial assessment, but for a character whose charms are as superficial as James Bond’s, it’s quite important. He’s strong, but not overly muscular. His looks are distinctive, but not unconventional. Plus, he can wear the hell out of a suit.
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