Month: October 2010

REVIEW: Blood Simple. [1984]

Jared Mobarak

“I ain’t done nothin’ funny” It took Fargo—thirteen years later—for the Coen Brothers to finally get recognition at the Oscars with three nominations culminating in a win for Best Screenplay. Then it was another eleven before their first Best Picture win. And if you look at that victory with No Country for Old Men alongside their more recently acclaimed A Serious Man, you should force yourself to go all the way back to 1984 for a glimpse at their genetic originator. You can’t help but see the dark noir atmosphere…

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REVIEW: Race to Nowhere [2010]

Jared Mobarak

“Our children are going to sue us for taking their childhood” I’ve been seeing the state of education in this country and its stringent control over academic achievement being the end all be all for personal success, destroying the youth of our nation with unwarranted stress and pressures, for awhile now. My age group graduated college right at the time “No Child Left Behind” was enacted, hoping to make students accountable and lift our international ranking to where our egos believe it should be. Unfortunately, watching a friend teach at…

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REVIEW: Buster Keaton’s Cops [1922], One Week [1920], The Boat [1921] & The Play House [1921]

Jared Mobarak

If you’re going to watch short films by Buster Keaton, you should do a marathon if possible. Watching four in a row, as I did, allows you to truly appreciate the comedic talent he was—writing and directing with Edward F. Cline, choreographing his own insane stunts, and creating laughter without ever breaking into a smile. Far better, in my opinion, than his contemporary Charlie Chaplin, Keaton utilizes a brand of intelligent slapstick to earn the physical laughs received as well as the cerebral ones with shrewd filmmaking, smart writing, and…

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REVIEW: 全職殺手 [Fulltime Killer] [2001]

Jared Mobarak

“In our business, you’re bound to rub out someone you know” Filmmakers and creators of Milky Way Image, a studio in Hong Kong, Johnnie To and Ka-Fai Wai have been collaborating for many years as producers, writers, and directors, both getting their start in television. I think most people credit much of the work to To, or perhaps that’s just my naivety for never having heard Wai’s name before, but after seeing 全職殺手 [Fulltime Killer] and knowing it’s co-directed by the pair while also adapted from Ho-Cheung Pang’s novel courtesy…

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REVIEW: Catfish [2010]

Jared Mobarak

“Hi! So who’s all real in this situation?” I did not expect Catfish to be a real documentary. In hindsight, it wouldn’t have taken much for me to find this fact out, but I was so vigilant to go into the film with as little information to the ‘twist’ alluded to in the trailer that I refused to dig, or even rummage on the surface for that matter. Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman’s work isn’t necessarily a cautionary tale about the abuses of internet communication or the system’s ability to…

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