Month: July 2011

REVIEW: Limitless [2011]

Jared Mobarak

“I was blind, but now I see” What would you do if you had the means to engage the entirety of your brain? To go from twenty-five percent to a hundred in thirty seconds after taking a tiny, clear pill—it’s a no-brainer, right? Your first taste is from an old friend, your assumption is that the drug is FDA-approved, and the effects are too good to dismiss. So what if you soon find out the manufacturing is done in an illegal kitchen? Who cares if your only connection to the…

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REVIEW: Life as We Know It [2010]

Jared Mobarak

“Don’t let any fat grown-ups in when the kids are inside” Long-time television producer Greg Berlanti’s first directorial wide release, Life as We Know It, had two strikes against it before I even popped in the DVD. To begin with, the film was a romantic comedy in the vein of countless others—two people who hate each other are brought together by circumstances out of their control and slowly fall in love. And while the premise here is equal parts horrible in the fact someone thought it would be a good…

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REVIEW: The Lincoln Lawyer [2011]

Jared Mobarak

“There’s no client scarier than an innocent man” Just when I thought The Lincoln Lawyer would be another run-of-the-mill courtroom drama with behind the scenes evidence gathering to either acquit Mick Haller’s (Matthew McConaughey) client or show he was guilty after all, a case from the past is remembered with eerily similar details. Everything Haller believed to be true about his career choice is brought into question; the fact he defends criminals he knows are guilty due to the corruption on the side of police and DAs trying to pin…

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REVIEW: Rango [2011]

Jared Mobarak

“Ain’t no one gonna tango with the Rango” Director Gore Verbinski knows star Johnny Depp’s penchant for fast-talk rambling only too well. After helming the original Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, he decided to take an odd turn into animation with the PG-rated Rango, taking his lead with him for the journey. Using a quasi-motion capture technique, the actors actually performed their roles, the footage later animated in character to mimic the motion and expressions of each. So, even though we see an awkward chameleon in a Hawaiian shirt—it’s not…

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NYAFF11 REVIEW: 手塚治虫のブッダ－赤い砂漠よ！美しく [Osamu Tezuka’s Buddha: The Great Departure] [2011]

Jared Mobarak

“He who has attained his goal” This year’s New York Asian Film Festival was graced with the North American premiere of a film almost three decades in the making. The critically acclaimed and three-time Eisner Award winning manga, Buddha, from Osamu Tezuka, the “Godfather of Anime”, has been given the big screen treatment from animation house Toei Company. Broken down into a planned trilogy from its fourteen volumes of unique and gritty storytelling spanning Siddhartha Gautama’s birth until his transformation into “the Enlightened One”, this first installment—entitled 手塚治虫のブッダ－赤い砂漠よ！美しく [Osamu Tezuka’s…

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NYAFF11 REVIEW: Machete Maidens Unleashed! [2010]

Jared Mobarak

“Human life was cheap, film was cheap—it was a great place to make a picture” As the most telling quote of Machete Maidens Unleashed! exclaims, “The stories are 10 times better than the actual films”. The anecdotes and memories of those involved in the Filipino exploitation genre of cinema are an amazing account of a period never to be repeated. Screening at the New York Asian Film Festival, Mark Hartley’s documentary opens our eyes to what went on in order to make some of the infamous cult schlock from the…

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REVIEW: Zookeeper [2011]

Jared Mobarak

“I certainly wasn’t cleaning my basement” What is the point of giving Zookeeper a rating? There really is none. The people who want to see it will see it, the kids who its aimed for will eat up the fact animals are talking and singing and joking around, and the adults escorting them will at the very least chuckle when the raunchiness comes out to play. Its success is a foregone conclusion, just like that of its most kindred of spirits. Call it Night at the Franklin Park Zoo, call…

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REVIEW: Insidious [2011]

Jared Mobarak

“Last night I watched myself sleep … then I flew away” Ever since James Wan and Leigh Whannell collaborated on what became a franchised sensation in Saw, expectations for the two were high. I haven’t seen their second film, Dead Silence, but I do remember press being positive and the creepiness of dolls—a motif the two seem to champion, (look at the chalkboards for an Easter Egg here)—quite unnerving. So, with the buzz on their newest horror film, Insidious, almost universally great, I became excited for what could be an…

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REVIEW: Horrible Bosses [2011]

Jared Mobarak

“How you like ‘dem nipples?” I had such high hopes. Between Jason Bateman, Jason Sudeikis, and Charlie Day being the leads, Kevin Spacey, Colin Farrell, and Jennifer Aniston the supporters, and Jamie Foxx as the comedy’s comic relief, how could it have gone wrong? It must have been the writing, right? The trio tasked to tackle this tale of men trapped in jobs with the worst bosses possible, who hatch a plan to murder them all, ended up falling prey to the easy desire of catering the characters to the…

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REVIEW: Hobo with a Shotgun [2011]

Jared Mobarak

“I’m gonna sleep in your bloody carcass tonight” Put on your snap bracelets, grab your shotgun, and prepare to take back your city. When a crazed lunatic is running the police, his sons wreaking havoc on the citizens without provocation, and the population shaking in silent fear so as not to be the next victim at the hands of their brutality, sometimes it takes a stranger to finally make a stand. Whether that vigilante is a homeless man straight off the train shouldn’t matter, his brand of justice is the…

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REVIEW: Cars 2 [2011]

Jared Mobarak

“I vant to siphon your gas” Being that I was not in what appeared to be a vast majority of people who thought Cars was ‘lesser’ Pixar, I can’t say I was too surprised to find I was on the outside of the even bigger group of critics who trashed Cars 2 as a sequel based solely on toy manufacturing profit. Yes, it is totally a cash-grab—I’m not questioning that fact—but alongside this is an attempt to create something the studio has yet to do, an entertaining comedy existing on…

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