Month: March 2012

BNFF12 REVIEW: Shuffle [2010]

Jared Mobarak

“What was he doing up anyway?” The last line of a Steve McQueen quote used as an epilogue to Garrett Bennett‘s Shuffle sums the theme of the film up nicely: “I was always kind of a coward until I had to prove it to myself.” These are words I believe everyone could relate to—whether you had love growing up or not. At some point each and every one of us must find an excuse to keeping going. We cannot live our lives indebted to another’s cause or desires. So many…

Read More

REVIEW: This Means War [2012]

Jared Mobarak

“Why is she listening to that old man?” It’s really too bad that Timothy Dowling, Marcus Gautesen, and Simon Kinberg decided their script for This Means War needed to include romance. I don’t know if they were trying to create the ever-elusive film men and women can enjoy equally, but throw Chris Pine and Tom Hardy in the CIA hit squad thread for the full 97 minutes and this could be a great flick. The problem McG has that James Mangold didn’t with his highly enjoyable romp Knight and Day…

Read More

REVIEW: Done the Impossible: The Fans’ Tale of ‘Firefly’ and ‘Serenity’ [2006]

Jared Mobarak

“And that makes us mighty” Never underestimate the Browncoats. A community of “Firefly” fans who filled the mold of their television shows’ iconic warriors Malcolm Reynolds and Zoë Washburne, their fervor and never-say-die attitude not only kept a canceled program alive in their hearts and on the internet, but also helped resurrect it to the big screen. Composed of regular people who found the time to watch and care as well as a contingent of cast and crew—themselves huge champions of the work created—Done the Impossible: The Fans’ Tale of…

Read More

REVIEW: Briefcase [2012]

Jared Mobarak

“I didn’t know what was inside” One could say reapers are the contract killers out to release us from this mortal coil when time expires. We don’t know when or where our end will be, but it’s always looming out of sight—behind us, around a corner, or perhaps innocuously hidden right before our eyes. The day-to-day serves as a means to distract from our ultimate demise, keeping us forever looking towards the future as a fulfilling journey worth forgetting the harsh reality that we begin to die as soon as…

Read More

REVIEW: John Carter [2012]

Jared Mobarak

“Vir-gin-ya, Vir-gin-ya, Vir-gin-ya!” When you’re working from a novel written almost a century ago about a planet we still have yet to truly discover, it would be easy to find yourself going off track onto a cheesy, archaic path of exposition. John Carter is not without its moments of superfluity and at over two hours in length does at times find itself sprawling out into an epic beyond the needs of the story being told. However, writer/director Andrew Stanton and company still manage to intrigue with their desert wasteland of…

Read More

REVIEW: In Time [2011]

Jared Mobarak

“Your mind can be spent even if your body’s not” A watered-down Gattaca from the same creative mind, Andrew Niccol‘s In Time takes his human story of survival onto a global level. Rather than watch one man succeed in following an unattainable dream by taking the charity of another no longer wanting the gifts he was born with, we experience an entire dystopia’s upheaval. This world isn’t about a genetic propensity for excellence; it’s about time ticking down for the poor and being muted for the rich. Living in the…

Read More

REVIEW: Familiar [2012]

Jared Mobarak

“The world is different when people are asleep” The beast within often proves too much when one’s happiness is compromised. For John Dodd (Robert Nolan), that joy exists in a life of freedom away from the constraints of the every day. Lost amidst the faces of those he can no longer stand—a wife who disgusts him (Astrida Auza‘s Charlotte) and a daughter who has finally reached college age so as to cease leeching off his generosity (Cathryn Hostick‘s Jordan)—the prospect of leaving it all behind for a future without the…

Read More

REVIEW: Meeting People is Easy [1998]

Jared Mobarak

“Again, music to slit your wrists to” It was a batty animated music video lasting almost seven minutes for “Paranoid Android” that made me go out and buy OK Computer. Still in high school, I thought the album was the best thing I had ever heard and played it to death before finding out from a classmate that it was actually the band’s third disc. From there I experienced The Bends—my all-time favorite rock album—and with that Radiohead cemented its place at the top of my musical world. I made…

Read More

REVIEW: Take Me Home [2012]

Jared Mobarak

“I actually really like the paint in the bedroom” A road movie that surprisingly doesn’t fall prey to the easy tropes of its brethren, Take Me Home uses the American landscape as a backdrop to its journey through the tumultuous expanse of two lost souls. States fly by in seconds without a mention, just glimpses outside the windows of the illegally operated taxicab taking our leads from New York City to Encinitas, California. Where most would bask in the ability to montage famous sites, writer/director/star Sam Jaeger only sprinkles in…

Read More