Month: August 2013 | www.jaredmobarak.com

REVIEW: Blue Jasmine [2013]

2013/08/212013/08/22 Jared Mobarak

“When I did what I did I regretted it” A film dealing with issues of causality, Woody Allen‘s Blue Jasmine provides much more than surface appearances. Rather than simply be a character study of an emotionally and psychologically broken woman whose rarified airs of elitist wealth came crashing down after her husband’s villainous financial skeletons are found, this story is also a tragic tale about perception. Does one woman’s dumb luck success really make her into some kind of expert on life possessed by a trustworthy opinion because she can…

REVIEW: Thérèse Desqueyroux [Thérèse] [2012]

2013/08/202013/08/23 Jared Mobarak

“I’m marrying you for your pines, too” Only a 1927 novel can get away with its titular character yearning for a marriage built on land and stability instead of love for no other reason than to quiet ‘unfeminine’ aspirations beyond domesticity. Dismissed as a silly little thing with too many ideas and not enough religion, Thérèse Despeyreux actually wants to be rid of her thoughts and seek refuge in her best friend Anne’s brother’s simplicity. What she didn’t count on was exactly what this new sister-in-law warned—a life devoid of…

REVIEW: Una noche [One Night] [2013]

2013/08/192013/08/21 Jared Mobarak

“In Havana nothing stops for anybody” If people didn’t know about the 90-mile expanse of Caribbean waters between Havana, Cuba and Key West, Florida before Elián González in 1999, they certainly did afterwards. Citizens residing in dictatorships have always used America’s “home of the free” slogan as a calling card to immigrate, defect, claim asylum, or simply live illegally—my hometown Buffalo Sabres even assisted in NHLer Alexander Mogilny’s 1989 defection from the Soviet Union. The mixture of civil rights restrictions and poverty can cause anyone to salivate at the prospect…

REVIEW: The Girl Next Door [2004]

2013/08/172013/08/18 Jared Mobarak

“I’ll always remember … “ A film not necessarily loved upon release—many actually reviled it for “glamorizing” the life of a porn star—Luke Greenfield‘s The Girl Next Door was and still is a hilarious coming of age story for a post-American Pie world. It’s about finding yourself on the cusp of high school graduation without a memory worth telling as hitting the books and being a consummate student leaves you wanting. Matthew Kidman (Emile Hirsch) did everything he was supposed to on his quest to Georgetown and only found a…

REVIEW: Kick-Ass 2 [2013]

2013/08/162013/08/17 Jared Mobarak

“Act like a bitch, get slapped like a bitch” I know a lot of people who hate Kick-Ass—definitely more than don’t. It’s always fascinated me because I thought it was a brilliantly funny actioner with a darkly comic streak of what logistically could happen if normal citizens decided to become superheroes. I loved it when I saw it in theatres and found myself validating that sentiment yesterday when revisiting it in preparation for the sequel. Well, let’s just say that about halfway through Kick-Ass 2 I think I discovered what…

REVIEW: Closed Circuit [2013]

2013/08/162013/08/28 Jared Mobarak

“The judicial process in this country is and will remain fair and transparent” Director John Crowley is a man with good luck picking screenplays. His feature film debut Intermission is a fun Irish romp while drama Boy A is in my opinion criminally underrated and ignored. So, seeing him sign onto a project written by the man behind Dirty Pretty Things and Eastern Promises—Steven Knight—was an exciting discovery, especially after finding the thriller’s trailer to be intriguing enough without spoiling too much of its conspiratorial plot. And everything does work…

REVIEW: Sparrows Dance [2013]

2013/08/152013/08/20 Jared Mobarak

“You can’t let someone else’s genius scare you off your own genius” It only seems appropriate that I reviewed a romantic comedy yesterday where I posited its derivativeness to be a direct result of the genre simply having been exhausted beyond originality. Who knew a film like Noah Buschel’s Sparrows Dance would surprise me today by proving this thought wrong? Perhaps it isn’t the genre that has become stale, but instead the audience flocking to theatres for the same hamfisted love conquers all story repackaged ad infinitum by Hollywood. Luckily…

REVIEW: 3 Days of Normal [2013]

2013/08/142013/08/20 Jared Mobarak

“Have a super day!!” The romantic comedy is derivative as a point of fact—there are only so many ways an unsuspecting boy and girl can meet and thaw before falling desperately in love. Settings change, periphery characters provide the big laughs, and you hope the spark is realistic and sweet enough to get you through the inevitability of their union. Add in a fish-out-of-water trope done to death across all genres, though, and you’d assume the end result would be nothing short of an obnoxious waste of your time. Well,…

REVIEW: Only God Forgives [2013]

2013/08/13 Jared Mobarak

“No matter what happens, keep your eyes closed” I’ve never seen a film by Alejandro Jodorowsky, but it doesn’t take a long glimpse into the auteur’s internet biographies to understand why Nicolas Winding Refn dedicated his Only God Forgives to the legend. Descriptions are riddled with labels such as “avant-garde”, “violently surreal”, “mystical”, and “religiously provocative”—terms also very clearly formed while watching this newest, meditative jaunt through the stoic minds of morally tortured killers from the critically acclaimed director of Drive. More akin to his ethereal visual poem Valhalla Rising,…

REVIEW: TV Junkie [2013]

2013/08/122013/08/13 Jared Mobarak

“How can something be so euphoric and good and be so terrible?” The story of former “Inside Edition” senior correspondent Rick Kirkman is one of addiction and its debilitating impact on every aspect of life. While such a sentiment may seem anything but unique in a world where reality TV willfully puts addicts on the small screen so a hubristic American public can laugh at their misfortunes from afar instead of putting a mirror on themselves to understand where their own lives have gone astray, Michael Cain and Matt Radecki’s…

REVIEW: Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters [2013]

2013/08/102013/08/11 Jared Mobarak

“Dead camper walking” Much like he did on Harry Potter, director Chris Columbus ushered Rick Riordan‘s young adult world of demigods to film with sure-handed exposition and a fun flair for the fantastical—if not necessarily visual excitement. The Lightning Thief introduced its hero Percy Jackson (Logan Lerman) just as he became aware of his true identity and the power at his disposal. A sprawling adventure followed with he and companions Grover (Brandon T. Jackson) and Annabeth (Alexandra Daddario) wherein a plethora of Greek myths got thrown our way in an…