Month: January 2015 | www.jaredmobarak.com

REVIEW: Boogaloo and Graham [2014]

2015/01/272015/01/30 Jared Mobarak

“Everyone has a dog!” There are many examples of fools that Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers could be singing about when their “Why Do Fools Fall In Love” plays during Boogaloo and Graham. It could be Mom (Charlene McKenna) and Dad (Martin McCann) still in love after years together amidst an ongoing military state in Ireland during the 70s. Perhaps the song is about their sons Jamesy (Riley Hamilton) and Malachy (Aaron Lynch) quickly becoming inseparable from the titular pet chickens their father brought home one day from the farm…

INTERVIEW: William Fichtner, actor and Cheektowaga, NY native

2015/01/242020/03/21 Jared Mobarak

Even if the name William Fichtner hasn’t procured a place on your cinematic Rolodex, you definitely know his face. He had a successful run on hit TV series “Prison Break” as complicated FBI Agent Alex Mahone, recently starred opposite the latest incarnation of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and found himself standing in the way of Heath Ledger‘s Joker during The Dark Knight‘s opening heist. There’s also his Colonel Willie Sharp sternly uttering my father’s favorite Armageddon quote: “Get off the nuclear warhead … now.” He’s coming into focus now,…

REVIEW: The Wedding Ringer [2014]

2015/01/232015/01/24 Jared Mobarak

“Sock on put” The writing team behind The Break-Up is back nine years later with their latest comedy The Wedding Ringer. While not a slog like their first feature—I found it painful at times—Jeremy Garelick (who also directs) and Jay Lavender‘s increased entertainment value unfortunately comes at the price of the whole being a complete mess. Jamming in as many comedy tropes as possible to create this genre Frankenstein’s monster, you’ll find yourself laughing at Wedding Crashers-level raunch one moment, wading through a flipped The Wedding Planner-esque plot full of…

REVIEW: The Dam Keeper [2014]

2015/01/232015/01/30 Jared Mobarak

“Out both, I saw darkness” An inclusive metaphor, The Dam Keeper‘s young Pig is made to combat the darkness of adolescence spent as an outcast and the black ash threatening to consume his town unless he stays vigilant at the windmill dam where he lives and works. He’s the protector of all the animals below the wall, a child shouldering the responsibility of an adult in a way none of his peers can or want to understand. To them he is merely a dirty pig covered in soot, ignorant to…

REVIEW: Big Eyes [2014]

2015/01/222015/01/23 Jared Mobarak

“I’m just a Sunday painter” It’s a paint-off. Literally. Will the winner be the charismatic salesman peddling his wife’s art as his own or the soft-spoken woman slaving away in a turpentine-filled room that’s been dominated and belittled into allowing him to do so? Who will earn the right to say they were the creators of an oeuvre simultaneously thought to be worth thousands of dollars and infinite fame by the general populace and conversely less than the canvas they were painted on by New York Times critic John Canaday…

REVIEW: Everly [2015]

2015/01/212015/01/22 Jared Mobarak

“That’s a lot of dead whores” The best part of Everly is the realization that smartasses the world over deeming it worthy of cult status will soon begin a trend of calling it a Christmas film. Social media couldn’t help itself last December with overused jokes about readying to watch Die Hard or Gremlins to ring in the yuletide cheer and come this winter those same people will have another ironic selection for the pile. All it took was screenwriter Yale Hannon and director Joe Lynch placing a couple lines…

REVIEW: The Bigger Picture [2014]

2015/01/212015/02/04 Jared Mobarak

“Now all I think about is death” For once publicity jargon—namely “The Bigger Picture is quite simply the most innovative animated short you will see this year”—is backed up because this Oscar-nominated short is a stunning feat of mixed media animation. The subject matter is a downer considering it deals with two grown brothers one of whom cares for their mother and questions whether putting her in a home is better solution for her while the other hardly around screams about such thoughts as inhumane, but the aesthetic bringing their…

REVIEW: A Single Life [2014]

2015/01/212015/01/30 Jared Mobarak

This film is delightful. Not only does it have a catchy titular song playing throughout (a Happy Camper ditty featuring Pien Feith), but A Single Life also possesses a wonderfully simple premise in order for its paltry two-minute runtime to deliver so much more than you would expect. Enter a solitary woman readying for an evening alone with some pizza when a mysterious package containing a vinyl record with invaluable power arrives. The groove set underneath the needle isn’t merely a journey from beginning to end of the music it…

REVIEW: Cake [2014]

2015/01/202015/01/21 Jared Mobarak

“Forgive me” It may not be the best film utilizing its melancholic subject matter, but Cake is not as bad as the critical sphere appears to want us to believe. The credit for this goes to screenwriter Patrick Tobin for distilling his character’s grief, depression, and malaise into a precisely calculated 102-minute rebirth. We receive a lot of information through the interactions of people, expressive postures towards specific situations, and the blackly comic exchanges on behalf of Claire Bennett (Jennifer Aniston), a woman desperately trying to hide behind the cynical…

REVIEW: A Most Violent Year [2014]

2015/01/192015/01/28 Jared Mobarak

“You’ll never do anything harder than staring someone in the eye and telling them the truth” I remember being surprised when Margin Call—the little movie that could—came out. Writer/director J.C. Chandor earned an Oscar nomination for his screenplay before heading to virtual silence with his harrowing sophomore effort, the Robert Redford-starring All is Lost, a film deemed one of the biggest Academy Awards snubs of 2013. Now that’s a lot of pressure for a young guy who just burst onto the scene and yet he decided to push the envelope…

REVIEW: The Librarian: The Curse of the Judas Chalice [2008]

2015/01/18 Jared Mobarak

“We do not profit from the artifacts!” It took two movies with potential for The Librarian franchise to finally deliver on the promise of its premise. Even though The Curse of the Judas Chalice is the most “TV-like” of the trilogy, it also possesses the best example of both its layer of educational value and that of its adventure comedy. Just because it introduces vampires as real world entities doesn’t necessarily prevent it from also giving an authentic history/mythology lesson about Vlad the Impaler and Judas Iscariot and how the…