Month: July 2016

REVIEW: La belle saison [Summertime] [2015]

Jared Mobarak

“Loneliness is a terrible thing” While a romance on its surface, Catherine Corsini‘s La belle saison [Summertime] is really about freedom. The central relationship between Delphine (Izïa Higelin) and Carole (Cécile De France) pushes them to discover their personal identities removed from any union. The former is a farm girl yearning to break from the conservative mentality a future in the country dictates while the latter’s anti-bourgeois feminist Parisian cohabits with a long-term boyfriend equally political and militantly idealistic as she. They’ve each cut trails through the rigid social norms…

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FANTASIA16 REVIEW: The Alchemist Cookbook [2016]

Jared Mobarak

“This human form, which I was born, I now repent” I have no clue why Sean (Ty Hickson) messes with the titular book in Joel Potrykus‘ The Alchemist Cookbook. He doesn’t seem to care about money while living as a hermit inside a hidden trailer deep within the woods—bill collectors “no longer owning him”—so gold is out of the question. It might be for an elixir of immortality, his ritualistic incantations recalling satanic verse in search of dealing with a demonic presence that only pentagrams and dead animals hope to…

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REVIEW: Hell-Bent [2016]

Jared Mobarak

“May you write some great pieces on this” For whatever reason, screenwriters Lorenzo Cabello and Shayne Kamat refused to turn their script about an underachieving journalist and his demon acquaintance into a deal with the devil scenario. Kudos, guys. There’s ample opportunity too considering Michael’s (Justin Andrew Davis) struggles to find the confidence to fight for a promotion against his cutthroat competition Beth (Ashley Kelley). Ricky (Steven Trolinger‘s demon in question) tells Michael that he better not disappoint him if he agrees to be the subject of this latest make-or-break…

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REVIEW: Tickled [2016]

Jared Mobarak

“All of this over some tickling” When a journalist known for delving into the weird side of pop culture and society stumbles across an online video depicting a young man tied to a table as four other young men tickle him in a “sport” dubbed “Competitive Tickling,” there’s no way he closes that window to continue his search elsewhere. That is the story—it’s like the Holy Grail of stories when it comes to David Farrier even before the real craziness begins. Because the simple premise of this athletic endurance challenge…

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REVIEW: Inspired [2015]

Jared Mobarak

“Don’t be late” For a student film, Maggie Kaszuba‘s Inspired is an effective cinematic effort. Depicting the life of a teenage girl dealing with ambivalence at home and tough love at school, the short has a wealth of earned emotion once relationships flesh out and motivation is revealed. Samantha Higgins (Tyler Kipp) is an underachiever not by choice, but circumstance. She’s depressed, sleepwalking through a tired existence that Coach Stafford (Ariane M. Reinhart) makes worse via a refusal to listen to the real causes of her basketball player’s struggles. Only…

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FANTASIA16 REVIEW: Crimson Dance [2016]

Jared Mobarak

“Welcome to the Bloody Burlesque Freak Show” Letting American burlesque dancer Tonya Kay perform an interpretive, sensual dance with blood isn’t necessarily the first thing that comes to my mind when thinking about ways to raise public consciousness about donating this crucial fluid, yet here we are. Writer/director Patricia Chica not only thought it, she filmed it as the 4-minute short Crimson Dance—a document of the performance as it is staged with the addition of a surreally aroused crowd bloodthirsty enough to probably lick the substance off Kay’s skin if…

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REVIEW: Bir Uyku Vakti [In a Time for Sleep] [2016]

Jared Mobarak

“They are all the same except for their names” Writer/director Tofiq Rzayev‘s latest short Bir Uyku Vakti [In a Time for Sleep] appears to have a lot to say beneath its melodramatic plot. I’m just not sure exactly what it is. This could be a “lost in translation” case, but I found it difficult to fully grasp the underlying themes besides an obvious sense of girl power in its characters freeing themselves from the domineeringly despicable man in their lives. I almost want to say that the result of what…

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REVIEW: The Invitation [2016]

Jared Mobarak

“I’ve been waiting to die since the moment it happened” Death plays a large role in our lives, mortality seemingly out of reach but never forgotten. For some it knocks early—or at least earlier than we’d hope to believe. Disease, accident, and fate remind us how precious our time on Earth is. We grieve, pray, repress, and overcome, the inevitable sorrow bringing as much strength to move on as agony to stop everything. And nothing is more heartbreaking or painful than the passing of a child taken too soon and…

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REVIEW: The Decline of Western Civilization Part III [1998]

Jared Mobarak

“Your spit is greatly appreciated” To a certain extent The Decline of Western Civilization Part III could have been titled The New Western Civilization. The first two films in Penelope Spheeris‘ trilogy showed us the music that was changing American youth culture as well as the people performing it and listening to it. This entry is different, though, as the music and bands take a backseat to the story of a disenfranchised and abused generation with nowhere to go. It’s no longer about the music being an outlet from the…

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REVIEW: The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years [1988]

Jared Mobarak

“It doesn’t matter—the size of your pencil. It’s how you write your name.” Director Penelope Spheeris changes the aesthetic and to some extent the goals of her documentary series The Decline of Western Civilization with Part II: The Metal Years. Like its predecessor depicting the contemporary 1980 Los Angeles punk scene, we get a glimpse at obscure metal bands like Odin, London, and Seduce as they traverse the circuit with varying levels of success. Interwoven with them, however, are interviews of the genre’s mostly glam metal pioneers like Steven Tyler…

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REVIEW: The Decline of Western Civilization [1981]

Jared Mobarak

“I don’t think of myself as a happy person, but I had fun tonight” You don’t get much more punk rock than Penelope Spheeris‘ concert documentary The Decline of Western Civilization. At least not American punk since the film details the club life in Los Angeles during the 80s rather than mid-70s Britain. We’re talking Black Flag, Germs, Catholic Discipline, Circle Jerks, X, The Bags, and Fear. Spheeris had both audience members and band members sign waivers to have their likenesses used in a movie and preceded to film multiple…

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