Month: August 2016 | www.jaredmobarak.com

REVIEW: Kubo and the Two Strings [2016]

2016/08/222016/08/23 Jared Mobarak

“Memories are powerful things” The narrator of Travis Knight‘s Kubo and the Two Strings demands us to look closely and never blink. His story delivers fantastical wonders and poignant metaphors concerning family, love, and traditions to uphold if not an archaic remnant of a lost time meant to be broken. We’re to pay attention because details are intentionally only thinly-veiled, alluding to discoveries Marc Haimes and Chris Butler‘s script shortly reveal. A mirroring of roles proves critical to the tale’s resonance, our own dreams as children coaxing the real world…

REVIEW: Max Rose [2016]

2016/08/212016/08/31 Jared Mobarak

“Without somebody you’re nobody at all” A film centering on octogenarians isn’t an easy sell. Not even when you get a legend like Jerry Lewis to come out of retirement to deliver his first starring role in twenty years. So you have to give Daniel Noah credit—he got it done. And after a few years producing some effective genre films with his shingle SpectreVision, Max Rose also becomes a return for him to the director’s chair. He admits that he couldn’t see anyone else doing the material justice, the script…

REVIEW: The 9th Life of Louis Drax [2016]

2016/08/202016/09/02 Jared Mobarak

“More than all the fish in the sea” Ten years after Anthony Minghella optioned Liz Jensen‘s The 9th Life of Louis Drax to develop cinematically, it was his son Max who saw it begin production. The younger Minghella’s first credited screenplay, probably brought to director Alexandre Aja on set of their previous collaboration Horns, it would ultimately take another two for the finished film’s release. If I were to wager a guess as to why I’d say the distributors found themselves painted in a corner unable to figure out how…

REVIEW: Don’t Think Twice [2016]

2016/08/192016/08/24 Jared Mobarak

“Your favorite bunch of weirdoes” The type of films that sting the most are the ones that are universal in emotion despite being niche in subject. So what if this tight-knit group of contemporaries championing each other’s work as they strive to improve their own are improv comedians selling out a fifty-seat theater in New York City and you’re a mechanic or barista or garbage collector or Fortune 500 CEO. It doesn’t matter what they or you do as long as we’re all human: fallible, petty, vulnerable, delusional, and somehow…

REVIEW: Hell or High Water [2016]

2016/08/182016/08/19 Jared Mobarak

“I ain’t speeding” It wasn’t long after his run as above-board Deputy Chief David Hale on “Sons of Anarchy” that Taylor Sheridan would find himself caught in awards season platitudes with Sicario, a film earning three Oscar nominations despite his screenplay not quite making the cut. Well he has a second change this January as his earlier script of gritty Texas survival under the poverty line—a 2012 Black List inclusion—has arrived with David Mackenzie‘s stewardship. Hell or High Water utilizes similar themes of determined, smart vengeance and bittersweet resolutions, it’s…

REVIEW: Linda LeThorn & the Musicbox [2012]

2016/08/18 Jared Mobarak

“She is really good at this job!” There’s nothing generic about Linda LeThorn & the Musicbox, Meg Skaff‘s quirky psychological study delving into the mind of a damaged young woman who left her aunt behind to endure a fatal disease alone despite promising to remain by her side. Linda (Aundrea Fares) was obviously affected by her decision, a flashback showing the girl bright and clear with sassiness to complement her keen business sense. Today, however, sees her defeated, slack-jawed, and depressed. She continues her once booming pet-sitting responsibilities, but the…

REVIEW: Imperium [2016]

2016/08/172016/08/19 Jared Mobarak

“Just because you’re not looking at something doesn’t mean it’s not there” People forget that before 9/11 our idea of a terrorist was a lone wolf type: domestic white Neo Nazis with agendas that warped their intellect into working towards creating chaos to spark a cleansing. It’s therefore interesting to look at the constituency of Donald Trump, a candidate running on a ticket that not only incites race wars but also ensures white Catholics’ safety becomes synonymous with the “nation’s safety.” I guess the idea posed in The Turner Diaries…

REVIEW: Level Up [2016]

2016/08/172016/08/24 Jared Mobarak

“See if you can get off the sofa today” You watch enough hero-backed-into-a-corner action films like Crank, Taken, or The Equalizer and you start to find your mind drifting away from the sheer monotony of their progression. Their characters are built to survive these situations no matter how dire because people want to see the good guy win. They want to see him risk everything, travel in the murky areas of morality, and be the badass society doesn’t allow them to be, but that ultimate victory is key because escapism…

REVIEW: Star Trek Beyond [2016]

2016/08/162016/08/17 Jared Mobarak

“The poetry of fate” After an auspicious reboot that erased every movie in the series before it (save the travels of Leonard Nimoy‘s Spock) while ensuring each one still remained in canon, J.J. Abrams stumbled a bit by recycling one of those films’ most acclaim stories for the follow-up. I’ll be the first to admit that Star Trek Into Darkness isn’t all-bad upon a second viewing three years later, but it’s neither unique nor consistently exciting enough to sustain its massive runtime. Unsurprisingly, Abrams decided to take a backseat to…

REVIEW: War Dogs [2016]

2016/08/152016/08/17 Jared Mobarak

“What would a bad man do?” Of course director Todd Phillips would gravitate towards a Rolling Stone article titled “The Stoner Arms Dealers.” If the man behind The Hangover trilogy was ever going to delve into more dramatic territory a la contemporary Adam McKay and last year’s The Big Short, Guy Lawson‘s piece on two twenty-somethings who landed huge military contracts with the US government before federal indictments was the perfect segue. It’s as though the characters from his Old School decided to make connections with black market arms organizations…

REVIEW: Lake Nowhere [2016]

2016/08/14 Jared Mobarak

“My blood is liquid offering” Directors Christopher Phelps and Maxim Van Scoy take a page from Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez‘s book by delving into slasher fare of old for their own grindhouse-type homage of Italian blood-letting, maliciously Evil Dead-esque vines, and a murderer in the vein of Leatherface and Jason Voorhees protecting a lake of perished souls. The film is Lake Nowhere, titled after the final 45-minute or so “feature” that follows trailers for the unmade When the River Runs Red and Harvest Man alongside a commercial for fictional…