Day: February 20, 2017

REVIEW: Life, Animated [2016]

Jared Mobarak

“Just your voice” It’s 2017 and yet I’m pretty sure you think about one of two things when hearing the word autism: Rain Man or vaccination. This is a shame because it only helps bolster the stigma assigned to the disorder. Pop culture has latched onto the “spectrum” with multiple examples of Asperger’s syndrome, but full-blown autism remains relegated to a nightmare scenario instead. So just imagine what Ron and Cornelia Suskind must have thought during the early nineties when their son Owen was officially diagnosed. Hardly a few years…

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REVIEW: The Ninth Configuration [1980]

Jared Mobarak

“You have to say, ‘Simon Says.’ Then we’ll do it.” The history behind William Peter Blatty‘s The Ninth Configuration adds a ton of insight into its ambitious yet lacking film adaptation. His original intent, for instance, was to create a comic novel. Blatty has even been quoted as saying he prefers the first version he wrote in 1966 entitled Twinkle, Twinkle, “Killer” Kane! It was only after working alongside William Friedkin on the set of The Exorcist that he chose to go back and do a rewrite. This retro-fitted evolution…

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