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REVIEW: Pete’s Dragon [1977]

2016/08/072016/08/07 Jared Mobarak

“I didn’t think I’d ever be happy til I met you” If memory serves, I loved Pete’s Dragon. It was on the same VHS tape as Sword In the Stone in my family, two Disney films I don’t think anyone else enjoyed. As such I watched Robin Hood a lot to keep the peace—a superior work to both anyway. So now that I’m probably about twenty-five years past my last viewing, it appears little was retained. While I vaguely recall Elliott the dragon’s look, the reality of its two-plus hour…

REVIEW: 俠女 [Xia nü] [A Touch of Zen] [1971]

2016/08/042018/05/03 Jared Mobarak

“One should rather believe in ghosts than not” It’s enlightening to read writer/director King Hu‘s press notes that accompanied the Cannes premiere of his then newly-cut 俠女 [Xia nü] [A Touch of Zen]. 1975 was four years removed from the film’s original release—as two parts, a format his producers demanded to try recouping some of its ballooning budget—and six years after he began constructing the elaborate sets utilized during a long, piecemeal shooting schedule to combat changing seasons from ruining continuity. He finally received the ability to restore his three-hour…

FANTASIA16 REVIEW: テラフォーマーズ [Tera Fōmāzu] [Terra Formars] [2016]

2016/08/032016/08/04 Jared Mobarak

“Johj!” It’s the tail end of the twenty-first century and Earth has nearly overstayed its welcome with dwindling resources and over-population. Scientists believe they can release the CO2 pockets underneath Mars’ surface and move the Red Planet from -50 degrees Celsius into a human-friendly temperature and atmosphere. So mankind sends rockets of moss and cockroaches to commence the process, a half-century passing before a team of colonists can finally journey forth. Everything should be ready for this hand-selected group under Ko Honda’s (Shun Oguri) supervision: go to Mars, kill the…

REVIEW: Suicide Squad [2016]

2016/08/012016/08/03 Jared Mobarak

“Let’s just say I put him in a hole and threw away the hole” I feel for David Ayer. He seems super jazzed about his work on Suicide Squad with good reason and I’m ecstatic Warner Bros. chose him to lead this ragtag bunch of miscreants with some great outside the box hiring, but the film can’t help feeling like a commodity rather than art. Sadly I think most of DC’s early installments will have their hands tied in much the same way because they’re being asked to do way…

REVIEW: Jason Bourne [2016]

2016/07/262016/07/28 Jared Mobarak

“And I heard you got hacked” In the nine years since Matt Damon last played amnesiac black ops assassin Jason Bourne, (eleven movie years considering the character exclaims he’s been running for three in The Bourne Ultimatum after The Bourne Identity bowed in 2002), there’s been a lot of chatter about making a reunion work only to have the actor and director Paul Greengrass emphatically say, “No.” It was with good reason too because they knew throwing a sequel together without a quality story that did justice to the original…

REVIEW: The Bourne Supremacy [2004]

2016/07/242016/07/24 Jared Mobarak

“It’s easy. She’s standing right next to you.” The idea that a sequel can best its predecessor is one that many people believe impossible save one or two exceptions to prove the rule. We’re talking The Godfather: Part II caliber stuff—prestige pieces with weight behind them for critical acclaim and box office success. So you may find me hyperbolic to say this, but I think The Bourne Supremacy belongs on this ultra short list. Don’t demean it by exclaiming how an action film doesn’t deserve to sit alongside a Francis…

REVIEW: The Bourne Identity [2002]

2016/07/222016/07/27 Jared Mobarak

“I guess you’re not home” It’s interesting to go back and watch Doug Liman‘s The Bourne Identity after so many years and sequels because it’s so unlike what Paul Greengrass accomplished during his tenure at the helm. The action scenes seem almost quaint in comparison with quick cuts and loud thuds. The kinetic excitement of extended take sequences is absent, replaced by choreographed images rather than limbs. It just goes to show how different the series’ origins were with espionage and spy thrills trumping the subsequently explosive hand-to-hand combat. This…

REVIEW: Hunt for the Wilderpeople [2016]

2016/07/202016/07/21 Jared Mobarak

“Find water. Go to high ground. And don’t get naked.” A Māori boy and a Pākehā man go forth into the New Zealand bush. It sounds like the start to a joke. But while Taika Waititi‘s latest Hunt for the Wilderpeople is hilarious, it’s far from being a trivial lark. There’s some weighty emotion involved as its two loners who never believed they’d truly have anyone in their lives to rely upon gradually bond as family on an impromptu adventure of survival into the unknown. They’re lost boys scooped up…

FANTASIA16 REVIEW: Let Me Make You a Martyr [2016]

2016/07/192016/07/24 Jared Mobarak

“You can’t fight fate” There’s a lot more to Corey Asraf and John Swab‘s debut feature Let Me Make You a Martyr than meets the eye. It looks like your run-of-the-mill revenge thriller with its prodigal son (Niko Nicotera‘s Drew Glass) returning home after an extended stay away to right the wrongs of the past. His adoptive father Larry (Mark Boone Junior) is a drug supplier, sex trade entrepreneur, and who knows what other heinous crimes that set up whatever unknown incident happened to fracture their relationship—something neither can come…

REVIEW: Ghostbusters [2016]

2016/07/142016/07/15 Jared Mobarak

“Ain’t no bitches gonna bust no ghosts” They lied. I walked out of Paul Feig‘s Ghostbusters reboot to find my childhood intact. Memories didn’t disappear as the run-time progressed with cooties-infested women replacing the nerdy, elitist dickheads in jumpsuits who ran amok in New York City years ago. In fact, these 21st century scientists actually know more science than blind comedic references about proton-packs being compact nuclear reactors strapped to their backs. Who knew women could be nerdy dickheads too? Who knew they weren’t simply vessels to breath heavy and…

REVIEW: The Legend of Tarzan [2016]

2016/06/272016/06/29 Jared Mobarak

“Look at his hands” The film wasn’t even over before an older woman sitting a row away loudly exclaimed, “I’m exhausted.” I chuckled to myself at the exasperation shown for what wasn’t even a two-hour movie, but quickly realized she wasn’t wrong. I felt a bit drained myself trying to figure out what part of The Legend of Tarzan director David Yates wanted me to care about. Was it the relationship between Tarzan aka John Clayton III (Alexander Skarsgård) and his wife Jane (Margot Robbie) and their bond’s strength when…