Action/Adventure | www.jaredmobarak.com

REVIEW: Deadpool [2016]

2016/02/122016/02/14 Jared Mobarak

“Maximum effort” The fact Deadpool is in theaters should have fans and detractors of the superhero “genre” excited because it signals a burst of creativity within an otherwise stagnant artistic avenue. But don’t think it won’t still be a superhero movie. A lot of talk in the critical sphere revolves around how Tim Miller and Ryan Reynolds’ passion project “looks to subvert convention” yet “ends up just another comic book origin story.” Guess what? Deadpool is a comic book character. Just because he’s self-aware enough to mock his world’s tropes…

REVIEW: 旺角卡門 [Wong gok ka moon] [As Tears Go By] [1988]

2016/02/042016/02/04 Jared Mobarak

“I found that glass” Writer/Director Kar Wai Wong hit the scene in 1988 with gangster drama 旺角卡門 [Wong gok ka moon] [As Tears Go By] in a way that many compare to Martin Scorsese‘s debut splash Mean Streets. It’s a gritty look at the streets of Hong Kong populated by men who are nothing without their fearsome reputations. “Guts” are what sustain them, keeping them alive within this cutthroat underground of tough guys bluffing in the hopes loud threats prove enough to stay at the top and crazy psychopaths calling…

REVIEW: Shopping [1994]

2016/02/01 Jared Mobarak

“Don’t get caught” I don’t know what it is about Paul W.S. Anderson, but I very rarely dislike his flicks no matter the critical consensus or fandom drubbings. He isn’t the best director out there but he has created some interesting vehicles despite it—enough to accept the fact that Hollywood studios will continue giving him money to make them. And even though it’s a far cry from the video game adaptations serving as his claim to fame, Anderson’s debut Shopping feels right at home alongside Resident Evil and Mortal Kombat.…

REVIEW: O Menino e o Mundo [Boy & the World] [2014]

2016/01/312016/02/01 Jared Mobarak

Writer/director Alê Abreu‘s O Menino e o Mundo [Boy & the World] is nothing if not a breath of fresh air against the animation medium’s otherwise stagnant aesthetic of glossy computerized fare. Not only does he dive back into a traditional hand-drawn style, he does so with an un-polished rough-edged crayon texture to make it appear as if a drawing on a piece of paper has come to life. The way he makes environments disappear so his titular boy Cuca is left with nothing but a white void and the…

REVIEW: Panique au village [A Town Called Panic] [2009]

2016/01/22 Jared Mobarak

“Your car is completely broken” Based on the animated series of the same name, Stéphane Aubier and Vincent Patar‘s feature length Panique au village [A Town Called Panic] is a far cry from short five-minute skits. With that said, it’s easy to see how it was born from such a format considering the irreverent humor running rampant through its comedy of errors connected by the thinnest layer of glue. This is how they travel from a celebratory night of birthday festivities for Horse (Patar) to the undersea theft of brick…

REVIEW: Portal: No Escape [2011]

2016/01/16 Jared Mobarak

But where’s the cake? Oh, right. It’s a lie … Yeah. That’s the extent of what I know about Valve Corporation’s popular game Portal. I’ve seen my girlfriend play it a couple times and know the whole concept of setting up portals to help advance through the game, but I’m clueless to the storyline. So the question became whether or not someone without such knowledge like myself could enjoy Dan Trachtenberg‘s fan film Portal: No Escape. While I’m pretty certain players will find it much deeper as far as mythology…

REVIEW: Tabu: A Story of the South Seas [1931]

2016/01/11 Jared Mobarak

“The island of Bora-Bora: still untouched by the hand of civilization” It’s a “Romeo and Juliet” by way of French Polynesia to be commended first and foremost for its use of island natives as cast and crew (the latter a result of cost-saving efforts not-withstanding). Conceived by F.W. Murnau and Robert J. Flaherty as a reprieve from the pressures of studio pictures, Tabu: A Story of the South Seas was born as a collaboration before an irreparable fracture gave the former full control once production got under way. Murnau chose…

REVIEW: Steamboat Bill, Jr. [1928]

2016/01/042016/01/04 Jared Mobarak

“That must have happened when the dough fell in the tool chest” The beauty of Buster Keaton‘s work is how keenly he and his “gagmen” could build a plot around their comedic stunts. It’s said director Charles Reisner was the man who told his vaudevillian friend to craft a tale focusing on the son of a steamboat captain and really there’s little else involved beyond that. A bit of romance is added thanks to Keaton’s titular William Canfield, Jr.’s Bostonian beau Kitty King (Marion Byron), some suspense arrives out of…

REVIEW: The Dark Crystal [1982]

2015/12/312016/01/02 Jared Mobarak

“The great conjunction is the end of the world! … Or the beginning.” I’ll say right now that a little fright never harmed my adolescence so kudos to Jim Henson for sticking to his guns in bringing “family film” and potential nightmare inducing adventure The Dark Crystal to life. Anyone who spied upon Brian Froud’s creature design should have been aware of how dark the proceedings would turn out, but you can’t blame surprise either considering the Henson name in 1982 was only synonymous with those cute characters known as…

REVIEW: Hell and Back [2015]

2015/12/272016/01/06 Jared Mobarak

“If you’re a priest or a nun, that’s funny. You wasted your life.” You may have noticed posters for the R-rated, stop-motion animated comedy Hell and Back throughout the summer and fall seasons in anticipation of its October release only to find it didn’t come to a theater near you. It was released and took in about $150,000 on the few screens it graced to the chagrin of a ton of hopeful Nick Swardson fans complaining on the movie’s Facebook page about their inability to watch. So January 5th brings…

REVIEW: Star Wars: The Force Awakens [2015]

2015/12/172017/12/15 Jared Mobarak

“There’s still light inside of him” First thing’s first: there’s probably spoilers in this review. Because let’s face it, anything besides me plainly stating that I loved it is construed as a spoiler to a fandom as intense as that of George Lucas‘ Star Wars saga. Will I go into lineages and deaths? No. Does J.J. Abrams, Lawrence Kasdan, and Michael Arndt‘s script seem to care about keeping such things secret in the context of this return adventure? No. But I’ll still leave it for their intuitive and refreshingly blunt…