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REVIEW: Kitbull [2019]

2020/01/192020/10/02 Jared Mobarak

It’s always wild to see a Pixar production that isn’t rendered in three-dimensional computer graphics, but I guess that’s kind of the point of the Disney+ showcase entitled SparkShorts. A collection of work from Pixar artists that feels like a venue for unique voices and experimental aesthetics, it’s no surprise that one would find its way onto the nomination list for an Animated Short Oscar. That it comes from a woman shouldn’t be undersold either since the studio is notorious for being slow on both the gender and race parity…

REVIEW: Hair Love [2019]

2020/01/172020/03/21 Jared Mobarak

A little bit of work and a whole lotta love. The producer list for Matthew A. Cherry‘s short film Hair Love is insane. Jordan Peele. Peter Ramsey. Gabourey Sidibe. Gabrielle Union. Dwayne Wade. And those are just the ones I recognize. With hundreds of Kickstarter backers and co-directors Everett Downing Jr. and Bruce W. Smith also attached, the project would ultimately land at Sony, garner huge buzz online, and earn an Oscar nomination. That’s quite the journey for a children’s book that only dropped in May itself. With Vashti Harrison‘s…

REVIEW: プロメア [Puromea] [Promare] [2019]

2019/12/132020/03/22 Jared Mobarak

Oil and water as one! Its mechs vs. monsters storyline starts pretty straightforward. The latter are born from a mysterious mutation that gives a select percentage of the Earth’s population combustion powers that they simply couldn’t control at the time of the “Great World Blaze” en route to causing a mass genocide it’s taken three decades to overcome. The former are the creation of a new scientific law enforcement entity that goes by the name Foundation. With popular billionaire Kray Foresight (Masato Sakai) as its CEO, newly crafted high-tech resources…

REVIEW: J’ai perdu mon corps [I Lost My Body] [2019]

2019/12/112020/10/02 Jared Mobarak

You can’t always win. I think Netflix is doing J’ai perdu mon corps [I Lost My Body] a disservice by using the word “romance” to describe it wherever I look. Jérémy Clapin‘s animated film is most definitely not that. While Guillaume Laurant‘s novel Happy Hand—which he and Clapin adapted—might have been (I haven’t read it), this cinematic version of a young man’s (Dev Patel‘s Naoufel) lustful intrigue, sparked by loneliness, for a young woman (Alia Shawkat‘s Gabrielle) he delivered a pizza to once is very intentionally not handled as a…

REVIEW: Frozen II [2019]

2019/12/042020/03/23 Jared Mobarak

Do the next right thing. I have to give directors Jennifer Lee (who also wrote the script) and Chris Buck credit for not simply jumping at the chance to follow up a cultural phenomenon for the paycheck. People wondered on opening weekend when a sequel to Frozen would arrive and these two held fast to their mutual decision of waiting until the story drew them back. They even began work on a completely separate project before heeding the call of unfinished business where Anna (Kristen Bell) and Elsa (Idina Menzel)…

REVIEW: Abominable [2019]

2019/11/232020/03/23 Jared Mobarak

Dude. You darted Dave. Writer/director Jill Culton started production on Abominable in 2010 before eventually leaving the project and ultimately coming back on-board. Still retaining sole writing credit, I have to believe Dreamsworks stayed true to her original narrative vision during those years when she was away. Maybe they fiddled with things to hew closer to a proven formula (the plot similarities to the studio’s How to Train Your Dragon are many) or perhaps parallels to that 2010 release were always present considering the close proximity of their respective geneses.…

TIFF19 REVIEW: Tenki no ko [Weathering with You] [2019]

2019/09/142020/03/24 Jared Mobarak

Or maybe not not. Teenagers get plenty of flack these days with derogatory labels thrust upon them by older generations refusing to truly look outside their window at how much the world has changed. They’ve a lot to shoulder with the pressure of living up to impossible and antiquated expectations, confusion as to a future and identity they can’t quite decipher yet, and the crippling reality that the world around them is literally crumbling via war, genocide, and climate change. Kids used to run from home as a means of…

REVIEW: Buñuel en el laberinto de las tortugas [Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles] [2019]

2019/08/062020/03/25 Jared Mobarak

I think I’ve been lost since I got here. Before surrealist legend Luis Buñuel found himself directing multiple films a year during the 1950s on the way to creating French classics like Belle de Jour and The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie in the 60s and 70s respectively, he became a persona non grata when it came to European benefactors thanks to his feature debut L’Age d’Or labeling him a heretic and almost getting his producer excommunicated by the Pope. With Salvador Dali at his side, the Un Chien Andalou…

FANTASIA19 REVIEW: 白蛇：緣起 [Baishe: Yuanqi] [White Snake] [2019]

2019/07/292020/03/25 Jared Mobarak

Do you ever have to do what you don’t want to do? Filmmakers Amp Wong, Ji Zhao (directors), and Damao (screenwriter) have taken the Chinese fable Legend of the White Snake and reformatted it into a prequel/remake with sequel possibilities (if a mid-credits sequence is any indication). The concept of reincarnation keeps the characters the same despite letting them meet five hundred years in the past. That’s how long snake spirit Blanca (Zhang Zhe‘s Xiao Bai) has practiced Taoist magic while waiting to achieve Immortal status alongside her sister Verta…

REVIEW: The Lion King [2019]

2019/07/192020/03/25 Jared Mobarak

Slimy yet … satisfying. People are getting excited because Nintendo Switch is releasing a port of Link’s Awakening—an RPG that originally came out on the Gameboy two decades ago. More than a port, it’s an actual remake wherein everything is more or less the same with improved graphics and tweaks in gameplay wherever the developers see fit (surely in concert with what the new system can handle that the old couldn’t). That excitement is justified because they’re breathing new life into a classic game we can no longer play unless…

FANTASIA19 REVIEW: Away [2019]

2019/07/122020/03/26 Jared Mobarak

A one-man show on-screen and behind it, Gints Zilbalodis‘ Away is an obvious labor of love. Opening like a videogame wherein our lead is found dangling by parachute from a tree, we haven’t a clue about his surroundings and neither does he. Before he can release himself and begin a search for answers, however, there arrives a lumbering behemoth on the horizon with dead eyes laser-focused upon him. Maybe it’s a friend or maybe it’s his end—the curiosity and hope for the better allowing the boy to remain still despite…