Biography | www.jaredmobarak.com

REVIEW: The Aeronauts [2019]

2019/11/302020/10/02 Jared Mobarak

Doubt is there to be listened to. When Jack Thorne decided to craft a screenplay that was able to embody the insanity of what Richard Holmes described in his book about early aeronautic pioneers, Falling Upwards: How We Took to the Air, he recognized that cherry picking the best bits and smushing them together through fiction proved the simplest way to represent the era’s spirit if not each of the participants themselves. There was dramatic intrigue to meteorologist James Glaisher breaking the world record for flight altitude alongside pilot Henry…

REVIEW: A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood [2019]

2019/11/222020/03/23 Jared Mobarak

Anything mentionable is manageable. Anyone who grew up watching “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” has a friend. Their parents might have smiled at what they inaccurately presumed was a performance, but the children smiled because the connection felt was real. Here was a man who looked them in the eyes and spoke truths with as much compassion and vulnerability as they possessed while watching. He was someone who listened even though the act itself was impossible through television. Fred Rogers cared—sometimes when it seemed like no one else did—because he understood what…

REVIEW: The Irishman [2019]

2019/11/182020/10/02 Jared Mobarak

It’s what it is. Aging lead Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro) is approached by two detectives towards the end of Martin Scorsese‘s The Irishman (the cinematic adaptation of Charles Brandt‘s I Heard You Paint Houses as scripted by Steve Zaillian) who let him know he’s the only one left. All the other big-time mafiosos from the Bufalino family and elsewhere had met their demise either from bullet, garrote, or disease (with the rare case of natural causes thrown into the mix). The tactic was to let Frank know that there…

REVIEW: The Warrior Queen of Jhansi [2019]

2019/11/172020/03/23 Jared Mobarak

Everything’s become red. The part Rani Lakshmibai (Devika Bhise) played during the 1857 Indian mutiny against the British East India Company is massive. A great moment of perseverance and rebellion on its own, this queen became a much-needed symbol for whom her persecuted people and dwindling allies could rally behind. Widowed five years earlier with an adopted son set to inherit the throne, England presumed a moment of weakness to seize her kingdom as its own. Believing Jhansi’s allegiance to this point gave them cause to simply take over, they…

REVIEW: Ford v Ferrari [2019]

2019/11/152020/03/23 Jared Mobarak

I’ll have you home for meatloaf and gravy. The man at the center of James Mangold‘s Ford v Ferrari is Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon), a former driver turned racecar designer forced into retirement by a heart condition exacerbated by the difficulties of his high-speed sport of choice. His narrative importance lies in being the connective tissue between Ken Miles (Christian Bale as his close friend and colleague) and Henry Ford II (Tracy Letts as a man who needs no introduction) once the titular war at Le Mans gets underway. His…

REVIEW: Harriet [2019]

2019/11/042020/03/23 Jared Mobarak

God showed me the way. Harriet Tubman is such an important heroic figure in American history that she was set to replace Andrew Jackson on the twenty-dollar bill next year (the 19th Amendment’s centennial anniversary). That she isn’t anymore (Hollywood producer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin delayed the switch in a move most believe was to instead keep Donald Trump’s favorite president’s visage on the currency throughout his term) is hardly surprising since that heroism will always come with an asterisk in this country due to her being Black and…

REVIEW: Dolemite Is My Name [2019]

2019/10/312020/03/23 Jared Mobarak

I want the world to know I exist. Much like The Room, Dolemite isn’t a good movie. Unlike The Room, however, Dolemite wants you to laugh. Maybe you laugh at what the actors are doing or maybe you laugh at the sheer audacity of Rudy Ray Moore scraping together a cast and crew who clearly had no idea what to do, but you’re laughing just the same. There’s a distinction to be made here because even those of us (myself included) who are having a good time at the film’s…

REVIEW: Where’s My Roy Cohn? [2019]

2019/10/242020/03/23 Jared Mobarak

A love of a good fight. The documentary about the man who one interviewee calls “The Teflon Fraud” starts and ends with another: Donald Trump. A close personal friend of Roy M. Cohn‘s as well as a client/protégée, the real estate magnate’s ascent from reality television host to President of the United States is easily attributed to the cutthroat and disingenuous tactics learned from his New York City lawyer. So when Trump encountered one of many 2018 reports shining him and his administration in a criminal light they’ve done well…

REVIEW: Judy [2019]

2019/09/282020/03/23 Jared Mobarak

What if I can’t do it again? Playwright Peter Quilter has stated that the original play (“Last Song of the Nightingale”) on which “End of the Rainbow” was modeled upon found its inspiration from an alcoholic male singer met while traveling with his partner on a cruise ship wherein the latter was also a performer. Because he changed his lead into a woman, however, everyone assumed the show was about a thinly-veiled Judy Garland. This reception led him to research the Wizard of Oz legend’s final year on earth and…

REVIEW: Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice [2019]

2019/09/212020/03/24 Jared Mobarak

So I started looking for other things. Upon sitting down to Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman‘s documentary Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice, I had to ask myself why I knew her name. She’s obviously one of the biggest chart-hopping women to ever grace a stage and record music, but I couldn’t think of a single title to attribute to her in a way that correlated why I knew who she was without actually knowing who she was. Then “You’re No Good” started playing. Then came her cover of…

TIFF19 REVIEW: This is Not a Movie [2019]

2019/09/182020/03/24 Jared Mobarak

This is where the match was lit. The reason Yung Chang picked This is Not a Movie for the title of his documentary on renowned journalist Robert Fisk stems from his subject’s inspiration for pursuing that line of work. Fisk talks about watching Alfred Hitchcock‘s Foreign Correspondent as a boy and thinking its lead led a life of excitement that most people only ever dream about. So he pursued the career despite parents wishing for another direction (before their pride of having a son at The London Times kicked in)…