Comedy | www.jaredmobarak.com

REVIEW: P’tit Quinquin [Li’l Quinquin] [2014]

2016/01/012016/01/02 Jared Mobarak

“The dung flies are afraid of moo cows” Comparisons to “Twin Peaks” are easy when it comes to Bruno Dumont’s miniseries P’tit Quinquin [Li’l Quinquin] because there’s definitely an evil running wild within his small French town (or big if it’s up to the kindly, Asperger’s-lite slaughterhouse hired-hand). Unlike David Lynch’s “Bob” who inhabits residents to take physical form and wreak havoc, however, the evil that bumbling County Sheriff Van der Weyden (Bernard Pruvost) speaks of here is a metaphysical “answer” where an actual arrest is impossible to find. It…

REVIEW: Brewster’s Millions [1945]

2015/12/302015/12/31 Jared Mobarak

“A few days or thereabouts” It just goes to show how little I know that I found myself utterly perplexed after seeing a Brewster’s Millions film still in black and white and without Richard Pryor. Further than that: I not only didn’t know the comedian’s starring vehicle was a remake, I had no clue just how many adaptations there were of George Barr McCutcheon‘s novel. There’s a ton, all seemingly predating this one from director Allan Dwan that appears to be the second best known behind Pryor’s romp (which I…

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: Gremlins [1984]

2015/12/202017/11/30 Jared Mobarak

“What’d you call this? The putrid stage?” There had been gremlins in existence before the diminutive green monsters screenwriter Chris Columbus, director Joe Dante, and creature creator Chris Walas imagined and yet theirs are the ones we immediately think about when the word is uttered. The design is a far cry from Bugs Bunny’s colorful adversary in 1943’s “Falling Hare” or the human sized counterpart opposite William Shatner in the 1963 “Twilight Zone” episode “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” and by far the creepiest. From their reptilian skin, mucus covered sharp…

REVIEW: The Muppet Christmas Carol [1992]

2015/12/192022/12/25 Jared Mobarak

Heeeeyyy. You’re not Charles Dickens. Not having seen The Muppet Christmas Carol in over a decade made me forget how effective an adaptation it is of Charles Dickens‘ classic tale. It helps that I’ve seen other iterations in the meantime, especially the one from 1951 starring Alastair Sim which Brian Henson‘s version works hard to closely mimic. There are obvious excisions such as Ebenezer Scrooge’s sister and additions like manufacturing Jacob Marley a brother named Robert so Statler and Waldorf can both get in on the fun, but for the…

REVIEW: Anomalisa [2015]

2015/12/112016/01/21 Jared Mobarak

“Nah. That’s British Airways.” Leave it to Charlie Kaufman to write a play about human connection and have it be just three actors who don’t physically interact—two playing single characters and the third everyone else with no discernable attempt to differentiate his voice. Then leave it to Dino Stamatopoulos and Dan Harmon of “Community” and “Moral Orel” fame to think it would make a great stopmotion animated film co-directed by Duke Johnson wherein Tom Noonan‘s stable of characters could literally all have the same face. This is Anomalisa: an adaptation…

REVIEW: Joy [2015]

2015/12/112015/12/23 Jared Mobarak

“No, I don’t need a prince” There’s a reason you don’t hear “Mangano” throughout David O. Russell‘s supposed biography of Miracle Mop inventor Joy Mangano and it’s because Joy isn’t real. Whether original scribe Annie Mumolo intended this aesthetic—she reportedly fought tooth and nail to retain her credit—or Russell retooled its tone, what could have been an empowering rags-to-riches drama proves a hyper-stylized comic fairy tale instead. So when Joy’s (Jennifer Lawrence) attending a professional business meeting introducing herself to people she hopes will take a chance on her ideas,…

REVIEW: The Big Short [2015]

2015/11/302015/12/23 Jared Mobarak

“Trust me. This happened.” I can honestly say I learned something watching The Big Short. That’s no small feat considering it was directed and cowritten by funnyman Adam McKay. His collaborations with Will Ferrell acting like a doofus are generally the exact opposite of educational. But he couldn’t have told this story about the handful of eccentrics who bet against the American economy and won by seeing the mortgage bubble everyone else couldn’t (or fraudulently ignored) without a financial crash course. CDOs, tranches, and sub-primes were as synonymous with gibberish…

REVIEW: Spy [2015]

2015/11/282015/11/29 Jared Mobarak

“I’ve swallowed enough microchips and shit them back out again to make a computer” The Paul Feig/Melissa McCarthy train continues forward with James Bond spoof Spy after the box office successes of Bridesmaids and The Heat (with Ghostbusters still forthcoming). This installment sees McCarthy as the bona fide star, onscreen for practically the entire duration as CIA analyst turned field agent Susan Cooper. She’s been in the earpiece of top operative Bradley Fine (Jude Law) for so long that she’s probably saved his life more times than he’s killed people,…

REVIEW: Shaun the Sheep Movie [2015]

2015/11/25 Jared Mobarak

“Have a … Day Off” Aardman is back after a three-year feature film hiatus with Shaun the Sheep Movie based on their television series “Shaun the Sheep” and it is a delight. It’s incredible to believe this newest entry to the studio’s stable cost only a sixth of critically-panned, computer animation debut Flushed Away‘s budget because of what appears to be a permanent return to stop-motion. I guess it helps to already have the clamation figures ready to go, but you’d think the time alone to capture their movements would…

REVIEW: The Good Dinosaur [2015]

2015/11/232015/11/25 Jared Mobarak

“Look who got relevated” You constantly hear about movies needing reshoots, but The Good Dinosaur‘s troubles went beyond cosmetic enhancements into full-blown emergency room triage. I’m talking two years of development before a release date announcement, two more before that date and original director Bob Peterson (who came up with the story alongside his directorial replacement Peter Sohn) were scrapped, and another two wherein the plot got completely retooled until the final film would bare little resemblance to the germ of an idea on which it began. Pixar’s cancelled Newt…