Category: Comedy

REVIEW: Mistress America [2015]

Jared Mobarak

“Five feet to the left and unhappy” I’ve considered myself a sociopath for a while now, but Noah Baumbach‘s Mistress America has confirmed it. Maybe this is why I have such a love hate relationship with the writer/director’s work—it’s full of them. I guess it’s the light in which the one I align myself with most is shone that determines my reaction. Or maybe it’s whether or not he makes a concerted effort to portray the film in which they’re depicted as purposefully satirical or authentic. But even then it’s…

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REVIEW: Meet the Patels [2015]

Jared Mobarak

“If you wanted to get married you’d be married” The title Meet the Patels seemed strange for a movie about an almost-thirty year old Indian-American (Ravi Patel) allowing his parents to commence the process of an arranged marriage for him over the course of a year. I knew we’d obviously meet his family since Dad (Vasant K. Patel) and Mom (Champa V. Patel) were playing matchmaker, but it seemed weird since everyone he’d date would have a different name. Well, as Ravi explains very early on, the first “by-law” of…

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REVIEW: The Peanuts Movie [2015]

Jared Mobarak

“Good grief” It’s been at least a decade since I saw anything Peanuts related so saying that Steve Martino‘s The Peanuts Movie felt like old times has to be the best compliment I can bestow. The story itself doesn’t have the type of classic longevity of its predecessors—A Charlie Brown Christmas or It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown—but it does possess the heart necessary to imprint on a new generation of children so parents can retrieve those past adventures as fresh lessons in being kind, generous, and an all-around friend.…

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REVIEW: Cosmic Scrat-tastrophe [2015]

Jared Mobarak

“Make a wish” It’s amazing that the Ice Age series is still going on let alone the solitary adventures of little Scrat and his acorn. The studio may be just as surprised too since they’ve had to relegate their latest short to UFO conspiracies. Yes, Mike Thurmeier’s Cosmic Scrat-tastrophe sees everyone’s favorite pre-historic squirrel shoving his delicious prize into the yolk of an alien spacecraft frozen within an iceberg. Attempts to free it allow the entire vehicle to escape through our atmosphere and ultimately form our solar system by happenstance.…

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REVIEW: Dope [2015]

Jared Mobarak

“Congratulations. You have found your iPhone.” Malcolm Adekanbi (Shameik Moore) is a geek. You don’t even need the opening line of Rick Famuyiwa‘s Inglewood-set high school adventure Dope to state as much once we meet him. A self-proclaimed “oreo” with straight-As, constant beat-downs by Bloods-member Bug (Keith Stanfield), and Harvard aspirations his guidance counselor (Bruce Beatty) even scoffs at, the time to finally escape and be what his neighborhood loves to mock him for has arrived. SATs are around the corner, an interview with an Ivy League-alum in the position…

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REVIEW: The Overnight [2015]

Jared Mobarak

“Give me twenty minutes and I will give you parental bliss” Writer/director Patrick Brice touches on many relationship aspects beyond attraction with his outrageous sex comedy The Overnight. Most work of this ilk push two couples with differing levels of strife together to see what comes out—swinging, uncoupling, cheating, etc. Brice instead introduces two pairs seemingly in bliss. Alex (Adam Scott) and Emily (Taylor Schilling) have a healthy relationship with each other and their son RJ (R.J. Hermes) while Kurt (Jason Schwartzman) and Charlotte (Judith Godrèche) are in a constant…

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REVIEW: Our Brand is Crisis [2015]

Jared Mobarak

“There’s only one wrong: losing” It’s probably because I know little about politics and care even less that I find most film’s dealing with the subject matter enjoyable. George Clooney‘s The Ides of March is one—the actor taking on the director’s chair, a co-screenwriting credit, and co-lead in front of the lens. Highly political himself with the media, it’s no surprise he’d gravitate towards a play based on an actual campaign (“Farragut North”) or a documentary doing much the same. The latter is Rachel Boynton‘s film centered on the 2002…

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REVIEW: Trash [2014]

Jared Mobarak

“Never trust a policeman” It’s not every day that a three-time Oscar nominee for directing decides on a foreign language film to be his next project, but that’s exactly what Stephen Daldry of Billy Elliot, The Hours, and The Reader fame has done. Following in the footsteps of fellow Brit Danny Boyle—whose journey to India for Slumdog Millionaire earned his sole nomination and subsequently an Oscar win—Daldry takes on the novel Trash written by Andy Mulligan about three impoverished boys working as garbage pickers who find something in their nameless…

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REVIEW: Tangerine [2015]

Jared Mobarak

“Los Angeles is a beautifully wrapped lie” ‘Twas the night before Christmas and Tinseltown’s intersection of Santa Monica and Highland is bustling. A hotbed of sex work and drug use, Sean Baker‘s unfiltered Tangerine takes us into a world we haven’t quite seen on the big screen—especially not from a major distributor like Magnolia Pictures—by following three characters on a mission towards personal joy they know Santa won’t be bringing this year. For Sin-Dee (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez) this means the satisfaction of retribution against the boyfriend she learned cheated on…

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REVIEW: Sleeping with Other People [2015]

Jared Mobarak

“Mousetrap” It has to overcome a pretty shaky start—mostly due to leads Jason Sudeikis (Jake) and Alison Brie (Lainey) playing Columbia undergrads—but Leslye Headlands‘ comedy Sleeping with Other People does prevail as quite the breath of fresh rom/com air. The plot isn’t groundbreaking, reconnecting two people twelve or so years after losing their virginity together for platonic shenanigans masking an underlying romance, but it does it with as much care for their tumultuous psyches as it does the inherent humor. When these two characters get on a roll their rapport…

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REVIEW: Total Performance [2015]

Jared Mobarak

“You’re never going to see me again” The premise behind Sean Meehan‘s latest short is fascinating with its titular business Total Performance providing a service that supplies actors who spar with customers seeking a dress rehearsal for whatever difficult conversation they’ve yet to work themselves up to starting. We meet a distraught husband in need of a stand-in for his cheating wife so he can air the frustration he hasn’t been able to direct at her, a gentleman working through the crisis of conscience of having to fire his best…

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