Comedy | www.jaredmobarak.com

REVIEW: While We’re Young [2015]

2015/04/162015/04/17 Jared Mobarak

“She is a mess. And an ugly eater.” I hated While We’re Young—a fact that actually increases my already healthy dose of respect for writer/director Noah Baumbach. He’s a filmmaker with the type of style, tone, and air of not quite tongue-in-cheek pretension you could pick out from across the room as his and his alone. Sometimes it’s good (Greenberg) or downright perfection (The Squid and the Whale and Frances Ha). Other times it makes me so mad I could scream (Margot at the Wedding). Here’s the thing, though: they…

REVIEW: Bordering on Bad Behavior [2015]

2015/04/082015/04/09 Jared Mobarak

“No. I don’t need a piss now.” You know that highly politicized stoner comedy about a Jew, Arab, and Christian locked together for six hours in an Israeli communications base on the Lebanese border you’ve been craving? Well, director Jac Mulder and writer Ziggy Darwish have delivered it with a punchline that pretty much writes itself. The film’s called Bordering on Bad Behavior and it’s a surprisingly introspective view on Middle East relations as well as the stubborn denial to admit wrongdoing by each side involved. Centering on an angry…

REVIEW: Home [2015]

2015/04/072015/04/08 Jared Mobarak

“I’m the interrupting cow! Moo!” While it didn’t need help on its way to a fifty million dollar opening weekend, Home may have benefited from a G-rating. Its journey in search of family taken by Oh the Boov (Jim Parsons) and Tip the Human (Rihanna) skews very young in message and comedic style—unexpectedly so for me. So sweetly cute, it’s hard to think many children of PG-viewing age would find worth considering it’s slightly more juvenile than they’d admit is ‘cool’ in the presence of their peers. Only once they’ve…

REVIEW: Gone in Sixty Seconds [2000]

2015/04/042015/04/05 Jared Mobarak

“Two Rogers don’t make a right” There are more than a few unexpected things concerning the Gone in Sixty Seconds remake that surprised me. One was the huge cast of familiar faces. Another the full embracement of its spectacular levels of cheese. And despite marketing materials and especially the poster, Angelina Jolie is far from a second lead and barely onscreen thirty minutes. Heck, besides the botched heist at the beginning that sets the chain of events that brings Randall ‘Memphis’ Raines (Nicolas Cage) out of retirement in motion, we…

REVIEW: The Last Time You Had Fun [2015]

2015/04/042015/04/08 Jared Mobarak

“You want to throw me a divorce party?” After watching the trailer and reading the synopsis, it’s hard not to see The Last Time You Had Fun in a sort of “been there, done that” light. We’ve seen it before countless times—that meet-cute of thirty-somethings at known and unknown crossroads in their lives letting loose and facing the consequences. The fact that Hal Haberman‘s script goes to generically broad places as far as why each of his foursome is caught in the doldrums that they are should make you feel…

REVIEW: Buffalo ’66 [1998]

2015/04/022015/04/03 Jared Mobarak

“Just look like we are a married couple … spanning time” In 2004 Christina Ricci was quoted in Time Out magazine as saying, “Buffalo ’66 was the most beautiful example of self-absorption I’ve ever seen in my life.” She’s not wrong. Even if she had a good experience on set and didn’t loathe writer/director/star Vincent Gallo like most involved on the film, she’d still not be wrong. Gallo’s character Billy Brown is the epitome of self-centered aggression mixed with an absolute lack of self-esteem—a description that describes Buffalo, NY in…

REVIEW: What We Do in the Shadows [2014]

2015/03/252015/03/26 Jared Mobarak

“Get up and stand on the ceiling like a man” In great mockumentary fashion, What We Do in the Shadows bears to mind the work of Christopher Guest. It has eccentric characters, constant mugging for the camera, and a perfectly dry delivery ensuring those watching will laugh even harder at each joke—if that’s their cup of tea. This is a New Zealand produced work and therefore filled to the brim with a British comic sensibility. That means you won’t get the over-the-top nonsense from a John Michael Higgins or a…

REVIEW: Get Hard [2015]

2015/03/232015/03/26 Jared Mobarak

“Have fun with it” It was only a matter of time before Will Ferrell and Kevin Hart paired up. The former’s fading critical success is in need of an injection of freshness to work alongside his tired shtick and the latter’s firmly planted star atop Hollywood couldn’t hurt from a little face time with a fanbase that may not have fully transitioned over to the new guy. On paper Get Hard should be a resounding win-win as a result both financially and creatively. Just think of the comedy gold that…

REVIEW: World Spins Madly On [2015]

2015/03/20 Jared Mobarak

“It’s right in front of you. Just go for it.” The above quote from World Spins Madly On could be the same words writer/director Jeremy Jed Hammel told himself when debating his next film project. In pops the idea of an unlikely romance sparking from thin air due to inexplicably forceful signs and onto the screen arrives Kermit (Doug Orey) and Lauren (Lauren Eicher) sharing a random moment courtesy of some higher power. Sometimes you simply have to go for it and see what happens. If it works: great. If…

REVIEW: Relatos salvajes [Wild Tales] [2014]

2015/03/182015/03/26 Jared Mobarak

“Crime of passion?” Best. Wedding. Ever. And trip to the bureaucratic black hole that is government sanctioned towing. And expertly planned, faux fateful airline flight this side of “Lost”. I mean it. Damián Szifrón‘s Relatos salvejes [Wild Tales] is a twisted cousin of Krzysztof Kieslowski‘s The Decalogue, a sextet of darkly comic morality plays where chaos reigns and vengeance rewards the unhinged desperate for a win. From the hilariously absurd yet perfectly revealed machinations of its opening segment “Pasternak” to the vicious table turn of its last “Til Death Do…

REVIEW: The DUFF [2015]

2015/02/282015/03/01 Jared Mobarak

“Can I have some peaches and pears?” CBS Films and Lionsgate are using an interesting approach to pitch The DUFF. Watching their first trailer made me check the calendar, wondering if I had somehow been transported back in time. Not only were they openly calling someone a Designated Ugly Fat Friend to her face as though it’s merely a fact worth noting, they were doing so to someone who isn’t close to being either pejorative. This atrocity set itself up to go the tired ugly duckling route, telling girls they…