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REVIEW: Saving Mr. Banks [2013]

2013/12/052014/04/10 Jared Mobarak

“A leisurely stroll is a gift” If you thought Mary Poppins couldn’t get more uplifting in its journey towards giving two young children the love they always desired from their downtrodden dad, Saving Mr. Banks will prove you wrong. Utilizing a script by Kelly Marcel (a second credit was later added to Sue Smith) that only lasted one year on the screenplay Black List before being scooped up by the studio prominently featured within it, we’re shown a rather humorous behind-the-scenes look at the culmination of a twenty-year business courtship…

REVIEW: Frozen [2013]

2013/11/252013/11/27 Jared Mobarak

“Conceal it. Don’t feel it.” Over half a century in the making, Disney’s adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen has finally made it to the big screen. It was 1943 when Walt Disney and Samuel Goldwyn decided to co-create a live-action/animation hybridized biography of the Danish author—an idea that stalled due to their inability to bring the aforementioned fairy tale and The Little Mermaid to life. While Disney of course figured out the latter in 1989, the former continuously proved troublesome as it failed to come together in…

REVIEW: Get a Horse! [2013]

2013/11/252013/11/27 Jared Mobarak

“Give me back my phone!” I guess it might be time for me to revisit some of the old Mickey Mouse cartoons from yesteryear, but I’m not so sure I want to. Especially if Lauren MacMullan‘s animated homage created in part for the iconic character’s 85th anniversary Get a Horse! is truly on point as far as its subject matter goes. Don’t get me wrong, though, the short does build into a rip-roaring, slapstick escapade that uses its gimmick to full potential without wearing itself out. It’s just the first…

REVIEW: Cold Turkey [2013]

2013/11/142014/05/19 Jared Mobarak

“It’s like a Jewish girl’s version of subtle” The lesson to be learned from Will Slocombe’s Cold Turkey is that you should never confide family secrets with the uncontrollable loose cannon of the bunch. Because no matter how many stupid things you’ve done, or how many times Dad saved your bacon by bailing out your incapacity to take responsibility for your actions, it’s the crazy psycho messenger who should get the blame. And while I initially meant that statement as sarcasm, I know now that at least the third part…

REVIEW: Enough Said [2013]

2013/11/112013/11/12 Jared Mobarak

“I like your paddles” While many are quick to label it as James Gandolfini‘s final cinematic role, Nicole Holofcener‘s Enough Said shouldn’t be dismissed as mere eulogy. The writer/director’s first foray into the studio world—albeit with indie shingle Fox Searchlight—it retains the voice and sensibility her fans have enjoyed over the past two decades regardless of any compromises she may have needed to acquiesce. A tale of middle-age and the struggles it brings to married couples, divorced bachelorettes, fathers of college-aged daughters, and career-minded sophisticates, perception becomes a driving force…

REVIEW: Choosing Sides [2013]

2013/11/08 Jared Mobarak

“No, he hit some stone and water dribbled out” When a film chock-full of cutthroat verbal sparring and an amoral amount of profanity dealing with the perverse idea that one religion is somehow better than the next for no other reason than it being the character’s own affiliation has you thinking it could have gone even further in its satirical bent, you know it’s done something right. So comfortable in its use of offensive material to show two parents—a Jewish mother (Rachel Lynn Jackson) and a Catholic father (Timothy J.…

REVIEW: About Time [2013]

2013/11/052013/11/08 Jared Mobarak

“Did you have trouble parking?” It will be a shame if rumors stating About Time is Richard Curtis’ last film as director are true because he’s had fantastic success with the vocation. He’ll remain in the industry either way being that he’s equally proficient with screenplays (War House and Notting Hill) and TV (“Black Adder” and “Mr. Bean”), but one has to wonder whether Love Actually or The Boat That Rocked would have been as memorable were he not at the helm. You could easily say “yes” due to the…

REVIEW: Hocus Pocus [1993]

2013/10/312014/05/19 Jared Mobarak

“Winnie, do you want to hit me? Will that cheer you up?” What began as a script for a made-for-TV Disney Channel movie, Hocus Pocus found its way onto the right desk at the right time for the increased level of support necessary to transition it into a bona fide theatrical release. Sadly for all involved, though, the critics more or less hated it and the box office barely squeaked by its production budget. Yet somehow everyone I knew who had seen it as a child possessed a strange affinity…

REVIEW: Toy Story of Terror [2013]

2013/10/172015/07/12 Jared Mobarak

“And if something does happen to the potato—I don’t want to miss it!” While Disney/Pixar has dove into children’s television with Cars-centric offerings and a Buzz Lightyear spin-off, it’s surprising it’s taken this long to craft a primetime special. With what used to be a flawless feature film enterprise bolstered by award-winning shorts, perhaps they believed themselves above the small screen until now. But as Pixar evolves from luxury brand to simply one more animation arm of Disney proper, good press and high ratings aren’t something to ignore out of…

REVIEW: 100 Bloody Acres [2013]

2013/10/142013/10/14 Jared Mobarak

“…We’ll Fertilize Ya!” There is a fine line between horror spoof and horror comedy. The former tries to make fun of the genre while the latter looks to appeal to audiences of both halves. Since most horror generally has a comedic streak anyway, accomplishing this duality above the juvenile humor of a Scary Movie shouldn’t be too hard. But while comedies with horror elements—Beetlejuice, Bubba Ho-Tep, and Ghostbusters—have been a staple through the years, it was 2004’s Shaun of the Dead that gave mainstream audiences a chance to embrace the…

REVIEW: The Road Home [2010]

2013/10/102013/10/13 Jared Mobarak

“What’s so wrong with being Indian?” It’s easy to ignore questions about identity while living in America because its melting pot of cultures allows its citizens to put ethnicity aside and simply declare themselves “American”. Whether your skin is light or dark or you have a foreign accent or just one of the many regional ones growing up in the States provides, being American doesn’t mean one thing or the other. You won’t look any more out of place than the next if you’re walking down the street. But this…