Drama | www.jaredmobarak.com

REVIEW: We’re All Going to the World’s Fair [2022]

2022/04/212022/04/21 Jared Mobarak

I don’t know what to expect. While the term “creepypasta” is not used in Jane Schoenbrun‘s We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, it definitely helps to know what it is in order to decipher what’s going on. The word is a catch-all for most horror related content on the internet wherein creators tell dark tales of violence, death, and the supernatural with the main goal of scaring their viewers. As many know courtesy of the so-called “Slender Man stabbing” back in 2014, these stories and characters can “come to…

REVIEW: The Duke [2022]

2022/04/162022/04/19 Jared Mobarak

You’d like this one, love. It’s a wild story of a British “Robin Hood” stealing from the government in 1961 to hopefully (and earnestly) payback taxpayers who better deserved the funds set aside to stop a hostile takeover of ownership of Francisco Goya’s Portrait of the Duke of Wellington. Kempton Bunton (Jim Broadbent) had already gone on-record (and served jailtime) for his efforts to end the BBC license fee being charged poor pensioners who simply wanted a television to connect with the fast-growing world outside their doors. With no one…

REVIEW: Les Olympiades, Paris 13e Paris, 13th District] [2021]

2022/04/142022/04/14 Jared Mobarak

No need to shout. The lighter side of writer/director Jacques Audiard—known for some pretty heavy dramas—comes out courtesy of graphic novelist Adrian Tomine’s modern romances. Audiard and his co-writers Léa Mysius and Céline Sciamma adapt three-to-four (I’ve seen competing numbers) of Tomine’s stories into a poignant and satisfying look through the private windows of Les Olympiades, Paris 13e [Paris, 13th District]. First there’s Émilie Wong (Lucie Zhang) and her new roommate Camille (Makita Samba). Then there’s Camille and his new real estate colleague Nora Ligier (Noémie Merlant). And, finally, there’s…

REVIEW: In the Heat of the Night [1967]

2022/04/092022/04/09 Jared Mobarak

What kind of a place is this? All you need to know about Sparta, Mississippi is Mayor Schubert (William Schallert) reminding his police chief Bill Gillespie (Rod Steiger) that he wasn’t hired for his “homicide expertise.” No, in a town like this, overseen with an iron grip by the owner of a cotton plantation (Larry Gates‘ Eric Endicott), loyalty means a lot more than the ability to do your job well. So, why not let the Black detective from Philadelphia who’s just passing through stay awhile and help solve a…

REVIEW: Das Mädchen und die Spinne [The Girl and the Spider] [2021]

2022/04/072022/04/09 Jared Mobarak

But you had tears in your eyes. Lisa (Liliane Amuat) is moving apartments and the building’s children who have come to know her as a friend and companion ask her remaining roommate Mara (Henriette Confurius) whether she’ll still visit. The latter says that she will, but we know the truth is more than likely that she won’t. It won’t be out of malice or even conscious for that matter. It’s just what happens as life carries on. We find ourselves embroiled in new situations with new people and we gradually…

REVIEW: The Batman [2022]

2022/04/062022/04/06 Jared Mobarak

No more lies. It’s been twenty years since the murder of his parents. Two since he put on the cowl. Gotham still doesn’t know what to think of the costume, but the fear it has placed inside the hearts of criminals cannot be overstated. Violence only seems to increase, though, and Bruce Wayne (Robert Pattinson) wonders if his presence as a vigilante seeking vengeance has done anything beyond giving offenders another figure of “justice” to run from. Saving a helpless man from a gang on Halloween, only for the victim…

REVIEW: Minamata [2021]

2022/04/052022/04/06 Jared Mobarak

Just try not to disappoint yourself. A lot of things helped make this past Oscars ceremony an infamous affair—the most innocuous being the addition of two online popularity contests seemingly devoid of any real checks and balances to prevent them from becoming a ballot-stuffing battle royale between fandoms. The Zack Snyder contingent unsurprisingly proved victorious with both, but an intriguing dark horse by way of the Johnny Depp-starring (and produced) film Minamata received a push too. Was it genuine? Who knows? It’s third place finish could have been as much…

REVIEW: Metal Lords [2022]

2022/04/042022/04/07 Jared Mobarak

Metal is … taking the wheel. There hasn’t been a “battle of the bands” since an unfortunate scrotal incident scarred many a teen not expecting nudity a few years back, but the mere mention of the possibility Dean Swanson (Sufe Bradshaw) decided to give her students another shot has Hunter Sylvester (Adrian Greensmith) salivating. The problem is the fact that he doesn’t have a band. Wanting one and having one are too different things and Dad’s (Brett Gelman) money (stolen, of course) can only get Hunter so far before a…

REVIEW: Gagarine [2021]

2022/03/272022/03/28 Jared Mobarak

We’re dying here. Being the first man to travel into space, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin’s name became a global commodity. Even a housing project within a communist municipality outside of Paris took it as its moniker and invited the hero to come by and receive the cheers of the French people gathering outside on their balconies for a look. That was 1963, however. A complex possessing 370 apartments like Cité Gagarine was destined to take a beating once infrastructure and economics collided. Its disrepair cemented an eventual demolition by 2014; its…

REVIEW: Infinite Storm [2022]

2022/03/242022/03/25 Jared Mobarak

You know what day it is. There’s a beautiful tale of grief and rebirth at the center of Malgorzata Szumowska‘s film Infinite Storm. The only reason Pam Bales (Naomi Watts) hiked up Mt. Washington despite warnings of blizzards and extreme temperatures that November day is because, as she tells her friend (Denis O’Hare), “It’s cheaper than therapy.” This has been her ritual on the anniversary of her daughters’ death. She climbs. She remembers. She mourns without the threat of anyone trying to comfort or pity her in a moment of…

REVIEW: Nitram [2021]

2022/03/222022/03/28 Jared Mobarak

Mom told me to do something. An interesting and completely understandable ask was presented before being granted access to watch director Justin Kurzel and screenwriter Shaun Grant‘s latest collaboration Nitram: please don’t mention the name of the perpetrator of the 1996 mass shooting in Port Arthur, Tasmania. It was understandable because tragedies such as these become so easily sensationalized by the media in ways that glorify the murderer while forgetting about the victims when we should be memorializing the latter and ignoring the former. It was interesting because this is…