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REVIEW: Don’t Think Twice [2016]

2016/08/192016/08/24 Jared Mobarak

“Your favorite bunch of weirdoes” The type of films that sting the most are the ones that are universal in emotion despite being niche in subject. So what if this tight-knit group of contemporaries championing each other’s work as they strive to improve their own are improv comedians selling out a fifty-seat theater in New York City and you’re a mechanic or barista or garbage collector or Fortune 500 CEO. It doesn’t matter what they or you do as long as we’re all human: fallible, petty, vulnerable, delusional, and somehow…

REVIEW: Hell or High Water [2016]

2016/08/182016/08/19 Jared Mobarak

“I ain’t speeding” It wasn’t long after his run as above-board Deputy Chief David Hale on “Sons of Anarchy” that Taylor Sheridan would find himself caught in awards season platitudes with Sicario, a film earning three Oscar nominations despite his screenplay not quite making the cut. Well he has a second change this January as his earlier script of gritty Texas survival under the poverty line—a 2012 Black List inclusion—has arrived with David Mackenzie‘s stewardship. Hell or High Water utilizes similar themes of determined, smart vengeance and bittersweet resolutions, it’s…

REVIEW: Imperium [2016]

2016/08/172016/08/19 Jared Mobarak

“Just because you’re not looking at something doesn’t mean it’s not there” People forget that before 9/11 our idea of a terrorist was a lone wolf type: domestic white Neo Nazis with agendas that warped their intellect into working towards creating chaos to spark a cleansing. It’s therefore interesting to look at the constituency of Donald Trump, a candidate running on a ticket that not only incites race wars but also ensures white Catholics’ safety becomes synonymous with the “nation’s safety.” I guess the idea posed in The Turner Diaries…

REVIEW: War Dogs [2016]

2016/08/152016/08/17 Jared Mobarak

“What would a bad man do?” Of course director Todd Phillips would gravitate towards a Rolling Stone article titled “The Stoner Arms Dealers.” If the man behind The Hangover trilogy was ever going to delve into more dramatic territory a la contemporary Adam McKay and last year’s The Big Short, Guy Lawson‘s piece on two twenty-somethings who landed huge military contracts with the US government before federal indictments was the perfect segue. It’s as though the characters from his Old School decided to make connections with black market arms organizations…

LOCARNO16 REVIEW: Reise der Hoffnung [Journey of Hope] [1991]

2016/08/102016/08/14 Jared Mobarak

“You always through stones on the path” It’s been twenty-five years since Xavier Koller‘s Reise der Hoffnung [Journey of Hope] won the Best Foreign Film Oscar and yet watching it today feels urgently contemporary. Between the political unrest in Turkey and volatile international discourse pertaining to refugees as countries vehemently close their borders and American presidential candidate Donald Trump craves an opportunity to send foreigners back where they came, hope has become synonymous with naiveté. It’s not all bad with the Olympics recognizing a refugee team and many stunning tales…

REVIEW: Florence Foster Jenkins [2016]

2016/08/092016/08/12 Jared Mobarak

“There is no one quite like you” I wanted to think that Florence Foster Jenkins intrigues specifically because her story couldn’t occur today as it did then. So many contemporary celebrities willfully embrace their lack of talent now, monetizing themselves into greater successes than those with the merit to earn it. Her level of delusion—to believe she wasn’t being laughed at—is impossible because they crave being the butt of jokes. It supplies them their fifteen minutes with the potential for much, much more. Sometimes they even become so popular that…

REVIEW: Pete’s Dragon [2016]

2016/08/082016/08/10 Jared Mobarak

“Just because you don’t see anything doesn’t mean it’s not there” You have to give Disney credit for accomplishing the unthinkable this year by releasing remakes of archaic properties to rapturous fanfare. The Jungle Book began this refurbishment movement with the studio’s Iron Man steward Jon Favreau taking the helm of what proved a fantastically realized world made almost entirely of pixels bolstered by a story with the type of stakes the original forgot in lieu of sing-a-long frivolity. And now the trend continues with Pete’s Dragon and director David…

REVIEW: Café Society [2016]

2016/08/052016/08/06 Jared Mobarak

“Dreams are … dreams” Ever since Woody Allen left New York City for England in 2005 to create some really spectacular films outside his usual comedic efforts of neurotic meet-cutes, I may have intentionally tried to avoid anything he made with a character he would have played himself a decade prior. I personally don’t count Midnight in Paris simply because Owen Wilson owns that lead role in a way Allen couldn’t equal. So when Café Society was announced with Jesse Eisenberg at the fore, I did cringe a bit. I…

REVIEW: Sun Choke [2016]

2016/08/032016/08/04 Jared Mobarak

“I think you need to clear your mind” Something happened to Janie (Sarah Hagan). Something bad. This cataclysmic event—wherein quick flashes of screams by the pool mixing with bloody red liquid screens of abstraction are all we ever see—has led her to an agreed upon house arrest. Cared for by long-time nanny Irma (Barbara Crampton), this young woman must fulfill psychological tests with colored pencils and flowers, engage in yoga centering techniques, and consume a regimented series of medication. Every day she gets better. Every day she’s more like herself.…

REVIEW: The Grifters [1990]

2016/07/31 Jared Mobarak

“He was so crooked he could eat soup with a corkscrew” My first Stephen Frears film was High Fidelity and I loved it. A couple years later came Dirty Pretty Things and my reaction was the same. Here was a director I must keep tabs on as well as peer back towards everything pre-2000 to make sure I knew which titles to search out. The one that popped out most—despite still taking me twelve years to finally watch it—was The Grifters. Its pedigree was impeccable with a pulpy noir style…

FANTASIA16 REVIEW: The Eyes of My Mother [2016]

2016/07/292016/09/22 Jared Mobarak

“Why would I kill you? You’re my only friend.” This is isolation, suffering. It’s also normal. We on the outside see Nicolas Pesce‘s debut feature The Eyes of My Mother as the former, young Francisca (Olivia Bond) swimming in a pool of abject dread as death proves a natural evolution for all living things. For this girl, however, nothing depicted onscreen is wrong. Nothing is out-of-place. She’s the daughter of a former Portuguese surgeon, a mother (Diana Agostini) who was as much a guardian and teacher as she was a…