Drama | www.jaredmobarak.com

REVIEW: Being Charlie [2016]

2016/05/042016/05/06 Jared Mobarak

“Most end up chasing it to the grave” After a string of hits in the 80s and 90s, director Rob Reiner has struggled to achieve the same success. Some of his projects post-2000 have made money and some have provided laughs, but none found staying power. It’s not all his fault. The best film during this period didn’t even garner a wide release and it was a real shame because Flipped held a worthwhile kinship to the likes of Stand By Me. So it comes as no shock to discover…

REVIEW: The Family Fang [2016]

2016/05/022016/05/05 Jared Mobarak

“Let this be your trumpet call: life is sweet so taste it while you still can” No one knows Nicole Kidman‘s strength as an actor quite like Nicole Kidman. It’s no secret that the choices she’s made post-Oscar win for The Hours have been somewhat questionable, but there was at least one fantastic gem in the mix. The film was Rabbit Hole, an adaptation by David Lindsay-Abaire from his own play in which she served as producer and lead. Not only was the work great, Kidman herself has rarely been…

REVIEW: A Hologram for the King [2016]

2016/04/272016/04/28 Jared Mobarak

“Look. They are sweeping sand in the desert.” If you’re doubling-down on the existential content of your film as soon as it begins, you can do worse than Talking Heads classic “Once in a Lifetime”. Not only does it perfectly encapsulate the fallout of a mid-life crisis wherein everything you believed made you who you are disappears (Poof!), but it accurately mirrors Alan Clay’s (Tom Hanks) life too. He’s a recently divorced father forced to travel to Saudi Arabia in hopes of landing a huge deal selling holographic technology to…

REVIEW: The Man Who Knew Infinity [2016]

2016/04/262016/04/27 Jared Mobarak

“Like other great men he invented himself” A bit character in Matt Brown‘s affecting biographical drama The Man Who Knew Infinity chants “Din, Din, Din, Gunga Din” a couple times in friendly jest as a response to his employer G.H. Hardy’s (Jeremy Irons) decision to send for an uneducated South Indian man on the merits of a letter presenting the potential for mathematical genius named Srinivasa Ramanujan (Dev Patel). We laugh at the line’s delivery as well as Hardy’s humored look of contempt because we embrace levity. What’s ironic, though,…

REVIEW: Prospero’s Books [1991]

2016/04/242016/04/24 Jared Mobarak

“And yet I needs must curse” I have a hard enough time with William Shakespeare when the characters onscreen are speaking his words with relevant visual cues to cut through the iambic pentameter and present the stories for my eyes. Don’t ask me to comprehend anything while reading his plays because my mind is constantly at a loss as to what the words mean. Laugh if you will or empathize with my similar plight to your own, but that’s my struggle with the Bard despite loving most of his works…

REVIEW: Dough [2016]

2016/04/232016/04/27 Jared Mobarak

“How can you lose trousers?” Think of John Goldschmidt‘s latest film Dough (his first in the director’s chair since 1987) as a cinematic peace pipe for race relations and religious zealots. Rather than tobacco and herbs mixed into kinnikinnick for a clay vessel, however, screenwriters Jonathan Benson and Jez Freedman use marijuana and challah. The concoction sells through the roof, has London’s East End overrun by patrons like never before, and gets its unwitting purveyor remembering what it’s like to live. Just when Jewish baker Nat Dayan (Jonathan Pryce) thought…

REVIEW: Colby [2016]

2016/04/232016/04/23 Jared Mobarak

“I don’t belong here” The fallacy of escape is thinking it’s possible to truly leave the past behind. You can travel thousands of miles away and put years in between, but the stuff forcing you to do so never disappears. It marks you and shapes you whether you like or not, for better or worse. Ignoring to forget is just another way of letting it affect you because it remains the catalyst for where you are today. It caused you to pack up; it caused you to move forward without…

REVIEW: The Pillow Book [1996]

2016/04/222016/04/22 Jared Mobarak

“Itch to read. Scratch to understand.” There aren’t many auteurs quite as inventively unique as Peter Greenaway and his “inspired by” adaptation of Sei Shonagon‘s The Pillow Book is a perfect example of why. Sexual explicitness and ink on flesh fetish aside, the sheer formal construction of the film puts it on a level all its own. Greenaway goes from black and white pasts to vibrantly colored presents, but as a demarcation of his lead character Nagiko’s (Vivian Wu) personal and emotional timeline rather than a generic linear one. He…

REVIEW: Der Himmel über Berlin [Wings of Desire] [1987]

2016/04/212016/04/22 Jared Mobarak

“Why am I me, and why not you?” What does it mean to be human? This is the question the Angel Damiel (Bruno Ganz) wonders from his eternal perch on high surveying, subtly steering, and always listening. He sees humanity’s joy and laughter, jealous of their ability to live, feel, and touch. Even amongst the ruins of West Germany with its now-crumbling wall soon to come down lies promise and hope rather than despair. There’s a tiny, infectious grin perpetually on his lips responding to the small moments of life…

REVIEW: Born to Be Blue [2016]

2016/04/202016/04/21 Jared Mobarak

“Hello fear. Hello death.” I’m not a jazz guy. I’ll listen, enjoy, and promptly forget it straight away. It all kind of sounds the same to me, but to each his own. If you can differentiate Miles Davis‘ sound from Chet Baker‘s you’re a better music fan than me. So to hear Robert Budreau‘s biopic of the latter wasn’t actually a biopic was to think it could be the greatest thing to happen to his story—not that Baker’s legendary life of West Coast Swing and heroin addiction didn’t provide ample…

REVIEW: Adams æbler [Adam’s Apples] [2005]

2016/04/182016/04/19 Jared Mobarak

“That’s just plain rude” God works in mysterious ways—very mysterious ways. Or at least that’s what Anders Thomas Jensen‘s pitch-black fable Adams æbler [Adam’s Apples] will have us believe. It may just be plain old faith as the mere belief in good and evil sometimes gets you through the tragedies miring your life, dictating that everything happens for a reason. No matter how bad things get, having the faith that you’ll prevail is literally enough to make it true. To have God in your corner is to possess the strength…