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HOTDOCS16 REVIEW: Hotel Dallas [2016]

2016/04/182016/05/03 Jared Mobarak

“What time spits back, history devours and fatten itself on what we lack” Despite the name Hotel Dallas and general premise surrounding a replica of Southfork Ranch (where both the old and new “Dallas” series were filmed) built in Romania by an aspiring capitalist, husband and wife directing duo Sherng-Lee Huang and Livia Ungur‘s film is really about a country crippled under its past that’s still unsure of its future. It’s about art and its ability to speak to people’s hearts and souls whether seeking to do so or not.…

REVIEW: The American Side [2016]

2016/04/172016/04/20 Jared Mobarak

“Weaving spiders come not here” When a film shot in Buffalo, NY co-written and starring a native of the city comes across you’re desk you look upon it with a certain level of skepticism. I’ve lived here almost my entire life and I’m still guilty of seeing my hometown as a B-level sector in comparison to New York City or Hollywood. This year has changed that thought-process for locals and the industry with two effective genre works exiting the Queen City with aspirations for the big time. Against all odds…

REVIEW: 88:88 [2016]

2016/04/15 Jared Mobarak

“There is no such thing as possibility” I am not the target audience for a film like Isiah Medina‘s debut feature 88:88. It’s not simply because the 65-minute kaleidoscope of imagery and sound is an avant-garde experiment in formalism either—although that is a factor. The real reason is my never knowing poverty. I’ve never experienced living paycheck-to-paycheck or needing to choose what I can do without this month. To me a scene depicting a couple cutting their donut and Whopper in half is about love, compromise, and maybe even health…

REVIEW: Paris, Texas [1984]

2016/04/142016/04/15 Jared Mobarak

“Don’t go yet” The first word my mind conjured after watching Wim Wenders‘ Paris, Texas was honesty. It’s delivered from lead Harry Dean Stanton all the way down to Robby Müller‘s gorgeous cinematography of untouched Mojave Desert isolation and graffiti-filled urban concrete. Nothing appears inauthentic and that’s not an easy accomplishment when you think about how this road-trip adventure steeped in Americana was constructed through the eyes of a foreigner. Credit screenwriters L.M. Kit Carson and Sam Shepard for supplying the correct aesthetic on the page, but the success or…

REVIEW: Les rencontres d’après minuit [You and the Night] [2013]

2016/04/14 Jared Mobarak

“Always follow the clues in dreams” Everyone wants to describe Yann Gonzalez‘s films as kinky escapades of campy, colorful eroticism rather than mention what lies beneath that excitingly daring sheen: a profound sense of sadness. It’s a powerful longing for acceptance and love, a desire for more than our minds believe possible. The orgy constructed at the center of his feature length debut Les rencontres d’après minuit [You and the Night] isn’t therefore about sex or even pleasure. Instead it serves as a gateway to memory and a hopeful expression…

REVIEW: Demolition [2016]

2016/04/132016/04/13 Jared Mobarak

“She always said I didn’t pay attention” Sometimes we can’t realize we’ve taken the easy road until it’s too late. It’s crass to say, but Davis Mitchell (Jake Gyllenhaal) was lucky to have been abruptly slapped awake when he was. The unfortunate side effect of his rebirth from the doldrums of routine and convenience: the life of his wife Julia (Heather Lind). Suddenly she wasn’t there to smile at him or leave a Post-It note asking for a chore to be done and he’s inexplicably apathetic towards that truth. Not…

REVIEW: Land of My Dreams [2012]

2016/04/13 Jared Mobarak

“I want to be gorgeous” The above quote says everything. As do the lyrics to the titular song (originated by Aretha Franklin with Anna Domino providing vocals for the version used in the film) enhancing the melancholic atmosphere presented by writer/director Yann Gonzalez. His Land of My Dreams is just that: a dream. It’s a reunion between mother (Paula Guedes) and daughter (Julie Brémond‘s Bianca) after an unspecified length of time. The first thing we hear the latter say is “I want to be gorgeous,” sentiments that don’t seem to…

REVIEW: Louder Than Bombs [2015]

2016/04/122016/04/13 Jared Mobarak

“After this I’ll slow down. I promise.” Few depict love’s pain onscreen better than Norwegian writer/director Joachim Trier and co-writer Eskil Vogt. They’ve cultivated a distinct voice for character-driven dramas of friendship and romance that build and dissolve with an authentic rhythm of life’s unpredictability. Their characters ache inside and out as they deal with the struggle of human connection and their English-language debut Louder Than Bombs is no different. In it are three men traversing a world removed from the life they led with a matriarch no longer by…

REVIEW: The Jungle Book [2016]

2016/04/112016/04/13 Jared Mobarak

“You did not respond to reason so now you will know fear” Looking back at Disney’s 1967 adaptation of Rudyard Kipling‘s The Jungle Book objectively may surprise you as it’s little more than a sing-a-long loosely tied into a low-stakes adventure of escape from the big bad jungle that’s ultimately portrayed as sympathetic if still dangerous. Anyone over eight will be bored by its lack of substance and tired of its silly humor—Shere Khan’s menace providing the sole bit of resonant impact beyond its frivolity. So it’s not difficult to…

REVIEW: Possession [1981]

2016/04/062016/04/07 Jared Mobarak

“There is nothing to fear except God. Whatever that means to you.” It’s the early 1980s in West Berlin and graffiti everywhere screams for the wall to be taken down. Mysterious figures linger on the other side not quite hidden from view, watching with binoculars and always seemingly looking directly in our direction. Tensions are high, psychosis runs rampant, and people begin to start disappearing. There’s a palpable sense of paranoia setting in that cannot be combatted except by our personal allowance to embrace an unpredictably chaotic side of ourselves.…

REVIEW: Eye in the Sky [2016]

2016/04/052016/04/07 Jared Mobarak

“Never tell a soldier he doesn’t know the cost of war” How do you simultaneously become hero and martyr in twenty-first century warfare? You find yourself unwittingly lodged within the kill zone of a high value target that has been confirmed without a shadow of a doubt. Death or injury earns you both labels for your people. To die as collateral damage is to potentially radicalize more and more jihadists who may or may not prove more volatile than the ones murdered in the incident. But when actual terrorists who…