Family | www.jaredmobarak.com

REVIEW: Shaun the Sheep Movie [2015]

2015/11/25 Jared Mobarak

“Have a … Day Off” Aardman is back after a three-year feature film hiatus with Shaun the Sheep Movie based on their television series “Shaun the Sheep” and it is a delight. It’s incredible to believe this newest entry to the studio’s stable cost only a sixth of critically-panned, computer animation debut Flushed Away‘s budget because of what appears to be a permanent return to stop-motion. I guess it helps to already have the clamation figures ready to go, but you’d think the time alone to capture their movements would…

REVIEW: The Good Dinosaur [2015]

2015/11/232015/11/25 Jared Mobarak

“Look who got relevated” You constantly hear about movies needing reshoots, but The Good Dinosaur‘s troubles went beyond cosmetic enhancements into full-blown emergency room triage. I’m talking two years of development before a release date announcement, two more before that date and original director Bob Peterson (who came up with the story alongside his directorial replacement Peter Sohn) were scrapped, and another two wherein the plot got completely retooled until the final film would bare little resemblance to the germ of an idea on which it began. Pixar’s cancelled Newt…

REVIEW: The Peanuts Movie [2015]

2015/11/172015/11/18 Jared Mobarak

“Good grief” It’s been at least a decade since I saw anything Peanuts related so saying that Steve Martino‘s The Peanuts Movie felt like old times has to be the best compliment I can bestow. The story itself doesn’t have the type of classic longevity of its predecessors—A Charlie Brown Christmas or It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown—but it does possess the heart necessary to imprint on a new generation of children so parents can retrieve those past adventures as fresh lessons in being kind, generous, and an all-around friend.…

REVIEW: The Prophet [2015]

2015/10/242015/10/25 Jared Mobarak

“And yet you rise above them unbound” After watching the animated cinematic adaptation of Kahlil Gibran‘s The Prophet and hearing his prose poetry read out loud, I can understand both the critical pause and public adoration it’s earned this past century. It consists of the kind of inspirational tales of flowery optimism that many love to read—enough so the book’s twenty-six essay-compilation has been translated into almost fifty languages and never been out-of-print since bowing in 1923. But this type of uplifting human condition rhetoric isn’t for everyone and personally…

REVIEW: Pan [2015]

2015/10/032015/10/07 Jared Mobarak

“Is this Canada?” For whatever reason the American public has been fascinated with “origin” stories attempting to give meaning to some of the most iconic adversarial relationships in literary and film history. It’s not enough for the Wicked Witch of the West to hate Glinda or Superman and Lex Luthor to be arch-nemeses—we need to see how those relationships devolved from friendship. Sometimes people just hate each other, though, and there doesn’t need to be an Oz the Great and Powerful or “Smallville” to explain how once-friends turn ugly. Ostensibly…

REVIEW: Phantom Boy [2015]

2015/09/122015/09/17 Jared Mobarak

“My reign will start in darkness” French directors Alain Gagnol (who also wrote) and Jean-Loup Felicioli have another winner on their hands with Phantom Boy. The much-anticipated follow-up to their Oscar-nominated animation A Cat in Paris was five years in the making and well worth the wait. With its vibrant colors muted for a NYC noir aesthetic and every 2D field shaded by roughly textured shadows in constant motion, the frames literally flicker off the screen to leave a lasting impression. The story—centering on a young cancer patient able to…

TIFF15 REVIEW: (Otto) [2015]

2015/09/032015/09/16 Jared Mobarak

Writers/directors/animators Job, Joris & Marieke may be my new favorite computer animation team. Unlike Pixar or Dreamworks, however, I’m not sure I’d ever want them to go feature length since their style is so perfectly suited to the short form. Their Oscar-nominated A Single Life was my first introduction to them as well as my hopeful for Academy glory before their eventual defeat to the equally brilliant Feast from a rejuvenated Disney Studios. The character design is far from realistic and perhaps unattractive in a conventional sense, but it’s unique…

TIFF15 REVIEW: Le cours de natation [The Swimming Lesson] [2015]

2015/08/302015/09/16 Jared Mobarak

“Are you ok, honey?” The synopsis talks about how Olivia Boudreau‘s Le cours de natation [The Swimming Lesson] shows a seven-year old girl (Jasmine Lemée) getting the opportunity to take a step forward towards independence. I find that to be more than a little misleading. This notion is included, especially considering her mother (Marilyn Castonguay) simply gives her a nudge in the locker room before leaving without a word, but does Lemée actual embrace this newfound self-sufficiency? Someone eventually collects her from the solitude of crippling fear on a poolside…

REVIEW: Inside Out [2015]

2015/06/152015/06/17 Jared Mobarak

“I call it the Happy Core Memory Development Program” The simplest ideas really are the greatest and Pixar’s made a legacy built on just such an ideal. They brought toys to life as living companions caring for our children. They humanized the monsters in our closets, conjured a spark of love in the circuitry of a tiny robot, and gave an old curmudgeon tired of too much loss the opportunity to rediscover the joy of living. So it wasn’t a surprise when the germination of Inside Out was announced on…

REVIEW: 思い出のマーニー [Omoide no Mânî] [When Marnie Was There] [2014]

2015/06/11 Jared Mobarak

“I wish for a normal life everyday” If Studio Ghibli ends up closing shop as announced, we can be glad their final film is a winner with the heart and soul we’ve come to love from Hayao Miyazaki and the team. I’m surely in the minority, but I’d even say Hiromasa Yonebayaski‘s When Marnie Was There is better than last year’s Oscar nominee The Tale of the Princess Kaguya. While bringing the aesthetic back to the studio’s customary style a la Spirited Away does remove some of the awe Isao…

REVIEW: Tomorrowland [2015]

2015/05/192015/05/21 Jared Mobarak

“Which wolf wins?” The only constant the future holds is how today’s will look nothing like tomorrow’s. It would have been an amazing experience to see the vision Walt Disney had for his Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow in Orlando, but he of course sadly passed away in 1966 and that land became the Magic Kingdom in 1971 instead. His ideas were eventually partly utilized in conjunction with a second amusement park (aptly coined EPCOT) to accompany the one capped by Cinderella’s castle, but Walt had hoped to construct a…