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REVIEW: Maleficent [2014]

2014/05/282014/05/30 Jared Mobarak

“Goodbye, Beastie” Let’s be honest, Disney’s Sleeping Beauty is a bit of a bore. I remember my sister often wanting to watch when we were kids and me having none of it until the end’s fire and brimstone and menacing dragon spawned from the tale’s creepy, wide-smiling villain. Did I understand the fairy’s reason for cursing the princess? No. I’m not quite sure I realized the political ramifications of her baby shower invite getting lost in the mail until it was explained to me last night after watching Maleficent—the Mouse…

FILM MARATHON: Movie Musicals #13: The Sound of Music [1965]

2014/04/222014/04/23 Jared Mobarak

“They were strawberries! It’s been so cold lately they turned blue!” My enjoyment of Oscar-winning musical The Sound of Music can best be described as the product of subjective expectation. I finally saw it around the age of twelve or thirteen after hearing of its greatness for years only to be left staring at the television with a quizzical look that said, “That’s it?” Despite the music’s appeal—Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II‘s final collaboration with the latter passing away nine months following its Broadway debut—it seemed to add up…

REVIEW: Mr. Peabody & Sherman [2014]

2014/03/192014/03/20 Jared Mobarak

“But that’s not fair! All my friends are fighting the Trojan War!” It’s been a decade in the making but director Rob Minkoff has finally brought Mr. Peabody and Sherman to theaters. He tried with Sony in 2003, got the ball rolling again with Dreamworks in 2006, and saw the latter studio’s purchase of the Classic Media library in 2012 as the clincher to guarantee it’d come to fruition. With characters known from segments of the 60s television series “The Bullwinkle Show”, they’re virtually a brand new property for today’s…

REVIEW: Almost Home [2014]

2014/03/192014/03/20 Jared Mobarak

“Next!” I’m not really sure what Dreamworks is doing, but the existence of Almost Home rubs me the wrong way. A four-minute short shown before Mr. Peabody and Sherman—replacing the Gary Trousdale helmed Rocky and Bullwinkle piece that was inexplicably removed—I thought it was mildly humorous in a charmingly prolonged gag sort of way. But now I discover it’s actually a prequel for a full-length feature entitled Home that’s being release this November? So the studio pretty much decided to shoot a glorified trailer to pique the interest of those…

REVIEW: Muppets Most Wanted [2014]

2014/03/152014/03/20 Jared Mobarak

“It’s not easy being … mean” Is it a coincidence the Muppet renaissance follows the same trajectory as its subjects’ original cinematic saga? 2011’s The Muppets was enjoyable if not a tad overrated due to its story mirroring many of the beats that made 1979’s The Muppet Movie a classic. Revamping its road movie trope perfectly suited the need to reintroduce these iconic figures to a new audience ready to realize the troupe’s potential as they reunited for the common goal of putting on the greatest show in their history.…

REVIEW: Party Central [2014]

2014/03/152014/03/20 Jared Mobarak

“Operation Party Central is a go” Turning to frat house humor for Monsters University was to me the largest misstep in Pixar Animation’s history. It took one of the studio’s most original worlds and made it into a gag to be blindly consumed by fans of Monsters Inc.‘s heart only to scratch their heads wondering how anyone could think this would be a viable avenue for children’s fare. Even so, I’m hardly surprised they decided to continue this line of thinking for their newest short film Party Central despite its…

REVIEW: The Croods [2013]

2014/02/242014/02/25 Jared Mobarak

“Never not be afraid” One credit has fascinated me since The Croods opened in theaters: story by John Cleese. That John Cleese? Surprisingly, yes. It’s a somewhat convoluted journey from his failed adaptation of Roald Dahl‘s The Twits with Kirk DeMicco catching the eye of Dreamworks and earning them the pick of the litter as far as in production pitches at the studio. They chose one about a stereotypical caveman and his “modern” counterpart running from the volcanic apocalypse plate tectonics wrought. It was set up at Aardman, left for…

REVIEW: The LEGO Movie [2014]

2014/02/012014/06/11 Jared Mobarak

“All this is true because it rhymes” I am a child of the 80s. Ask me about Lego Star Wars or Lego Harry Potter and my response will be a quizzical look devoid of comprehension. I was a builder with a giant card table set up in my basement full of city locales and blank street platforms to create a world not unlike the one Phil Lord and Christopher Miller have in The LEGO Movie—albeit at one one-thousandth the scale. Space world? Western world? They weren’t in my vocabulary. If…

REVIEW: Helium [2013]

2014/01/272014/01/31 Jared Mobarak

“They say I’m going to Heaven” What do you tell a young child dying of an inoperable disease? Do you fill his/her head with religious concepts of heaven and hell, explaining how innocence and youth guarantees a place in the former’s angelic clouds? For a kid like Alfred (Pelle Falk Krusbæk) that’s simply not enough. Heaven is just a place—a sterile, overused destination he finds boringly clichéd and trite rather than some grand resting place someone who’s lived a long, fruitful life strives to achieve. He hasn’t lived, hasn’t had…

REVIEW: Room on the Broom [2013]

2014/01/262014/02/25 Jared Mobarak

“And WHOOSH …” Just like with The Gruffalo back in 2011, Max Lang has found his second adaption (this time co-directed by Jan Lachauer) of UK children’s author Julia Donaldson‘s work garnering an Oscar nomination as well. It’s 2002’s book Room on the Broom, a cute tale about making new friends and selflessly banding together to save each other from the clutches of a fat, evil dragon. Axel Scheffler‘s cartoony illustrations have been given dimension with computer animation rendered to look like Claymation while Simon Pegg lends his voice to…

REVIEW: Feral [2013]

2014/01/262014/02/25 Jared Mobarak

Writer/director Daniel Sousa‘s animated short Feral is a tragic tale of a young boy raised in the wild and his attempt to assimilate into human civilization. Drawn with a rough, charcoal texture that shimmers and swirls with each new frame of motion, its contrast of blacks and whites show us the child’s isolation from both worlds at either side. He’s a stark white against the greys of the forest birch trees and building block façade houses, a prize easily seen by the pitch black wolves and people curious as to…