Romance | www.jaredmobarak.com

REVIEW: Beauty and the Beast [2017]

2017/04/042017/04/05 Jared Mobarak

“Now find it in your mind’s eye and feel it in your heart” This latest Disney epoch consisting of live action remakes/re-imaginings of their classic animated tales has the studio utilizing a few different creative motivations. The best has thus far has been their ability to find ways to create something wholly new and better from the blueprints of those that didn’t age well (The Jungle Book‘s basic sing-along and Pete’s Dragon‘s archaic values). Then there’s the “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” school with Cinderella wherein the filmmakers…

REVIEW: Beauty and the Beast [1991]

2017/03/312017/04/01 Jared Mobarak

“There may be something there that wasn’t there before” The fairy tale Beauty and the Beast is so perfectly suited for the Disney princess treatment that it’s shocking they didn’t do one until 1991. Crafted to provide young girls a metaphor for the arranged marriages many of them would inevitably be a part of in 18th century France (Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve wrote the first version with Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont soon streamlining it into what we know today), its trajectory became one of the idyllic fantasy of raising one’s…

REVIEW: Julieta [2016]

2017/03/212017/03/22 Jared Mobarak

“Remember, you don’t like goodbyes” It began as many things: an adaptation of Nobel Prize winning Canadian writer Alice Munro‘s three connected short stories from her book Runaway (“Chance,” “Soon,” and “Silence”), Pedro Almodóvar‘s English-language debut with its venue switching from Vancouver to New York, and a starring vehicle for Meryl Streep. But Julieta eventually became none of them. It’s still credited as an adaptation, yet Almodóvar would be the first to say that he took pains to make it his own not only in content but context with the…

REVIEW: April Flowers [2017]

2017/03/152017/03/16 Jared Mobarak

“I’m not afraid of love if that’s what you mean” When writer/director Christopher Tedrick scholarly describes his film April Flowers as being based on the idea that the 21st century is an “Era of Choice”—a term coined by Temple Associate Professor Edward C. Rosenthal in an MIT-published paper—romance isn’t necessary the first thing that springs to mind. And yet romance is quite possibly the most relevant and universal example to use for this idea of infinite opportunities causing crippling stress and fear. Just think about it. We live in an…

REVIEW: Fifty Shades Darker [2017]

2017/02/222017/02/23 Jared Mobarak

“Nothing lasts” Considering the Fifty Shades of Grey series is Twilight fan-fiction barely polished from its sordid internet origins, it shouldn’t be surprising that a villain besides dominant millionaire Christian Grey’s (Jamie Dornan) sadist side would arrive. Child molester Elena Lincoln (Kim Basinger) was alluded to in the first film, but not seen. So we anticipated this older woman who taught a fourteen year-old Christian about sex (propelling him onto the path he struggles to battle today) would receive a bigger role once Grey and naïve “I’m not a submissive!”…

REVIEW: Tanna [2016]

2017/02/212017/02/23 Jared Mobarak

“It’s time you learned the meaning of respect” There have been countless renditions of Romeo and Juliet during the past five hundred or so years and yet its themes still haven’t grown stale. Bentley Dean and Martin Butler‘s Tanna isn’t an official retelling considering its tale is based on a real life romance, but it’s nearly impossible not to think about the Shakespearian classic while watching. The events onscreen occurred in 1987 in the midst of civil unrest between two tribes of the Kastom roads. With colonialists and Christians arriving…

REVIEW: Silent Nights [2016]

2017/02/072017/02/09 Jared Mobarak

“I live a very hard life” It’s extremely difficult for me to blindly accept a film like Aske Bang‘s Silent Nights on faith. The idea that someone can do bad things—no matter how good he/she is at heart—and continuously be rewarded is a tough sell. But that’s exactly what this look at immigration through a charitable Danish lens attempts. A man may be a saint, but that doesn’t excuse thieving, adultery, or lying with ease. I understand the message comes down to “hard living” and “impossible decisions,” but the film’s…

REVIEW: The Space Between Us [2017]

2017/02/022017/02/03 Jared Mobarak

“Just add water” It’s difficult not to think about The Martian when it comes to new film The Space Between Us. Both center around a human stranded on Mars—albeit in drastically different circumstances—and both attempt to exist in a “real world” despite our actual ability for interplanetary travel being non-existent. What made the former’s science fiction so good was its decision to stay rooted in science rather than allow the fiction to completely takeover. It grounded us in how someone would survive and how complicated it would be to communicate…

REVIEW: Timecode [2016]

2017/02/022017/02/09 Jared Mobarak

“See you tomorrow” A Spanish parking garage owner (Vicente Gil) cuts costs by hiring two security guards to work twelve-hour shifts—eight paid on the clock and four off. It’s a pretty cozy gig wherein you simply watch closed circuit camera feeds, do a couple walks, and let the automated ticket machines do the heavy lifting as far as payments go. There’s a system to everything, the well-oiled machine of professionalism mixed with boredom. Luna (Lali Ayguadé) arrives each morning on a schedule, changes into her uniform, pulls up her hair,…

REVIEW: The Story of 90 Coins [2015]

2017/01/17 Jared Mobarak

“I will prove my love and determination to you” Here’s an interesting film that’s beautiful to look at and well acted, but built on a story steeped in a notion the twenty first century doesn’t and shouldn’t accept. It could be a lost in translation situation wherein gender roles and patriarchal ideals remain stuck in an archaic past within China, but I have a fundamental issue with how Bai Xuedan‘s script The Story of 90 Coins presents its central conflict. Liwei Jian shoots it with skill, Michael Wong directs with…

REVIEW: Passengers [2016]

2016/12/292016/12/30 Jared Mobarak

“Excellent choice” **Spoilers included** You’re traveling on a spaceship towards a distant planet in hopes of restarting your life anew with endless possibilities. The journey takes 120 years, your body in stasis to arrive the same age that you left. Let’s say something happens around the thirty year mark to cause an unknown malfunction that inexplicably wakes you with no way of returning to slumber. This massive ship is at your disposal—well, the areas accessible by your wrist bracelet’s discerning permissions and a crowbar—but there’s no one with which to…