Romance | www.jaredmobarak.com

REVIEW: Drinking Buddies [2013]

2013/12/16 Jared Mobarak

“I am a bourgeois pig” I really liked Drinking Buddies and I’ll admit I wasn’t sure that would be the case. The Mumblecore movement has always been one that has eluded me—well, the early stuff at least since I have found myself enjoying what the Duplass Brothers have done post success—and the prolific Joe Swanberg comes off as a “love him or hate him” kind of auteur. But how could this thing go wrong with a cast of Olivia Wilde (Kate), Jake Johnson (Luke), Anna Kendrick (Jill), and Ron Livingston…

REVIEW: Jack, Jules, Esther & Me [2013]

2013/12/122013/12/18 Jared Mobarak

“Whoa. Are you undocumented?” I was about twenty minutes into Jack, Jules, Esther & Me when worry struck. Centered around two best friends from disparate neighborhoods/social classes in New York City, Luis (Alexander Flores) and Jack (Aaron Sauter) are introduced putting the final touches on a plan for the former to win the heart of his crush (Jessica Rothe’s Jules) before everyone goes their separate ways to college. Hinging on their buddies staging a mugging so Luis could look the hero, it was absurd, clichéd, and destined for trouble. And…

REVIEW: Ain’t Them Bodies Saints [2013]

2013/12/072013/12/07 Jared Mobarak

“Everyday I wake up thinking this is the day I’ll see you” Reading how writer/director David Lowery set out to make an action film with Ain’t Them Bodies Saints only increased my appreciation for what he actually created. Trying to move away from what he calls the “nearly silent pastoral portrait” constructed with his previous work, he couldn’t help gravitating back towards that same territory as soon as the would-be thrills and excitement were to begin with his anti-hero escaping jail. Those aspects do still exist within this 1970s-set Meridian,…

REVIEW: Diamond on Vinyl [2013]

2013/12/022014/02/07 Jared Mobarak

“I know you love me so maybe that’s enough” In much the same way J.R. Hughto’s characters interact with one another in made-up dialogue with fictitious personas used to record “rehearsal” conversations or stock situations, the film they inhabit—Diamond on Vinyl—appears to have been built in much the same way itself. Hughto populates his story with a trio of captivating creatures, each stuck inside him/herself with desperation to grow. It’s as though he’s drawn them three-dimensionally before placing them inside of his story, allowing them to act in a more…

REVIEW: Night Train to Lisbon [2013]

2013/11/282013/12/04 Jared Mobarak

“When dictatorship is a fact, revolution is a duty” Sometimes a well-written story is all you truly need to make a successful film and I believe author Pascal Mercier‘s novel Night Train to Lisbon provides one. Adapted by Greg Latter and Ulrich Herrmann with Bille August as director, the cinematic version of this look back at romance in a time of revolution unfolds with its melodic Annette Focks score as though we’re sitting over a cup of tea across from each character as they tell their part in the mystery…

REVIEW: Enough Said [2013]

2013/11/112013/11/12 Jared Mobarak

“I like your paddles” While many are quick to label it as James Gandolfini‘s final cinematic role, Nicole Holofcener‘s Enough Said shouldn’t be dismissed as mere eulogy. The writer/director’s first foray into the studio world—albeit with indie shingle Fox Searchlight—it retains the voice and sensibility her fans have enjoyed over the past two decades regardless of any compromises she may have needed to acquiesce. A tale of middle-age and the struggles it brings to married couples, divorced bachelorettes, fathers of college-aged daughters, and career-minded sophisticates, perception becomes a driving force…

REVIEW: About Time [2013]

2013/11/052013/11/08 Jared Mobarak

“Did you have trouble parking?” It will be a shame if rumors stating About Time is Richard Curtis’ last film as director are true because he’s had fantastic success with the vocation. He’ll remain in the industry either way being that he’s equally proficient with screenplays (War House and Notting Hill) and TV (“Black Adder” and “Mr. Bean”), but one has to wonder whether Love Actually or The Boat That Rocked would have been as memorable were he not at the helm. You could easily say “yes” due to the…

REVIEW: La vie d’Adèle [Blue Is the Warmest Color] [2013]

2013/11/032013/11/13 Jared Mobarak

“Tragedy is the unavoidable” While you wouldn’t usually believe something could possibly become more controversial than its own distinction of being a three-hour NC-17 film about a fifteen-year old girl searching for her sexuality and the resulting love shaping her trajectory towards adulthood, talk during La vie d’Adèle’s [Blue Is the Warmest Color] festival tour proved otherwise. Director Abdellatif Kechiche declared it to have been sullied to the extent where it shouldn’t be released while stars Léa Seydoux and Adèle Exarchopoulos discussed the arduous shoot in a way that made…

REVIEW: Yeah, Love [2008]

2013/10/082013/10/08 Jared Mobarak

“Why do I write like a twelve year old?” High school love is complicated enough for “traditional” pairings of boy and girl without the myriad other paths it may take. You only have to listen to lacrosse star Toby (Paul Fabre) talk with friends about jealousy-inducing girlfriend Milo (Paton Ashbrook) to understand the multiple layers of connectivity involved when hormones threaten to turn romance into meaningless sex. There’s little privacy, tons of rumor, and a certain standard of popularity to uphold wherein everyone toes the line between prude and slut…

TIFF13 REVIEW: Faroeste caboclo [Brazilian Western] [2013]

2013/09/202018/08/24 Jared Mobarak

“A real man always pays his debts” Composed by Renato Russo in 1979 and finally released in 1987 on his band Legião Urbana’s album Que País É Este, “Faroeste Caboclo” became a folk song hit in Brazil. It was Russo’s family —Renato died in 1996 due to complications from AIDS—who began the process of finding the right talent to adapt its nine-minute story of João de Santo Cristo for the big screen ten years after his death. A few delays later—including an attempt to stall production due to outside copyright…

REVIEW: The Spectacular Now [2013]

2013/09/192013/09/20 Jared Mobarak

“You’ll always be my favorite ex-boyfriend” Some of us are lucky—a lot luckier than most. The thing about luck, though, is that it may look nothing like it should. Sometimes luck means having your father leave. Sometimes it’s being an eighteen-year old alcoholic everyone at school loves for epitomizing fun despite ultimately acknowledging you’re a joke. We can’t all hit bottom to pull ourselves back up because the floor isn’t always forgiving enough to allow us to walk away. When it does—when the collision rocks you awake, scares you to…