Romance | www.jaredmobarak.com

REVIEW: West Side Story [1961]

2022/01/102022/01/11 Jared Mobarak

I’m frightened enough for the both of ya. What started as an idea to contemporize William Shakepeare‘s Romeo and Juliet on the East Side of Manhattan with star-crossed lovers of Irish Catholic and Jewish descent eventually found itself reworked to the opposite side of the island with religion removed so ethnicity could take its place. Jerome Robbins and Arthur Laurents altered things to hew closer towards the 1950s’ rise of street violence by embroiling rival gangs (descendants of Polish immigrants versus newly arrived Puerto Ricans) into a turf war. With…

REVIEW: Licorice Pizza [2021]

2021/12/202021/12/22 Jared Mobarak

Gritted teeth and fixed bayonettes. Let’s face it: there’s an elephant in the room (well, make that two with the casual racism) when even beginning to talk about Paul Thomas Anderson‘s latest San Fernando Valley in the 1970s vibe of a movie adorned by two words the writer/director says supply a Pavlovian response to his past, Licorice Pizza. It’s about the exploits of a fifteen-year-old hustler named Gary Valentine (Cooper Hoffman) and the twenty-five-year-old soon-to-be friend/business partner named Alana Kane (Alana Haim) that he tries to pick-up at his high…

REVIEW: The Scarlet Empress [1934]

2021/12/182021/12/18 Jared Mobarak

I’m taking lessons as fast as I can. Empress Elizabeth Petrovna (Louise Dresser) wanted to make sure Russia had a strong leader and in so doing ensured it wouldn’t be her bloodline taking up the mantle. Not the way Josef von Sternberg‘s The Scarlet Empress tells it, as adapted from Catherine II’s diaries by Eleanor McGeary and Manuel Komroff. It is she who chooses Princess Sophia Frederica of Prussia (Marlene Dietrich) to marry her nephew (Sam Jaffe‘s Grand Duke Peter) and provide a male heir she could then raise in…

REVIEW: Cyrano [2021]

2021/12/152021/12/24 Jared Mobarak

My fate is to love her from afar. We were about three songs into Joe Wright‘s Cyrano when my partner and I looked at each other and said, almost in unison, “These songs are pretty bad.” I don’t need rhymes (and especially not ones as rudimentary as “know” and “go” and “Cyrano” back-to-back-to-back), but I’d love some sort of dynamism to make me believe there was a reason someone wanted to turn Edmond Rostand‘s “Cyrano de Bergerac” into a musical. What about the material screamed song? What kind of exciting…

REVIEW: Verdens verste menneske [The Worst Person in the World] [2021]

2021/12/092022/01/27 Jared Mobarak

No safety net. No holding back. Writer/director Joachim Trier and co-writer Eskil Vogt complete their thematic “Oslo trilogy” with Verdens verste menneske [The Worst Person in the World], a film told in twelve chapters, a prologue, and an epilogue. What’s intriguing, however, is that it actually begins with a glimpse of Julie (Renate Reinsve) from the middle. Before traveling back to watch her overachieving university student change majors every time something shinier and new comes along, we see her smoking a cigarette in a black dress, gazing off into the…

REVIEW: Annette [2021]

2021/12/082021/12/08 Jared Mobarak

Shut up and sit. When a “provocateur” such as comedian Henry McHenry’s (Adam Driver, who thanked Chris Rock and Bill Burr in the credits) crudely ambiguous “jokes” are as unfunny when he’s all the rage pre-marriage as the ones told after fatigue ravages his brain post-birth of his daughter, it’s tough to really dig into the reality of what’s happening on-screen. Was I supposed to find the initial stand-up gig at the beginning of Leos Carax‘s Annette (original story and songs by Sparks brothers Ron and Russell Mael) funny? I…

REVIEW: Shanghai Express [1932]

2021/12/042021/12/04 Jared Mobarak

You’re in China now. Where time and life have no value. The three-day train ride from Peking to Shanghai has commenced and all anyone’s talking about is the rumor that the infamous Shanghai Lily (Marlene Dietrich) is on-board. Most of the passengers, like respectable boarding house owner Mrs. Haggerty (Louise Closser Hale) and Christian missionary Mr. Carmichael (Lawrence Grant), are scandalized by the prospect, but others, like the genial Mr. Chang (Warner Oland), are curious about their prospects where it comes to getting to know her better (wink). Captain Donald…

REVIEW: The French Dispatch [2021]

2021/12/032021/12/03 Jared Mobarak

Just try to make it sound like you wrote it that way on purpose. I’m not sure you can get a more unadulterated shot to the vein of Wes Anderson than his quasi-anthology film The French Dispatch. Born from his own mind (and that of frequent collaborators Roman Coppola, Hugo Guinness, and Jason Schwartzman) with a healthy dose of inspiration taken from his adoration of The New Yorker, this self-proclaimed love letter to journalism set abroad in France proves to be the perfect venue for the auteur to distill his…

REVIEW: Spencer [2021]

2021/12/022021/12/03 Jared Mobarak

Where am I? The magic has long since disappeared where it comes to Prince Charles (Jack Farthing) and Princess Diana (Kristen Stewart) at the time director Pablo Larraín and screenwriter Steven Knight have set their “fable inspired by a true tragedy” entitled Spencer. It’s Christmas weekend and everyone already knows an end of some sort is near. Will there be a divorce? Will there be a scandal? Will there simply be scowling faces resigned to the fact that there will never be an escape from this joyless union that cannot…

REVIEW: Dishonored [1931]

2021/11/202021/11/20 Jared Mobarak

To love and excitement. Marie Kolverer (Marlene Dietrich) never asked to be a spy. The widow was merely mentioning to a police officer standing guard at the latest death-by-gas-asphyxiation suicide that she wouldn’t be following in the victim’s footsteps like he remarks most women will. She tells him that she’s not afraid of life before clarifying that she’s not afraid of death either. The sentiments catch the ears of the Austrian Secret Service Chief (Gustav von Seyffertitz) as those of someone with a strong enough constitution to recruit for an…

REVIEW: The Power of the Dog [2021]

2021/11/092021/11/17 Jared Mobarak

I don’t know what you’re talking about. Bronco Henry made Phil Burbank (Benedict Cumberbatch) a man and the latter won’t let anyone forget it twenty years after his mentor’s death. Everything he does is a testament to his late friend as a result. Finished with the long trek herding cows back to the family ranch run by him and his brother George (Jesse Plemons)? Drink a shot to Bronco. Find yourself in need of a task to take your mind off the gradual deterioration of a life you thought you…