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TIFF14 REVIEW: Spring [2015]

2014/09/072017/03/21 Jared Mobarak

“I’m not drunk enough to sleep in your mother’s deathbed” The first words in Colin Geddes’ TIFF description for Vanguard selection Spring are, “Before Sunrise gets a supernatural twist.” You read that as a cinephile and you push everything aside to check out what it could mean. A horror romance co-director Aaron Moorhead described in his and Justin Benson’s (who also wrote the screenplay) introduction as “life, love, and monsters”, its Italy-set journey of an American lost and alone proves equally suspenseful, grotesque, funny, and beautiful. The best part, however,…

TIFF14 REVIEW: Bang Bang Baby [2015]

2014/09/072014/09/11 Jared Mobarak

“I am that. I am the service station.” Harkening back to the era of its setting, Bang Bang Baby embraces the over-the-top aesthetic of 1963 entertainment with small town girl Stepphy (Jane Levy) dreaming big for a chance at stardom in New York City. Overproduced, old-timey vocals emanate from her mouth as faux backdrops provide the film with the same type of production value we see in the cheesy TV program starring heartthrob Bobby Shore (Justin Chatwin) that she adores. Unfortunately, even if her song wins her a spot on…

TIFF14 REVIEW: Entangled [2014]

2014/08/292014/09/08 Jared Mobarak

“Are you sure that’s the place?” Anyone willing to dive down the rabbit hole of quantum entanglement to exist in two places simultaneously is doing so for a reason. You may delude yourself into believing its for science or the simple fact of proving it can be done, but there’s a personal secret hiding beneath any ideas of social application. Why else wouldn’t the experimenter let his girlfriend in on the challenge? Why would he (Aaron Abrams‘ Malcolm) allow her (Christine Horne‘s Erin) to witness the incoherent, institutionalized ramblings of…

REVIEW: I Origins [2014]

2014/08/062014/08/07 Jared Mobarak

“You’re not going to regret this in the morning are you?” Faith is a powerful, impossible thing. By definition it’s something we cannot know with certainty. However, just as those of scientific minds demean believers of God for taking the easy road towards fairy tale, one could say similar sentiments about them for refusing to accept that which they haven’t seen for themselves. After all, isn’t it harder to allow yourself to know without knowing? To hold something in your heart that you have no basis for other than a…

FANTASIA14 REVIEW: The One I Love [2014]

2014/08/042014/08/05 Jared Mobarak

“It’ll give you a chance to reset the reset button” My plan is to not share any huge spoilers where The One I Love is concerned, but just saying that pretty much provides one by admitting there are spoilers to be had. So, like I said with another sci-fi gem this year entitled Coherence, don’t read anything at all if you want an unblemished experience. Honestly, that should be the way you enter all art—at least the ones worth watching due to their having substance above empty theatrics spoon-feeding audiences…

FANTASIA14 REVIEW: Ejecta [2014]

2014/07/252014/08/05 Jared Mobarak

“Something came to me” Many might take my comparing Ejecta to The Fourth Kind as a slight, but I actually enjoy that film a lot. While Chad Archibald and Matt Wiele‘s science fiction horror doesn’t pretend it’s real, the crosscutting between time and styles similarly keeps us off-balance enough to buy into the escalating danger onscreen. We’re shown straight away that a government or privatized military agency has captured William Cassidy/Spider Nevi (Julian Richings) in the woods through night vision goggles and yet this convergence is the mid-point of the…

REVIEW: Guardians of the Galaxy [2014]

2014/07/242014/07/31 Jared Mobarak

“I don’t learn” It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the best Marvel film to date would be one without a single recognizable character to anyone not already a fan. Guardians of the Galaxy has been around since 1969, but it’s the 2008 iteration by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning which struck the studio’s fancy as far as opening their cinematic universe wide open. There’s still a tenuous connection to Earth with the group’s default leader being a human snatched as a child by a Ravager ship, yet this detail…

FANTASIA14 REVIEW: Time Lapse [2014]

2014/07/212014/08/01 Jared Mobarak

“I believe I’ve seen my death” While ultimately a flawed film, Time Lapse does do what every memorable sci-fi brainteaser should: it makes you blind to the obvious. Well, I should rephrase that and say it made me blind because I don’t have a magical camera to capture the future and your reaction post-viewing. I bought into the premise and mystery, allowing curiosity to help me ignore the somewhat over-wrought CW primetime lineup-like performances that bring director Bradley King and co-writer B.P. Cooper‘s thriller to life. To me standing strong…

FANTASIA14 REVIEW: The Infinite Man [2014]

2014/07/202014/07/25 Jared Mobarak

“Sexual congress in five” There are some great science fiction films that deal with time travel in a way blockbusters like The Terminator simply cannot due to scale and want for mass appeal. To fans of that series a movie like Primer may be too technically oppressive and intellectual while Timecrimes too dark and finite. Well, Australian Hugh Sullivan looks to change these preconceptions by combining Shane Carruth‘s impeccable plotting and Nacho Vigalondo‘s expert visual repetition in a genre the casual moviegoer can embrace: romantic comedy. In fact the clichéd…

REVIEW: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes [2014]

2014/07/152014/07/17 Jared Mobarak

“Ape no kill ape” The hype is spot-on with Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. A more focused film than Rise of the Planet of the Apes—which served as an emotive origin tale possessing little unique conflict beyond a fight scene showing off computer effects more than propelling storyline—you should still acknowledge that predecessor allows it to be so. This doesn’t mean you must view it to understand the sequel, however, as a concisely informative prologue is delivered to explain the key plot point of mankind simultaneously giving apes…

REVIEW: Rise of the Planet of the Apes [2011]

2014/07/132014/07/14 Jared Mobarak

“These people invest in results. Not dreams.” How did the apes from Pierre Boulle‘s Planet of the Apes gain control of Earth? The 1968 film adaptation shows human/ape hybrids walking, talking, and living in civilizations—a great sci-fi conceit making us believe in a distant planet where evolution took a different turn than what happened here. But as anyone who saw that movie or Tim Burton‘s much-maligned remake knows, a twist arrives to show the existence of these creatures was something else all together. We discover we were watching a tale…