Category: Shorts

REVIEW: The Silent Child [2017]

Jared Mobarak

Orange juice. Director Chris Overton and writer Rachel Shenton pull no punches with their short on deaf awareness entitled The Silent Child. What could have been a cloying piece about parents thawing to the realities of a life they pretend they’re too busy to see with eyes open proves a rather bleak depiction of how ablest our society is. It’s one thing to realize how ill-equipped many institutions in the United States and Britain are towards the hearing impaired, but another to bluntly air the delusions of family members who…

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REVIEW: The Eleven O’Clock [2017]

Jared Mobarak

I’m simply waiting patiently. I love a good wordplay gag delivered at breakneck speed, the sort “A Bit of Fry and Laurie” used to deliver when Stephen Fry went rapid-fire nonsense on Hugh Laurie without a stutter, laugh, or breath. Director Derin Seale‘s short film The Eleven O’Clock is a wonderful comedic scenario in that mold thanks to Josh Lawson‘s shrewdly surreal script wherein a psychiatrist’s new patient believes he too is a psychiatrist. By setting the stage on a day when the real doctor’s secretary hires a temp (Jessica…

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REVIEW: Watu Wote [All of Us] [2017]

Jared Mobarak

You’ll have to kill us all. It’s dispiriting to constantly watch as Muslims are forced to defend themselves against the bigotry of Catholics who blindly reject their entire religion as one synonymous with terrorism. Looking back upon history (and the present) to see the horrors committed by Christians under the guise of “acts of God” highlights the hypocrisy and ultimately the racism at its back. They label other human beings evil for doing exactly what they have done for centuries. They champion immigration bans, quote inaccurate statistics, and sit back…

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REVIEW: Revolting Rhymes Part One [2016]

Jared Mobarak

They’re just stories. You know … for children. Have you ever listened to a fairy tale and lamented the poor villains simply trying to survive? You hear “Little Red Riding Hood” and think about how the wolf is operating by instinct. He sees a potential meal and using cunning ingenuity does all he can to acquire it. When you really step back and look at the story objectively, he’s doing what we all would in his situation. But because we’re human, it’s assumed we will align ourselves with the human…

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REVIEW: Heroin(e) [2017]

Jared Mobarak

Getting high on heroin is to you what it would be like to kiss Jesus. We too often see a problem in its worst form via “scared straight” videos that depict it in all its graphic detail for those living within its clutches. Drug use is the main culprit for this type of vehicle because the prevailing notion is to think knowing something can kill you is enough to provide you a reason to stop. But as we see with cigarettes, addiction moves our psyches beyond logic. It moves people’s…

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REVIEW: Traffic Stop [2017]

Jared Mobarak

I did not trust him. Some topics deserve the time to delve underneath the surface of what we see, know, and assume. The violent arrest of Breaion King is one such incident where thirty minutes is simply not enough. But that’s what director Kate Davis has to deliver the intricacies of what occurred in the moment and historically to bring Breaion and officer Brian Richter to it. Traffic Stop does a wonderful job asking the tough questions, but it never really answers any of them. It chooses a side—the correct…

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REVIEW: Negative Space [2017]

Jared Mobarak

Perfect. We all hold onto a specific memory of someone close upon his/her death—a moment or moments special to us despite being uneventful to everyone else. Our relationship with the person defines what it is subconsciously. It could be a song, a movie, a vacation spent together, or perhaps even one spent apart. It can be a mutual hobby or sports team, exciting or mundane, but always unforgettable. To remember is to conjure a smile at its simplicity and its personal impact regardless of any overarching relevance to what came…

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REVIEW: Garden Party [2017]

Jared Mobarak

Just when we think a large amphibian covered in caviar and salivating at a glass jar of cookies inside a deserted mansion will be the most memorable shot of Garden Party—a French short directed by committee (Florian Babikian, Vincent Bayoux, Victor Caire, Théophile Dufresne, Gabriel Grapperon, and Lucas Navarro)—the sextet leaves us with an image we’ll never forget. The clues are there considering conditions are anything but sanitary with rotten food and flies buzzing everywhere, but even a few glimpses at bullet holes in the windows can’t quite distract us…

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REVIEW: Knife Skills [2017]

Jared Mobarak

What I see is a tremendous amount of desire. One of the students at Edwins Leadership & Restaurant Institute explains how ex-convicts wear the stigma of that label as a badge. It tells potential employers that they are willing to work harder and prove their loyalty because anyone who gives them a chance at a second life is someone they’d do anything to repay. There’s a lot of truth to this sentiment even if it isn’t a guarantee. Those who do leave prison with a desire to better him/herself and…

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REVIEW: Heaven is a Traffic Jam on the 405 [2017]

Jared Mobarak

We are creativity itself. It’s not easy to depict mental illness with honest clarity or art’s cathartic influence as therapy, but Frank Stiefel‘s look at Mindy Alper entitled Heaven is a Traffic Jam on the 405 does both. It helps that Mindy is an open, self-aware subject despite crippling anxieties. She leads his camera through her struggles as represented by surreal drawings created throughout her fifty-six years—a roadmap traversing her life’s extreme highs and lows. The work is reminiscent of Ralph Steadman and Gerald Scarfe, each imperfect line lending the…

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REVIEW: Edith+Eddie [2017]

Jared Mobarak

Treat everybody right. You hear horror stories of people who foster children in order to pocket the money they receive from the state meant for that child’s wellbeing and want to hope they’re the exceptions rather than rule. It’s easy to be cynical, however, and believe the opposite in this world. The same can be said about elder care and the often-tenuous relationships between children of aging parents with increasing struggles. Infighting is common because not every child is as well off as the next or as close. Suddenly a…

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