Suspense/Thriller | www.jaredmobarak.com

REVIEW: Goodland [2018]

2018/05/222020/04/07 Jared Mobarak

Eventually the sun sets. There’s nothing like some yokel conversation to introduce a film’s environment while also foreshadowing the ensuing plot. It’s easy to dismiss the aging gas station owner and his even older customer’s back and forth about a wolf seen a few miles away because neither is listening to the other. The former explains how it was probably just a coyote before the latter comes to his own epiphany that the game warden will end up finding a coyote. We want to laugh except for the fact that…

REVIEW: Jaws [1975]

2018/05/202021/08/03 Jared Mobarak

You’re gonna need a bigger boat. Actor Richard Dreyfus called Jaws a “nexus point” during his question and answer period before a recent screening of the cinematic classic and I can’t think of a better descriptor. His words were relevant as far as his career, but also the medium as a whole. Here was a work of art that overcame a troubled production to become the first true blockbuster—a term that ultimately changed the face of the industry itself—and provided a sterling example of what it meant to utilize the…

REVIEW: The Last Witness [2018]

2018/05/172020/04/07 Jared Mobarak

I thought this was supposed to be about us. Soviet secret police began a series of mass executions circa 1940 of Polish citizens they knew would reject foreign occupation upon WWII’s completion. Some of the resulting graves were discovered in the Katyn Forest three years later with more found elsewhere totaling 22,000 bodies. Because of the diplomatic relations necessary to join the Allied nations with the “enemy-of-my-enemy” USSR, official word on the Katyn massacre stated Nazi Germany was to blame. This lie was crafted with obvious intentions: America and Britain…

REVIEW: Scarlet Street [1945]

2018/05/162020/04/07 Jared Mobarak

So you won’t forget me. There’s a great horror concept within Fritz Lang‘s Scarlet Street. Unfortunately it’s pushed aside for a film noir that never quite gains traction. The problem as I see it stems from the fact that screenwriter Dudley Nichols tries to frame aging pushover Christopher Cross (Edward G. Robinson) as a sympathetic character throughout—an unsuspecting victim in the making rather than the haunted figure he becomes at its end. The latter is his most interesting form, a desperate man with nowhere to turn as a voice from…

REVIEW: Curvature [2018]

2018/05/092020/04/10 Jared Mobarak

Trust yourself and nobody else. It’s been a week of grief and mourning for Helen (Lyndsy Fonseca) after finding her husband Wells (Noah Bean) dead by suicide at their secluded cabin. She’s dealing with his absence like anyone would by closing off spaces they shared together in hopes of avoiding too many easy triggers for memories that only bring sadness. Work should distract her during the day and Wells’ business partner Tomas (Glenn Morshower) continuing their secretive scientific research should honor his legacy. This doesn’t mean she’ll forget him, forgive…

REVIEW: Revenge [2018]

2018/05/012020/10/02 Jared Mobarak

Elizabeth and the kids ok? The front half of Coralie Fargeat‘s debut feature Revenge provides audiences the sort of sensory overload that hits like a sledgehammer. You might not think this will be the case considering things start off with a serenely static shot of desert expanse while a helicopter approaches from the center of the frame, but the hard rock riffs kick in soon after with music video style glamour shots of Jen (Matilda Anna Ingrid Lutz) and Richard (Kevin Janssens) starring into the distance. They’re here for a…

REVIEW: You Were Never Really Here [2018]

2018/04/242020/04/10 Jared Mobarak

I must do better, sir. An unparalleled exercise in economy, Lynne Ramsay‘s You Were Never Really Here cements her status as a cinematic master. This brutal thriller runs a deliberate yet swift 89-minutes, its central character a man of few words with violence bubbling just beneath a too large heart for the hostile world that’s forced him to retreat within. His job: going places the police can’t to save children in duress. It’s not something overtly explained, but neither are his motivations. Where dialogue might work in text (Ramsey’s script…

REVIEW: Sweet Smell of Success [1957]

2018/04/162020/04/10 Jared Mobarak

No. You’re dead, son. Get yourself buried. The hook is simple: Steve Dallas (Martin Milner) and Susan Hunsecker (Susan Harrison) are in love, but big brother J.J. (Burt Lancaster) doesn’t approve. He hasn’t supported her with penthouses and fur coats to watch a young guitarist whisk her away, but he can’t be caught stopping them with his formidable clout to make and break people on a whim as New York’s premier lifestyle columnist either. Putting his name on the boy’s metaphorical death certificate would risk losing Susan further than it…

REVIEW: Incubo sulla città contaminata [Nightmare City] [1980]

2018/04/122020/04/10 Jared Mobarak

That sounds like science fiction. There’s a scene between Dean Miller (Hugo Stiglitz) and his wife Anna (Laura Trotter) about two-thirds of the way through Umberto Lenzi‘s Incubo sulla città contaminate [Nightmare City] where they speak about the perils of technology. After an hour of murder, death, and exposed breasts, suddenly the screenwriters decide to provide some semblance of meaning to the whole. Anna laments that the world would be a better place without creature comforts like instant coffee and more expansive means of infrastructure such as nuclear power. She…

REVIEW: An Ordinary Man [2018]

2018/04/102020/04/11 Jared Mobarak

I am myth. Despite being someone known for family friendly fare (Casper and A Series of Unfortunate Events), Brad Silberling was always the guy behind the under-rated Moonlight Mile to me. Beyond its sentimentality and contrivances, it cemented his name as one to follow. Besides 10 Items or Less, however, he career mostly shifted from film to television. I’ll admit I eventually forgot this name during the fifteen years since taking note, its appearance as writer and director of An Ordinary Man reminding me of the potential it held. Even…

REVIEW: A Quiet Place [2018]

2018/04/052020/04/11 Jared Mobarak

I have always loved you. It’s always a risk going to a film on opening night—especially horror. The genre attracts a younger audience looking to giggle their way through the experience, oftentimes proving so obnoxiously overcompensating in their fear preparation during the preshow trailers and commercials that I wish I stayed home. So it was with trepidation that I went to see the first Thursday showing of John Krasinski‘s critically acclaimed A Quiet Place, hoping it’d be sparsely attended with most waiting for Friday night. Instead I found a packed…