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REVIEW: Videodrome [1983]

2017/09/262019/01/20 Jared Mobarak

“Better on TV than on the streets” To watch David Cronenberg‘s Videodrome today is to acknowledge his clairvoyance as far as technology’s capacity to control via (mis)information. He filmed this body horror classic about subliminal messaging in mass consumption in 1983: years before the political firestorm in 1992 revolving around ubiquitous violence in videogames via Mortal Kombat, the 2007-08 television writers strike that spawned the proliferation of reality TV, the 24-hour news cycle that transformed real-life tragedies into entertainment, and social media placing false content at our fingertips with an…

TIFF17 REVIEW: Motorrad [2017]

2017/09/152021/07/31 Jared Mobarak

How did you get past the wall? You won’t find a better locale for a film than Serra da Canastra in Minas Gerais, Brazil. Its rocky landscapes and serene hills are gorgeous, their quiet solemnity a perfect contrast to the loud gas-guzzling motorcycles director Vicente Amorim has roaming their dirt paths in Motorrad. The only other man-made objects found are constructions out of flat stones—an isolated home or ancient wall that shouldn’t be where it’s found. The same stones line the shores of calm lakes with which to let off…

TIFF17 REVIEW: Downrange [2017]

2017/09/142017/09/17 Jared Mobarak

“How’d your passengers turn out? Any weirdos?” A car slams on its breaks at the pop of a flat. Inside is Todd (Rod Hernandez) and Sara (Alexa Yeames), a young couple toting around a bunch of strangers who pitched in gas money to reach everyone’s shared destination. Putting on the spare this SUV is thankfully equipped with should only take around twenty minutes—or less thanks to a friendly bet for bragging rights. But that would be too simple. The heat gets to Jodi (Kelly Connaire) and Keren (Stephanie Pearson), Eric…

REVIEW: mother! [2017]

2017/09/122017/12/18 Jared Mobarak

“His words are yours” Paramount has taken pains to ensure you know as little about Darren Aronofsky‘s mother! as possible. I know this because they’ve made it very difficult to find any images with which to populate this review. Their press site has no entry. The Toronto International Film Festival site contains no stills. And my local publicist made it very clear that press wasn’t allowed to bring a plus one to the screening. I’m surprised the studio let it play TIFF and Venice at all since that only means…

TIFF17 REVIEW: Gutland [2018]

2017/09/042018/02/21 Jared Mobarak

“Well, it’s not impossible to learn” When a German drifter walks into the quaint Luxembourg village of Schandelsmillen with a scruffy beard, bag full of money, and stoically gruff attitude, we wonder what secrets his past holds. Jens Fauser (Frederick Lau) arrives with a single question: “Do you need help with the harvest?” That specific query unfortunately can’t help but make him stick out like a sore thumb further than he already does considering the harvest is half over. The townspeople therefore prove cold and cryptic, forcing him to accept…

TIFF17 REVIEW: Kissing Candice [2018]

2017/09/022017/11/02 Jared Mobarak

“I never know whether I’m awake or asleep” With a first scene as stylish as that from Kissing Candice, the words “music video chic” come to mind before you can even discover writer/director Aoife McArdle is a James Vincent McMorrow regular who also released a short in collaboration with U2’s 2014 release Songs of Innocence. Between the oppressive reds and aural manipulation (I thought the volume wasn’t working until the score finally kicks in to augment the titular kiss), you can’t help admiring the sensory craftsmanship onscreen despite having no…

REVIEW: Papillon [1973]

2017/09/022017/09/02 Jared Mobarak

“Blame is for God and small children” While Henri Charriere‘s account of his incarceration and escape from the penal colony known as French Guiana has a contentious history as far as it being an autobiography or novel of historical fiction, such debate is inconsequential to Franklin J. Schaffner‘s cinematic adaptation Papillon. Whether or not what we see actually happened has no bearing on our enjoyment of its so-called “Greatest Adventure of Escape!” What we watch are the harrowing years of men convicted (falsely or not) of heinous crimes that deserve…

TIFF17 REVIEW: Cardinals [2017]

2017/08/252018/06/12 Jared Mobarak

“Good to have me back” The big story surrounding Grayson Moore and Aidan Shipley‘s feature debut Cardinals playing the Toronto International Film Festival stems from the fact that both men graduated from the city’s own Ryerson University. As a longtime festival venue/partner, this premiere will inevitably be treated as a homecoming. But don’t let that fool you into screaming “Favoritism!” while dismissing it as a “homer” pick: it’s the real deal. Stripping away the college they graduated from, the knowledge that both are TIFF alumni after screening their short Boxing,…

REVIEW: Good Time [2017]

2017/08/242017/08/25 Jared Mobarak

“Cross the room if you’ve ever felt lonely” The first person we meet in Josh and Benny Safdie‘s Good Time isn’t its lead Connie Nikas (Robert Pattinson). Before he enters the picture to propel the film towards its kinetic search for ten grand, things begin much slower and much quieter with his brother Nick (played by Benny). He’s sitting opposite his psychiatrist (Peter Verby), engaged in a word association game to help diagnose whatever mental disability has afflicted him for too long without proper care. We catch a glimpse of…

REVIEW: Wind River [2017]

2017/08/222017/08/23 Jared Mobarak

“Don’t steer away from the pain” After watching his first two spec scripts find homes with established directors—Denis Villeneuve and David Mackenzie bringing those words to life beautifully in neo-westerns Sicario and Hell or High Water respectively—actor turned screenwriter Taylor Sheridan finally steps behind the camera with his latest Wind River. While not as complex as far as scope goes (locale and action), it definitely retains his penchant for subtle, twisty mysteries that reveal themselves only when absolutely necessary. Sheridan isn’t one to pull the wool over his audience’s eyes…

REVIEW: The Killers [1946]

2017/08/142019/03/16 Jared Mobarak

“Stop listening to those golden harps, Swede” “The Killers” is a dialogue-driven short story by Ernest Hemingway that describes the melancholic criminal comeuppance of a man long-removed from the deeds that signed his death warrant. It reads like a fast-paced and stripped-down script whose intrigue is built out of that which we’ll never know. Context provides motivations rather than meaning, the underlying sorrow ingrained within its matter-of-fact, gangster machinations conjuring existential empathy rather than good versus evil justice. The men tasked with killing a Brentwood resident they’ve never met aren’t…