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REVIEW: The American Side [2016]

2016/04/172016/04/20 Jared Mobarak

“Weaving spiders come not here” When a film shot in Buffalo, NY co-written and starring a native of the city comes across you’re desk you look upon it with a certain level of skepticism. I’ve lived here almost my entire life and I’m still guilty of seeing my hometown as a B-level sector in comparison to New York City or Hollywood. This year has changed that thought-process for locals and the industry with two effective genre works exiting the Queen City with aspirations for the big time. Against all odds…

REVIEW: The X-Files [1998]

2016/04/162016/04/17 Jared Mobarak

“Survival is the ultimate ideology” I’m not sure if there’s ever been another television show besides “The X-Files” that received a cinematic adaptation while still on the air. It’s a testament to the property’s popularity and the studio’s faith because green-lighting it couldn’t have been an easy decision. While it must stay relevant to the story being unraveled since a new season will follow, it also must possess an appeal unbeholden to what came before to attract a wider audience. In my mind The X-Files succeeds at delivering the former…

REVIEW: Eye in the Sky [2016]

2016/04/052016/04/07 Jared Mobarak

“Never tell a soldier he doesn’t know the cost of war” How do you simultaneously become hero and martyr in twenty-first century warfare? You find yourself unwittingly lodged within the kill zone of a high value target that has been confirmed without a shadow of a doubt. Death or injury earns you both labels for your people. To die as collateral damage is to potentially radicalize more and more jihadists who may or may not prove more volatile than the ones murdered in the incident. But when actual terrorists who…

REVIEW: Good Kill [2015]

2016/04/022016/04/03 Jared Mobarak

“They don’t call it a hellfire for nothing” There are agenda movies that remain impartial to display a right and wrong interpretation of the ordeal on display through natural causes and there are those manipulated into force-feeding a single viewpoint upon the audience devoid of nuance. Andrew Niccol‘s Good Kill is the latter. The very few instances where he presents the alternative argument to his thesis—that drone strikes are a necessary evil with collateral damage proving the consequence of a “greater good” scenario—either arrive as though the character exclaiming it…

REVIEW: Darling [2016]

2016/03/302016/03/31 Jared Mobarak

“Abyssus Abyssum Invocat” Much like with Stanley Kubrick‘s The Shining, the job of caretaker isn’t an easy one in Mickey Keating‘s Darling. It should be: combat any prospective upkeep problems, tidy up, wait until the tenure is complete, and collect your pay. But not this New York City brownstone with its history steeped in satanic ritual. The Madame of the house (Sean Young) knows more than she lets on, dropping juicy tidbits about young “Darling’s” (Lauren Ashley Carter) predecessor’s suicide and cryptic warnings about a locked room at the end…

REVIEW: The Crying Game [1992]

2016/03/132016/03/14 Jared Mobarak

“He believes in the future” It’s amazing how different a film can feel when you put close to two decades behind your first viewing. When I watched Neil Jordan‘s The Crying Game as a teenager I did so to see what all the fuss was about. I already knew the “secret” and found it difficult to believe anyone couldn’t (in my defense, neither could Jaye Davidson‘s Dil inside the movie). But it was an intriguing tale just the same. The dynamic between captor (Stephen Rea‘s Fergus) and captive (Forest Whitaker‘s…

REVIEW: Bølgen [The Wave] [2015]

2016/03/122016/03/14 Jared Mobarak

“Can people in the area be warned in time?” I don’t love disaster films. In many cases the genre becomes a venue for explosive visual effects at the detriment of quality acting and resonate emotion. Hollywood loves including scientists for an environmentalist commentary, military personnel for a cold-hearted government angle, and the supposed little guy turned hero saving family. It’s always too much with the heroes always proving to be brawny fireman or first responders with God-complexes complementing their selfless empathy “in the moment”. We never get an actual “little…

REVIEW: Triple 9 [2016]

2016/03/102016/03/11 Jared Mobarak

“Better him than me” No matter how exciting it is to see a film with the cast John Hillcoat assembled on Triple 9, the old adage “less is more” still stands. The issue with having so many “main characters” is that they all end up becoming periphery players. And if one does rise above the rest, you wonder why so much happens that doesn’t concern him/her. This is where Matt Cook‘s 2010 Blacklist script falls into trouble: Casey Affleck‘s Chris Allen is our lead and yet he’s basically a pawn…

REVIEW: The Draughtsman’s Contract [1983]

2016/03/082016/03/09 Jared Mobarak

“Four garments and a ladder do not lead us to a corpse” It’s said Peter Greenaway‘s original cut of The Draughtman’s Contract came in at three hours before almost half the runtime was excised to deliver its theatrical form. I’m quite happy by this result because the lack of answers for its shadowy mysteries befits it. That’s not to say we cannot presume to know what’s occurred considering where each character ends up by its close, but to think the director actually gave answers is to imagine the fun ruined.…

REVIEW: The Witch [2016]

2016/02/252016/02/26 Jared Mobarak

“We shall conquer this wilderness. It will not consume us.” I find it funny that the Satanic Temple has “endorsed” Robert Eggers‘ stunning debut The Witch considering its pro-Catholic message. The first thing we see is William (Ralph Ineson) standing before his 17th century Puritan plantation’s governors as his family is excommunicated and exiled into the neighboring New England woods. They believe they can survive alone once happening upon a tract of land with which to build a small farm, but without God’s protection tragedy befalls them. Suddenly the corn…

REVIEW: Fear and Desire [1953]

2016/01/282016/01/29 Jared Mobarak

“Rafts always float” I love that legendary filmmaker Stanley Kubrick began his career with a dud so misguided he was rumored to have tried to destroy every print in existence. In his words it was a “bumbling amateur film exercise” and he’s not wrong. But that isn’t necessarily a bad thing considering he was a twenty-five year old recently quit photographer from Look magazine with two short films under his belt. Unlike Quentin Tarantino‘s My Best Friend’s Birthday, however, Fear and Desire wasn’t some movie made on a whim. Kubrick…