Down to the Bone | www.jaredmobarak.com

INTERVIEW: Debra Granik, director of Stray Dog

2015/06/302020/03/21 Jared Mobarak

If you don’t think someone fresh off an Oscar nomination would spend five years to follow her critically acclaimed fictional narrative with the first feature-length documentary of her career, you don’t know Debra Granik. When I interviewed her back in 2010 in support of Winter’s Bone, she was already talking about documentary observation as being key to her work. After all, that movie and her debut Down to the Bone both utilized real people from the towns in which she filmed for visual and contextual authenticity. One of those locals—Ronnie…

REVIEW: Stray Dog [2015]

2015/06/272018/07/16 Jared Mobarak

“It’s veterans helping veterans. Who else do we got?” Five years after writer/director Debra Granik‘s sophomore effort Winter’s Bone earned four Oscars nominations including Best Picture, she returns to the big screen with a documentary spawned from her experience filming in Missouri. Far from a novice to the genre-she lensed a documentary called Thunder in Guyana before making her feature length debut Down to the Bone-it may still seem strange she’d follow an acclaimed work of fiction with an uncensored look at an old Vietnam War vet. But as she’d…

INTERVIEW: Debra Granik, writer/director of Winter’s Bone

2010/07/012020/03/21 Jared Mobarak

While attending the 360|365 George Eastman House Film Festival in Rochester, I was struck by the selection of festival winners screening for its Upstate New York audience. With so many award-winners, I went in blindly to whatever fit into my schedule, experiencing work I wouldn’t have a chance to see in theatres for months, if at all, here in Buffalo. After three straight days of movies, Winter’s Bone, the winner of the 2010 Sundance Grand Jury Prize for Drama, ended up being the final film of my tenure there. I…

REVIEW: Down to the Bone [2005]

2010/06/302018/07/15 Jared Mobarak

“What do you think about these tiles?” I remember watching 15 Minutes back in 2001 and thinking Vera Farmiga‘s captivating foreigner played quite well off of Ed Burns and Robert De Niro. Sadly, until five years later with a spate of high profile films leading to the A-list status she now holds, I still never knew she was an American born in New Jersey. I therefore had no knowledge of independent film Down to the Bone despite it proving a Sundance-winning piece for both her and director Debra Granik amongst…

Top 25 Films of 2004

2005/01/272020/03/31 Jared Mobarak

(short and sweet and to the point; culled from watching 130 releases. constantly updated as i catch up to those i missed. click poster for review if applicable) #25: Million Dollar Baby directed by Clint Eastwood. #24: The Dreamers directed byBernardo Bertolucci #23: The Brown Bunny directed by Vincent Gallo. #22: Hotel Rwanda directed by Terry George #21: Friday Night Lights directed by Peter Berg #20: Down to the Bone directed by Debra Granik #19: Sideways directed by Alexander Payne #18: Mysterious Skin directed by Gregg Araki #17: The Incredibles…