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INTERVIEW: Alex Winter, director of Deep Web

2015/05/042020/03/21 Jared Mobarak

While you may know him as Bill S. Preston, ESQ, Alex Winter the actor has effortlessly become Alex Winter the director. Hot on the heels of his successful Napster documentary Downloaded comes Deep Web: a look behind the curtain at the 96% of the internet we don’t see. But while the film began as an overview of this expansive world freely accessible by Tor—for good (journalistic anonymity) and bad (illegal drug trade)—something happened during production that blew the doors wide open. Ross Ulbricht was arrested under the accusation that he…

SXSW15 REVIEW: Deep Web [2015]

2015/03/142015/03/18 Jared Mobarak

“We are the darkness” Alex Winter‘s new documentary Deep Web provides many unanswered questions the future will certainly shed light on soon. This is its point. While also giving a layman’s education on its subject matter—the Dark Net within, Tor as a means to access it, Silk Road and other illegal marketplaces utilizing it, etc.—the driving thesis is to expose how crucial the trial of SR founder Ross Ulbricht is to understanding our basic human rights within a digital world. What happened in that courtroom at the beginning of 2015…

Top Ten Films of 2013: A year in cinema to write home about

2014/03/012020/03/31 Jared Mobarak

2013 has been a banner year for cinema with a slew of quality pictures that makes you wonder how only nine got enough first place votes to earn an Oscar nomination for Best Picture. Most of my favorites could have filled that elusive tenth spot for some added acclaim—whether having a chance to win or not. I hadn’t even seen a good chunk of these until the calendar flipped to 2014, the sheer amount of winners was too vast. And after only awarding three films a 10/10 rating last year,…

REVIEW: Artifact [2013]

2013/11/302013/12/02 Jared Mobarak

“We put everything on black. And we rolled the dice.” Full disclosure on my feelings about Thirty Seconds to Mars: I’m a huge fan. When “Capricorn (A Brand New Name)” hit the radio waves, I was sold—not yet aware Jared Leto was the frontman or that the music wasn’t just another lame attempt by an actor to delve into another industry he/she knew nothing about. I torrented the disc, played it heavily on my iPod, and eventually purchased it as my way of saying they earned my support. I attended…

REVIEW: Downloaded [2013]

2013/06/152013/07/14 Jared Mobarak

“No one’s going to share an mp3” Can you believe Napster existed at full capacity for only one year? One year! As the men—nay, boys—behind the peer-to-peer music-sharing phenomenon tell it, the program was perfected by December 1999 and unplugged February 12, 2001 thanks to an injunction by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). While launching in May 1999 and eventually limping to bankruptcy June 3, 2002 after ill-fated attempts to eradicate its copyright infringement issues, the disruptive force that changed the face of the internet was a newborn…