Tag: James Cosmo

TIFF22 REVIEW: My Sailor, My Love [2022]

Jared Mobarak

I know what you’re up to. Howard (James Cosmo) lives what appears to be a hermitic life of unwavering obstinance. He doesn’t even open the door when his daughter Grace (Catherine Walker) and her husband Martin (Aidan O’Hare) arrive—a seemingly inconsequential fact until you realize it’s his birthday and she’s there to ready for the celebration. It would be easy to dismiss his demeanor as immovable then. Why would he act like this with his loved ones if that wasn’t how he acts with everyone? Except attending the local bar…

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REVIEW: Get Duked! [2020]

Jared Mobarak

How can you get lost in a place without corners? Teamwork. Orienteering. Foraging. Three tasks that shouldn’t be too difficult to complete when bolstered by your best friends on a hiking trip en route to earning the Duke of Edinburgh Award. It’s going to be a challenge, but most who seek it do so with open eyes because of what the accolade means on their university applications. They want to be their best, will follow the map to the letter, and meet their chaperone at the midway campsite and coastal…

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REVIEW: Trainspotting [1996]

Jared Mobarak

“Choose rotting away at the end of it all” There’s an undeniable energy to Danny Boyle‘s Trainspotting, a rush of excitement set to a pulse-pounding rock soundtrack that almost seems the antithesis of what it’s like to fall down into a heroin-fueled dreamy stupor. Even as the characters from Irvine Welsh‘s infamous novel stick themselves with a needle and sink into the floor, Boyle keeps the pedal depressed beyond capacity with inventive visuals and breakneck speed narration. But as you get into the film and move forward with the sometimes…

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REVIEW: Citadel [2012]

Jared Mobarak

“Feel the fear and let it pass” Writer/director Ciaran Foy found the perfect way to distract his audience from questioning the often clichéd actions of horror film protagonists. Instead of making Tommy (Aneurin Barnard) naive or stupid like so many of the genre’s heroes walking headlong into danger or hiding in plain sight, a diagnosis of agoraphobia keeps him perpetually on edge and thus easily forgiven for lapses in judgment. Crippled by the vastness of the world outside his door and the tragedy it holds, this young man is naturally…

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