Jon Heder | www.jaredmobarak.com

REVIEW: Réalité [Reality] [2015]

2015/04/252015/04/30 Jared Mobarak

“The insides serve no purpose” This is what it’s like to go insane. Writer/director Quentin Dupieux loves the surreal and absurd, but Réalité [Reality] takes his penchant for humorous oddity to another level. With Philip Glass‘ “Music with Changing Parts” boring a hole into your temple and fluid sequences of characters meeting in real time or via some from of media projection (and sometimes both at once), the filmmaker revels in keeping his audience off balance and unsure. The beauty of it this time, though, is how he provides us…

REVIEW: For Ellen [2012]

2012/08/242014/04/11 Jared Mobarak

“She didn’t complain or send the law after me or anything” Looking to reconcile her feelings about being a successful parent, wife, and filmmaker with her child turning two, writer/director So Yong Kim decided to delve into the all too common reality that some only can do so when it is too late. Taking from her own experience growing up fatherless—only having ever seen him once at the age of five—her film For Ellen finds itself attempting to not decipher why someone would leave, but instead show the moment when…

REVIEW: When in Rome [2010]

2010/01/272011/08/24 Jared Mobarak

“This marriage has a shelf life of a banana” Here is my call to arms people … go visit the Guggenheim Museum and donate money. After The International last year shooting up Frank Lloyd Wright’s architectural wonder, New York City decided to get some more cash influx by allowing it to be showcased in this year’s rom-com crazy flick When in Rome. This film is by no means good—at all. However, that said, I laughed a whole lot. Once you leave the plot behind and start to just let the…

REVIEW: Blades of Glory [2007]

2007/04/112011/08/24 Jared Mobarak

“Sex on ice” It’s a real shame that Hollywood churns out some utter crap passed off as entertainment. The new low-brow comedy Blades of Glory has a great premise: two old skating rivals team together, after being banned for life in competition, as the first all male pair to fight for gold at the World Championships. This was ripe for some social commentary, a little out of their element shtick, and a touch of big laugh action sequences. What we get instead are two lead actors doing what they do…

REVIEW: Monster House [2006]

2007/02/102015/12/21 Jared Mobarak

“It’s gonna be a bloodbath” I really wasn’t sure what I’d be getting with the new film from Robert Zemeckis, utilizing his technology from the enjoyable Polar Express. I have been intrigued by the buzz I heard saying that Monster House was a bit darker and scarier than parents initially thought when taking their children. Also, being nominated for the animation Oscar, along with the wonderful Cars and utter garbage Happy Feet, I put the dvd in with some nice anticipation. Thankfully the animation is leaps and bounds better than…