Tag: Michael Ironside

REVIEW: Top Gun [1986]

Jared Mobarak

Your ego is writing checks your body can’t cash. There’s no arguing that Top Gun isn’t a pro-military piece of glossy propaganda. Between Matthew Modine declining the lead role because it would go against his politics to Tom Cruise admitting four years later that a sequel would be in poor taste considering its sanitized view on war to the Navy literally having script approval to change plot points to better suit their recruitment needs, everything about it screams jingoistic idealism. That it would eventually be preserved in the National Film…

Read More

FANTASIA21 REVIEW: Tin Can [2022]

Jared Mobarak

We’re in a tomb. Despite being neither a household name nor one I could immediately place, seeing writer/director Seth A. Smith attached to a film while sifting through the schedule at the Fantasia International Film Festival forced me to pause. A quick search later revealed him to be the filmmaker behind 2017’s The Crescent—an under-rated gem that enthralled me via narrative and visuals alike. It didn’t therefore matter what his latest, Tin Can, was about because I felt confident it would prove memorable whether I ended up enjoying it or…

Read More

REVIEW: Nobody [2021]

Jared Mobarak

Do you remember who you used to be? What if John Wick wasn’t so brooding and his boogeyman was forced to live out his retirement in the real world rather than one filtered through an embellished mythology? Can you see him waking up each morning to yell obscenities at the garbage truck, frustrated that he forgot to leave the tote on the curb again? Can you see him punching a clock every morning to pore over spreadsheets before climbing into bed on the other side of a pillow divider blocking…

Read More

REVIEW: Total Recall [1990]

Jared Mobarak

“A man is defined by his actions, not his memory” By the time Total Recall began filming—about a decade after its Hollywood genesis—quite the team of science fiction luminaries had been assembled. With inspiration from Blade Runner‘s Philip K. Dick; a script by the creators of Alien, Ronald Shusett and Dan O’Bannon; the directorial expertise of RoboCop‘s Paul Verhoeven; and The Terminator himself, Arnold Schwarzenegger, out front, this colossal undertaking was put atop the shoulders of dreamers. Spring-boarding off the question of whether reality can be proven alongside an authentically…

Read More

REVIEW: Terminator Salvation [2009]

Jared Mobarak

“So that’s what death tastes like” I have never seen a McG film before. I avoided the Charlie’s Angels movies and thought We Are Marshall looked pretty mediocre—besides being a based on true events sports flick; not my genre of choice. But here we have him helming the newest entry to one of the best science fiction series in cinema. How would someone that people oftentimes compare to a “hack” like Brett Ratner do with a big scale production containing an existing mythology and fan base calling for greatness? We…

Read More