Tag: Take Me to the River

REVIEW: Take Me To the River [2016]

Jared Mobarak

“The beans have to come out of the oven” First-time feature writer/director Matt Sobel set out to create a film that allowed its viewers to become active participants in the story process and he’s succeeded. Take Me to the River is nothing if not ambiguous in a way that forces us to give meaning to unanswered questions and oddly truncated scenarios. It’s claustrophobically emotional with intense discomfort both for the characters and audience. How you interpret what’s happening beneath the surface of knowing looks, fierce provocations, and devastating guilt says…

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Top Ten Films of 2014: A deluge of sci-fi doppelgängers and one-word titles

Jared Mobarak

I don’t want to label 2014 as a good, bad, or average year. I want to call it inventive, original, and delightfully dark. Whether it’s doppelgänger paradoxes leading to murderous rage, the bleak carnage of war, prison violence, or psychologically debilitating struggles to be great, my favorite films had an edge that cut to the bone by credits’ end. The best thing I can say about 2014 is that my top ten (heck, maybe my top twenty-five) could be re-organized and re-listed without making me too angry about what is…

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REVIEW: Take Me to the River [2014]

Jared Mobarak

“Everything we touched turned to gold and they couldn’t figure out how” While it could have easily become a simple behind the scenes feature for an album of three generations of Memphis soul musicians coming together to recut some hits, Take Me to the River finds room to be more. Stewarded by director Martin Shore and composer Cody Dickinson, the simple act of getting these legends in the same room catalyzes the opportunity for stories to be told beyond lyrics. We hear them all individually outside the studio too in…

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