Month: August 2011

REVIEW: The Guard [2011]

Jared Mobarak

“I’m Irish, sir. Racism is part o’ me culture.” All Sergeant Gerry Boyle wanted was to be left alone. A guard in Connemara, Ireland, he got through his workday by having a pint, rough-housing with the youngins, and stationing himself at the sharpest curve in the road to pickpocket illicit drugs from the kids lying dead from car crashes. Days off mean escapades with his two favorite prostitutes, crime scenes are for enjoyment rather than documentation for actual police work, and his constant bucking of authority is status quo. Gerry…

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REVIEW: POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold [2011]

Jared Mobarak

“I can’t wait to get me some of that sweet Hollywood ad money” At the end of the day, marketing works. It’s a concise line at the end of the film that perfectly encapsulates all we’ve seen. Whether artistic media utilizes the help subsidizing costs with product placement achieves or not, something will be advertised. You can alter logos or black out icons only so much before it simply draws attention to the camouflage and makes you realize the brand more. So why not, “take the money and run,” as…

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REVIEW: Another Earth [2011]

Jared Mobarak

“Wish upon a little blue star” If there is one thing Rhoda Williams (Brit Marling) remembers, it is what she was doing the moment she first laid eyes on Earth 2. Driving home from a party days before her first semester at MIT, the DJ on the radio prompted her to peer into the night sky. But looking at this new planet couldn’t be a quick glimpse up for a science major with a shelf full of physics books and Asimov at home. Space was her world, the place her…

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FILM MARATHON: Movie Musicals #11: Victor Victoria [1982]

Jared Mobarak

“I’d sleep with you for a meatball” You’re down on your luck, famished, and unable to get a job despite having a voice like no other. What do you do? Victoria Grant (Julie Andrews) is asking herself that very question when we see her auditioning for Chez Lui—a dump populated by gangsters and hotheads that’s closed almost ever other night due to brawls. This soprano can shatter glass with a high B-flat at whim but her empty stomach barely allows her to walk home. And then, of course, once she’s…

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REVIEW: Sympathy for Delicious [2011]

Jared Mobarak

“God is trying to say hello to you” The Lord works in mysterious ways. Talk with any priest and he’ll most likely fit those sentiments in at some point. But what do those words mean? Are they mere shoulder rubbing for the devastated trying to reconcile what has happened to them? Are they empty words of men with nothing to say? The fact of the matter is, they are just words spoken whose meaning and worth lie with their receiver. We can disregard them as our initial desire demands in…

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REVIEW: Blitz [2011]

Jared Mobarak

“Do I look like I carry a pencil?” With a name like Blitz and the surly visage of Jason Statham on its poster, one would expect this British flick to be an action-packed romp with little plausibility. Surprisingly, however, Elliott Lester’s film is a straightforward criminal thriller using its star’s penchant for brutality as merely a character trait rather than a lifestyle. Hotheaded, temperamental, and never one to follow authority too closely, Statham is on the right side of the law this time. A Detective Sergeant going by the name…

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REVIEW: Trolljegeren [TrollHunter] [2010]

Jared Mobarak

“Does anyone here believe in God or Jesus?” Forget the fairy tales. This is what Hans (Otto Jespersen) says in deadpan to the young college students that decide to follow him around. All of their giggles and winking smirks toward their camera at the mention of trolls only make this hardened man want to tell them the truth more. He has been at it too long, has been thrown around and clawed at too often, and the pay simply sucks. Towing the company line until he no longer can, Hans…

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REVIEW: The Beaver [2011]

Jared Mobarak

“Look at you—stone-drunk and flattened by a television” We hear it all the time and we know it’s a lie: Everything will be okay. No it won’t; it’s impossible and anyone who thinks different is deluded. There will always be missteps, depression, tragedy, guilt, remorse—they are unavoidable. But those instances of darkness should never become who we are. And just because we are all misunderstood doesn’t mean we are invisible. Yes, we all go through the same rotten system of life’s lesser gifts, but we are still unique creatures. What…

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REVIEW: Priest [2011]

Jared Mobarak

“There has always been man and there have always been vampires” The war may be over but the false sense of peace is merely a charade. All the church has needed to keep order is the lie cultivated that vampires have been neutralized. While the battle that waged for years and risked worldwide destruction may have ended, the threat remains. With the help of priests—clergymen trained in the art of vampire combat—the church found a way to win in darkness. These men and women tattooed with a cross down the…

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REVIEW: Something Borrowed [2011]

Jared Mobarak

“Don’t Blame Cameron Diaz” I really must have seen a lot of bad films recently because I genuinely enjoyed Something Borrowed. All its romantic comedy tropes, its lame attempts at making the distinct white and black hats into gray, a litany of obvious tells showing who in fact loves and belongs with each other, and even the epilogue to try and smooth out the last remnants of blow-out—I had fun with it all. Maybe I was just in a good mood. Maybe I can’t help myself from being charmed by…

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REVIEW: One Day [2011]

Jared Mobarak

“Whatever happens tomorrow, we’ve had today” That quote could very well be the answer to the meaning of life. The future is a construct in a constant state of flux—it’s never known and our dreams are often never fully met. But the concept of today is something we can control. What we do at the present is at the mercy of our hearts’ content. Whatever may happen with the people we’re with should never have bearing on the love, fun, or absolute happiness we are experiencing right now, with or…

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