Month: July 2012

DESIGN: Doctor Who – Prydon Academy

Jared Mobarak

Coming up with an image to represent the fictional school both The Doctor and The Master attended on the Time Lord planet of Gallifrey needed it’s fair share of research. First I had to find out about Prydon Academy’s location, vocation, and history to go along with that of the planet and alien race itself. There is the mythology of the hero Prydonius and his relationship with Time Lord co-founder Rassilon (who’s seal is depicted in this design); the school’s geographic proximity to The Doctor’s own House of Lungbarrow, it’s…

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REVIEW: Intouchables [The Intouchables] [2011]

Jared Mobarak

“We’ll escort you. It’s safer.” Leave it to my Americanized way of looking at things to go into the César Award-nominated French film Intouchables [The Intouchables] by thinking it would be yet another run-of-the-mill rich white guy helping poor black guy tale. With a Hollywood remake already in the works, I see our adaptation falling into such tropes by increasing hostility as lead character Driss turns into a punk who falls prey to outside preconceptions and lets his employer down before redeeming himself. But Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano‘s film…

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REVIEW: Serena [2012]

Jared Mobarak

“About what? The kidnapping or the body parts?” Writer, director, and co-creator of the WIGS network Rodrigo García pretty much summed up his short film entry Serena with the following behind the scenes quote: “The best love stories are those with the greatest obstacles.” An intriguing sentiment as far as admitting the struggle necessary to find, keep, and enhance one’s love with another, the word obstacle is an understatement in the context of the relationship he’s created. Dealing with the interactions of a pastor and one of his troubled parishioners,…

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REVIEW: Diana [2012]

Jared Mobarak

“Swimming was the only place I felt safe” After the success of the WIGS network’s ongoing series of fictional shorts, Jon Avnet, Rodrigo García, and their partners decided to delve into the documentary realm as well. Keeping true to their goal of showcasing tales featuring empowering women, it’s no surprise an athlete like Diana Nyad was chosen as their first entry’s subject. A sixty-year old World Record holder in marathon swimming, Diana tells her story of suffering, accolades, and the hope of achieving immortality. Documentarian Sandra Keats makes the right…

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REVIEW: Allison [2012]

Jared Mobarak

“I’m already doing 90%. Not going to do 95.” After what appeared like full-blown retirement from the industry, writer/director Paul Brickman of Risky Business fame has been lured back by the WIGS network of female-centric short films. Building his tale around the stereotypical nagging wife trope, Allison subverts the usual comic portrayal of an over-zealous matriarch by putting her in a situation that earns the attitude. Containing a healthy portion of sarcastic humor, we empathize with this breadwinning, headstrong woman and completely understand her struggle. If husband Jerry (Joel Johnstone)…

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REVIEW: Train to Stockholm [2012]

Jared Mobarak

“What’s Bruce Lee’s favorite drink?” A very intimate portrait into the life of a young man lost amidst a foreign culture, J. Erik Reese‘s Train to Stockholm is an emotionally naked work composed of the crossed signals and false starts lining everyone’s path towards personal identity. We’re the product of our environment, upbringing, and curiosity—forever changing as adventures, relationships, and time progress. Some keep a practical head by orientating their lives along a series of successive goals while others break free from the mold to explore the unknown. It’s through…

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REVIEW: Denise [2012]

Jared Mobarak

“I get along with girls better …” As evidenced by In the Company of Men and The Shape of Things, no one does scathing social commentary like Neil LaBute. So, after the rather questionable decisions to helm remakes of The Wicker Man and Death at a Funeral, it’s good to see the playwright going back to what made him a filmmaker to keep tabs on over a decade ago. His script for the short film Denise—a part of the WIGS series from Jon Avnet and Rodrigo García—takes a discerning look…

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REVIEW: The Amazing Spider-Man [2012]

Jared Mobarak

“Up your what, Dad?” Ten years after Sam Raimi‘s Spider-Man joined Bryan Singer‘s X-Men in proving the superhero genre could be taken seriously in the annals of cinematic history, the reset button has been pressed for a fresh new look. Between Marvel taking the initiative to pool their collective, solely-owned properties into one giant universe of quasi sequels with 2008’s Iron Man and DC Comics lucking into Christopher Nolan‘s vision of Batman as more than a surreally cartoonish romp in the darkness, what was one of the most legitimate comic…

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REVIEW: Independence Day [1996]

Jared Mobarak

“We will not go quietly into the night” The man who proved we could only take so many disaster films and yet still made more, Roland Emmerich shouldn’t be denied the astronomical success of the one that jump-started the genre’s big budget revival in the first place. After giving us the rather smart science fiction actioner Stargate, he and writing/producing partner Dean Devlin came up with the treatment for Independence Day as a response to the constant questions about their opinions on alien life. Wanting to take a step back…

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REVIEW: Savages [2012]

Jared Mobarak

“Money’s not enough. You’ve got to give your heart.” Who’s crueler: a vicious Mexican cartel decapitating men to send a message or a couple Laguna boys willing to do whatever it takes to protect the emotionally damaged girlfriend they share? Being a trick question, the answer is yes. Plain and simply, humanity has forever been plagued by the capacity for evil since the dawn of time, whether a monkey discovering the blunt force trauma capability of a stick or Eve biting that gosh darned apple in Paradise. We yearn for…

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NYAFF12 REVIEW: Saya-zamurai [Scabbard Samurai] [2011]

Jared Mobarak

“Why did it have to rain?” Sometimes foreign language films simply exist across an insurmountable cultural divide that renders them indecipherable here. Hitoshi Matsumoto‘s Saya-zamurai [Scabbard Samurai] perfectly exemplifies through an obtusely constructed first third before hitting its stride. Comically uneven at the start, I was left scratching my head and wondering if I was missing the joke. An old, toothless samurai with an empty scabbard breathlessly and wordlessly runs through the Japanese countryside with his young daughter following closely behind as three assassins—introduced in freeze-frame—arrive to inflict what should…

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