Month: November 2015

REVIEW: Experimenter [2015]

Jared Mobarak

“Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards” As Peter Sarsgaard‘s Stanley Milgram posthumously states at the conclusion of Michael Almereyda‘s Experimenter, his work compiled in Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View continues to come up in conversation whenever a new atrocity occurs in the news. Milgram’s impetus, as explained in one of many fourth wall-breaking instances throughout the film, stemmed from World War II and how seemingly ordinary people became complicit in the murder of millions. What made them ignore their humanity and morality to…

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REVIEW: I Smile Back [2015]

Jared Mobarak

“Then why bother loving anything?” I’ve never been a huge fan of Sarah Silverman as an actress. As a comedian, though, she’s great. It’s the same thing with Chris Rock: the dude kills it on stage, but on a movie set there’s definitely something lacking. To me it just goes to show what many people have said for decades about comedy being harder to theatrically than drama. Naturalistic timing isn’t easy and when you’re used to constructing a joke it can be impossible to change gears. Stand-up is half about…

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REVIEW: Le meraviglie [The Wonders] [2014]

Jared Mobarak

“When he’s not here we can breathe, right?” The running joke throughout Alice Rohrwacher’s Le meraviglie [The Wonders] is that eldest daughter Gelsomina (Maria Alexandra Lingu) is in charge of the family. It’s a cutely simple way in which parents Wolfgang (Sam Louwyck) and Angelica (Alba Rohrwacher) can disarm outsiders threatening their livelihood. The family is struggling so it’s easy to position a child as the honey business’ face because Dad’s anything but warm and inviting. But Gelsomina is of the age where quiet acquiesce has become impossible despite truly…

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REVIEW: Shelter [2015]

Jared Mobarak

“The objective is forgiveness” It’s quite comforting to see actors-turned-directors not shying away from tough subject matter. You’d almost assume they would amidst stereotypes of celebrity vanity driving them to worry about losing audience appeal. Looking at a guy like Ben Affleck leveraging a fledging acting career destroyed by bad mainstream choices into a critically acclaimed metamorphosis as an A-list director, however, shows the transition is real regardless of content or perception. I’d rather a guy like Ryan Gosling get derided for taking a chance on Lost River than see…

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REVIEW: The 33 [2015]

Jared Mobarak

“Aim to miss” As if being the international feel-good story of 2010 wasn’t enough, the Copiapó mining accident at the San José copper/gold mine in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile included the type of personal, human melodramatic intrigue ripe for cinematic interpretation. Sourced from Hector Tobar‘s non-fiction novel Deep Down Dark (commissioned with each miner’s help so one couldn’t benefit more than another), Patricia Riggen‘s The 33 could be fiction. Mario Sepúlveda (Antonio Banderas) was working his day off, Álex Vega (Mario Casas) was days from fatherhood, and Mario…

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REVIEW: The Overnight [2015]

Jared Mobarak

“Give me twenty minutes and I will give you parental bliss” Writer/director Patrick Brice touches on many relationship aspects beyond attraction with his outrageous sex comedy The Overnight. Most work of this ilk push two couples with differing levels of strife together to see what comes out—swinging, uncoupling, cheating, etc. Brice instead introduces two pairs seemingly in bliss. Alex (Adam Scott) and Emily (Taylor Schilling) have a healthy relationship with each other and their son RJ (R.J. Hermes) while Kurt (Jason Schwartzman) and Charlotte (Judith Godrèche) are in a constant…

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REVIEW: Love & Mercy [2015]

Jared Mobarak

“Lonely scared frightened” The best part of a Rock and Roll Music History class that I took in college was learning just how influential The Beach Boys were to music at large. I knew the songs and enjoyed them, but how could surfer pop be held in the same regard as The Beatles? It didn’t make sense. But then we dove into the intricacies of the music’s construction and Brian Wilson‘s insane ideas in the studio. We listened to Rubber Soul, Pet Sounds, and beyond to catch where one band…

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REVIEW: Theeb [2015]

Jared Mobarak

“No bullets until you aim straight” The constant throughout Naji Abu Nowar‘s debut feature is the underestimation of its titular Theeb (Jacir Eid Al-Hwietat). This isn’t unwarranted considering his age and the Bedouin lifestyle he inhabits, but it’s still a dangerous proposition with a name that translates to “Wolf” and the blood of the highly respected Sheikh—his late father—coursing through him. His eldest brother can’t be bothered to steward his adolescence now that the group looks to him for leadership, so that role falls to middle child Hussein (Hussein Salameh…

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REVIEW: Alice in den Städten [Alice in the Cities] [1974]

Jared Mobarak

“The picture never shows what it seems” After directing three films he didn’t believe possessed a voice all his own, number four became Wim Wenders‘ make-it-or-break-it moment as far as whether to keep moving forward with cinema or to choose another path. Considering he’s still working today, we know the commercial and personal success Alice in den Städten [Alice in the Cities] provided. The first of his “Road Movie Trilogy” (although he would continue the motif throughout his oeuvre afterwards too), the film had its hiccups as the script written…

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REVIEW: Les plages d’Agnès [The Beaches of Agnès] [2008]

Jared Mobarak

“I feel pain everywhere” I think it should be a new rule that documentaries about filmmakers can only be made if the subject him/herself directs. How could you not want this enforced after watching Agnès Varda‘s Les plages d’Agnès [The Beaches of Agnès]? It surely helps that the Frenchwoman is candid, funny, and fearless when it comes to combining whatever she has into one cohesive whole. As she says: her movies are puzzles with many disparate pieces strewn about that find themselves coming together in the end. If some footage…

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REVIEW: Spectre [2015]

Jared Mobarak

“You’re a kite dancing in a hurricane, Mr. Bond” Remember that badass organization known as Quantum the deliciously vile Mr. White (Jesper Christensen) ran to terrorize James Bond (Daniel Craig) for two films? How about rogue former 00-program pledge Silva (Javier Bardem) wreaking havoc throughout London due a personal vendetta against MI6? They both made for entertaining villains in this rebooted saga with a grittier Bond—each helping bridge the cheese of its predecessors and the new-look superhero darkness Hollywood had embraced at the start of this century. What reason would…

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