Month: June 2017 | www.jaredmobarak.com

REVIEW: Lucky [2017]

2017/06/152017/06/16 Jared Mobarak

“You do something out of need and it becomes a habit along the way” It’s taken five years for Lucky (Bari Kang) to save the money and find the footing—no matter how much illegal activity both pursuits warranted—necessary to acquire a bride believable enough to fool INS and earn his green card. He has a legit job as a mechanic with his “brother” Ricky’s (Daniel Jordano) garage during the day, helps “lose” customers’ taxis at night to earn extra cash from a fence while they receive insurance checks, and even…

REVIEW: 47 Meters Down [2017]

2017/06/132017/06/15 Jared Mobarak

“It’s like you’re going to the zoo only you’re in the cage” There’s this great moment towards the end of 47 Meters Down when a flare ignites to reveal a trio of sharks circling Lisa (Mandy Moore) and Kate (Claire Holt). It’s a beautiful image in its horrific content: warm colors illuminating the cool dark blue hiding these fearsome creatures on the hunt. I mention it because it’s all I’m likely to remember come tomorrow of what’s an otherwise forgettable survival tale built on convenience without a shred of suspense,…

REVIEW: It Comes at Night [2017]

2017/06/122017/06/13 Jared Mobarak

“Are you sick?” Distill any post-apocalyptic, sickness-infested world inhabited by survivors to its core and you receive an unfiltered glimpse at humanity’s desperation. Strip away the artifice and redundant plotlines, tear down labels in the vein of hero or leader or savior, and make sure “hope” becomes an archaic concept lost to distant memory even if it hasn’t been that long since everything imploded without warning. These arduously unforgiving circumstances box “life” in the present so that the past seems like a dream and the future a luxurious fantasy nobody…

REVIEW: I Called Him Morgan [2017]

2017/06/11 Jared Mobarak

“I’m making the biggest mistake of my life” The life of jazz trumpeter Lee Morgan was one of extreme highs and lows. He was a musician plucked towards superstardom at the age of eighteen by Dizzy Gillespie, eventually touring with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers while helping create the Blue Note label’s sound. But he’s also a guy who took to heroin hard enough to risk and almost destroy his career and life. Guys who would later play with him after rehab recall catching a glimpse of what looked…

REVIEW: Moscow Never Sleeps [2015]

2017/06/092017/06/10 Jared Mobarak

“You can’t just pretend I never existed” Writer/director Johnny O’Reilly found himself in Russia during college and decided to stay despite Hollywood opportunities after releasing his debut narrative feature The Weather Station. He sought to film a personal story set in his adoptive home Moscow, one that would touch upon its myriad complexities. So he wrote a sprawling character study following multiple members of and in close proximity to two families on the year’s celebratory “City Day.” Think Crash and its emotion-heavy propulsion, the whole steeped in slice of life…

REVIEW: Krisha [2016]

2017/06/082017/11/30 Jared Mobarak

“Them cars are getting faster and them wings are getting weaker” While it may not be autobiographical in a plot sense, no one can watch Trey Edward Shults‘ debut Krisha without a full recognition of its honesty and authenticity as far as the emotional turmoil running through the writer/director’s mind. I say this more than just as a result of acknowledging how he shot the film in his parents’ home with a cast almost exclusively made up of family and friends either. Whether these actors are seasoned or amateur and…

REVIEW: Jerichow [2009]

2017/06/072017/06/08 Jared Mobarak

“You can’t love if you don’t have money” The titular town of Jerichow as shown onscreen by writer/director Christian Petzold is hardly one of paradise yet still very much of “home.” It’s where dishonorably discharged ex-Army man Thomas (Benno Fürmann) runs to without a word to his employer (in part due to stealing a few bucks), his mother’s death sparking the return while her empty house provides a reason to stay. And it’s where Turkish immigrant Ali (Hilmi Sözer) has set-up shop with wife Laura (Nina Hoss), their snack shack…

REVIEW: The Mummy [2017]

2017/06/062017/06/07 Jared Mobarak

“Death is a doorway and the past cannot be buried forever” A new cinematic universe is upon us—one I’m surprised took this long to materialize. The moniker is Dark Universe and it’s composed of all the classic Universal monsters from Dracula to Frankenstein to the Creature from the Black Lagoon as shepherded by producer Alex Kurtzman. The potential is immense with twenty-first century technology providing the studio a means to really up the ante on gore and horror, the possible connections between them possessing opportunity for exciting clashes or secondary…

REVIEW: Krisha [2014]

2017/06/052017/11/30 Jared Mobarak

“I thought we got rid of her” The story behind Krisha is a fascinating one. Writer/director Trey Edward Shults was readying his feature debut when the acquisition of resources necessary to finish proved too difficult. So he took what he had already filmed and fashioned it into this short—one that ultimately won a Special Jury Award at SXSW before its critical acclaim got his mind and ambition back on track to place the full expanded version before cameras. It’s a personal story dealing with emotional demons (autobiographically and fictionally) he…

REVIEW: Carnal Knowledge [1971]

2017/06/032017/06/04 Jared Mobarak

“I’m being pressured into it” When Tony, Grammy, and Oscar winning director Mike Nichols says your play is better suited for the silver screen, you listen. That’s what screenwriter Jules Feiffer did after showing the legend (who’d eventually complete his EGOT with an Emmy in 2001) his latest work Carnal Knowledge. That doesn’t mean the film doesn’t still play like it was made for the stage with only two leads and two supporting roles possessing substance, though. Nichols was simply no stranger to adding scope and locale to an already…

REVIEW: Wakefield [2017]

2017/06/032017/06/03 Jared Mobarak

“Who hasn’t had the impulse to just put their life on hold for a moment?” There’s a great line of self-realization around mid-way through Robin Swicord‘s Wakefield where Howard (Bryan Cranston) acknowledges how he didn’t leave his family—he left himself. It’s this brilliantly profound yet simple understanding, something we all must face head-on once our daily routines prove too predictable and boring to bear. But where most people’s mid-life crises result in affairs or new cars to implode their seemingly utopic lives as a blunt-force wake-up call, Howard’s arrives in…