Month: November 2017

REVIEW: The Disaster Artist [2017]

Jared Mobarak

Give me your pinky. If I hadn’t known already, James Franco‘s The Disaster Artist confirms it: I’m not a connoisseur of the “cringe laugh.” I’ve always been the one attendee of a midnight screening of a C-list film who isn’t laughing because the artists who put what I’m watching together didn’t mean for it to be funny. I’m filled with second-hand embarrassment instead. Some people can allow themselves to ignore the fact that they’re laughing at the cast and crew in these scenarios rather than the finished product and some…

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REVIEW: Porto [2017]

Jared Mobarak

You never know if what you’ve lost is better than what you’ve gained. An American ex-pat reminisces about lost love, his walk through the Portuguese town of Porto leading to the café window of an old late-night conversation conducted with absolute honesty, vulnerability, and empathy. His hair is grayed, the time between widescreen past and boxed present (the latter shot on Super 8 rather than the former) ten to twenty years. He’s distraught, complacent, and lecherously pathetic when the emotions of memory take hold of a body long since changed.…

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REVIEW: Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story [2017]

Jared Mobarak

I’m a good shot so be careful. The tell-all “autobiography” Ecstasy and Me: My Life As A Woman was exactly what Hedy Lamarr‘s agent wanted to make quick money. But it wasn’t her life. Whether her ghostwriter’s words were true or not, the story dealt with everything she hoped wouldn’t define her legacy. Sadly she never had the chance to set the record straight with a follow-up of her own creation despite ambitions for one. The former Hollywood starlet became a recluse, barely seen in public and hardly in a…

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REVIEW: Remember Me [2017]

Jared Mobarak

The last thing you and I need is for bodies to start piling up. I’d assume the majority of people treat/treated their grandparents as somewhat of an escape. They were family who you loved and cared for that had a home you could stay at whenever you wanted. So you showed face once in a while to do your due diligence in case that guest room was needed in the near future. Maybe you took them to a show, kept them company, or simply shared a meal. It’s a nice…

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REVIEW: The Room [2003]

Jared Mobarak

Did you know chocolate is the symbol of love? I didn’t think it could be this bad. How’s it possible? How could the hype not prove hyperbolic? How could there not be one redeeming aspect in the entirety of Tommy Wiseau‘s vision? But then you watch and discover it’s true. The Room is quite possibly the worst movie ever made and people still watch it. That’s why “ever” tracks—we haven’t just dismissed it outright and stopped giving its creator credence. Instead the general public has fueled his yearning for fame…

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REVIEW: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri [2017]

Jared Mobarak

It’s hard to know what to do. It’s no coincidence that the dumbest character in Martin McDonagh‘s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri says the most revealing line of dialogue throughout the entire film: “Anger begets more anger.” I guess it’s because Penelope (Samara Weaving) isn’t dumb as much as she’s naïvely innocent and young. She’s still idealistic about a world that has yet to throw any great tragedies her way. She’s still elastic enough to take being laid off from work in stride because there’s always another job out there.…

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REVIEW: A Crooked Somebody [2018]

Jared Mobarak

People aren’t just done being psychic. There’s a line that our actions can cross when our desire to help others turns into helping ourselves. And it’s often difficult to see when you’re the one falling prey to this hubristic vanity masked as good will. Outsiders don’t have a problem recognizing the shift, though. They only see a charlatan and victim too distraught with pain to discern truth from what they want to hear. This is why there will always be a con artist, mark, and disgruntled bystander catching the trick…

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REVIEW: Destined [2017]

Jared Mobarak

Either way you started a war. A young boy residing in the Brewster projects of Detroit follows his friend to a stash house unaware that the consequences of this moment will shape the rest of his life. He’s coerced into dealing as a means for survival—the only way to convince his friend’s bosses that he isn’t a snitch being to actually engage in the activities he would be snitching on. So he ignores another friend just trying to say hello, his fear towards talking to her while “working” too much…

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REVIEW: Justice League [2017]

Jared Mobarak

I don’t have to recognize it. I just have to save it. There are a lot of haters out there—those who pile on Zack Snyder, the DC Extended Universe, and both. I’m not one of them. But that doesn’t mean I’ve loved what they’ve delivered. We’ve received one good film (Wonder Woman), one ambitiously enjoyable mess (Batman v Superman), an okay origin tale (Man of Steel), and a mildly enjoyable mess (Suicide Squad). Despite this union’s many flaws, however, it’s consistently brought something wholly unique tonally in comparison to Marvel.…

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REVIEW: This is Congo [2018]

Jared Mobarak

The one who should keep you safe is the one who can kill you. Documentarian Daniel McCabe wastes no time getting to the point of his film This is Congo with the words of DRC National Army Colonel Mamadou Ndala. This smiling dreamer of peace and unity speaks about his home like a philosopher as far as its riches (nature, minerals, and beauty) providing its people pure joy from God despite the contrasting prevalence of misery brought by the greed of men seeking to wrest it away for selfish gain…

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REVIEW: Die göttliche Ordnung [The Divine Order] [2017]

Jared Mobarak

But here at home time stood still. The opening transition from credits to film of Petra Biondina Volpe‘s Tribeca Film Festival Audience Award-winning Die göttliche Ordnung [The Divine Order] is absolute perfection. With Jo Jo Benson and Peggy Scott-Adams’ “Soulshake” playing atop images from America spanning women’s liberation, civil rights, Woodstock, and more, we begin to see the impact of political revolutions changing the very fabric of first world societies. And then with a record scratch we’re transported to a rural village in Switzerland at the exact same time: the…

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