Month: March 2019

REVIEW: Finding Steve McQueen [2019]

Jared Mobarak

It’s like an alphabet soup enema. The Dinsio Brothers and their accomplices stole around nine million dollars from four hundred-plus safety deposit boxes inside the United California Bank of Laguna Niguel. To read Amil Dinsio’s website is to learn of his self-proclaimed “master” exploits and how the FBI sought to frame him for the job before discovering the evidence necessary to prove he did it. Maybe there’s a movie there, but probably not. The world simply doesn’t need another self-serious drama projecting the smarts it takes to pull off the…

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REVIEW: Captain Marvel [2019]

Jared Mobarak

I’m not what you think I am. With the snap of his fingers, Thanos made half of Earth’s population disappear. It was the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s most harrowing climactic cliffhanger and it did possess an emotional response despite knowing most if not all of our beloved characters would find their way back before the war was officially over. With so many broken heroes, however, who could lead the necessary response? Tony Stark? Steve Rogers? No. When Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) saw what was happening, neither of them was on…

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REVIEW: Sightseers [2012]

Jared Mobarak

It was an accident, Mum. It’s always the quiet ones—those introverted, socially inept (when not talking about their preferred topic of choice), and downtrodden souls rejecting their unjust position within a hierarchy outside of their control. They’re the ones who trade a lack of entitlement to do whatever they want for the festering entitlement of believing they’re more righteous than those who do exactly that. These are the civil servants who snap after being stepped on too many times; the selfless adult children of aging parents who are trapped by…

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REVIEW: The Kid [2019]

Jared Mobarak

You gotta learn to trust inna fella. With so many different iterations of the same exact story flooding the cinematic market every year via reboots and sequels, it’s nice when someone decides to look at a common narrative through a new lens. This is what director Vincent D’Onofrio and screenwriter Andrew Lanham hope to accomplish with The Kid—a glimpse at the oft-mythologized game played by former friends turned enemies Billy the Kid (Dane DeHaan) and Pat Garrett (Ethan Hawke) from the eyes of a fourteen year old boy (Jake Shur‘s…

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REVIEW: Die Unsichtbaren [The Invisibles] [2019]

Jared Mobarak

After a little while you noticed that they were scared. We’re so used to stories of Holocaust survivors talking about what they endured inside the concentration camps that we forget around seven thousand Jewish men and women stayed hidden during World War II. While only about fifteen hundred ultimately walked away to live their lives in the aftermath, it’s impossible not to hail them and those who assisted them as heroes. The tales of close calls and secrets alone are worth discovering and yet these four (Cioma Schönhaus, Ruth Gumpel,…

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REVIEW: Starfish [2019]

Jared Mobarak

Maybe I’m dead. The logline deals in grief—the loss of a best friend. It describes Aubrey (Virginia Gardner), a woman lost in thought, pain, and sorrow after the death of Grace (Christina Masterson). She wasn’t there for her in her time of need and that regret is eating away her resolve and perhaps even her sanity once she’s awoken from a nightmare to find herself in the middle of a wintery wasteland. The dream wasn’t of Grace, however, but an unknown man (Eric Beecroft) crying inconsolably despite having no face…

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INTERVIEW: Keith Behrman, writer/director of Giant Little Ones

Jared Mobarak

One of my favorite things about going to the Toronto International Film Festival is finding the time to see the smaller movies that aren’t on everyone’s must-see lists. While the gamble sometimes turns out to be a dud, the risk is easily justified when you’re able to discover a work as genuinely memorable as Keith Behrman‘s Giant Little Ones in the process. A film about adolescence that isn’t afraid to delve into sexuality’s ever-broadening landscape of experimentation and fluidity with still violent repercussions, this story of two best friends falling…

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