Day: April 24, 2019

REVIEW: Booksmart [2019]

Jared Mobarak

‘Your ugly’ what? Does Olivia Wilde‘s directorial debut Booksmart call to mind Superbad? You bet. Not only is it about two nerd best friends trying to punch above their weight class and party hard before graduating, but it also stars that film’s co-lead Jonah Hill‘s sister in a very similar mode. She (Beanie Feldstein‘s Molly) has just discovered (due to a ham-fisted loop-hole in plotting where students can’t reveal their collegiate destinations) that her slacker classmates somehow got accepted into Ivy League universities like her and Amy (Kaitlyn Dever). While…

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REVIEW: I Trapped the Devil [2019]

Jared Mobarak

Something feels wrong. Tragedy struck some time ago and we honestly don’t need to know the details to understand how it’s affected the three characters we’re about to meet. Steve (Scott Poythress) is the one who’s hurting from it and has been ever since. Maybe his brother Matt (AJ Bowen) thought space was needed for him to heal or maybe he was just too unsure about what he could do to help alleviate his pain and/or scared about what doing so entailed, but it’s been awhile since they’ve last seen…

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HOTDOCS19 REVIEW: Willie [2019]

Jared Mobarak

I’m not done. It was 2003 before a Black hockey player had the honor of being inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame. That player was Grant Fuhr, the Stanley Cup winning goalie of the Edmonton Oilers and multiple other teams (including a short stint with my hometown Buffalo Sabres). Because he was far from the first Black player in the league, however, you wouldn’t be faulted for wondering why the man with that unique distinction hadn’t already been enshrined. The reason was simple: Willie O’Ree only played forty-five games…

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