Month: December 2019 | www.jaredmobarak.com

REVIEW: American Woman [2019]

2019/12/162020/03/22 Jared Mobarak

We just want to find her and bring her home. If you want to get an idea about what to expect from Jake Scott‘s American Woman, look no further than a scene between Sienna Miller and Amy Madigan at the halfway mark. The former is Debra, a woman who must ultimately cope with the disappearance of the daughter (Sky Ferreira‘s Bridget) she gave birth to at sixteen while also refocusing her life to raise the grandson that’s been left behind. The latter plays her mother Peggy, a woman who cares…

REVIEW: Portrait de la jeune fille en feu [Portrait of a Lady on Fire] [2019]

2019/12/142020/03/22 Jared Mobarak

Don’t regret. Remember. An eighteenth century Italian countess (Valeria Golino) still residing at the French estate of her late husband has decided she’d like to return home. The best way to accomplish this is marrying off one of her daughters to an affluent Milanese suitor since doing so would secure both their futures while also providing an excuse to travel east along the Mediterranean. Rather than hear what the young woman has to say about this fate set before her, however, it’s discovered through her actions instead. One untimely death…

REVIEW: Richard Jewell [2019]

2019/12/132020/03/22 Jared Mobarak

I’m me. There’s a major difference between fact (Richard Jewell is currently being investigated as a potential suspect) and editorial conjecture meant to carry your byline and publication into the national spotlight (Richard Jewell epitomizes the lone bomber profile and the FBI are nearing an arrest). Some journalists can’t unfortunately spot the difference. Why? Because sensationalized speculation sells. Once the 24-hour news cycle generated for-profit entities more worried about ratings than transparently calling a spade a spade, our ability to discern truth from opinion became eroded to the point where…

REVIEW: プロメア [Puromea] [Promare] [2019]

2019/12/132020/03/22 Jared Mobarak

Oil and water as one! Its mechs vs. monsters storyline starts pretty straightforward. The latter are born from a mysterious mutation that gives a select percentage of the Earth’s population combustion powers that they simply couldn’t control at the time of the “Great World Blaze” en route to causing a mass genocide it’s taken three decades to overcome. The former are the creation of a new scientific law enforcement entity that goes by the name Foundation. With popular billionaire Kray Foresight (Masato Sakai) as its CEO, newly crafted high-tech resources…

REVIEW: Atlantique [Atlantics] [2019]

2019/12/122020/10/02 Jared Mobarak

The spirits are scared of me. French writer/director Mati Diop made a documentary short ten years ago about a group of Senegalese friends who risk their lives to sail along the coast of Africa into Spain with the hope of better lives upon their arrival. It almost seems natural then that her first feature length fictional narrative would piggyback off that story in a bid to shine light on the dangers of illegal immigration, the rampant greed of the rich in Third World countries (a third of Senegal’s population lives…

REVIEW: The Feeling of Being Watched [2019]

2019/12/112020/03/27 Jared Mobarak

No. I’m not paranoid. Public radio journalist Assia Boundaoui was awake at her mother’s home at three in the morning when she saw men on a telephone poll with bright lights working. She went across the hall to wake-up Rabia Boundaoui, unsure what to think and desperate to figure out what was happening. Her mother’s response was nonchalant: “Don’t worry. It’s probably just the FBI.” How could a statement so calmly damning not pique her interest to discover more? Next came stories from neighbors, her own recollections of friends’ fathers…

REVIEW: J’ai perdu mon corps [I Lost My Body] [2019]

2019/12/112020/10/02 Jared Mobarak

You can’t always win. I think Netflix is doing J’ai perdu mon corps [I Lost My Body] a disservice by using the word “romance” to describe it wherever I look. Jérémy Clapin‘s animated film is most definitely not that. While Guillaume Laurant‘s novel Happy Hand—which he and Clapin adapted—might have been (I haven’t read it), this cinematic version of a young man’s (Dev Patel‘s Naoufel) lustful intrigue, sparked by loneliness, for a young woman (Alia Shawkat‘s Gabrielle) he delivered a pizza to once is very intentionally not handled as a…

REVIEW: A Hidden Life [2019]

2019/12/092020/03/22 Jared Mobarak

We lived above the clouds. With notoriously long post-production periods due to his uniquely poetic editing style, Terrence Malick‘s three-hour WWII romance A Hidden Life may have actually benefited from its three-year delay as far as thematic relevance to current events is concerned. As a rising tide of fascistic totalitarianism takes hold of world governments (including partisan blindness in the United States), a rarely told story like that of conscientious objector Franz Jägerstätter becomes more important than ever. While it might have been lost in 2016’s shuffle, seeing it now…

REVIEW: One Child Nation [2019]

2019/12/092020/10/02 Jared Mobarak

I wondered if the thoughts I had were my own or if they were simply learned. Death is inevitable in war. That’s what a former government official who’s still loyal to China’s communist party tells co-director Nanfu Wang during her (and Jialing Zhang‘s) documentary One Child Nation. While the sentiment is correct, I’m not certain she understands why. To this family planner, the war she’s speaking about is one pitting citizens against the horror of over-population. That was the party line and that’s what many Chinese people continue to believe…

REVIEW: Clemency [2019]

2019/12/082020/03/23 Jared Mobarak

I am alone and no one can fix it. Stories about death row inmates are so often shown from the convict’s perspective and his/her question of guilt that it’s easy to look past certain details concerning the other side. I don’t mean the prosecution, though. I mean those whose careers force them to carry out the execution itself. An example: most films of this sort have protestors screaming outside the prison’s walls for someone to intervene and erase the death penalty from American law books and it seems natural because…

REVIEW: Little Women [2019]

2019/12/072020/03/23 Jared Mobarak

Fight to the end and be loud. Despite letting its sordid content embarrass her to the point of pretending to be a writer friend’s messenger, Jo March (Saoirse Ronan) can’t hide the excitement of earning twenty dollars her family desperately needs for a story she composed. With one sister married to a husband of modest means (Emma Watson‘s Meg), another off in Europe with a wealthy suitor yet to propose (Florence Pugh‘s Amy), and a third sick in bed with fever (Eliza Scanlen‘s Beth), her New York City efforts to…