Category: Film Marathons

FILM MARATHON: Movie Musicals #2: Show Boat [1936]

Jared Mobarak

“Just one big happy family” Based on Edna Ferber’s novel, the James Whale directed and Oscar Hammerstein II scripted Show Boat concerns the show-biz family of Magnolia Hawks and how her life is forever changed once a sheltered childhood makes way for international success. Ushered in by a nicely animated credit sequence of cardboard dancers in a parade carrying the cast and crew title cards, we are thrust into an excited Mississippi River port town awaiting the visiting showboat and its famous entertainers. Led by Cap’n Andy Hawks (Charles Winninger),…

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FILM MARATHON: Movie Musicals #1: The Jazz Singer [1927]

Jared Mobarak

“A jazz singer—singing to his God” Mirroring the actual life of star Al Jolson, playwright Samson Raphaelson wrote The Jazz Singer about a young Jewish performer who was cast out of his own home for choosing jazz over the traditional synagogue hymns taught to him by his Cantor father. Gone for years to try his hand at entertaining, a fortuitous job on Broadway brings him back home to New York where an impromptu visit to the place he swore he’d never return brings back the memories of a mother’s universal…

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FILM MARATHON #3: Movie Musicals (Broadway & Original)

Jared Mobarak

The reason I started doing my marathon series was to finally start seeing films I’ve neglected and needed to see. Doing the filmography of Terrence Malick couldn’t have turned out better with some of the greatest works of cinema I’ve ever seen. Days of Heaven easily vaulted itself into my top 10 of all-time and The Thin Red Line wasn’t too far behind. Checking out Julia Roberts films might have made me realize I’ve been wrongly ignoring her abilities as an actor, but Malick has given me a new auteur…

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FILM MARATHON: Terrence Malick #4 – The New World [2005]

Jared Mobarak

“At the moment I was to die, she threw herself upon me” There is no way to mistake a Terrence Malick film for anything but. His use of score as a character rather than background, the hitch cuts in scenes as though only a few frames are removed, ultra short vignettes right out of a nature documentary spliced in perfectly, and, my favorite, scenes of people talking where the words are drowned out and made almost inaudible, allowing for the visuals to trump all, are just some of the unforgettable…

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FILM MARATHON: Terrence Malick #3 – The Thin Red Line [1998]

Jared Mobarak

“The only things that are permanent is dying and the Lord” Pure, unfiltered, raw emotion. That is what’s front and center in Terrence Malick’s adaptation of James Jones’s autobiographical novel The Thin Red Line. The term itself may describe a thinly spread line of defense holding position in war, but I think the metaphor towards a man’s tenuous grasp on humanity is also apt. It’s a battle for Guadalcanal during World War II, an island being used as an airstrip by the Japanese and a crucial piece of property for…

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FILM MARATHON: Terrence Malick #2 – Days of Heaven [1978]

Jared Mobarak

“But if you’ve been bad, God don’t even hear you. He don’t even hear ya talkin’.” Overwhelmed. The tagline got it right: every sense—by the end of Days of Heaven—will be overwhelmed. Terrence Malick’s second feature film is as breathtaking as you’ve heard, mesmerizing you with its sumptuous beauty until the hellish climax burns through your soul with its flames of vengeance. I seriously don’t know which is more gorgeous, the sprawling wheat fields straight from an Andrew Wyeth painting or the stark contrast of fire on the night sky,…

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FILM MARATHON: Terrence Malick #1 – Badlands [1973]

Jared Mobarak

“He said that if the Devil came at me, I could shoot him with a gun” A character at the end of Terrence Malick’s debut feature film Badlands tells antihero Kit that he is “quite the individual”. This could be the understatement of 1973. Based on the 1950s Starkweather-Fugate killing spree, the film tells the tale of a 25-year old James Dean type and his 15-year old girlfriend on the run. Shy, young, and naïve, Holly falls in love with this man who somehow also picked her despite the potential…

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FILM MARATHON #2: Terrence Malick – A Perfectionist’s Oeuvre as Marathon

Jared Mobarak

And the marathon series continues. Entry one ended up being somewhat of an enlightening experience, opening my eyes to the fact that when Julia Roberts is given a good role, she really can nail it. With a couple clunkers turned gems after rewatching, as well as a couple seen for the first time shocking me with their quality—Pretty Woman ending up being quite the enjoyable film—I have no complaints with my friend Christa’s selections. Roberts was not someone I necessarily wanted to open up my time towards, but she surprised…

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FILM MARATHON: Julia Roberts #5 – Erin Brockovich [2000]

Jared Mobarak

“They’re called boobs, Ed” It’s one of those stories to show no matter how bad things are when you’re flat broke, single, raising three kids, and unemployed, sometimes having the high-paying job makes it so your personal life is even worse. Erin Brockovich is a fascinating case study on how a tenacious attitude, street smarts, and an ability to talk to people as though you’ve known them your whole life—with a not so subtle flash of cleavage—can allow you do accomplish pretty much anything you want. Down on her luck,…

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FILM MARATHON: Julia Roberts #4 – My Best Friend’s Wedding [1997]

Jared Mobarak

“This is my whole life’s happiness; I need to be ruthless” Okay, for some reason the opening credit sequence to My Best Friend’s Wedding is sort of brilliant. Showing four women dressed for a wedding, they lip-synch the words to “Wishin’ and Hopin’” (with a version surprisingly sung by Ani Difranco) while performing choreography on a solid pink backdrop. It’s equal parts cute, endearing, and over-the-top, much like the film itself. I’ll admit that my first viewing and impression of the movie was a bit harsh. Watching again, over a…

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FILM MARATHON: Julia Roberts #3 – The Pelican Brief [1993]

Jared Mobarak

“It’s rally around the leader time” It’s only fitting that the director behind one the of the great films of the 70s, All the President’s Men, Alan J. Pakula would be tasked with bringing John Grisham’s own look into political espionage and White House scandal, The Pelican Brief, to the screen. Admittedly I am not a fan of Grisham’s stories as they generally become convoluted and way to convenient, pandering to the audience at every turn, pretending to be suspenseful and unique. But I think perhaps this, along with The…

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