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REVIEW: Loving Pablo [2018]

2018/06/022020/04/07 Jared Mobarak

You tell me your secrets and I’ll tell you mine. The latest cinematic look at Pablo Escobar is titled Loving Pablo for a reason: it’s based on Colombian journalist Virginia Vallejo‘s book Loving Pablo, Hating Escobar. Fernando León de Aranoa makes a concerted effort to show as much in his opening by following Vallejo (Penélope Cruz) to an American hotel room over a decade after first meeting her long-time, not-so-secret boyfriend. We hear her voiceover explain how this journey’s circumstances are much different than earlier ones, laughing with her when…

REVIEW: RBG [2018]

2018/05/132020/04/10 Jared Mobarak

There’s a china doll in the bullpen. If you asked me which branch of government’s members I know least, the answer would be easy: judicial. The reason is even easier: I don’t vote for them. It’s an interesting truth because they’re the ones given lifetime appointments and therefore the ones who will potentially impact our country the most. But we don’t learn their political views, votes, or names in school unless those things also carry a “first” along with them. Thurgood Marshall was the first black justice. Sandra Day O’Connor…

REVIEW: Filmworker [2018]

2018/05/112020/04/10 Jared Mobarak

I want to work for that man. When studios gave Leon Vitali a hard time about requests made on behalf of Stanley Kubrick, the director would tell him to stand firm and be exacting. Vitali relays a story within Tony Zierra‘s documentary Filmworker of Kubrick faxing these places his demands with Leon’s signature so they would be forced to see him not as a lesser voice, but the voice. If you’ve ever heard tales about the late auteur’s working habits you know why this would be necessary. Anyone taking the…

REVIEW: Le Redoutable [Godard Mon Amour] [2017]

2018/05/072020/04/10 Jared Mobarak

I was lucky enough to admire my lover. We’re introduced to Emile (Marc Fraize) halfway through Michel Hazanavicius‘ Le Redoubtable [Godard Mon Amour]. He’s a local Frenchman with a car and the means to procure enough gas to drive an argumentative Jean-Luc Godard (Louis Garrel), his wife Anne Wiazemsky (Stacy Martin), and their friends (Micha Lescot‘s Bamban, Bérénice Bejo‘s Michèle, and Grégory Gadebois‘ Michel Cournet) home from Cannes. His inclusion moves the film forward from place to place while also providing a stand-in for we the viewers caught watching Godard’s…

REVIEW: Lou Andreas-Salomé, The Audacity to be Free [2016]

2018/04/162020/04/10 Jared Mobarak

Become who you are. There’s a great line spoken by an aged Lou Andreas-Salomé (Nicole Heesters) to new friend and potential biographer Ernst Pfeiffer (Matthias Lier) upon his praise-fueled declaration that the way she lived her life—her freedom—was a touchstone for modern feminism. Her reply is, “Nonsense. What’s changed for us women since then?” It’s not presented as a jaded reaction or one specifically attached to the era in which she spoke it (the 1930s), though, because you could say the same today and not be wrong. Yes, women do…

REVIEW: Itzhak [2018]

2018/04/112020/04/11 Jared Mobarak

The more you have in your heart, the more you have to give. Documentarian Alison Chernick has made a career of profiling artists from Jeff Koons and Matthew Barney in features to Roy Lichtenstein and Rick Rubin in shorts. Her latest subject is renowned violinist Itzhak Perlman—a victim of polio as a child in Israel who found himself at Julliard before earning Grammys, Emmys, and countless international awards. He overcame a disability (walking on crutches when not in his wheelchair) that never impaired his playing, but constantly hung over his…

REVIEW: La passion de Jeanne d’Arc [The Passion of Joan of Arc] [1928]

2018/02/162020/04/11 Jared Mobarak

His ways are not our ways. The history of Carl Theodor Dreyer‘s masterwork La passion de Jeanne d’Arc [The Passion of Joan of Arc] is almost too perfectly attuned to the subject matter itself. Here was a renowned director hired to craft a movie about France’s most famous Catholic despite being neither French nor Catholic. Dreyer became a sort of pariah, helpless as the Archbishop of Paris and government officials demanded edits out of his control. His original cut then burned in a studio fire before a second created with…

REVIEW: Heaven is a Traffic Jam on the 405 [2017]

2018/01/302020/04/13 Jared Mobarak

We are creativity itself. It’s not easy to depict mental illness with honest clarity or art’s cathartic influence as therapy, but Frank Stiefel‘s look at Mindy Alper entitled Heaven is a Traffic Jam on the 405 does both. It helps that Mindy is an open, self-aware subject despite crippling anxieties. She leads his camera through her struggles as represented by surreal drawings created throughout her fifty-six years—a roadmap traversing her life’s extreme highs and lows. The work is reminiscent of Ralph Steadman and Gerald Scarfe, each imperfect line lending the…

REVIEW: Edith+Eddie [2017]

2018/01/302020/04/13 Jared Mobarak

Treat everybody right. You hear horror stories of people who foster children in order to pocket the money they receive from the state meant for that child’s wellbeing and want to hope they’re the exceptions rather than rule. It’s easy to be cynical, however, and believe the opposite in this world. The same can be said about elder care and the often-tenuous relationships between children of aging parents with increasing struggles. Infighting is common because not every child is as well off as the next or as close. Suddenly a…

REVIEW: Dear Basketball [2017]

2018/01/292020/04/13 Jared Mobarak

I did everything for you. “Money” is a word used to describe Kobe Bryant the athlete because he was the guy you gave the ball to with no time on the clock. Everyone could rely on him whether coach, teammate, or fan because we knew the chances were that a good look at the hoop would result in a basket. He was “money.” As a result of the career that proved this point, Kobe accrued a lot of money in the literal sense of the word too. And with that…

REVIEW: 12 Strong [2018]

2018/01/172020/04/13 Jared Mobarak

There are no right choices here. War films generally come in two varieties: a gray introspective look at its emotional and psychological cost and black and white jingoistic propaganda. The former is generally acclaimed as award worthy while the latter is dumped during winter months so its target audience of NRA-loving Republicans in American flag tees has something to watch during a drama-heavy, liberally slanted awards season. (I jest.) This doesn’t, however, inherently mean one route is “better” despite valid arguments to the contrary. And for those who vehemently disagree,…