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REVIEW: Straight Outta Compton [2015]

2015/08/182016/06/15 Jared Mobarak

“Speak a little truth and people lose their minds” NWA biopic Straight Outta Compton is a conventional biopic. And I hate conventional biopics. It’s therefore a good thing its story is anything but. Between its time period containing an excess of racial and political strife to the void of a black voice filled by rap lyrics expressing said climate devoid of fear to the crisscross of music industry and gang life, this thing is so much more than merely a rags to riches tale of some kids from Los Angeles.…

REVIEW: Eden [2014]

2015/06/272015/06/29 Jared Mobarak

“Save France with Coke” The rock and roll life has always been filled with temptation no matter what decade. So electronica, house, and garage music’s heyday (has it ended?) of the 90s proves no exception. With its world of DJs and samplers standing at turntables while their audience danced and raved below, however, learning a little bit of the behind the scenes drama couldn’t hurt from building upon its mystique. Unsurprisingly its luminaries possessed the usual copious amount of drugs, sex, and money woes like in every other genre. What…

REVIEW: Mr. Turner [2014]

2015/02/092015/02/13 Jared Mobarak

“Nothing comes from nothing, Madam” I was not aware of J.M.W. Turner (Timothy Spall) before hearing about Mike Leigh‘s latest film depicting the final quarter century of his life, Mr. Turner. I’ve tried recalling glimpses of his paintings during college, but find myself blank each time. As it appears he’s presently considered a master, perhaps we simply didn’t learn much about the British Romantics? It’s therefore surprising to discover in researching his early works how realistic each shipwreck and squall was in comparison to the later canvases of unbridled color…

REVIEW: Big Eyes [2014]

2015/01/222015/01/23 Jared Mobarak

“I’m just a Sunday painter” It’s a paint-off. Literally. Will the winner be the charismatic salesman peddling his wife’s art as his own or the soft-spoken woman slaving away in a turpentine-filled room that’s been dominated and belittled into allowing him to do so? Who will earn the right to say they were the creators of an oeuvre simultaneously thought to be worth thousands of dollars and infinite fame by the general populace and conversely less than the canvas they were painted on by New York Times critic John Canaday…

REVIEW: American Sniper [2014]

2015/01/122015/01/16 Jared Mobarak

“Dude, that’s evil like I’ve never seen before” It doesn’t matter if you’re Chris Kyle or any one of the countless war veterans readjusting to civilian life stateside, half the country will call you a hero and the other a killer. While the reality lies somewhere in between, it’s almost impossible to find a war film focused on a single soldier or specific group of soldiers that doesn’t skew towards jingoistic territory or lynch mob mentality respectively. It’s therefore a welcome sight to see Clint Eastwood‘s American Sniper—based on Kyle’s…

REVIEW: Libertador [The Liberator] [2014]

2015/01/07 Jared Mobarak

“I am the people” I think I may have snorted a bit when the short list for foreign film Academy Award nominations came out with Libertador [The Liberator] as one of its paltry ten. They wouldn’t have placed the movie with those melodramatic character posters shrouded in a dark brooding atmosphere above critical darlings like Mommy and Two Days, One Night, would they? It just goes to show how you truly cannot judge a book by its cover because even I, the hater of sprawling epics hitting checkpoint after checkpoint…

REVIEW: Selma [2014]

2015/01/062015/01/09 Jared Mobarak

“God was the first to cry” A civil war waged on Alabaman soil in 1965 whether President Lyndon B. Johnson felt holding off on a bill negating the South’s tactics to bar African American citizens from voting would prevent one or not. It was fought under his and the country’s eyes in the streets, on TV, and in their hearts. Finally someone proves brave enough to show it by throwing convention aside to stop treating cinematic historical biographies as revelry for the deceased heroes who helped make our country great.…

REVIEW: Foxcatcher [2014]

2015/01/02 Jared Mobarak

“John du Pont is … kind of a mentor to me” Now here’s a film with immaculate construction in production design, sound design, acting, and direction. The only thing Foxcatcher lacks is the breathing room to stand as a cohesive whole worthy of the talent pouring its heart and soul in. The story of John “Golden Eagle” du Pont is a highly provocative one that deserves to be told on the big screen if only to educate those like myself who were unaware of the tragedy surrounding him. In the…

REVIEW: Wild [2014]

2014/12/292014/12/30 Jared Mobarak

“Cold mush dreams” The cinematic adaptation of Cheryl Strayed‘s memoir Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail seems to be getting pigeonholed hard as being solely a tale of female empowerment. It most definitely is, but I’m not sure critics should necessarily call it a day with such a generic categorization. There’s a deeper draw to the author’s solo, one thousand mile journey along the Pacific Crest that hits at a human level way beyond gender. Was Into the Wild only thought of as a tale of…

REVIEW: Unbroken [2014]

2014/12/172014/12/21 Jared Mobarak

“If you can take it you can make it” Universal Pictures has possessed the rights to Louie Zamperini’s life story since 1957 with good cause considering its scope spanning a troubled childhood, Olympic glory, and POW torture at the hands of the Japanese during WWII. Only when Laura Hillenbrand‘s mouthful of a book Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption came out in 2010 was traction finally found assumedly in large part due to her previous adaptation at the hands of Hollywood, Seabiscuit, earning seven Oscar…

REVIEW: The Imitation Game [2014]

2014/12/112014/12/25 Jared Mobarak

“Shall we leave the children alone with their new toy?” It’s highly unusual for me to get invested in a biography, so when one comes along that enthralls me as fully as The Imitation Game it’s difficult to know whether I’m simply overreacting. Director Morten Tyldum and screenwriter Graham Moore have done what so few seem to want to attempt despite it so often resonating: focus on a moment their subject is known for rather than the person himself. To give us a glimpse into his childhood for psychological markers…