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REVIEW: Peterloo [2018]

2019/04/172020/03/28 Jared Mobarak

Let’s see what he has to say. Films devoid of main protagonists are generally created as such because the event orbited by their ensemble of characters proves the focal point instead. So when that central moment is a massacre, you must brace for the reality that many will end up victims left for dead. The filmmaker is therefore tasked with ensuring his/her audience recognizes the line between good and evil, just and immoral. Writer/director Mike Leigh accomplishes this separation straight away in Peterloo with his prologue contrasting a young, distraught…

REVIEW: Cradle of Champions [2018]

2019/03/222020/03/29 Jared Mobarak

Humble, hungry, and ready. There’s no better entry point into a subject as expansive and famed as the New York Daily News‘ Golden Gloves tournament than a pair of talented fighters with history. This way you’re able to turn your focus onto them as they train and work their way to the finals for a brutally close bout wherein both leave everything in the ring. Sprinkle in some historical tidbits about the tournament itself with a litany of legendary names cutting their teeth before prolific professional careers and you’ve made…

REVIEW: Ksiaze i dybuk [The Prince and the Dybbuk] [2018]

2019/03/112020/03/29 Jared Mobarak

He never spoke about his past. The title says it all: Ksiaze i dybuk [The Prince and the Dybbuk]. Rather than describe two separate entities, however, Elwira Niewiera and Piotr Rosolowski‘s documentary portrays director Michal Waszynski as both and neither. Their investigations lead them to multiple countries as close friends and basic strangers attempt to piece together who he really was on-set and off. This means interviews with his “second family” in Italy (the Dickmanns), World War II veterans who served in the Polish/Russian unit he documented, an extra from…

REVIEW: The Kid [2019]

2019/03/052020/03/29 Jared Mobarak

You gotta learn to trust inna fella. With so many different iterations of the same exact story flooding the cinematic market every year via reboots and sequels, it’s nice when someone decides to look at a common narrative through a new lens. This is what director Vincent D’Onofrio and screenwriter Andrew Lanham hope to accomplish with The Kid—a glimpse at the oft-mythologized game played by former friends turned enemies Billy the Kid (Dane DeHaan) and Pat Garrett (Ethan Hawke) from the eyes of a fourteen year old boy (Jake Shur‘s…

REVIEW: Die Unsichtbaren [The Invisibles] [2019]

2019/03/032020/03/29 Jared Mobarak

After a little while you noticed that they were scared. We’re so used to stories of Holocaust survivors talking about what they endured inside the concentration camps that we forget around seven thousand Jewish men and women stayed hidden during World War II. While only about fifteen hundred ultimately walked away to live their lives in the aftermath, it’s impossible not to hail them and those who assisted them as heroes. The tales of close calls and secrets alone are worth discovering and yet these four (Cioma Schönhaus, Ruth Gumpel,…

REVIEW: Lords of Chaos [2019]

2019/02/042020/03/30 Jared Mobarak

One shot to the head and it’s all over. Talk to “true” Norwegian black metal fans and they’ll tell you Michael Moynihan and Didrik Søderlind‘s book about the scene’s origins and criminality is a bunch of baloney (but in much harsher words). It’s interesting because the facts behind a series of church burnings, the suicide of a lead singer, and two subsequently high profile murders are indisputable. Those who were tried and found guilty before serving their time in prison don’t dispute the acts themselves, but merely the way in…

REVIEW: Stan & Ollie [2018]

2019/01/192020/03/30 Jared Mobarak

Do we really need that trunk? As someone completely unversed in the Laurel and Hardy oeuvre, I’m not sure there could have been a better introduction to the comedic duo than through their last year together. With Jon S. Baird and screenwriter Jeff Pope‘s Stan & Ollie (inspired by A.J. Marriot’s book Laurel and Hardy: The British Tours enough to warrant a mention in the credits if not a credit itself) comes a tale that’s more than simply about their success. No, this film is a glimpse behind the curtain…

REVIEW: On the Basis of Sex [2018]

2019/01/102020/03/30 Jared Mobarak

Hooray for Mommy. Even if we weren’t mired in the middle of the Trump Administration with a constant tidal wave of sexist and xenophobic rhetoric masquerading as national emergencies, the story of Ruth Bader Ginsburg defying the patriarchy where it came to archaic laws arbitrarily creating separate rights based on gender would be timely. Because while it’s fun to joke about giving the eighty-five year old Supreme Court justice a kidney so another GOP-sanctioned candidate doesn’t get shoved through without proper vetting, a line spoken by one of her husband…

REVIEW: Mary Queen of Scots [2018]

2019/01/062020/03/30 Jared Mobarak

Our swords are not just for show. I know nothing of Scottish history. While this means I can’t attest to the veracity of Mary Queen of Scots, however, it doesn’t stop me from wondering about its lukewarm reception. What’s interesting is how the film as adapted by Beau Willimon from John Guy‘s novel Queen of Scots: The True Life of Mary Stuart cares little about history at all. Besides explaining the facts surrounding Mary’s heir (James I) acquiring the crown of England without bloodshed (and consequently continuing a lineage that…

REVIEW: Vice [2018]

2018/12/172020/03/30 Jared Mobarak

What do we believe? It’s still weird thinking the guy who joked around with Will Ferrell for years is an Oscar winner, but that’s exactly what Adam McKay is. Weirder still is my being firmly in the camp that believes it was deserved. What he did with The Big Short was the equivalent of too-smart people giving the public a “layman’s terms” explanation to their questions. He dumbed-down a complex topic, made it wildly entertaining, and taught us something about ourselves both in how we reacted (or didn’t react) to…

REVIEW: Shirkers [2018]

2018/12/062020/03/31 Jared Mobarak

I never imagined it would end this way. You’re nineteen and studying abroad in England when the stars and ambitions align to reunite with your best friends in Singapore and make a feature film on summer break. You all give your blood, sweat, tears, and money to the project in order to finish just in time to go back to school with one desire on your minds: delving into the footage the first chance you get. But the man entrusted with your seventy reels doesn’t like writing emails or talking…