Comedy | www.jaredmobarak.com

REVIEW: A Rainy Day in New York [2020]

2020/10/032020/10/06 Jared Mobarak

Real life is fine for people who can’t do any better. There’s a scene in Mike Nichols‘ The Birdcage where Robin Williams’ character is helping Nathan Lane’s character be more “manly.” He has him mimicking different masculine figures including John Wayne to which Lane struts around only to catch Williams’ quizzical look and ask, “What? No good?” Williams’ response perfectly encapsulates how things we’ve been conditioned to believe are normal are actually absurd when taken out of context. He says, “Actually, it’s perfect. I just never realized John Wayne walked…

REVIEW: 12 Hour Shift [2020]

2020/10/012020/10/01 Jared Mobarak

You ever smell sadness? The Podunk nature to Brea Grant‘s latest film as writer/director, 12 Hour Shift, is integral to its success. Nothing works without it. We need the overt Catholicism of some of its characters. We need the imbecilic criminals operating way outside their intellectual depth despite having no emotional issues with taking another person’s life. And we need the sheer lack of worry that goes into blindly stealing organs from a hospital without even mentioning blood type or potential compatibility. If everything weren’t so outlandishly absurd, I’d have…

REVIEW: Eternal Beauty [2020]

2020/09/262020/09/30 Jared Mobarak

I’m in my oils. You cannot just watch part of Craig Roberts‘ latest film Eternal Beauty. You might think you could since it’s seemingly as schizophrenic as its lead character Jane (Sally Hawkins), but that chaos is premeditated so that it can find tonal and thematic sense by the end. I was about twenty minutes in when “hate” started to solidify as a reaction to what I saw because it felt like Roberts was poking fun at the disease—purely using Hawkins’ monotone delivery and erratic actions for laughs. If I…

TIFF20 REVIEW: The Kid Detective [2020]

2020/09/132020/09/16 Jared Mobarak

I used to be loved. The premise behind Evan Morgan‘s The Kid Detective definitely hit upon my nostalgia as a big fan of the HBO “Encyclopedia Brown” series when I was a kid. You do wonder what might happen to someone like that as they grow older. Do they become cynical? Depressed? Do they become actual private detectives or go into the police force? A real world Encyclopedia Brown would have to face the reality that what they thought they were doing was never actually what it was. Being the…

TIFF20 REVIEW: Limbo [2021]

2020/09/112021/03/12 Jared Mobarak

Tomorrow we’ll have apricots. Two Africans, an Afghan, and a Syrian walk onto a remote island in Scotland. The punch line potential is infinite. Writer/director Ben Sharrock knows it too as he places them all in the same cramped apartment with a “Refugees Welcome” banner outside so they can argue about the merits of Ross and Rachel’s “break” courtesy of a burned “Friends” box set left behind by whomever lived their last. Add an eccentric cultural awareness course led by a duo in Helga (Sidse Babett Knudsen) and Boris (Kenneth…

TIFF20 REVIEW: Mila [Apples] [2021]

2020/09/092022/04/27 Jared Mobarak

I don’t remember if I like them. Amnesia is a tragic ailment. To wake up and find yourself unable to remember your name or any other aspect of your life is nothing short of a nightmarish scenario. We fear diseases like dementia and Alzheimer’s precisely because losing our memory is akin to losing our very identity and by extension our sense of purpose. So it’s only natural to see the conceit behind director Christos Nikou‘s and co-writer Stavros Raptis‘ film Mila [Apples] as one steeped in horror. It’s unknown why…

FANTASIA20 REVIEW: The Paper Tigers [2021]

2020/08/282021/03/12 Jared Mobarak

Kung Fu without honor is just fighting. Like the warring Japanese dojos depicted throughout the Karate Kid franchise, a growing disconnect exists between those who wish to learn a fighting style as a means of physical and emotional growth and those who simply seek the ability to punish their adversaries without mercy. It’s respect and honor versus strength and superiority—something even the most devout and sacred of Chinese Kung Fu masters like Sifu Cheung (Roger Yuan) can’t always instill in their pupils. No matter how much they strive to trust…

FANTASIA20 REVIEW: Chihuo Quan Wang [Chasing Dream] [2019]

2020/08/272020/08/28 Jared Mobarak

Don’t drown yourself in mistakes from the past. We live in an era where celebrity has become more about fame than talent as those wishing for adulation do what they can to mimic the greats that came before them without ever worrying about proving whether they possess an ounce of originality. You want to impress the judges on “American Idol”? Show them you can be Madonna, Lady Gaga, and Rihanna all at once. You want to be the talk of the fighting world by unleashing your strength in the Ultimate…

FANTASIA20 REVIEW: Une sirène à Paris A Mermaid in Paris] [2020]

2020/08/132020/08/28 Jared Mobarak

The ghosts of my memories are leaning on the bar. Gaspard (Nicolas Duvauchelle) has lived his entire life in pursuit of fulfilling a promise from his grandmother that he’s never quite understood. She was the matriarch of a family that reached well past blood to encompass a group of artistic “Surprisers” who gathered at her famed Flowerburger—an underground speakeasy of sorts doubling as a safe haven for anti-fascist disruptors during the war where song and dance led to poems and love. With a wealth of important Parisian history many will…

REVIEW: Lake Michigan Monster [2020]

2020/07/312020/07/31 Jared Mobarak

I’m docking your pay. Charm goes a long way for some films—particularly those of the DIY variety where it becomes crucial as a means of deflecting the work’s obvious shortcomings. By leaning into those deficiencies to make them a purposeful part of the aesthetic rather than an unavoidable casualty, you turn them to your advantage. This winking intent also provides a blank canvas with which to free your imagination because “bad” has suddenly transformed into “good.” Whereas a serious film has to consider authenticity, an absurd oddity declares itself allergic…

REVIEW: She Dies Tomorrow [2020]

2020/07/302020/12/30 Jared Mobarak

I want to be useful in death. Do you feel that? The despair in and anxiety for a future as uncertain as it has ever been with civil unrest, genocide, climate disasters, global pandemics, and the ability to inject each of those horrors into our veins via technological progress that’s systematically hijacked by propagandists, charlatans, and malicious operators with no ambition other than sowing animosity and confusion? The futility in a present torn asunder by rich white men screaming at each other across a political divide while leveraging the lives…