Comedy | www.jaredmobarak.com

REVIEW: Pitch Perfect [2012]

2012/09/242014/07/12 Jared Mobarak

“He is a hunter” Anything trying to capitalize on the now waning “Glee” craze and Step Up‘s surprising staying power probably should be dismissed sight unseen. How could a film dealing with the catty rivalries of the a cappella world be anything but an eye-rolling waste of celluloid? This is probably exactly what Universal Pictures thinks we’ll assume because they are throwing all their weight behind Pitch Perfect with an early release in select cities and a Twitter campaign putting one of its stars in the end credits to thank…

REVIEW: Hotel Transylvania [2012]

2012/09/222014/04/10 Jared Mobarak

“What? Now there’s no sheep in the road.” After the abysmal failure of That’s My Boy, seeing Adam Sandler and Andy Samberg highlight another film’s marquee this year didn’t instill confidence. Cartoon or not, the pairing still left a sour taste in my mouth that the addition of their larger-than-life comedic buddies Kevin James, David Spade, and Molly Shannon did nothing to alleviate. Only the names behind the scenes gave me a sliver of hope that Hotel Transylvania could end up a fun hybrid of writers Robert Smigel (“SNL’s” TV…

TIFF12 REVIEW: Silver Linings Playbook [2012]

2012/09/092014/04/10 Jared Mobarak

“Is that song really playing?” I know it’s misguided, but my interest in David O. Russell films kind of ended after The Fighter. This was a guy who used to pave his own path with challenging material and comedies that made you think. It’s not even that I disliked his true-life boxing tale—actually I loved it. But where was the eccentricity? Where was the promise of subversive insanity that his sadly unfinished Nailed possessed? He showed he had the skills for the big time and I’m ecstatic he now has…

TIFF12 REVIEW: Frances Ha [2013]

2012/09/072013/08/07 Jared Mobarak

“Ahoy, sexy” A Noah Baumbach film through and through, I can’t help but praise lead actress and co-writer Greta Gerwig‘s influence in making Frances Ha the quirky, subtly hilarious portrait of a twentysomething refusing to accept she is overdue for adulthood that it is. When her titular Frances unabashedly apologizes for “not being a real person”, the hyperbolic exclamation isn’t far off the mark. Living to have fun while hoping life will ultimately fall into place, the realization it’s only passing her by leads to a quarter-life crisis of identity…

TIFF12 REVIEW: 2012 Short Cuts Canada Programmes

2012/09/052015/09/17 Jared Mobarak

Programme 1 “So a TV killed your father” What do you get when you mix the Tibetan Book of the Dead, the ancient metallurgical science of alchemy, and the namesake of inventor Philo Farnsworth? The answer is Connor Gaston‘s short film Bardo Light—titled for the bright glow none of us can avoid at the end of our lives. Told via the police interrogation of the younger Farnsworth (Shaan Rahman) after his adopted father (Bill Gaston) was found suffocated to death in their cabin, we quickly learn of successful experiments using…

REVIEW: ParaNorman [2012]

2012/08/102014/04/11 Jared Mobarak

“He’s probably up there fiddling with his Wee-Jah or his orbs …” LAIKA, Inc., the little studio with big dreams in Oregon is officially more than a flash in the pan success story that brought to life a critically acclaimed feature film before scaling back to commercials and music videos. Using a beacon in the stop-motion animation world like Henry Selick to adapt and direct Coraline showed the vision to take chances on darker material than most may want to expose their children to and they were rewarded for the…

REVIEW: Klovn: The Movie [Klown] [2010]

2012/07/202014/04/11 Jared Mobarak

“P beats F, remember?” With “Klovn’s” television run finishing in 2009 after six seasons, celebrated Danish comedians Frank Hvam and Casper Christensen decided on a big screen transition to continue their socially awkward antics. Taking a page—whether coincidentally or not seems up for debate to some—from Larry David‘s “Curb Your Enthusiasm”, their characters exist in a heightened state of normalcy. Uncomfortably dealing with life lessons alongside family and friends, these two buffoons obviously have a few screws loose when it comes to thinking before they act. Selfish, utterly aloof, and…

REVIEW: 10 Things I Hate About You [1999]

2012/07/192014/04/23 Jared Mobarak

“Heinous bitch is the term used most often” Although a somewhat recent encounter with Kiss Me Kate firmly placed the musical on the top of my The Taming of the Shrew adaptation list, I can’t deny the appeal—nostalgic or otherwise—of 10 Things I Hate About You. Directed by Gil Junger and written by Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith with their fair share of nods to The Bard, this romantic comedy plays with clique culture to intertwine love’s many trysts inside the halls of Padua High. Possessing a fun streak…

REVIEW: وهلّأ لوين؟ [Where Do We Go Now?] [2011]

2012/07/172014/04/23 Jared Mobarak

“They got me to fake a miracle. I won’t even get into hell now.” Winner of the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival’s People’s Choice Award, وهلّأ لوين؟ [Where Do We Go Now?] tells the tale of a small Lebanese town and its unavoidable clash of religions. Friends, neighbors, and romantic interests, the Christian and Muslim inhabitants co-exist peacefully until the outside world infiltrates with news reports of hostility. A news anchor’s account of the fighting sparks a war of words amongst the once serene collection of citizens basking in the…

REVIEW: The Magic of Belle Isle [2012]

2012/07/162014/07/14 Jared Mobarak

“You don’t have to leave this planet to tell a good story” As the years progress and his workload diminishes, director Rob Reiner has chosen to spend his time bringing what he calls “life-affirming material” to the big screen. Despite the surprising success of The Bucket List in 2007, however, such a decision carries smaller budgets, fewer screens, and less exposure while allowing more creative control on work appearing to possess a very personal hold. After the underrated coming-of-age story Flipped proved he had a bit of Princess Bride era…

REVIEW: Intouchables [The Intouchables] [2011]

2012/07/102014/04/23 Jared Mobarak

“We’ll escort you. It’s safer.” Leave it to my Americanized way of looking at things to go into the César Award-nominated French film Intouchables [The Intouchables] by thinking it would be yet another run-of-the-mill rich white guy helping poor black guy tale. With a Hollywood remake already in the works, I see our adaptation falling into such tropes by increasing hostility as lead character Driss turns into a punk who falls prey to outside preconceptions and lets his employer down before redeeming himself. But Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano‘s film…