Comedy | www.jaredmobarak.com

REVIEW: Just Go With It [2011]

2011/02/092014/07/24 Jared Mobarak

“Holy Devlin, you’re not listening to me” The past few years have had one mantra—avoid Happy Madison productions. I don’t think it would anger too many people to say that they general suck. It pains me to write it, but it’s the truth. I grew up on Billy Madison; I love The Wedding Singer; add in Big Daddy and you’ve got a pretty memorable trifecta of comedy. The funniest moment at my screening of Just Go with It even harkened back to the good ol’ days when a guy behind…

REVIEW: Tangled [2010]

2011/02/082014/07/24 Jared Mobarak

“Goldie, look at all the blood in his mustache” How long does it take to grow your hair so that you can use it with a pulley system to lift a person up a good hundred feet? Well, if Disney’s Tangled is to be believed, eighteen years. I don’t think it hurts having the golden locks also be magical; the whole ability to heal living creatures does lead you to believe it will constantly heal itself and not get dry, brittle, or manifest loose ends. But then that’s what happens…

REVIEW: Another Year [2010]

2011/02/052014/07/24 Jared Mobarak

“The bonding of the jilted” Four seasons of love, laughs, and family for the Hepples is a year of angst, tragedy, and depression for those surrounding them. As such, Mike Leigh’s new film is aptly titled Another Year, showing us a day or two from each quarter spanning Spring to Winter. Tom and Gerri—yes, they see the joke in the pairing—are the exception to prove the rule, a happily married couple who do everything together, have a wonderful relationship with their son Joe, and truly enjoy their jobs as a…

REVIEW: Love & Other Drugs [2010]

2011/01/292014/07/24 Jared Mobarak

“Were you molested by a Care Bear?” What do you do when you read something about a movie that appears to ruin a key ingredient the trailer doesn’t show? You get pissed. I know I did when I read—yes, I’m going to tell you—that Anne Hathaway’s character Maggie in Love & Other Drugs has Parkinson’s. Here I thought the film looked like an above average rom/com and I get blindsided by this disease that has to end up playing a huge role in what goes on. And it does, the…

REVIEW: Micmacs à tire-larigot [Micmacs] [2009]

2011/01/222014/10/29 Jared Mobarak

“No, I am the vegetable crisper” With a literal translation of ‘Non-stop Shenanigans”, Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Micmacs à tire-larigot is definitely his return to high-style comedy and proof he may in fact belong in an insane asylum. His last film, A Very Long Engagement, was a fantastic wartime document shot in his signature aesthetic, but it’s subject matter brought it away from the more absurd surrealism we became used to with Amélie and Delicatessen. This isn’t to say Micmacs lacks a serious underlying story to the aforementioned steady stream of wackiness;…

REVIEW: Honeydripper [2007]

2011/01/182014/10/29 Jared Mobarak

“Like a soul being carried away from this life” Would you rather be beholden to a God who asks you to forsake all sinners and those holding you back from salvation or one who forgives and sees the good in humanity, striving hard to make up for mistakes of the past? And what constitutes a sin large enough to need repentance or bad enough to be left for the devil once the reckoning begins? Is vagrancy enough? How about a sheriff rounding up young black men to sell their sentencing…

REVIEW: Jack Goes Boating [2010]

2011/01/172014/10/29 Jared Mobarak

“Chicken, fish, or beef. Ya know?” Offbeat and uncomfortable in its characterizations of four New York City residents overcoming and succumbing to their secrets, Robert Glaudini’s Jack Goes Boating makes it to the big screen. Based on his Off-Broadway hit, star Philip Seymour Hoffman enlisted the playwright/actor to adapt the work into a screenplay and thus make his directorial debut. Three of the four principals partake in the transition—John Ortiz, Daphne Rubin-Vega, and Amy Ryan replacing Beth Cole to round out the quartet—and they deliver some amazing performances. Deeply entrenched…

REVIEW: Solitary Man [2010]

2011/01/152014/10/29 Jared Mobarak

“Out there is nothing but possibilities” Have films embraced the ambiguous ‘does he or doesn’t he’ ending too often recently? I feel bad beginning with that question since I did actually like Solitary Man very much, but liking the whole doesn’t discount the fact that a contrived ‘conversational’ fade to black has gone from bold to clichéd in a short period of time. An easy device to end stories containing a central figure who reaches an epiphany on life, the viewer can contemplate what they saw and choose where they…

REVIEW: The Extra Man [2010]

2011/01/132014/10/29 Jared Mobarak

“You may write my biography, but you will never capture my soul” Over the past two years I’ve become acquainted with the work of writer Jonathan Ames through his subtly brilliant comic noir “Bored to Death” on HBO. Naming the protagonist after himself, the young novelist—played by Jason Schwartzman—is a mess of neuroses and a man of eccentric proclivities who’s friends are a bullish depressive and a youthful older colleague and mentor. One can see striking similarities to those tropes in the new film from American Splendor directors, Robert Pulcini…

REVIEW: Greenberg [2010]

2011/01/122014/10/29 Jared Mobarak

“Can a pool overflow?” There is a saying relayed by Greta Gerwig’s character Florence which perfectly encapsulates what happens during the course of Noah Baumbach’s newest look into the angst of suburbia, Greenberg. She says, “Hurt people hurt people”. The phrase is apt, especially for her being the one a hurt person, Ben Stiller’s titular Roger Greenberg, constantly hurts. However, no matter how much worth there is in the dynamic between these two people separated by fifteen years, the generational gap a much larger chasm, I can’t shake the fact…

REVIEW: The Dilemma [2011]

2011/01/112014/10/29 Jared Mobarak

“… took more virgins than Francis Albert Sinatra” Sometimes all you need is a little Vince Vaughn. Don’t even ask how much I dreaded checking out The Dilemma despite him, due to the directed by Ron Howard label. I like the guy, don’t get me wrong, but his by-the-books Dan Brown adaptations were sorely lacking in cinematic ingenuity, (I cringe at the fact he’s handling The Dark Tower Series as a result), and thus a seemingly straight forward comedy wasn’t looking too palatable. But sometimes a director can excel by…