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REVIEW: Dinosaur 13 [2014]

2015/01/30 Jared Mobarak

“Any tampering with this scene is a federal violation and will be prosecuted” It’s crazy how something so genuine in its scientific potential to find answers about our world and fiscal assistance to a small South Dakotan town can be warped and twisted into a sideshow of legal folly. Director Todd Douglas Miller has taken the wonder of what the Black Hills Institute of Geological Research did in unearthing the most complete skeletal remains of a Tyrannosaurus Rex ever found and the flabbergasting fallout courtesy of ownership claims and the…

REVIEW: Citizenfour [2014]

2014/12/182014/12/19 Jared Mobarak

“It’s scary but at the same time liberating” Some films cannot be judged solely on form because their content is too crucial to be swept underneath ideas of aesthetic. Laura Poitras‘ Citizenfour is a perfect example. Its visuals are monotonously static with a majority of sequences depicting conversations between a whistleblower and a reporter inside a hotel room and there’s little information disseminated that hasn’t already been made publically known. To someone like me with only a cursory knowledge of the leak and specifics of the NSA’s surveillance into the…

REVIEW: RADHE RADHE: Rites of Holi [2014]

2014/11/11 Jared Mobarak

“Oh Radha, you are voluptuous, pure and always forgiving, the source of life itself, our beloved, delightful as a blossoming lotus.” An art piece bridging Vijay Iyer‘s newest energetic composition as played by the International Contemporary Ensemble and stunning footage of Holi celebrations in the Braj region of India, RADHE RADHE: Rites of Holi proves an invigorating experience of cultural tradition. Inspired by the centennial of Stravinsky-Nijinsky’s The Rite of Spring, Iyer and director Prashant Bhargava looked to explore their own heritage’s demarcation of the season’s change through song as…

REVIEW: The Overnighters [2014]

2014/10/082014/10/10 Jared Mobarak

“Just because you tough enough” The easiest thing I could say about The Overnighters is that director Jesse Moss got lucky. He looked to tell the story about a pastor doing God’s will against his congregation’s trepidation to house over a thousand strangers arrived in Williston, ND seeking employment within the area’s oil boom. Through interviews kept carefully hidden from those his subjects speak against, Moss found much more than a feel good piece depicting charity. He played the fly on the wall and discovered Pastor Jay Reinke‘s words “everybody…

REVIEW: Björk: Biophilia Live [2014]

2014/09/202014/09/25 Jared Mobarak

“If you feel like dancing, don’t stop yourself” Icelandic musician Björk has always been somewhat uncategorizable with a career that’s uniquely evolved to the beat of her own electronic drum. There was the infamous swan dress, her critically acclaimed foray into acting for Lars von Trier‘s Dancer in the Dark, collaborations with cutting edge artists like Michel Gondry, Spike Jonze, and Chris Cunningham for memorably batty music videos, and the 2011 release of her eighth studio album as an iPad app. Partially recorded and composed on the device, Biophilia was…

TIFF14 REVIEW: Beats of the Antonov [2014]

2014/09/182015/02/02 Jared Mobarak

“Laughter is like a new birth” Sudanese director Hajooj Kuka‘s documentary Beats of the Antonov is smartly constructed in a way that eases us into the political message and hope for peace lying underneath the music and laughter initially portrayed. Beginning with a look at the people residing in the Blue Nile and the Nuba Mountains, we learn about the planes overhead dropping bombs while they hide in ditches for cover. No matter how much pain and suffering is inflicted by these raids, however, they emerge with smiles to the…

REVIEW: Take Me to the River [2014]

2014/09/042014/09/11 Jared Mobarak

“Everything we touched turned to gold and they couldn’t figure out how” While it could have easily become a simple behind the scenes feature for an album of three generations of Memphis soul musicians coming together to recut some hits, Take Me to the River finds room to be more. Stewarded by director Martin Shore and composer Cody Dickinson, the simple act of getting these legends in the same room catalyzes the opportunity for stories to be told beyond lyrics. We hear them all individually outside the studio too in…

TIFF14 REVIEW: The Wanted 18 [2014]

2014/09/022014/12/06 Jared Mobarak

“It means the ragheads are pissed off again” Who knew cows could be a symbol of freedom, resistance, self-sufficiency, and identity? On the surface it’s absurd and yet they became Palestinian town Beit Sahour’s greatest weapon against the Israeli occupation during the First Intifada from 1987-1993. When you’re taxed by a foreign government, forced to purchase its goods and services rather than create your own, and treated as slaves, any source of autonomy can transform the common into mythical heroes poised to tear down walls. It may have started on…

TIFF14 REVIEW: Trick or Treaty [2014]

2014/09/022014/12/06 Jared Mobarak

“The sun rises for our people” A constant fixture with the National Film Board of Canada, director Alanis Obomsawin‘s latest documentary spans a variety of themes surrounding the weighted subject of the James Bay Treaty No. 9. Signed in 1905 by the Cree and Ojibway people, their First Nation descendants have long held it to merely be the physical embodiment of their agreement with the Canadian government to share land and resources because that’s how it was explained. On the cusp of two new bills being introduced in 2012, however,…

TIFF14 REVIEW: Chop My Money [2014]

2014/09/012014/09/08 Jared Mobarak

“This is my photograph for my family” Give a street kid in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo some attention with a camera and he’s going to provide you the type of footage perfectly suited for rockstar treatment. Is Theo Anthony glorifying the deeds of Manu Bahiti “Patient” Jean Christophe, warning us outsiders of the hard life children live hustling, or simply giving an unfiltered glimpse of this new Wild West? Chop My Money is a little of all three in descending order because you know Patient and his crew…

REVIEW: 20,000 Days on Earth [2014]

2014/08/262014/09/19 Jared Mobarak

“And if that doesn’t do it—you shoot the clown” I must have been nineteen or twenty when I was first introduced to Nick Cave‘s music. As a college kid trying to broaden my horizons cinematically with “classics” from foreign auteurs, I popped in Wim Wenders‘ Wings of Desire for reasons I no longer recall. While a brilliant film regardless, I could not shake the violence in Cave’s stage presence or the intensity of his songs against the romantic plot thrusting my ears into its wake. So even though I knew…