Category: Drama

REVIEW: Sous le ciel d’Alice [Skies of Lebanon] [2021]

Jared Mobarak

No one is brave enough to stay. When historical events are too complex and sprawling to do them justice in a ninety-minute film, the best thing to do is shrink the aperture. So, rather than try to cram in years’ worth of religious, political, and geographic conflict such as that of the almost two decades-long Lebanese Civil War, focus on its impact instead. What was it like to live in Beirut as an emotionally and culturally rich life is suddenly turned upside-down by bombings and gunfire as numerous militias are…

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REVIEW: Alone Together [2022]

Jared Mobarak

Don’t forget yourself. People died, businesses closed, and health and science became politicized to a point of no return, but what about the good that COVID accomplished? What about those relationships that needed a global pandemic to provide the next logical progression of conflict resolution on the extensive list John (Derek Luke) shares with June (Katie Holmes) to describe all they’ve overcome—definitive proof their one-year love is real and worth saving? Trials (he’s apparently a lawyer), holidays, regular days, and … health crisis? If your union can survive COVID, it…

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FANTASIA22 REVIEW: Next Exit [2022]

Jared Mobarak

I can start with one minute. While a viral video of a young boy playing cards with his dead father captured the nation so profoundly that suicides and murders have skyrocketed due to humanity no longer fearing death, allowing every single ghost to be seen by every single human on Earth would be quite the logistical issue for first-time feature film writer/director Mali Elfman. She first started crafting Next Exit ten years ago and thus has had plenty of time to tweak and hone her script in a way that…

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REVIEW: Avec amour et acharnement [Both Sides of the Blade] [2022]

Jared Mobarak

But you know that. Director Claire Denis says Sara (Juliette Binoche) “flips a coin” when it comes to seeing her ex-boyfriend (Grégoire Colin‘s François) after more than a decade. She’s built a life with his best friend (Vincent Lindon‘s Jean), a former rugby player and ex-con struggling to get this latest chapter of his professional life started. So, she knows it will be awkward. She knows that she still loves François despite also loving Jean. Will a new encounter therefore rekindle those feelings to a point of no return? Or…

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REVIEW: Olga [2022]

Jared Mobarak

You’re my warrior, right? Director Elie Grappe and co-writer Raphaëlle Desplechin waste no time showing their gymnast drama Olga is about more than the parallel bars. They introduce the titular fifteen-year-old Ukrainian (Anastasiia Budiashkina) perfecting the maneuvers necessary to advance onto the Jaeger technique—a move she hopes will help the team medal at the forthcoming European championships. She and best friend Sasha (Sabrina Rubtsova) are having fun as the nation’s top two athletes in the sport, their confidence so high that Olga doesn’t even really mind the fact her mother…

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REVIEW: Mr. Malcolm’s List [2022]

Jared Mobarak

Next! Hearing that author Suzanne Allain originally set her idea of a bachelor that utilizes an impossible list of criteria to find the “perfect” bride in modern day before realizing the farcical nature of the conceit was better suited for the Jane Austen 1800s made me laugh because it’s so true. She talks about the “all-consuming” nature of finding a suitable match back then for both genders and uses Fitzwilliam Darcy from Pride and Prejudice as an example of someone who might be so arrogant as to treat love like…

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REVIEW: Clara Sola [2022]

Jared Mobarak

Stay inside the purple zone. While it’s not explicitly stated, the assumption is that the majority of Clara’s (Wendy Chinchilla Araya) family’s finances comes from donations made in her name. Some arrives courtesy of horse tours through their Costa Rican landscape as run by a local acquaintance (Daniel Castañeda Rincón‘s Santiago) with their white mare Yuca, but that can’t guarantee a consistent revenue stream. So, Clara’s aging mother Fresia (Flor María Vargas Chavez) forces her into a corset to stand and recite blessings to a room of strangers desperate for…

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REVIEW: The Forgiven [2022]

Jared Mobarak

Everything must be faced. It always fascinates me when a film synopsis blatantly lies. Every site I visit that provides a quick run through the premise of John Michael McDonagh‘s The Forgiven (adapted from Lawrence Osborne‘s novel) calls the catalyst for events a “random accident.” That’s what David Henninger (Ralph Fiennes) would like people to think. It may even be partially what happened. We know differently, however. We saw David drinking the entire day before heading out into the desert with his wife Jo (Jessica Chastain) to attend a party…

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REVIEW: Top Gun: Maverick [2022]

Jared Mobarak

It’s time to let go. Director Joseph Kosinski pays homage to the late Tony Scott by opening his thirty-plus-years-in-the-making sequel Top Gun: Maverick with the exact same music cues, similarly propulsive aircraft carrier b-roll, and text-based intro (adding “and women” to “the handful of men”) as Top Gun. Kenny Loggins’ “Danger Zone” kicks in to whisk us back to the 1980s if only for a couple minutes before entering an aging Navy garage with Captain Pete ‘Maverick’ Mitchell (Tom Cruise). His dogfighting days over the Indian Ocean are over. After…

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REVIEW: Top Gun [1986]

Jared Mobarak

Your ego is writing checks your body can’t cash. There’s no arguing that Top Gun isn’t a pro-military piece of glossy propaganda. Between Matthew Modine declining the lead role because it would go against his politics to Tom Cruise admitting four years later that a sequel would be in poor taste considering its sanitized view on war to the Navy literally having script approval to change plot points to better suit their recruitment needs, everything about it screams jingoistic idealism. That it would eventually be preserved in the National Film…

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REVIEW: Flux Gourmet [2022]

Jared Mobarak

It wasn’t the flanger. Despite centering upon a three-piece artistic collective utilizing culinary accoutrement to manufacture aural soundscapes (band name yet undecided), Peter Strickland‘s bone-dry farce skewering the dynamic between artist, patron, and audience Flux Gourmet isn’t really about any of the above. That’s not to say Stones (Makis Papadimitriou) isn’t a participant within that dynamic, he’s just not included to fill any of those positions. His involvement is instead as an objective observer hired to document the work being accomplished by Elle (Fatma Mohamed), Lamina (Ariane Labed), and Billy…

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