Film Reviews | www.jaredmobarak.com

REVIEW: The Secret Life of Walter Mitty [2013]

2014/01/102014/01/11 Jared Mobarak

“I always save your knick-knacks” What began as a 1939 short story by James Thurber debuting in The New Yorker, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty found its way to the big screen in 1947 led by Danny Kaye. The tale of a daydreamer losing himself in excitingly heroic fantasies while sleepwalking through a daytrip of chores in the city with his wife expanded into a magazine editor finding more interest in the pulp stories he reads than the drab life he leads. It’s a conceit mirrored today with Mitty…

REVIEW: Prince Avalanche [2013]

2014/01/08 Jared Mobarak

“Sometimes I feel like I’m digging in my own ashes” The film Prince Avalanche proves to be the perfect segue for writer/director David Gordon Green to circle back to the independent scene after three studio comedies with varying degrees of success took him on a polar opposite route. I was glad to see his trademark dramatic edge remained intact while watching his latest Joe at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival, but rediscovering it post-Your Highness and The Sitter couldn’t have been an easy transition despite taking a year off…

REVIEW: Redlands [2014]

2014/01/072014/01/10 Jared Mobarak

“I want to push beyond reality and become immortal through art” As an art-house piece, AMOK Books founder/owner John Brian King‘s debut feature film Redlands is pretty much what you’d expect from someone who’s curated an exhibit of John Wayne Gacy‘s “clown” paintings, produced an S&M performance entitled “Nailed!”, and interviewed Charles Manson at San Quentin Prison. It’s a darkly serene drama focusing on an outgoing Ohio girl trying to jumpstart a nude modeling career in California by confidently showcasing its naïve starlet amongst a slew of misogynistic males within…

REVIEW: Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues [2013]

2014/01/042014/01/05 Jared Mobarak

“You knocked him back to the fifth grade” When you couple my dislike of Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy with my obvious indifference to the announcement of its long-awaited sequel, watching Harrison Ford on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” in August proved a hilariously spot-on validation of my sheer inability to understand what everyone sees in Adam McKay and Will Ferrell‘s comedy classic. Brought on to shoot a yet-unknown cameo despite never having seen the original, Ford said, “I got down there; I had no idea who those guys were. And…

REVIEW: The Adventurer: The Curse of the Midas Box [2014]

2014/01/012014/01/08 Jared Mobarak

“Faithfulness will be your shield” There will never be a lack of literary fantasy adventures for ages 12 and up to transfer from page to screen. The question becomes whether the property is given access to a wealthy studio’s clout or one more reliant on word-of-mouth and existing fanbase to ease the transition. For Entertainment Motion Pictures, their grab at franchise caliber fiction comes courtesy of a trilogy written by British author G.P. Taylor that unfortunately secures little of those things. It appears the author’s first novel Shadowmancer is the…

REVIEW: Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy [2004]

2013/12/302013/12/31 Jared Mobarak

“Rule number 1: No touching of the hair or face… AND THAT’S IT!” People have been telling me for almost a decade that Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy needs a second viewing to fully appreciate its genius. I’m happy to say they were correct. I watched it again last night and increased its score a whole point. That’s right, I still don’t get what you all do when it comes to writer/director Adam McKay and writer/star Will Ferrell’s first foray onto the big screen after collaborating on “Saturday Night…

REVIEW: Greg’s Guardian Angel [2013]

2013/12/302013/12/30 Jared Mobarak

“Get the Cookies! Cookies!” It wears its comedy on its sleeve with an intentionally broad performance from its titular savior along a pretty obvious plot trajectory, but Greg’s Guardian Angel finds a way to entertain nonetheless. Whether it’s the office setting or the relatable gags embellished for effect sprinkled throughout Greg’s (Greg Vorob) unremarkable life’s transformation into one of unfathomable success, we find him a likeable character caught in what’s apparently an enviable situation. However, despite a couple initial good calls on his Angel’s (Elmer J. Santos) behalf, the invincibility…

REVIEW: The Wolf of Wall Street [2013]

2013/12/272014/04/10 Jared Mobarak

“Into the donuts, my boy?” This is the story of an American antihero: a guy born in the Bronx to working class parents who set off for Wall Street to make a name for himself as a stockbroker and rule the world. Jordan Belfort got a good five years or so of the limelight as a result, learning the tricks from Mark Hanna before discovering penny trades cashing out at fifty percent commission could be applied to the whales big firms were targeting for blue chip stocks. He built brokerage…

REVIEW: L’inconnu du lac [Stranger by the Lake] [2013]

2013/12/272013/12/27 Jared Mobarak

“I won’t get tired so fast” Lust is a powerful drug that makes us do stupid things. We mistake it for love, brainwashing ourselves into thinking truths about the object of our affection don’t matter because what you have together is special. Did he treat his ex badly? Is he a jerk unwilling to see his obvious faults yet too much of a fairy tale embodiment of absolute beauty for you to care? How far would you go to be with you’re infatuation once he smiles at you? How much…

REVIEW: 天注定 [A Touch of Sin] [2013]

2013/12/26 Jared Mobarak

“Hunting animals” Winner of Best Screenplay at the 2013 Festival de Cannes, Chinese writer/director Zhangke Jia‘s latest work 天注定 [A Touch of Sin] is a sprawling drama depicting his country’s contemporary struggles amidst its ever-growing economy. While we’d love to say how more money and financial success is crucial to finding increased peace and harmony amongst a people, we all know the reality usually breeds corruption, greed, and violence between those who have acquired the spoils and those left watching themselves and their kin helplessly standby as poor as they’ve…

REVIEW: 47 Ronin [2013]

2013/12/252013/12/26 Jared Mobarak

“Now know the depth of my lord’s honor” There have been numerous iterations of Japan’s unofficial, national legend about forty-seven ronin who avenged their master’s death at the start of the eighteenth century spanning movies, ballets, television productions, operas, bunraku, and kabuki plays. Known as Chūshingura, the true story has been embellished over the centuries to ensure each new generation told about these brave warriors understood the themes of loyalty, sacrifice, and honor being a Japanese citizen entailed. Whether or not the first account some fifty years after the actual…