Film Reviews | www.jaredmobarak.com

REVIEW: The World’s End [2013]

2013/08/242015/07/25 Jared Mobarak

“Lets Boo-Boo” The Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy—a label jokingly coined during the press tour for its second entry—has come to a close with a mint chocolate chip wrapper flapping in the wind. Following horror comedy Shaun of the Dead and bromance actioner Hot Fuzz, The World’s End‘s sci-fi apocalypse makes good use of its title with some fire and brimstone and robots spraying blue blood. The old “Spaced” team took a hiatus when writer/director Edgar Wright delved into comic adaptation Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and writer/star Simon Pegg and…

REVIEW: The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones [2013]

2013/08/232013/08/24 Jared Mobarak

“What does that symbol mean?” Another Young Adult fantasy fiction trilogy to throw into the Hollywood machine, Cassandra Clare‘s The Mortal Instruments gives Sony a property looking for broad appeal via its similarities to the darker Harry Potters, the overwrought love triangle in Twilight, and a PG-13 filtered “True Blood” collection of every supernatural species you can imagine (besides zombies of course, duh, stupid). It’s a world of Shadow Hunters—angel descendants who battle demons to protect the Mundanes (Muggles) unaware of the fight like you and me. Using ancient runes…

REVIEW: Afternoon Delight [2013]

2013/08/232013/08/30 Jared Mobarak

“I’m gonna go put Bonnet out” For a woman like Rachel (Kathryn Hahn) who after a few too many drinks will candidly admit to a wild college life in her twenties, a sexual awakening wasn’t supposed to be something she had yet to experience. She’d done it all already; that’s what that decade of her life was for. Now is the time to be a wife, a mother, and an adult with responsibilities who understands the consequences of her actions. But what if that isn’t working? What if living the…

TIFF13 REVIEW: A Field in England [2013]

2013/08/222015/09/17 Jared Mobarak

“Open up and let the devil in” A coward becomes a man. I guess this is the crux of Ben Wheatley’s newest thriller, A Field in England. We find Whitehead (Reece Shearsmith) hiding in the bushes while mortars explode around him during battle, weeping and praying to God to keep him hidden now that his mission to find an elusive old comrade seems all but futile and way too dangerous. He runs, meets a few other deserters in a mid-17th century English Civil War pitting the Parliamentarians against the Royalist…

REVIEW: Blue Jasmine [2013]

2013/08/212013/08/22 Jared Mobarak

“When I did what I did I regretted it” A film dealing with issues of causality, Woody Allen‘s Blue Jasmine provides much more than surface appearances. Rather than simply be a character study of an emotionally and psychologically broken woman whose rarified airs of elitist wealth came crashing down after her husband’s villainous financial skeletons are found, this story is also a tragic tale about perception. Does one woman’s dumb luck success really make her into some kind of expert on life possessed by a trustworthy opinion because she can…

REVIEW: Thérèse Desqueyroux [Thérèse] [2012]

2013/08/202013/08/23 Jared Mobarak

“I’m marrying you for your pines, too” Only a 1927 novel can get away with its titular character yearning for a marriage built on land and stability instead of love for no other reason than to quiet ‘unfeminine’ aspirations beyond domesticity. Dismissed as a silly little thing with too many ideas and not enough religion, Thérèse Despeyreux actually wants to be rid of her thoughts and seek refuge in her best friend Anne’s brother’s simplicity. What she didn’t count on was exactly what this new sister-in-law warned—a life devoid of…

REVIEW: Una noche [One Night] [2013]

2013/08/192013/08/21 Jared Mobarak

“In Havana nothing stops for anybody” If people didn’t know about the 90-mile expanse of Caribbean waters between Havana, Cuba and Key West, Florida before Elián González in 1999, they certainly did afterwards. Citizens residing in dictatorships have always used America’s “home of the free” slogan as a calling card to immigrate, defect, claim asylum, or simply live illegally—my hometown Buffalo Sabres even assisted in NHLer Alexander Mogilny’s 1989 defection from the Soviet Union. The mixture of civil rights restrictions and poverty can cause anyone to salivate at the prospect…

REVIEW: The Girl Next Door [2004]

2013/08/172013/08/18 Jared Mobarak

“I’ll always remember … “ A film not necessarily loved upon release—many actually reviled it for “glamorizing” the life of a porn star—Luke Greenfield‘s The Girl Next Door was and still is a hilarious coming of age story for a post-American Pie world. It’s about finding yourself on the cusp of high school graduation without a memory worth telling as hitting the books and being a consummate student leaves you wanting. Matthew Kidman (Emile Hirsch) did everything he was supposed to on his quest to Georgetown and only found a…

REVIEW: Kick-Ass 2 [2013]

2013/08/162013/08/17 Jared Mobarak

“Act like a bitch, get slapped like a bitch” I know a lot of people who hate Kick-Ass—definitely more than don’t. It’s always fascinated me because I thought it was a brilliantly funny actioner with a darkly comic streak of what logistically could happen if normal citizens decided to become superheroes. I loved it when I saw it in theatres and found myself validating that sentiment yesterday when revisiting it in preparation for the sequel. Well, let’s just say that about halfway through Kick-Ass 2 I think I discovered what…

REVIEW: Closed Circuit [2013]

2013/08/162013/08/28 Jared Mobarak

“The judicial process in this country is and will remain fair and transparent” Director John Crowley is a man with good luck picking screenplays. His feature film debut Intermission is a fun Irish romp while drama Boy A is in my opinion criminally underrated and ignored. So, seeing him sign onto a project written by the man behind Dirty Pretty Things and Eastern Promises—Steven Knight—was an exciting discovery, especially after finding the thriller’s trailer to be intriguing enough without spoiling too much of its conspiratorial plot. And everything does work…

REVIEW: Sparrows Dance [2013]

2013/08/152013/08/20 Jared Mobarak

“You can’t let someone else’s genius scare you off your own genius” It only seems appropriate that I reviewed a romantic comedy yesterday where I posited its derivativeness to be a direct result of the genre simply having been exhausted beyond originality. Who knew a film like Noah Buschel’s Sparrows Dance would surprise me today by proving this thought wrong? Perhaps it isn’t the genre that has become stale, but instead the audience flocking to theatres for the same hamfisted love conquers all story repackaged ad infinitum by Hollywood. Luckily…