Category: Film Reviews

REVIEW: 33 Postcards [2012]

Jared Mobarak

“In China only a parent can give name” A culturally significant film marking the first official cinematic co-production between Australia and China, Pauline Chan‘s 33 Postcards also provides a moving tale about what it means to care for somebody. Selected to partake in the Tribeca Film Institute program as a screenplay in 2009, its future has always been bright from inception straight through its numerous festival screenings these past three years. A promising start for what’s potentially a lucrative financial partnership, Chan’s access to both countries adds a level of…

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REVIEW: Pain & Gain [2013]

Jared Mobarak

“I gotta get a pump” I like when actors not only play to their strengths, but also make a concerted effort to do so. Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne Johnson saw an opportunity to have fun playing a couple of bumbling amateur criminals—waiving their salaries along with director Michael Bay for backend deals—and had faith audiences would come to see them make light of their physiques and act the fools. Pain & Gain is a perfect venue for their somewhat limited skill sets as its true to life tale of greed…

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REVIEW: And Now a Word from Our Sponsor [2013]

Jared Mobarak

“Can you hear me now?” Points for ingenuity to screenwriter Michael Hamilton-Wright for crafting a feature length script that makes sense around a character only speaking in commercial slogans. Sadly, though, And Now a Word from Our Sponsor possesses little else besides this gimmick. The publicity description overreaches in its comparison to Peter Sellers’ brilliant Being There, somewhat missing the point of the classic. While Bruce Greenwood’s Adan Kundle does find himself fatefully assisting in the reconciliation of his caretakers’ familial strife, his accidental profundity isn’t the incoherent ramblings of…

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REVIEW: The Great Gatsby [2013]

Jared Mobarak

“Once again I was within and without” Visionary filmmaker Baz Luhrmann returns with a big screen adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s magnum opus The Great Gatsby, filmed in the ostentatious aesthetic that made his jukebox musical Moulin Rouge! such a divisively stunning work. Love him or hate him, no one can deny the man has style or the ego necessary to transform iconic literature and historical eras into contemporary art-infused visual epics that overwhelm our senses. No one does excess better—over-cranked and pulsing to music intentionally subverting the subject matter…

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REVIEW: Blackbird [2013]

Jared Mobarak

“Appearance is everything” Co-winner of the award for Best Canadian First Feature Film at the Toronto International Film Festival, Jason Buxton’s debut Blackbird peers into the sort of guilty until proven innocent mentality our world has gravitated towards after a slew of school shootings post-Columbine. Such an atrocity used to be a nightmare we would never believe could happen in our neighborhoods or with our kids and now it’s become so common that each new media report numbs us to the horror and makes such events almost appear normal. So,…

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REVIEW: Java Heat [2013]

Jared Mobarak

“So, you just hit on her?” It’s taken director Conor Allyn five years and two movies to finally have the actioner Java Heat put him at the helm of a movie with English as its first language. His previous two films closed out the Indonesian box office hit trilogy Merah Putih [Red & White] he wrote against the backdrop of the country’s war for independence from the Dutch. An intriguing location for an American filmmaker to debut, the connection becomes easier to understand after learning his father and co-writer Rob…

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REVIEW: Assault on Wall Street [Bailout: The Age of Greed] [2013]

Jared Mobarak

“Grenades are fun. You take it easy.” Despite the appeal of rubbernecking at a car wreck, I have never seen an Uwe Boll film. Whether back when the infamous German tax break scheme was in effect on his videogame adaptations or more recently with extreme violence and attempted social satire, I’ve always found something better to view. But when his newest thriller Assault on Wall Street (previously known as Bailout: The Age of Greed) came across my desk, I thought maybe the “auteur” had found his stride. Maybe he was…

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REVIEW: Mud [2013]

Jared Mobarak

“Green beans never tasted so good” It’s a rarity to find a coming-of-age story set inside an adult-themed drama. Usually we’re made to watch adolescents caught inside the funny/awkward growing pains of puberty as lust and love and vanity and fear all mix into a pool of hormonal angst, embarrassment, and pratfall through comedy. Writer/director Jeff Nichols looked to create something in opposition to such cliché when he set off on the journey leading him to Mud more than a decade ago. He sought a way to capture the heaviness…

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REVIEW: The Arrested Development Documentary Project [2013]

Jared Mobarak

“I like that guy, Mitch” Something had to suffer once the critically acclaimed and criminally under-watched television comedy “Arrested Development” was announced to be in production with new episodes courtesy of Netflix. That victim is Jeff Smith’s The Arrested Development Documentary Project. Completed in 2012 from interview footage filmed before the show’s phoenix-like rebirth (a trailer was released on the movie’s website back in 2009), what was to be a posthumous love letter is now merely a glorified DVD extra of actors and writers talking about their connection to and…

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REVIEW: Arthur Newman [2013]

Jared Mobarak

“Family just crushes your heart, doesn’t it?” Sometimes you must leave in order to return and accept the responsibility of a family easier to leave behind. Life is rough and it has a nasty little mean streak intent on derailing dreams and aspirations to test one’s ability to cope and prevail. Who doesn’t want to pack up a bag and take to the road with all his problems growing smaller by the minute until they’re erased forever? Who wouldn’t want to hit that reset button to forget regrets and guilt…

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REVIEW: Iron Man 3 [2013]

Jared Mobarak

“How did you get out of the wormhole?” Phase Two of Marvel’s cinematic universe begins with the character that started their astronomically successful multi-narrative platform—Iron Man. And while a line of text following the always-assured post-credits sequence states that “Tony Stark will be back”, the question remains whether or not actor Robert Downey Jr. will be under the helmet. It’s therefore no surprise to see the studio looking to end this trilogy with a bit of arc closure just in case as the progression from a once billionaire playboy to…

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