Category: Film Reviews

REVIEW: Barney’s Version [2010]

Jared Mobarak

“Montreal 2, Boston 1” It begins with an aged detective, a man unafraid of police brutality, and his newly released novel about the circumstantial evidence surrounding the disappearance of a young man at the summer home of a friend. Detective O’Hearne (Mark Addy) has never let go of the assumption that Barney Panofsky (Paul Giamatti) shot and killed his Best Man from two weddings, Boogie (Scott Speedman), in a drunken stupor after the discovery of an adulterous tryst. To that end, he has been a constant fixture in the television…

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REVIEW: The Eagle [2011]

Jared Mobarak

“Please help me regain my father’s honor” The case of Kevin Macdonald’s The Eagle is one of preconceptions and a desire to sound important on behalf of critics. With below average notes across the board and an almost universal slamming of lead actor Channing Tatum, the biggest surprise to me watching was how much I enjoyed not only the stunning cinematography in dream sequences tinted amber and the kinetic masses of muscle, blood, and swords in frenetic fight sequences, but also the central performances of a Roman soldier and the…

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REVIEW: Green Lantern [2011]

Jared Mobarak

“This is the worst eleventh birthday party I’ve ever been to” And here I thought green was the color of envy. Leave it to the DC Universe to set the record straight on how wrong that is in what could be the most implausibly convoluted mythology of any comic book entity ever—especially for a superhero who lives in the same world as Batman and Superman, two guys heavily steeped in reality, with some artistic flourishes of course. Green Lantern is hindered from an easy transition to the big screen at…

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REVIEW: Happythankyoumoreplease [2011]

Jared Mobarak

“Who says Santa’s pants have to be red?!” It only took about halfway through Happythankyoumoreplease before I began to think about the one thing I probably should have latched onto from the start. The comparisons between this and 2004’s Garden State are unmistakable. And it’s not just the obvious—or what should be obvious if my brain had been working—that each starred and was written and directed by the star of a hit television sitcom, it’s also the sense of heart behind every single moment, the off-kilter eccentricity of certain characters…

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REVIEW: Le Concert [The Concert] [2009]

Jared Mobarak

“This is the real communism” By no means as madcap as I had been under the impression it would be, Radu Mihaileanu’s Le concert [The Concert] is most definitely the uplifting comedy it’s American poster proclaims. The laughs it elicits are often earned by scenes hiding truths, their revelations the joke, and absurd nonsense during the chaotic whirlwind of three days in Paris to ready for a sold out concerto featuring ‘The [Russian] Maestro’, famously embarrassed in a public assassination on stage thirty years previous, and the incomparable Anne-Marie Jacquet,…

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REVIEW: Super 8 [2011]

Jared Mobarak

“Cut! … That was mint.” When the silhouette of a boy and his bike floats across a moon as a blue Amblin wavers its way over, you know you’re in for something special. A flood of nostalgia overwhelms and you feel like a kid again, anticipating the heartfelt tale of mystery and adventure that waits. Credit producer Steven Spielberg for refusing to update his shingle’s iconic look, retaining the fuzzy quality devoid of the computers we had become accustomed to in the 80s. Couple it with J.J. Abrams’s Bad Robot…

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REVIEW: Jane Eyre [2011]

Jared Mobarak

“We shall root out the wickedness from this small, ungrateful plant” No, the words from friends and family about the dry, dull, laborious task it is to read the Brontë sisters didn’t sway my desire to see Cary Fukunaga’s adaptation of Charlotte’s Jane Eyre. Between my adoration of the director’s previous effort, Sin Nombre; the uneasy, ethereal quality of tone and aesthetic of the trailer; and the drop-dead gorgeous poster, (yes, I do judge books by their covers), my ticket was punched long before acclaim showered down. Considering its publishing…

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REVIEW: X-Men: First Class [2011]

Jared Mobarak

“Mutant and proud” The new world order begins and sides are chosen as Matthew Vaughn—five years late—finally gets his crack at the world of Marvel mutants. X-Men: First Class arrives to tell us the origins of what we’ve seen in the original trilogy, retreating back into the 40s, paralleling of the Holocaust with the world’s inevitable reaction to a new breed of evolution and how the oppressed become the oppressors to survive. It’s a very fine line between good and evil, right and wrong, retribution and revenge. Charles Xavier hones…

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REVIEW: The Company Men [2011]

Jared Mobarak

“You know the worst part? The world didn’t stop.” Independent and television producer/writer John Wells makes his feature directorial debut with The Company Men, a film about three men coping with the recession, corporate downsizing, and how—for the upper crust of America—unemployment may just be harder work than having a job. The conceit is one that audiences can wrap their heads around, especially with so many having family, friends, co-workers, or perhaps themselves affected in much the same way. But despite this universal theme, the implementation can be a bit…

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REVIEW: The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert [1994]

Jared Mobarak

“Bernice has left her cake out in the rain” Based The road trip comedy is a staple in the cinematic world and I’m sure some would be quick to state how, “if you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all”. However, I’d be surprised if those same people have ever seen anything as uniquely eccentric as Stephan Elliot’s foray in the genre. The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert is a trek across the Australian desert with two drag queens and a transsexual making their way to the sleepy town…

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REVIEW: The Maltese Falcon [1941]

Jared Mobarak

“You’re a good man, sister” Based on pure coincidence from a conversation that had nothing to do with John Huston’s classic debut The Maltese Falcon, watching Rian Johnson’s Brick later in the same night couldn’t have been more perfect. The latter a modern noir described as Dashiell Hammett in high school, the parallels were hitting me left and right without my realizing that the scribe who inspired it actually wrote the novel the former was based upon. Exchanges are mirrored in Brick—like the lead detectives confronting the law in a…

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