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REVIEW: Monsoon [2018]

2018/11/072020/03/31 Jared Mobarak

Don’t let one tragedy cause another. The start of Miguel Duran‘s Monsoon is like its own short film. We meet John (Austin Lyon) and Sarah (Katherine Hughes) the weekend the former is supposed to be moving east for Cornell while she remains closer to home in the Arizona desert. They’re best friends and have been since childhood thanks to living next door to one another. There’s an easy rapport between them that flirts with romanticism just before they shake themselves awake to carry on a platonic camaraderie unencumbered by the…

REVIEW: Gräns [Border] [2018]

2018/10/262020/04/01 Jared Mobarak

You shouldn’t listen to what humans say. Customs officer Tina (Eva Melander) stands at attention while a line of passengers exiting an international flight walk by, her nostrils perpetually flaring. She’s sniffing them as a means of discerning which might have illegally undeclared possessions on their person. An “Excuse me” later and her partner is taking three bottles of alcohol out of a minor’s duffel bag, sending him on his way with a warning along the lines of “Our confiscating it is better than you going to jail on a…

REVIEW: Becoming Jane [2007]

2018/09/292020/04/01 Jared Mobarak

Are there no other women in Hampshire? I had never seen Julian Jarrold‘s Becoming Jane before today and yet my constantly being hit with a sense of familiarity while watching made me question that truth. The reason stems from the fact that screenwriters Kevin Hood and Sarah Williams crafted their tale of young Jane Austen fifteen years before her first novel (Sense and Sensibility) was published to unfold as though it was Pride and Prejudice. They’ve based this reading of Austen’s life on letters written to her sister Cassandra about…

REVIEW: A Star Is Born [2018]

2018/09/272020/04/01 Jared Mobarak

I love the way she sees them. It began with Hollywood as William A. Wellman and Robert Carson won an Oscar for their story about a young actress dreaming of super stardom in 1937. From there it went the way of the movie musical thanks to Judy Garland taking the lead before earning six nominations in 1954. Next came Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson to shift things to the music world with its aging rock star and hopeful songstress adding a 1976 Best Song to the awards cabinet. Now—almost a…

REVIEW: Appropriate Behavior [2015]

2018/09/192020/04/01 Jared Mobarak

I hate so many things too. It would be easy to minimize the broken relationship at the heart of Desiree Akhavan‘s debut feature Appropriate Behavior to Shirin’s (Akhavan) inability to come out as bisexual to her traditional Iranian parents. This is obviously a factor after watching her ex-girlfriend’s (Rebecca Henderson‘s Maxine) increasing frustrations via flashbacks because there’s an issue of trust, identity, and freedom being stifled. But what about the trust, identity, and freedom of Shirin—the half of this coupling who knows that telling her family the truth could make…

TIFF18 REVIEW: If Beale Street Could Talk [2018]

2018/09/102020/04/01 Jared Mobarak

Flesh of each other’s flesh. Fonny Hunt (Stephan James) puts out his arms for a hug upon seeing an old friend in Daniel (Brian Tyree Henry) after too much time and too many men their age have passed. Smiles and laughter enter the scene before they are soon replaced by beers and reminiscing. And then comes the hard truth of absence—the explanation of his disappearance. Daniel had been in jail two years for a crime he didn’t commit and Fonny feels for his plight. Despite anything he could possibly say…

TIFF REVIEW: Life Itself [2018]

2018/09/092020/04/01 Jared Mobarak

Tell them I’m nice. Morbid or not: I love when stationary characters turn to the camera only to be hit by a vehicle coming from offscreen. There’s something that’s just immensely satisfying about watching one step into that sweet spot of quiet, empty space with a hindered view on either side. I brace for impact, disappointed when it doesn’t arrive because the blocking so perfectly sets up tragedy despite the filmmaker’s decision to squander the opportunity. So I of course smiled when the first such collision occurs during Dan Fogelman‘s…

REVIEW: The Miseducation of Cameron Post [2018]

2018/09/052020/04/02 Jared Mobarak

There’s no hiding from God. “Separation of church and state” has always fascinated me since the only consistency within is the ability to pick and choose when and how it’s enforced. We’re the “land of the free” and therefore shouldn’t impose certain laws and safeties upon religious communities trying to practice their faith. But when a political power finds utility in prejudice and animosity against one religion to turn its own into the very platform on which it runs, that’s okay. It’s funny too that these scenarios deal directly with…

TIFF18 REVIEW: Where Hands Touch [2018]

2018/09/022020/04/02 Jared Mobarak

I want her to be like everyone else: unremarkable. Now is not the time to make a film romanticizing Nazism or allowing anyone who donned the swastika during World War II a modicum of sympathy. I’d argue there could never be such a time—at least not for those who say they felt bad but still did nothing to stop the nightmare they helped usher into creation. Their cooperation in a genocidal extermination cannot be given a footnote for remorse. They cannot skate by on some notion that they participated unwillingly…

REVIEW: Crazy Rich Asians [2018]

2018/08/132020/04/03 Jared Mobarak

Family never says thank you. While I haven’t read Kevin Kwan‘s novel Crazy Rich Asians, I can definitely see why producers would have approached him with the note: “Where’s your white character?” It has all the usual romantic comedy beats from stranger in a stranger land antics, memorable supporting characters readying the “commoner” for an extravagant gala, and an airplane-set admission of undying love. Kwan utilized the Hollywood template and they of course salivated over it knowing they could throw money at him and white-wash the lead role so as…

FANTASIA18 REVIEW: 소공녀 [So-gong-nyeo] [Microhabitat] [2018]

2018/07/282020/04/03 Jared Mobarak

Seems like you’re living a fantasy. What do you need to survive? It’s a common question we all ask ourselves—one that goes beyond the basic tenets of food, water, shelter, and human interaction. I’m talking about the things we cherish enough to put them before everything else. It could be freedom, hobbies, love, or art. It could be a feeling achieved by one specific song sung in one specific place. These are what we cling to and wrestle with when confronted by change because losing them is a sacrifice not…