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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: Choosing Sides [2013]

2013/11/08 Jared Mobarak

“No, he hit some stone and water dribbled out” When a film chock-full of cutthroat verbal sparring and an amoral amount of profanity dealing with the perverse idea that one religion is somehow better than the next for no other reason than it being the character’s own affiliation has you thinking it could have gone even further in its satirical bent, you know it’s done something right. So comfortable in its use of offensive material to show two parents—a Jewish mother (Rachel Lynn Jackson) and a Catholic father (Timothy J.…

REVIEW: BUMRUSH! Boulder, Colorado [2013]

2013/10/112013/10/11 Jared Mobarak

“We’re in Boulder, baby. This is how it goes.” While I’ve never been to Boulder, I have visited the Denver, CO area and experienced its college town atmosphere for the 30-40 sect looking to escape corporate suburbia for a bit of fun after the work day. I also talked to people who seemed genuinely discouraged by the fact tourists keep visiting and deciding to put down roots—much like they did considering 80% of those I met migrated to the city themselves—because their secret society of measured chaos was becoming exposed.…

REVIEW: The Road Home [2010]

2013/10/102013/10/13 Jared Mobarak

“What’s so wrong with being Indian?” It’s easy to ignore questions about identity while living in America because its melting pot of cultures allows its citizens to put ethnicity aside and simply declare themselves “American”. Whether your skin is light or dark or you have a foreign accent or just one of the many regional ones growing up in the States provides, being American doesn’t mean one thing or the other. You won’t look any more out of place than the next if you’re walking down the street. But this…

REVIEW: Yeah, Love [2008]

2013/10/082013/10/08 Jared Mobarak

“Why do I write like a twelve year old?” High school love is complicated enough for “traditional” pairings of boy and girl without the myriad other paths it may take. You only have to listen to lacrosse star Toby (Paul Fabre) talk with friends about jealousy-inducing girlfriend Milo (Paton Ashbrook) to understand the multiple layers of connectivity involved when hormones threaten to turn romance into meaningless sex. There’s little privacy, tons of rumor, and a certain standard of popularity to uphold wherein everyone toes the line between prude and slut…

REVIEW: Eroticide [2013]

2013/09/262013/09/26 Jared Mobarak

“I’m the woman of his dreams. And you? You’re the silver medal.” With a title like Eroticide, it isn’t hard to imagine at least one character dying by the time the credits roll. Who of Matthew Saliba’s sexually warped love triangle will it be, though: the doormat, the predator, or the prey? Love, sex, and self-worth can combine to form any number of psychological cocktails just waiting to explode when the players find themselves lost in an unfamiliar territory like happiness. If you’ve lived your life in a way where…

TIFF13 REVIEW: 2013 Short Cuts Canada Programmes

2013/08/272013/09/16 Jared Mobarak

Programme 1 A far cry from the documentary short Joda—a visual letter to Jafar Panahi—that was included in the TIFF Short Cuts Canada Programme last year, graphic designer turned filmmaker Theodore Ushev’s Gloria Victoria is all about the visceral and aural capabilities of film without something as unnecessary as words. Full of sumptuous textured layers formed by sketch drawings, Russian Constructivist elements, what I believe were faces from Pablo Picasso’s Guernica, and more, the rising crescendo of Shostakovich’s “Invasion” from Symphony No. 7 helps spur on an emotive war in…

REVIEW: We Just Want to Play [2013]

2013/07/312013/08/06 Jared Mobarak

“You can never turn a profit in a market this saturated” To view a collegiate short film with a critical eye—this being the filmmakers’ Quinnipiac University senior capstone project—is a tough thing to do when outside of the educational setting and not necessarily privy to the time and effort put forth like a teacher in charge. It’s easy to simply dismiss amateurish performances and hamfisted scripting as lapses in quality without looking at the big picture of where everyone is coming from. We Just Want to Play isn’t going to…

REVIEW: The Sandwich Nazi [2012]

2013/07/182013/07/19 Jared Mobarak

“I don’t believe in prayer. I believe in acts.” “Seinfeld’s” Soup Nazi has nothing on Vancouver, Canada’s Scandinavian deli La Charcuterie owner Salam Kahil. Actor Larry Thomas may have helped create an iconic television character in 1995—one he didn’t realize was based on a real New Yorker at the time—but the world doesn’t always want a villain. You can have specific rules in your shop, demand proper etiquette, swear like a sailor, and have no qualms for showing a bit of nudity alongside the sliced roast beef, but it’s all…

REVIEW: The Days God Slept [2013]

2013/07/182013/08/08 Jared Mobarak

“Things are both precisely and not at all as they appear” It’s often us—not the people we care about—who we hide our past secrets from in order to get through the day. Our actions—whether the result of youth, stupidity, or complete and utter desire—are what define us; they are what make us into unique individuals roaming this earth with identical quests for happiness to be fulfilled in ways exclusive to our own body and soul. To open oneself to another is to peel away years of isolating guilt and regret,…

REVIEW: Mallas, MA [2013]

2013/07/092013/07/18 Jared Mobarak

“Believe me, it’s worth it” Created as part of the 48 Hour Film Project’s 2013 installment in Boston, Sean Meehan’s Mallas, MA had four stipulations: his team Fix It In Post had the genre of “Buddy Film” and were made to use a character named Brian or Bonnie Higgins, a net as a prop, and the line of dialogue above. From there the sky was the limit for Meehan and his cowriters Daniel Berube and Todd Mahoney, the idea of a superstitious town and the pair of con artists sifting…