Shorts | www.jaredmobarak.com

REVIEW: Diana [2012]

2012/07/092014/04/23 Jared Mobarak

“Swimming was the only place I felt safe” After the success of the WIGS network’s ongoing series of fictional shorts, Jon Avnet, Rodrigo García, and their partners decided to delve into the documentary realm as well. Keeping true to their goal of showcasing tales featuring empowering women, it’s no surprise an athlete like Diana Nyad was chosen as their first entry’s subject. A sixty-year old World Record holder in marathon swimming, Diana tells her story of suffering, accolades, and the hope of achieving immortality. Documentarian Sandra Keats makes the right…

REVIEW: Allison [2012]

2012/07/092014/04/23 Jared Mobarak

“I’m already doing 90%. Not going to do 95.” After what appeared like full-blown retirement from the industry, writer/director Paul Brickman of Risky Business fame has been lured back by the WIGS network of female-centric short films. Building his tale around the stereotypical nagging wife trope, Allison subverts the usual comic portrayal of an over-zealous matriarch by putting her in a situation that earns the attitude. Containing a healthy portion of sarcastic humor, we empathize with this breadwinning, headstrong woman and completely understand her struggle. If husband Jerry (Joel Johnstone)…

REVIEW: Denise [2012]

2012/07/062014/04/23 Jared Mobarak

“I get along with girls better …” As evidenced by In the Company of Men and The Shape of Things, no one does scathing social commentary like Neil LaBute. So, after the rather questionable decisions to helm remakes of The Wicker Man and Death at a Funeral, it’s good to see the playwright going back to what made him a filmmaker to keep tabs on over a decade ago. His script for the short film Denise—a part of the WIGS series from Jon Avnet and Rodrigo García—takes a discerning look…

REVIEW: La Luna [2012]

2012/06/292014/04/23 Jared Mobarak

After giving us a couple hilarious Toy Story shorts, Pixar finally gets back to the kind of heartwarming original animated visions that won the studio a slew of Oscar love during the aughts. Writer/director Enrico Casarosa comes out of the art department with a stunningly poignant film about three generations of Italian men and the uniquely secretive job they’ve held and passed on for decades. La Luna is Bambino’s (Krista Sheffler) introduction to the tradition—donning his first hat before climbing up to the stars. Utilizing Michael Giacchino‘s score to set…

REVIEW: The Sweet Hand of the White Rose [2010]

2012/06/042014/04/25 Jared Mobarak

“I’m happy when I play alone” Dealing with the tragic nature of death and the myriad split-second decisions we make to set us on our inevitable courses towards mortality, Davide Melini‘s The Sweet Hand of the White Rose becomes both a cautionary tale and memorial to those lost. Shown as a diptych of two parallel existences fatefully intertwined as perpetrator and victim, the subject matter is obviously a personal one with the writer/director. Mark’s (Carlos Bahos) late-twenties bar patron drinking away his sorrows and White Rose’s (Natasha Machuca) youthful child…

REVIEW: The Puzzle [2008]

2012/06/042014/04/25 Jared Mobarak

“You always spend my money on stupid things” If you hadn’t read a synopsis of Davide Melini‘s short film The Puzzle, you may be confused as to what is happening onscreen. I myself was in the dark until the end credits explained the relationship between the two characters I had just watched come together. But even then the subject matter’s purpose remains slightly out of reach. Opening on an older woman played by Cachito Noguera walking towards her bedroom, we become disoriented once she angrily ends a phone conversation dealing…

REVIEW: 7:35 de la mañana [7:35 in the Morning] [2004]

2012/05/232014/04/25 Jared Mobarak

“Always in a hurry; always at the same time” An Oscar nominee for Best Live Action Short with his debut work, writer/director Nacho Vigalondo has gone on to make a couple features with festival appeal in the almost decade since. But there is something peculiar, unique, and a bit demented about 7:35 de la mañana [7:35 in the Morning] that makes it the film I will always associate with him. A crazy musical shown to me by a coworker two years after its release, the darkly comic subject isn’t easy…

BNFF12 REVIEW: The Delray Story [2011]

2012/04/122014/05/14 Jared Mobarak

“What the Sam Heck?” Shot on $3000 to satisfy his graduate thesis, Nelson Cuellar‘s The Delray Story is a love letter to a bygone era of music. In a world filled with electronic beats and rehashed styles, where the kids fawn over celebrity images instead of good voices and quality sounds, accepting that the music died when Buddy Holly‘s plane crashed isn’t as hyperbolic as you may initially think. There seems to be little room these days for anything that’s not being played on the Top 40 or easily juxtaposed…

BNFF12 REVIEW: Brother Time [2012]

2012/04/042014/05/14 Jared Mobarak

“Better to sleep in the cold than be killed” Westerners look at a country like Kenya and see turmoil, violence, and poverty. Most could care less about what happens in Africa because it doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of their lives. But watching a documentary like Wesley Shrum‘s Brother Time shows how universal humanity is along the large and varied spectrums of economics and sociology. Just because we see ourselves as civilized doesn’t make others not. Even amidst the horrific tribal wars that raged inside the Rift Valley after…

BNFF12 REVIEW: Living River: The Ganges [2012]

2012/03/282014/05/14 Jared Mobarak

“She is worshiped by Demons and Gods alike” Having just been to India last summer, the pollution of the Ganges in Vinit Parmar‘s documentary Living River: The Ganges is something I witnessed first-hand. Taking a gondola ride down the ghat-filled bank of Varanasi’s portion of the holy river, I saw hundreds of men, women, and children bathing, drinking, and performing rituals to the Goddess Ganga. Having heard the facts about the water before visiting, I tried my hardest to cover every square inch of flesh from even a splash courtesy…

BNFF12 REVIEW: Caught [2011]

2012/03/282014/05/14 Jared Mobarak

“I don’t cheat” Using baseball as the metaphor to an underdog life of disrespect, the short film Caught utilizes a recreation league’s championship game as the release of starting catcher Hannah’s (Lori Martini) naïve reliance on her family for a love they’ll never share. Trash-talking her brother Robbie (Daniel Braver)—stuck in a leg brace and batting for the opposing team—we see the strained bond of the present mixed with flashbacks full of disappointing letdowns from the past. Words spoken and characters’ actions witnessed at the game are explained by these…