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TIFF12 REVIEW: The Impossible [2012]

2012/09/092014/04/10 Jared Mobarak

“Maybe tomorrow” Making a film about a tragedy like the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami should never be taken lightly. With over 230,000 people dead in fourteen countries, the entire world was affected by this devastating event made worse due to its untimely December 26th date. An attempt to convey the emotions, pain, and hope hidden within could easily fall into manipulative territory, missing the point to become an exploitative moneymaking endeavor. So, it was with a skeptical soul that I went to the World Premiere at the Toronto International Film…

TIFF12 REVIEW: Passion [2013]

2012/09/092014/04/10 Jared Mobarak

“Why don’t we kiss and make up?” Five years after his last foray behind the camera, writer/director Brian De Palma looks to take some of the alternative devices used to film Redacted and combine them with the sexual thriller genre to which he is so indelibly aligned. A remake of the 2010 French film Love Crime, the auteur brings Natalie Carter and Alain Corneau‘s tale to Germany and lets its cutthroat female executives have at it. Beginning as a congenial work relationship, our central duo’s dynamic quickly spills into their…

TIFF12 REVIEW: The Company You Keep [2013]

2012/09/092014/04/10 Jared Mobarak

“We made mistakes, but we were right” In Robert Redford and Lem Dobbs‘ adaptation of Neil Gordon‘s novel The Company You Keep, the personal futures fought for by the militant Weather Underground during the Vietnam War risk being destroyed as the last surviving members of a Bank of Michigan robbery find their past catching up to them after thirty years. Hidden with new identities and normal, domestic lives far from the bombings and murders of a previous era, they’ve begun to take stock and find the guilt of what they…

TIFF12 REVIEW: Aftershock [2013]

2012/09/082014/04/10 Jared Mobarak

“I’ll buy you a new hand” When opening credits begin with ‘an Eli Roth film’, you should know what to expect. While not quite his creatively—it’s directed by Nicolás López—the torture porn maestro does get a writing credit to accompany his producer and star statuses. With an act structure pretty much identical to Hostel, the fact it is less polished and includes a much more pronounced comedic bent allows viewers to experience a different reaction. Its Chilean setting provides a wealth of partying to be had by our leading trio…

TIFF12 REVIEW: 2012 Short Cuts Canada Programmes

2012/09/052015/09/17 Jared Mobarak

Programme 1 “So a TV killed your father” What do you get when you mix the Tibetan Book of the Dead, the ancient metallurgical science of alchemy, and the namesake of inventor Philo Farnsworth? The answer is Connor Gaston‘s short film Bardo Light—titled for the bright glow none of us can avoid at the end of our lives. Told via the police interrogation of the younger Farnsworth (Shaan Rahman) after his adopted father (Bill Gaston) was found suffocated to death in their cabin, we quickly learn of successful experiments using…

REVIEW: The Bourne Legacy [2012]

2012/08/072014/04/11 Jared Mobarak

“We are morally indefensible and absolutely necessary” There was bound to be fallout after Jason Bourne ran amok avenging his girlfriend’s death and shutting down the government agencies that turned him into a cold-blooded killer. With his amnesia-induced morality’s push towards righteousness and its ability to turn executives like Pam Landy (Joan Allen) sympathetic to his plight, fixers behind the scenes of this CIA blunder realized public knowledge of Operations Treadstone and Blackbriar could risk exposing the myriad other similar programs being performed by high-level security officials doing their best…

REVIEW: Savages [2012]

2012/07/022014/04/23 Jared Mobarak

“Money’s not enough. You’ve got to give your heart.” Who’s crueler: a vicious Mexican cartel decapitating men to send a message or a couple Laguna boys willing to do whatever it takes to protect the emotionally damaged girlfriend they share? Being a trick question, the answer is yes. Plain and simply, humanity has forever been plagued by the capacity for evil since the dawn of time, whether a monkey discovering the blunt force trauma capability of a stick or Eve biting that gosh darned apple in Paradise. We yearn for…

REVIEW: Prometheus [2012]

2012/06/082014/04/23 Jared Mobarak

“How far are you willing to go?” **Potential thematic spoilers** The age-old question has always been an unanswerable, “What is the meaning of life?” It’s a query that could easily be solved on an individual basis as far as wealth, family, success, fame, etc., yet so many desire the all encompassing knowledge we were possibly never meant to have. Gods are created and worshiped to give us purpose—be they deities, idols, or even ourselves. We all strive for more and hope to accomplish whatever it takes to reach whatever form…

REVIEW: Alien [1979]

2012/06/052018/05/21 Jared Mobarak

“What is Special Order 937?” When you hear the title Alien, images are conjured up of Bill Paxton having a mental breakdown, Lance Henriksen rapidly stabbing a knife through his fingers, and Sigourney Weaver‘s Ripley inside a mechanical forklift suit engaging a slobbering, hulking monster. The most fascinating thing about this comes not from how iconic the franchise has become, but instead the realization that none of these moments occurred in the original film. Somehow James Cameron‘s action-packed sequel has usurped its predecessor’s slow, cerebral horror in our consciousness to…

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…