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The 88th Oscars recap through tweets …

2016/02/292020/03/26 Jared Mobarak

The Oscars are today! You know, the awards show where Leonardo DiCaprio is “overdue” but black people can “wait till next year.” — Bette Midler (@BetteMidler) February 28, 2016 Bette Midler‘s tweet hours before the 88th Annual Academy Awards started says it all above. #OscarsSoWhite would and to a point should be the focus of the show because all the chaos that ensued once the nominations revealed a second consecutive year without a non-white acting nod deemed it so. However, the uproar was directed towards the Academy hastily and…

REVIEW: The Witch [2016]

2016/02/252016/02/26 Jared Mobarak

“We shall conquer this wilderness. It will not consume us.” I find it funny that the Satanic Temple has “endorsed” Robert Eggers‘ stunning debut The Witch considering its pro-Catholic message. The first thing we see is William (Ralph Ineson) standing before his 17th century Puritan plantation’s governors as his family is excommunicated and exiled into the neighboring New England woods. They believe they can survive alone once happening upon a tract of land with which to build a small farm, but without God’s protection tragedy befalls them. Suddenly the corn…

Top 100 Songs of 2015

2016/01/022018/07/02 Jared Mobarak

#100: After The Fall by Chelsea Wolfe #98: The Shade by Metric #96: Dead Inside by Muse #94: Killing Strangers by Marilyn Manson #92: I’m In Love With My Life by PHASES #90: Vancouver by Kopecky #88: Drunched in Crumbs by Albert Hammond Jr. #86: Till It’s Gone by Yelawolf #84: Home We’ll Go by Walk Off the Earth #82: Orion by The Mynabirds #80: Here To Mars by Coheed and Cambria #78: It’s My Turn Now by Awreeoh #76: Mothercreep by FKA Twigs #74: Angels (Above Me) by Say…

REVIEW: The Hateful Eight [2015]

2015/12/222015/12/29 Jared Mobarak

“Well I’ll be double-dog damned” It appears Quentin Tarantino has decided to go back to his roots by making his eighth feature film The Hateful Eight in the same vein as his debut Reservoir Dogs—namely keeping sets and actors to the bare minimum for added tension without room for escape. The maneuver couldn’t have come sooner with its predecessor Django Unchained, despite earning an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, proving to me his weakest work. Not only was it pretty much a watered-down rehash of Inglourious Basterds, it was also…

REVIEW: Star Wars: The Force Awakens [2015]

2015/12/172017/12/15 Jared Mobarak

“There’s still light inside of him” First thing’s first: there’s probably spoilers in this review. Because let’s face it, anything besides me plainly stating that I loved it is construed as a spoiler to a fandom as intense as that of George Lucas‘ Star Wars saga. Will I go into lineages and deaths? No. Does J.J. Abrams, Lawrence Kasdan, and Michael Arndt‘s script seem to care about keeping such things secret in the context of this return adventure? No. But I’ll still leave it for their intuitive and refreshingly blunt…

Online Film Critics Society Ballot 2015

2015/12/142020/03/31 Jared Mobarak

Below is my December 12th ballot for the 19th annual Online Film Critics Society Awards honoring movies released domestically in the United States during the 2015 calendar year. Group winners are highlighted in red. Best Picture #1 Inside Out . #2 Carol . #3 Spotlight . #4 Ex Machina . #5 Mad Max Fury Road #6 Brooklyn #7 The Revenant #8 Room #9 The Martian #10 Sicario Best Animated Film #1 Inside Out . #2 Shaun the Sheep Movie #3 Anomalisa . #4 The Peanuts Movie #5 The Good Dinosaur…

REVIEW: 45 Years [2015]

2015/12/102015/12/11 Jared Mobarak

“She’d look like she was from 1962 and I look like this” Half a century is a long time—enough to believe you know everything about the person you’ve spent it with lovingly and happily. But what do we really know? What was he/she like before you met and what shaped them into the person you fell in love with long ago? Does it matter? One could argue everything before your union is meaningless because you didn’t meet that version of them. All our choices are wrapped in actions and events…

REVIEW: The Revenant [2015]

2015/12/102016/01/06 Jared Mobarak

“As long as you can still grab a breath … you fight” If we’re to go by the setting of Michael Punke‘s novel The Revenant on which Mark L. Smith based his script—director Alejandro González Iñárritu gets a co-writing credit after coming onboard—the year is 1822 and the Central American frontier is loaded with fur traders pillaging Native American land, animals, and women. Captain Andrew Henry (Domhnall Gleeson) leads a band of men under the authority of his employer to procure pelts and return to camp with Hugh Glass (Leonardo…

REVIEW: Creed [2015]

2015/12/092015/12/10 Jared Mobarak

“Now that we’re family, who won that third fight?” The question on everyone’s mind gets answered immediately in Ryan Coogler‘s Creed: How can Michael B. Jordan be Apollo Creed’s son if he was already born throughout Carl Weather‘s run of four Rocky films? Well, Adonis Johnson (Jordan) isn’t that boy. Instead he’s a child out of wedlock whose mother was pregnant at the time of the boxer’s death. Sadly she also passed away leaving young Adonis in and out of foster homes and juvenile detention centers until Mary Anne Creed…

REVIEW: Carol [2015]

2015/12/042017/11/30 Jared Mobarak

“How many times have you been in love?” Director Todd Haynes‘ latest period romance Carol is nothing short of impeccable. From the acting to the cinematography to the art direction to Carter Burwell‘s gorgeous score, this thing is flawless in execution to the point where it should be rendered a clinically cold piece devoid of the immense emotion captured within each scene. Somehow these meticulous camera set-ups and intense expressions retain the warmth necessary to experience its characters’ love—a love in its purest form. The story is brimming with complex…

REVIEW: Room [2015]

2015/12/032015/12/05 Jared Mobarak

“There’s Room then outer space with the TV planets then Heaven.” ***POTENTIAL SPOILERS*** I’m not sure a more intensely emotional film than Lenny Abrahamson‘s Room has been released in the past decade let alone this year. Nothing hits home deeper than the bond of a mother and child, but the situation novelist/screenwriter Emma Donoghue constructs for Joy Newsome (Brie Larson) and Jack (Jacob Tremblay) increase it exponentially. Inspired to write her book after hearing about the Fritzl case in Austria where a man held his daughter captive for twenty-four years…