Beanie Feldstein | www.jaredmobarak.com

REVIEW:The Humans [2021]

2021/12/132021/12/13 Jared Mobarak

Should I just dump her down the spiral staircase? It was interesting to read about playwright Stephen Karam after watching his feature debut The Humans (adapted from his Tony-winning and Pulitzer Prize-finalist play) only to discover he’s a Lebanese-American Maronite. I say this because I could definitely imagine my father’s family projected above the one on-screen despite Karam’s fictional clan being Irish-American Catholics. My grandparents were very religious Maronites and their six children ultimately branched out to run the gamut between being similarly devout, Born Again, agnostic, and non-practicing Christians.…

TIFF19 REVIEW: How to Build a Girl [2020]

2019/09/082020/03/25 Jared Mobarak

This bitch be paying rent. As a young girl with aspirations to write, journalist Caitlin Moran used her hippie homeschool upbringing to enter literary competitions with potential to open industry doors. The Observer‘s “Young Reporter of the Year” at fifteen eventually started her professional career the following year with Melody Maker and never looked back. Did she devolve into the nom de plume Dolly Wild to gleefully trash bands as DM&E‘s resident rock gatekeeper extraordinaire? No. But you have to imagine the opportunity to go that route was available. The…

REVIEW: Booksmart [2019]

2019/04/242020/03/28 Jared Mobarak

‘Your ugly’ what? Does Olivia Wilde‘s directorial debut Booksmart call to mind Superbad? You bet. Not only is it about two nerd best friends trying to punch above their weight class and party hard before graduating, but it also stars that film’s co-lead Jonah Hill‘s sister in a very similar mode. She (Beanie Feldstein‘s Molly) has just discovered (due to a ham-fisted loop-hole in plotting where students can’t reveal their collegiate destinations) that her slacker classmates somehow got accepted into Ivy League universities like her and Amy (Kaitlyn Dever). While…

TIFF17 REVIEW: Lady Bird [2017]

2017/09/162017/11/16 Jared Mobarak

“Love and attention” After a string of critical hits hinging upon her trademarked quirk as self-absorbed twenty-somethings trying to cut a path in life, Greta Gerwig has decided to transpose that template onto a tale of teenage angst with her directorial debut Lady Bird. The first step was finding a kindred spirit in Saoirse Ronan to wear that eccentric brand of character ticks and insecurities masked by inflated self-confidence with expert precision. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn Ronan researched the role by watching Frances Ha, Mistress America, et al…