Tag: Ben Schnetzer

TIFF19 REVIEW: The Giant [2020]

Jared Mobarak

You can’t run from where we’ve been. Places, objects, sounds, and smells each retain shimmers of memory we long to hold and struggle to forget. This is what’s happened to Charlotte’s (Odessa Young) childhood home—the place where her mother took her own life. Whether she hasn’t thought of it in a long time or it’s all she ever thinks about, this moment right now sees it taking control of her senses and refusing to let go. The lights in these nightmares extend out in a hazy blur, everything so much…

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REVIEW: Warcraft [2016]

Jared Mobarak

“From light comes darkness and from darkness light” As of a year ago I didn’t know what MMO meant (massively multiplayer online) and only an hour ago learned “World of Warcraft” didn’t always exist as one. Warcraft has actually been around since 1994 as a real-time strategy game without avatars and networking. There was a storyline before sprawling into the ever-expanding phenomenon it’s become, a beginning to this war between humans and orcs that continues to wage decades later. Duncan Jones‘ film is therefore an adaptation of this original history…

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REVIEW: Pride [2014]

Jared Mobarak

“Oh good. I haven’t spoken 1950s in ages.” If you’re going to make a film with a sprawling ensemble of characters equally unique and important to the point where your only true lead is a message of solidarity and comradery itself, it’s a good move to look towards the theater. Pride is the screenwriting debut of actor/playwright Stephen Beresford and only the second film from Broadway director Matthew Warchus with fifteen-years in between and yet it feels like they’ve both been working in the industry for ages. They have wrangled…

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TIFF14 REVIEW: The Riot Club [2014]

Jared Mobarak

“People like us don’t make mistakes” I’ll bet Laura Wade’s 2010 play Posh is something special to see on stage. A fictionalized take on Oxford University’s exclusive Bullingdon Club—sons of wealthy Brits who attended the best boarding/prep schools before following in their patriarchy’s footsteps to enjoy vandalizing college rooms as an initiation ploy and restaurants as part of their yearly evening of hedonistic excess—it’s debaucherous centerpiece of a banquet has to be an invigorating experience live. I say this because its depiction in Lone Scherfig’s film The Riot Club (adapted…

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