Tag: Caitlin FitzGerald

REVIEW: The Trial of the Chicago 7 [2020]

Jared Mobarak

You don’t know what to do with the egg now, do you? It’s a project tailor-made for Aaron Sorkin. So much so that I’m surprised The Trial of the Chicago 7 didn’t somehow worm its way into becoming his directorial debut rather than Molly’s Game three years prior. There’s the courtroom drama aspect recalling his play and screenplay for A Few Good Men, the government inner-workings a la his television show “The West Wing”, and the notion of a youth-led counter culture of bickering geniuses similar to the fast-paced insults…

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REVIEW: The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then The Bigfoot [2019]

Jared Mobarak

I’ll thank you to look after the dog. A title like The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then The Bigfoot is making very specific promises and writer/director Robert D. Krzykowski doesn’t disappoint. Calvin Barr (Aidan Turner in flashback) did kill Adolf Hitler and Calvin Barr (Sam Elliott in present day) will be recruited to hunt down and eventually kill The Bigfoot. These imperatives are present and plain as day with the type of verbosity that gets you smiling before you even see how crazy this hero’s life proves to accomplish…

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REVIEW: Always Shine [2016]

Jared Mobarak

“Don’t worry sweetheart. We’ll make sure you look beautiful.” Here’s a tale of two women, one-time best friends currently turned strangers. Or is it a tale of two halves: a brash, no-nonsense attitude towards identity at risk of coming off obnoxious against a meekly, non-confrontational façade meant to keep relationships devoid of conflict? If it’s the second option, which half is real and which artificial? Does society’s archaic understanding of femininity force out-going women into self-induced silence? Couldn’t the idea that you have to be one way to fit in…

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BIFF16 REVIEW: Mercy [2016]

Jared Mobarak

“Why would you let her suffer?” It’s practically impossible to talk about what’s happening in Chris Sparling‘s latest thriller Mercy without spoiling it. The writer/director knows, splitting it into three pieces as a result: the first third completely shrouded in mystery, the next a replay from alternative perspectives, and the last the truth of the pursuers’ identities and the lies their victims have been spinning from the start. The only other Sparling film I’ve seen is his most popular one, Buried (he wrote with Rodrigo Cortés directing), but the similarities…

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