Cillian Murphy | www.jaredmobarak.com

REVIEW: The Party [2017]

2018/03/072018/03/21 Jared Mobarak

“Another announcement. Good God.” I admire what Sally Potter is trying to do with her black comedy The Party as experiment. She’s placed a group of friends with different political, economic, and romantic views into a single room, hanging a secret(s) over their heads with the potential to destroy their individual and communal identities. They’re provided the opportunity to come clean and be true to who they are despite what it might do to those around them, each embracing a desire to let their consistently over-inflated egos decide. Unfortunately that…

REVIEW: Dunkirk [2017]

2017/07/172017/07/18 Jared Mobarak

“He may never be himself again” War is often depicted as a quantifiable number of those who survived and those who did not. Many films choose this route, picking a battle to show the firefight’s chaos and cost. We remember the Battle of Gettysburg and D-Day as turning points, insane offensives that wrought heavy casualties just as they provided a newfound and tangible hope for victory. It’s glory or despair that’s highlighted depending on whose perspective the story adheres because we want to witness the emotional gray areas of melancholy…

TIFF16 REVIEW: Free Fire [2017]

2016/09/092016/09/15 Jared Mobarak

“Talk about a fucking sledgehammer to crack a nut” TIFF’s Colin Geddes was correct when introducing Ben Wheatley‘s bottle episode of a film Free Fire with the words: “This will wake you up.” The gunfire alone risks perforating your eardrums as John Denver blares from a 1978-era van’s eight-track, but I think it’s the surprising wealth of comedy that ultimately gets the blood pumping and synapses triggering. Wheatley and wife/writer Amy Jump‘s latest isn’t for everyone—fair warning to Hardcore Henry detractors, Sharlto Copley refuses to quit—but those willing to break…

REVIEW: Transcendence [2014]

2014/04/152014/04/16 Jared Mobarak

“They say there’s power in Boston” With a trailer digitizing Johnny Depp and electronic machinery created out of thin air, it’s an understatement to say I was surprised the beginning of Transcendence introduced a world without power. I thought the film was about new technology and the advancement of artificial intelligence harboring a potential for hubristic power grabs and the genocide of organic thinking/emotional response. Instead I saw broken screens on the street and a shop owner wedging a chewed-up keyboard into the gap between his door and the ground…

REVIEW: In Time [2011]

2012/03/072014/05/15 Jared Mobarak

“Your mind can be spent even if your body’s not” A watered-down Gattaca from the same creative mind, Andrew Niccol‘s In Time takes his human story of survival onto a global level. Rather than watch one man succeed in following an unattainable dream by taking the charity of another no longer wanting the gifts he was born with, we experience an entire dystopia’s upheaval. This world isn’t about a genetic propensity for excellence; it’s about time ticking down for the poor and being muted for the rich. Living in the…

REVIEW: TRON: Legacy [2010]

2010/12/262013/07/14 Jared Mobarak

“Like bio-digital jazz, man” It’s twenty years later and I’m still not quite sure how anyone would think a big budget blockbuster taking place inside a computer mainframe could feasibly be seen as profitable, yet Disney has done it once more. 1982 saw TRON unleashed upon the world with an aesthetic way ahead of its time and confounding language for anyone not a computer programmer. Somehow it gained a huge cult following and the studio held tight, always rumoring a sequel, until they could blow audience minds again. TRON: Legacy…

REVIEW: Batman Begins [2005]

2008/07/072011/08/24 Jared Mobarak

“I warned you about compassion” In anticipation for the new film The Dark Knight, I found it time to revisit the one that relaunched the franchise—Batman Begins. With an all-star cast and Christopher Nolan at the helm, everything seemed to be in place for a true telling reminiscent of the latter day comic books starring everyone’s favorite vigilante. Batman had become very dark and brooding since the days of Adam West’s Bangs! and Pows! Here was finally the chance to show that drama and ethos behind what makes Bruce Wayne…

REVIEW: Sunshine [2007]

2007/07/272017/03/29 Jared Mobarak

“When he chooses for us to die, it is not our place to challenge God” I love Danny Boyle’s work. Sure I haven’t seen The Beach or Shallow Grave, but I can’t see myself thinking they will be anything less than fantastic because he has never let me down. The man has spanned genres and never shied away from doing something different than before. Between his visual flair—aesthetically and kinetically—and his brilliant choices in screenwriters to collaborate with, Boyle astounds at every turn. His newest film Sunshine just enhances his…

REVIEW: 28 Weeks Later [2007]

2007/05/152011/08/24 Jared Mobarak

“Code Red” This was definitely a film that I didn’t see any necessity for. 28 Days Later was a fantastic genre film whose main success was not really being the film people expected it to be. What worked there was that we were able to wake up into the world just as our main character did. We experience the disorientation and the horror right along with him, as well as the humanity still within him having missed the original outbreak—unlike the disheartened and beaten comrades he meets along the way.…

REVIEW: 28 Days Later [2002]

2007/05/122017/03/29 Jared Mobarak

“That was longer than a heartbeat” In anticipation for the sequel 28 Weeks Later, I decided to revisit the superb zombie entry 28 Days Later from director Danny Boyle. I remember back to when I first started hearing the buzz about this film and how surprised I was that it came from the guy who brought us Trainspotting and A Life Less Ordinary. However, because this was the guy who made those films, I decided to give it a try despite not being the biggest fan of zombie flicks or…

REVIEW: The Wind That Shakes the Barley [2006]

2007/05/082011/08/24 Jared Mobarak

“I try to get out and can’t” Very few war movies will actually give you an insight into the men and the ideas that are being fought for. Usually we will be shown carnage and battle or at least, amidst the strive, a substory about soldiers rallying together in order to save someone. Some of my favorites include the classic Gettysburg. Here is a film about civil war and brother against brother, ideal vs ideal. We are given amazing fight scenes with rifles that have one shot apiece yet often…