Posted by Jared Mobarak on August 27, 2019 · Leave a Comment
“We grew up there” Every lie told takes us one step closer to burying the truth forever. While this often applies to current events like with Aesop’s fable “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” wherein a community is numbed to a boy’s warnings enough to let a tragedy occur under their noses, director Albert Shin and […]
Category drama, film features, film festival, film reviews, suspense/thriller, toronto international film festival · Tags Albert Shin, Andy McQueen, Clifton Hill, Dan Lett, David Cronenberg, Disappearance at Clifton Hill, Elizabeth Saunders, Eric Johnson, Hannah Gross, James Schultz, Marie-Josée Croze, Paulino Nunes, TIFF, Toronto International Film Festival, Tuppence Middleton
Posted by Jared Mobarak on June 27, 2019 · Leave a Comment
“Would it hurt you to play along just once?” The cause might be unnamed, but the fact it’s still sunny at midnight guarantees the giant star at the center of our solar system is going supernova (whether or not physics deems it possible). Because all life on Earth will cease in a predetermined instant, you […]
Category comedy, drama, film reviews, romance · Tags Bruce McDonald, Callum Keith Rennie, Daniel Iron, David Cronenberg, Don McKellar, François Girard, Geneviève Bujold, Last Night, Michael McMurtry, Roberta Maxwell, Robin Gammell, Sandra Oh, Sarah Polley, Tracy Wright, Trent McMullen
Posted by Jared Mobarak on September 26, 2017 · Leave a Comment
“Better on TV than on the streets” To watch David Cronenberg‘s Videodrome today is to acknowledge his clairvoyance as far as technology’s capacity to control via (mis)information. He filmed this body horror classic about subliminal messaging in mass consumption in 1983: years before the political firestorm in 1992 revolving around ubiquitous violence in videogames via […]
Category film reviews, horror, science fiction, suspense/thriller · Tags Criterion Collection, David Cronenberg, Deborah Harry, Jack Creley, James Woods, Leslie Carlson, Peter Dvorsky, Sonja Smits, Thursday Night Terrors, Videodrome
Posted by Jared Mobarak on November 8, 2014 · 1 Comment
“… Liberty” There are many versions of Hollywood I would never wish to live within—including the real one—but it appears those crafted by Bruce Wagner might be the most nightmarishly hedonistic, vile, and depressingly pathetic. A man who grew up in Los Angeles via Wisconsin and probably experienced many of the selfish acts of depravity […]
Category drama, film reviews · Tags Angelo Badalamenti, Bruce Wagner, Carrie Fisher, David Cronenberg, Evan Bird, Howard Shore, I'm Losing You, John Cusack, Julianne Moore, Justin Bieber, Lindsay Lohan, Maps to the Stars, Mia Wasikowska, Mulholland Drive, Robert Pattinson, Sarah Gadon
Posted by Jared Mobarak on August 28, 2014 · Leave a Comment
“Whole body is genital” If the whole “you’ll go blind” line doesn’t detract your kid from masturbating, controversial writer/director Ki-duk Kim has the solution. Just because the son in뫼비우스 [Moebiuseu] [Moebius] attracts the ire of his mother specifically due to his coveting the woman his father is having an affair with doesn’t lessen its impact. […]
Category drama, film reviews, foreign · Tags Crash, David Cronenberg, Doctor Who, Eun-Woo Lee, Jae-hyeon Jo, Ki-duk Kim, Korean, Moebius, Moebiuseu, Young-Ju Seo
Posted by Jared Mobarak on August 26, 2014 · Leave a Comment
We may have two consistent film festivals here in town showcasing small releases and restored classics, but you might not realize how close we are to one of the biggest in the world. Most “in the know” will center on five events when thinking about the best of the best film festivals and while Venice, […]
Category entertainment, essays, film features, film festival, toronto international film festival · Tags A Little Chaos, A Second Chance, Alan Rickman, Andrew Niccol, Angelina Jolie, Antoine Fuqua, Barry Levinson, Before We Go, Bennett Miller, Brad Pitt, Channing Tatum, Chris Evans, Clouds of Sils Maria, Coming Home, Dallas Buyers Club, Dan Gilroy, David Cronenberg, David Dobkin, David Gordon Green, Denzel Washington, Diablo Cody, Don't Go Breaking My Heart 2, Ellen Page, Foxcatcher, Good Kill, Hal Hartley, Isao Takahata, James Franco, Jason Reitman, Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Marc Vallée, Johnnie To, Jon Stewart, Juno, Kevin Smith, Manglehorn, Maps to the Stars, Men Women & Children, Michaël R. Roskam, Michael Winterbottom, Michel Hazanavicius, Mike Leigh, Mommy, Mr. Turner, Ned Rifle, Nightcrawler, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Olivier Assayas, Paul Bettany, Reese Witherspoon, Robert Downey Jr., Robert Duvall, Rosewater, Shelter, Steve Carell, Susanne Bier, The Cobbler, The Drop, The Equalizer, The Humbling, The Judge, The Search, The Sound and the Fury, Thomas McCarthy, TIFF, Toronto International Film Festival, Training Day, Tusk, Wild, Winter Sleep, Xavier Dolan, Yimou Zhang
Posted by Jared Mobarak on January 19, 2014 · Leave a Comment
“Don’t make me dream that again” The last line of David Cronenberg‘s Dead Ringers is on the nose and yet still disturbingly surreal. Jeremy Irons (playing twin gynecologists Elliot and Beverly Mantle) phones his lover Claire (Geneviève Bujold) only to hear the telling reply, “Who is this?” While we too find ourselves uncertain which is […]
Category drama, film reviews, suspense/thriller · Tags Bari Wood, David Cronenberg, Dead Ringers, Geneviève Bujold, Jack Geasland, Jeremy Irons, Norman Snider, Scanners, Stephen Lack, The Dead Zone, The Fly, Videodrome
Posted by Jared Mobarak on April 25, 2013 · Leave a Comment
“Celebrities aren’t human. They’re group hallucinations.” Like father, like son—Brandon Cronenberg has been paying attention. Even though a credit as Special Effects Technician on eXistenZ is the only one of David’s films he’s attached to in a professional capacity, it would be hard to believe he wasn’t at least on set for a few others. […]
Category film reviews, horror, science fiction · Tags Antiviral, Brandon Cronenberg, Caleb Landry Jones, David Cronenberg, eXistenZ, Joe Pingue, Malcom McDowell, Sarah Gadon, Videodrome
Posted by Jared Mobarak on April 11, 2013 · Leave a Comment
“In some countries you can pick up a kidney for the price of a laptop” With a name like Tales from the Organ Trade and its interesting casting selection of body horror maestro David Cronenberg as its narrator, I’m not sure one could blame me for expecting gruesome, unsanitary, back alley surgeons assisted by frightfully […]
Category documentary, film features, film festival, film reviews, hotdocs · Tags David Cronenberg, Dead Ringers, Hot Docs, Jason Chamberlain, Jonathan Ratel, Mary Jo Vradis, Raul Fain, Ric Esther Bienstock, Robby Berman, Tales from the Organ Trade, Walter Rassbach, Yusuf Sonmez, Zaki Shapira
Posted by Jared Mobarak on December 21, 2012 · Leave a Comment
“Too bad. I miss forests.” Is it science fiction, fantasy, drama, comedy, all or none of the above? As spoken by a character from within, beauty exists in the eye of the beholder and so does the importance of Leos Carax‘s Holy Motors. However, rather than positing the question of what happens when there no […]
Category drama, fantasy, film reviews, foreign, science fiction · Tags David Cronenberg, David Lynch, Denis Lavant, Edith Scob, Elise Lhomeau, Eva Mendes, French, Holy Motors, Jeanne Disson, Kylie Minogue, Leos Carax, Lost Highway
Posted by Jared Mobarak on December 5, 2012 · Leave a Comment
“My prostate is asymmetrical” Thematically more like what David Cronenberg created before his last three films; I’m not quite sure what to think about Cosmopolis. Faithfully adapted from a novel by Don DeLillo, its look inside the day of billionaire magnate Eric Packer (Robert Pattinson) skews closest to the hellish descents behind the director’s eXistenZ […]
Category drama, film reviews · Tags American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis, Cosmopolis, David Cronenberg, Don DeLillo, Emily Hampshire, eXistenZ, George Touliatos, Jay Baruchel, Juliette Binoche, K'Naan, Kevin Durand, Mathieu Amalric, Patricia McKenzie, Paul Giamatti, Philip Nozuka, Robert Pattinson, Samantha Morton, Sarah Gadon, Videodrome, Zeljko Kecojevic
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