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REVIEW: The Greasy Strangler [2016]

2016/10/222016/10/23 Jared Mobarak

“He likes to shout. I like to smile.” My description of Jim Hosking‘s feature directorial debut The Greasy Strangler: a gross-out, darkly obscure comedy centered on a father and son duo akin to Lloyd Christmas and Harry Dunne from Dumb and Dumber that exists in a deranged parallel universe to Napoleon Dynamite as directed by John Waters. On some level that sounds amazing. On another it makes my skin crawl. I love Dumb and Dumber, hate Napoleon Dynamite, and appreciate Waters whether I enjoy his trash cinema aesthetic every outing…

REVIEW: Dumb and Dumber To [2014]

2014/11/122014/11/14 Jared Mobarak

“I don’t even know cursive” Nope. Not even the movie that started it all can save the fledgling career of the Farrelly Brothers. Despite reading an interview of them speaking about how great the sequel’s script was due to its being almost identical to the first, I entered their last film with an open mind. The same and more, they said? Come on—it’s been twenty years. They should have noticed by their diminishing box office returns this past decade that the comedy used to propel them towards A-list status in…

REVIEW: Dumb and Dumber [1994]

2014/11/102014/11/11 Jared Mobarak

“You sold my dead bird to a blind kid?” It’s the film that brought us the high concept, gross-out comedy sensibilities of Peter and Bobby Farrelly and it has some of the most memorable laughs of the 90s. The filmmaking brothers would go on to create a mixed bag of obnoxious, offensive, and hit or miss work that steadily grew tiresome while revealing they were for all intents and purposes one-trick ponies. Just because the trick wasn’t able to sustain the public’s love, however, doesn’t mean it wasn’t riotous at…

Summer Fun Film Festivals in WNY

2014/07/182020/03/26 Jared Mobarak

With the dwindling numbers of drive-in theaters across the country, independent theaters finding it difficult to compete with huge chains, and the ever-fluctuating national box office needing too many 3D films to turn a profit, certain cities somehow find a way to keep the medium alive. Buffalo is one of them and always has been since I can remember. My days as a high schooler trying to figure out plans with friends for the weekend always ended up being decided between catch the latest blockbuster or hit up the local…

REVIEW: Hall Pass [2011]

2011/02/222014/06/07 Jared Mobarak

“Anyone thinking chocolate chip cookie dough on a waffle cone?” It’s a shame that Peter and Bobby Ferrelly never realized their time had come and gone by 1998 with Dumb and Dumber, Kingpin, and There’s Something About Mary—you don’t get much better in the stupid comedy field than that trio. 2003 gave hope they might have found a way to balance their crude, crass, potty humor with comedy’s new, more subtle 21st century ways as Stuck on You was surprisingly good, but, alas, hope died. And now the brothers try…

BNFF10 REVIEW: Hot Tamale [2006]

2010/04/242011/08/24 Jared Mobarak

“You better know so Wonderbread” Between the serious faces portrayed on the poster and the heist gone wrong plot synopsis, I had no idea Hot Tamale was going to be as much of a comedy as it is. Beginning with the bizarre death of lead Harlan Woodriff’s father, the kooky family is huddled around the frozen corpse while the son stays in the background wondering if he’d ended up in the wrong family. It all has an air of drama—besides the inclusion of actors Harland Williams and Beth Grant—as we…