Geraldine James | www.jaredmobarak.com

REVIEW: Beast [2018]

2018/05/312018/06/01 Jared Mobarak

“I just wanted to go dancing” Everything is and isn’t as it seems with Michael Pearce‘s genre-fluid romantic thriller Beast. What starts with the template of rich girl falling for local bad boy against mom’s wishes turns to a case of serial murder with assumptions made every second that confirm what we believe is real just as they throw everything out the window. Nightmares point fingers inward, physical evidence out. Love becomes a weapon for hope and understanding as well as a mask for impending horror moving closer to home…

REVIEW: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo [2011]

2011/12/192014/05/21 Jared Mobarak

“It’s how we’re taught about strangers” If Stieg Larsson had lived long enough to see his The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo become an international sensation worthy of two cinematic adaptations in less than two years, I wonder which he would have approved of more. It’s easy to disregard David Fincher‘s remake as nothing more than an Americanized version of a top-notch mystery thriller already wowing audiences across the globe and much harder to praise it alongside its predecessor. While I’ll admit to finding the telepathic translation device turning everything…

REVIEW: Arthur [2011]

2011/04/042014/06/06 Jared Mobarak

“A savant-like gift of defying death with fun” Having been a child during the 80s, Dudley Moore will always be Patch, the elf that saved Christmas in Santa Claus [The Movie]. I had seen Arthur, and probably Arthur 2: On the Rocks—they were PG after all, even though my parents could have done better than allow me to possibly cultivate an alcoholic as a role model—but I can admittedly remember very little besides the nondescript plot synopsis available on any movie site. So, while I didn’t really have any attachment…

REVIEW: Made in Dagenham [2010]

2011/03/282014/06/06 Jared Mobarak

“Above all—if I nod, you nod” It is somewhat humorous how there has been such uproar of debate concerning the feminism at work with Zack Snyder’s newest Sucker Punch. Here is a fantastical action romp of emblazoned young women fighting for their freedom through imagination and we’re made to cut through a flimsy script to find political rhetoric when entertainment is much easier to see. If only half of the people stirring up conversation on the subject would move instead towards a gem from last year called Made in Dagenham,…