Matthew Marsden | www.jaredmobarak.com

FANTASIA17 REVIEW: Savage Dog [2017]

2017/07/112017/07/31 Jared Mobarak

“The human is the hardest animal to kill” When a film opens with Scott Adkins rising from the mud with a scream in Indochina circa 1959, you begin cultivating expectations. You forgive the ham-fisted voiceover narration and the quick slow motion cuts disorienting place and time. You forgive the lack of context as to why this man (and a woman too) was trapped under mud in the first place because you’re re-situating yourself in your seat to brace for the impact of the actor’s fists against the flesh of whomever…

REVIEW: Bounty Killer [2013]

2013/06/212013/10/23 Jared Mobarak

“Bad manners and a face that’d make his mom grab a hammer” With so many iconic comic book properties transforming into big budget drama to capitalize on contemporary society’s interest in broodingly haunted souls finding redemption, it’s fallen to new, original work to fill the void of yesteryear’s bloody romps interested in entertaining sans desire to take themselves too seriously. For TV graphic designer turned director Henry Saine and writer Jason Dodson, such a work was born from the idea of a post-apocalyptic wasteland left by a series of destructive…

REVIEW: Atlas Shrugged: Part I [2011]

2011/04/232014/06/06 Jared Mobarak

“Who is John Galt?” The critical failings of the over fifty years in waiting adaptation of Ayn Rand’s seminal, controversial novel Atlas Shrugged: Part I are more due to the liberal slant of the industry then any shortcomings of the production. Critics across the country snidely remark how we shouldn’t “… hold our breath for parts 2 and 3” (Joe Morgenstern, admitting to not being an admirer of the author), but if you look at the per theatre average take of this independently financed endeavor as well as its unheard…

REVIEW: Rambo [2008]

2008/02/012013/07/16 Jared Mobarak

“Live for nothing, die for something” In what must be the most awkward sequencing of titles for a film franchise, the fourth installment, titled as though it was the first—Rambo, shows the side of the character that I was expecting while watching the first film. We get John Rambo in all his Green Beret glory, taking no prisoners and killing all in his wake; quite the departure from his introduction as a misguided ex-pat pushed too far into exploiting the bigotry and weakness of a local sheriff and his deputies.…