Tag: Oliver Twist

REVIEW: The Selfish Giant [2013]

Jared Mobarak

“Did you lose that baby or your dad sell it?” A contemporary fable thematically adapted from Oscar Wilde‘s short story of the same name and inspired by the world writer/director Clio Barnard entered while filming her documentary The Arbor in Bradford, Northern England, The Selfish Giant proves a stark drama wherein emotional growth blossoms through the aftermath of tragedy. It’s no surprise, however, considering the lengths poverty and a void of trusting role models drives young Arbor (Conner Chapman) and Swifty (Shaun Thomas) into a life far removed from the…

Read More

FILM MARATHON: Movie Musicals #5: Oliver! [1968]

Jared Mobarak

“Who will buy my sweet red roses?” While I’m reasonably sure I have never seen Carol Reed’s Oscar winning Oliver!, I do recall attending a live performance of it during elementary school. If you asked me two and a half hours ago to give a summation or describe my favorite moments, I would have returned the question with a blank stare of ignorance. I couldn’t even really fake it since my only connection to the source material—I never had to read Dickens in school—is Roman Polanski’s successful adaptation from a…

Read More

REVIEW: Death and the Maiden [1994]

Jared Mobarak

“A midnight knock at the door” Roman Polanski has always appeared to me as director who utilizes large casts and set pieces. Not quite a crafter of epics, but big pictures nonetheless. Sure his first film, Knife in the Water, was on a small scale—it was his debut. I was thinking more of The Ninth Gate, The Pianist, and Oliver Twist. Interestingly, right before that trio of large productions, he brought us Death and the Maiden, an Ariel Dorfman play using only three characters to tell its story of revenge,…

Read More