Peter Capaldi | www.jaredmobarak.com

REVIEW: Benediction [2022]

2022/05/242022/06/01 Jared Mobarak

The world is full of anomalies. The tragic artist is a well-worn trope and yet historical record continuously demands it be used. War poet Siegfried Sassoon (Jack Lowden) fits the bill—a man of growing renown who was whisked off to fight the Germans during World War I only to come home marred by the experience and inspired to speak against motives that had steadily grown less virtuous by the day. He was a hero awarded for his bravery and adored by the men who served under him yet one of…

TIFF19 REVIEW: The Personal History of David Copperfield [2020]

2019/09/062020/03/25 Jared Mobarak

Digs for joy, that boy. Finds it too. David Copperfield (Dev Patel) has a story to tell. It begins with his cute, precocious little self (Jairaj Varsani) making Mom laugh and nanny Mrs. Peggotty (Daisy May Cooper) laugh even harder. He’s a headstrong boy with dreams of joy thanks to the overflowing love shown to him by everyone but his aunt (Tilda Swinton‘s Betsey Trotwood) … for now. Like most widowed women of thirty with an estate in the Victorian Era, however, remarrying is a foregone conclusion for Ms. Copperfield.…

REVIEW: Paddington 2 [2017]

2018/01/082020/04/13 Jared Mobarak

Where all your dreams come true. In true children’s book fashion, Paddington’s (Ben Whishaw) continuing adventures in London alongside the Brown family (Hugh Bonneville‘s Henry, Sally Hawkins‘ Mary, Madeleine Harris‘ Judy, Samuel Joslin‘s Jonathan, and Julie Walters‘ Mrs. Bird) would of course stem from something as seemingly innocuous as procuring a birthday present for his Aunt Lucy (Imelda Staunton). The activity will prove more difficult than anticipated, a villain will be introduced, and a mystery uncovered through an enjoyable series of pratfalls and error. This is exactly the stuff that…

REVIEW: Paddington [2014]

2018/01/062020/04/13 Jared Mobarak

Does anyone know where I can find a home? I remember reading Michael Bond‘s Paddington Bear books when I was a kid and might have even had a duffle coat-wearing stuffed animal too. But I couldn’t tell you a thing about those stories if you put a gun to my head and asked. I recall a little more about The Berenstain Bears and a bit more than that about Teddy Ruxpin—apparently bears just didn’t leave a huge impression upon me. Even so, however, I worried about a live action film…

REVIEW: In the Loop [2009]

2009/08/102013/07/16 Jared Mobarak

“An anti-war shag?” There is something about British comedy that resonates with me. I don’t know if it is because we in the States experience so little of it, or maybe because Hollywood rapes and pillages the material for their own water-downed versions, but the humor just seems fresh, uncensored, and hilarious. When I first came across the new political black comedy In the Loop, I will admit to being less than interested. The marketing materials were using the whole Obama silkscreen poster look and I really wasn’t interested in…