Month: October 2018

REVIEW: Life and Nothing More [2018]

Jared Mobarak

Are you free, dead, or in jail? Many filmmakers find the need to politicize truths without realizing or believing their existence has already politicized them. There’s power in this sort of manipulation because the product created is working towards opening eyes or (in most cases) reinforcing what those eyes accepted long ago. That power can also be warped to the other side, however, as detractors will claim the politicization is proof there’s nothing to “really” worry about. They’ll say the artist drew his/her narrative with partisan intent and work towards…

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REVIEW: An Evening with Beverly Luff Linn [2018]

Jared Mobarak

That man ain’t dead. There’s an unforgettable scene from “Twin Peaks” season two that can be a make-it or break-it point for viewers due to how far David Lynch and company were willing to go with the cringe factor of their off-kilter comedic tone. It’s the one where Agent Cooper is lying on the floor of his hotel room after being shot by an unknown assailant. He’s bleeding out when the lovingly coined Señor Droolcup comes to the door with a glass of milk and obliviousness for the ages. Instead…

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REVIEW: Bad Times at the El Royale [2018]

Jared Mobarak

Why even have a bell? Writer/director Drew Goddard‘s affinity for voyeuristic set-ups continues with Bad Times at the El Royale‘s “pervert hotel” aesthetic. His first feature-length screenplay (Cloverfield) was found footage, his directorial debut (The Cabin in the Woods) had a two-way mirror as well as a science fiction surveillance conceit, and now we get a hidden corridor of nefarious delights on the border of California and Nevada with windows spying upon every guest who so chooses the titular accommodations to rest his/her head. You can’t blame him for returning…

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REVIEW: Colette [2018]

Jared Mobarak

It might ruffle some feathers back home. What Wash Westmoreland (who co-wrote with his late husband Richard Glatzer and Rebecca Lenkiewicz) has done with Colette is craft an origin story for the famous, Nobel Prize-nominated French novelist Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette. It begins in Saint-Sauveur-en-Puisaye with her as the teenage daughter of poor country folk unable to pay a dowry to the successful Parisian entrepreneur who fancied her, Henry Gauthier-Villars (known by his more concise nom-de-plume, Willy). Colette soon moves to Paris with her new husband—who gave up his inheritance to follow…

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REVIEW: Tea with the Dames [2018]

Jared Mobarak

It’s alright, you can still swear. Friends for over fifty years, Eileen Atkins, Judi Dench, Joan Plowright, and Maggie Smith join together for Nothing Like a Dame [Tea with the Dames] as they often have. This time, however, comes at the behest of director Roger Michell. And while it’s structured to appear like any other get-together this quartet has enjoyed at Plowright’s estate, there’s no effort to hide the production’s artifice under false pretenses of fly-on-the-wall intent. We see clapboards, listen to Smith good-naturedly call out a photographer off-camera, and…

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REVIEW: The Wife [2018]

Jared Mobarak

Do what you need to do. After multiple expressions of frustration tinged with disgust on behalf of David Castleman (Max Irons) towards his father Joe (Jonathan Pryce), the time for the latter to finally tell the former what he thinks about his short story arrives. Joe is an acclaimed author who’s just landed in Stockholm to accept the Nobel Prize in literature and David has accompanied him and his mother Joan (Glenn Close) for the ceremony. She’s already been effusive with praise about her son’s latest piece while awaiting her…

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BIFF18 REVIEW: The Rainbow Bridge Motel [2018]

Jared Mobarak

Didn’t we invent cultural irony? As soon as Tin’s (Zaw Win) tacky shuttle spins his passengers (Cole Burden‘s Darren and Chris Modrzynski‘s Dean) away from the picturesque majesty of Niagara Falls’ cataracts, I knew exactly what was happening. Anyone who’s called Buffalo’s surrounding area home will too because they’ve experienced the other place sharing that name: the City of Niagara Falls. You know it by industrial smokestacks. You know it by the smell permeating your nostrils as soon as you come close via the Niagara Scenic Parkway (formerly the Robert…

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BIFF18 REVIEW: Thunder Road [2018]

Jared Mobarak

Should we call the manufacturer? It’s unsurprising to learn the opening one-shot of Jim Cummings‘ SXSW-winning film Thunder Road is itself a revision of the writer/director/star’s Sundance-winning short of the same name. The sequence therefore plays like a mini-movie with its escalation of emotion, honest humor in tragedy, and subtle exposition readying us for the aftermath to come. Officer Jim Arnaud (Cummings) is a man struggling with the anguish and regret he feels as the reality of his mother’s death hits him like a ton of bricks—his macho, decorated hero…

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BIFF18 REVIEW: About a Donkey [2018]

Jared Mobarak

Smaller than a horse. The Owens family is at a nexus point of chaotic emotions, troubles, and fears thanks to the start of new chapters in their respective lives. Mom (Katherine Wessling‘s Ann) has officially accepted what everyone else already had: a battle with depression. Burgh (Ben Kaufman) recently started seeing someone (Sarah Haruko‘s Cassie) he’s afraid to reveal to the family due to her having a past history with his younger sister. She (Alexandra Clayton‘s Annie) is ready to pop thanks to hers and husband Paul’s (Ricardo Manigat) first…

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BIFF18 REVIEW: Caretakers [2018]

Jared Mobarak

Do what is right, not what is easy. Dr. Leigh Waters (Angell Conwell) has a line of dialogue towards the end of Caretakers that I was desperate to hear since the beginning. She reminds the med student under her supervision (George Loomis‘ Jones Berg) that he’s neither a psychologist nor a social worker and thus shouldn’t concern himself with questions or manufacture unsubstantiated answers about his patients beyond the already crucial job he has. I’d go even further by telling Jones he isn’t a detective either. He’s not a family…

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BIFF18 REVIEW: Black Site [2018]

Jared Mobarak

Do you not fear your insignificance? Mankind found a way to overpower its Gods in Tom Paton‘s throwback sci-fi horror Black Site. After discovering that Elder Gods were in-hiding and draining our planet of its most precious resource (people) for millennia, humanity found ancient incantations to bind them and ultimately deport them back from whence they came with no chance of return. It’s the type of knowledge that could disenfranchise the masses with proof of our “creators” being nothing more than a malignant species from far away that craves our…

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