Category: Nightstream Film Festival

NIGHTSTREAM20 REVIEW: Black Bear [2020]

Jared Mobarak

You don’t have to mean it. Does a bear standing in the road influence a bear by the boathouse? Or are both animals a manifestation of the same mind to punctuate the climactic conclusions of an ever-escalating series of anxiety-inducing emotional carnage as deus ex machinas? You could easily argue each option where it concerns Lawrence Michael Levine‘s intentionally solipsistic and presumably cathartic dramatic puzzle box of a film, Black Bear. Chapter One might be a reality that influences Chapter Two or both might be dueling incarnations of a creative…

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NIGHTSTREAM20 REVIEW: Mandibules [Mandibles] [2020]

Jared Mobarak

What’s in the suitcase? Look no further than the fact Manu (Grégoire Ludig) was given the job to know how simple it was. While he’s a guy who shouldn’t be trusted to operate heavy machinery, tasking him with the no-questions-asked delivery of a suitcase shouldn’t be far-fetched—especially not when he’ll be given a decent payday for his trouble. Manu needs that money too. He’s lost his home and sleeps wrapped up in a blanket on the beach way too close to the water. Any little bit therefore helps and procuring…

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NIGHTSTREAM20 REVIEW: The Obituary of Tunde Johnson [2020]

Jared Mobarak

With unconditional love comes unconditional fear. While not in control of the response, Tunde Johnson (Steven Silver) does control the conversation when deciding to come out as gay to his wealthy, Nigerian-born parents the night of his secret boyfriend’s (Spencer Neville‘s Soren) birthday. He sits them down, diverts their attention from the busy intellectual discourse that runs through their heads, and says his peace. He fends off his mother’s desire to hold him (a source of physical affection he’s been trying to get her to stop) and implores his father…

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NIGHTSTREAM20 REVIEW: Frank & Zed [2020]

Jared Mobarak

It will end in the Orgy of Blood! Centuries ago in a small kingdom ravaged by evil wizard The Moroi, a king made a pact with the God of Death to usher in what he believed was his only chance at peace. By giving them cursed weapons with the power to vanquish their foe, Death also bestowed a prophecy that foretold an orgy of blood fated to take tenfold the blood spilled by the king’s hand the moment his royal line is ended. And it worked. The wizard was destroyed…

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NIGHTSTREAM20 REVIEW: Jumbo [2020]

Jared Mobarak

What is it if it isn’t love? Jeanne Tantois (Noémie Merlant) has never been one for people. Besides her mother Margarette (Emmanuelle Bercot) and co-worker Fati (Tracy Dossou), she’d avoid talking to them all. You can’t blame her for this attitude considering what so many do the moment they witness her shyly eccentric demeanor. She closes her eyes in a wince when someone gets too close and they almost always come back with a chuckle or unoriginal playacting of being “scary.” They mock her, ridicule her, and laugh rather than…

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NIGHTSTREAM20 REVIEW: Run [2020]

Jared Mobarak

Will she be okay? The hospital equipment beeps above doctors frantically at work to save a baby in crisis, her mother awaiting news in another room. Then the textual definitions of numerous diseases arrive on-screen one after another to foreshadow the difficult road ahead for both parent and child to beat the odds and persevere. So seeing Diane Sherman’s (Sarah Paulson) smile when asked by the leader of her home schooling parents group if she’s ready to watch eighteen-year-old Chloe (Kiera Allen) head off to college is all we need…

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NIGHTSTREAM20 REVIEW: Rose Plays Julie [2020]

Jared Mobarak

Do you ever think about me? Get ready for a tense ride because writers/directors Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor‘s Rose Plays Julie never relinquishes its sense of brooding until the very last frame’s welcome exhale of relief. Why should they considering the subject matter? This is a dark story dealing with a reality too many women have experienced without the means for guaranteed justice. So while it might be a spoiler to say, I’m not sure it’s possible to speak about the film without mentioning how everything we witness is…

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NIGHTSTREAM20 REVIEW: Lapsis [2020]

Jared Mobarak

Do not do anything with Felix. As multi-billion dollar corporations expand their reach within their respective industries (and beyond), the wage gap in our country increases. Executives are granted astronomical bonuses while the people on the ground floor are shifted from full-time employment to freelancers as a way to mitigate the possibility of unions, paying health insurance, etc. Welcome to the gig economy: a capitalist spin promising “self-employment” and freedom while actually trending towards isolation so that anyone can be cut loose before they start costing more to keep on…

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NIGHTSTREAM20 REVIEW: An Unquiet Grave [2020]

Jared Mobarak

I could always tell you two apart. When is the right time to stop mourning your love? A month? A year? Longer? When do the tears become less of a memorial for the dead and more a tomb constructed around the living? The folksong states “one year and a day.” That’s when an unnamed man hears from his late lover that his crying has prevented her from rest. He says he’ll stop if only he had but one more kiss, yet she knows it to be false. Such an intimate…

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