Interviews | www.jaredmobarak.com

INTERVIEW: Debra Granik, director of Stray Dog

2015/06/302020/03/21 Jared Mobarak

If you don’t think someone fresh off an Oscar nomination would spend five years to follow her critically acclaimed fictional narrative with the first feature-length documentary of her career, you don’t know Debra Granik. When I interviewed her back in 2010 in support of Winter’s Bone, she was already talking about documentary observation as being key to her work. After all, that movie and her debut Down to the Bone both utilized real people from the towns in which she filmed for visual and contextual authenticity. One of those locals—Ronnie…

INTERVIEW: Jalmari Helander, writer/director of Big Game

2015/06/262020/03/21 Jared Mobarak

After finding success from his debut feature Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale—an expansion of a world he created through two previous shorts all released together by Oscilloscope—Finnish writer/director Jalmari Helander did what many European filmmakers do and went English-language for his sophomore effort. But he did so on his terms by once again writing his own script and recruiting familiar faces to act against the newly accessible stable of international stars provided to him. The result is action romp Big Game and it has the potential of turning even more…

INTERVIEW: Kris Swanberg, director/cowriter of Unexpected

2015/06/232020/03/21 Jared Mobarak

A hit at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival now getting a limited release from The Film Arcade, Unexpected proves a welcome breath of fresh air for stories dealing with pregnancy against the usual romantic comedy fare usurping the plot point for cheap laughs. Director/cowriter Kris Swanberg utilized her own experiences as a mom and from teaching within the Chicago Public School system as a basis for her look at a teacher and student bonding over their shared nine-month journeys to motherhood. Steeped in reality and performed with authenticity by a…

INTERVIEW: David Gordon Green, director of Manglehorn

2015/06/192020/03/21 Jared Mobarak

In the six years between Snow Angels and Prince Avalanche, writer/director David Gordon Green became a collaborator on a string of comedies of which he was not credited as a writer. In the two years since he’s utilized that process with drama Joe and now Manglehorn. He’s said in other interviews that it’s a way for him to have multiple projects going at once, passing ideas onto others to see what develops into something he wishes to pursue and what doesn’t. And as he tells us below, it also allows…

INTERVIEW: Alex Winter, director of Deep Web

2015/05/042020/03/21 Jared Mobarak

While you may know him as Bill S. Preston, ESQ, Alex Winter the actor has effortlessly become Alex Winter the director. Hot on the heels of his successful Napster documentary Downloaded comes Deep Web: a look behind the curtain at the 96% of the internet we don’t see. But while the film began as an overview of this expansive world freely accessible by Tor—for good (journalistic anonymity) and bad (illegal drug trade)—something happened during production that blew the doors wide open. Ross Ulbricht was arrested under the accusation that he…

INTERVIEW: Aaron Moorhead, director/cinematographer & Justin Benson director/writer of Spring

2015/04/012020/03/21 Jared Mobarak

Sometimes the festival experience has a way of making you overrate films. The excitement of seeing things early with like-minded individuals, listening to filmmakers talk before and after their screenings, and the general festival aura are hard to separate from the work itself. So I won’t lie and say I didn’t re-watch Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson‘s Spring—my favorite of TIFF 2014—with a little trepidation in case the memory proved grander than reality. 109-minutes later, however, I realized I might have actually underrated it. This supernatural, sci-fi, horror, romantic drama…

INTERVIEW: William Fichtner, actor and Cheektowaga, NY native

2015/01/242020/03/21 Jared Mobarak

Even if the name William Fichtner hasn’t procured a place on your cinematic Rolodex, you definitely know his face. He had a successful run on hit TV series “Prison Break” as complicated FBI Agent Alex Mahone, recently starred opposite the latest incarnation of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and found himself standing in the way of Heath Ledger‘s Joker during The Dark Knight‘s opening heist. There’s also his Colonel Willie Sharp sternly uttering my father’s favorite Armageddon quote: “Get off the nuclear warhead … now.” He’s coming into focus now,…

INTERVIEW: John Ridley, writer/director of Jimi: All Is By My Side

2014/09/212020/03/21 Jared Mobarak

After all the talk from last year’s TIFF centered around the eventually Oscar-winning Best Picture 12 Years a Slave, you can’t blame yourself for forgetting its Oscar-winning screenwriter John Ridley brought another film he both wrote and directed. Jimi: All Is By My Side flew under the radar and was mired by a media blitz intent on focusing around the fact it didn’t acquire the rights to any of its titular subject Jimi Hendrix‘s music. What it did have, however, was a uniquely arresting visual and aural style that looked…

INTERVIEW: Richard Ayoade, cowriter/director of The Double

2014/05/022020/03/21 Jared Mobarak

I didn’t know who Richard Ayoade was until 2010 and boy was it the perfect time to find out. My introduction was courtesy of the brilliant British television show “The IT Crowd” and his fantastically drawn Maurice Moss. I had tried watching the show a couple years previously only to forget about it after the pilot. This time, however, I mainlined the first three series and eagerly awaited the fourth only to see co-star Chris O’Dowd journey to mainstream acclaim with Bridesmaids less than a year later. When would Ayoade’s…

INTERVIEW: Mamrie Hart, Grace Helbig & Hannah Hart, stars/producers of Camp Takota

2014/02/032020/03/21 Jared Mobarak

For many over the age of twenty-five, the names Mamrie Hart, Grace Helbig, and Hannah Hart might mean nothing. Twelve months ago I would have also said, “Who?” That’s around the time my girlfriend started playing YouTube videos of these bona fide stars on her computer while I walked in and out of the living room. From that point forward intentionally bad puns, drunken recipes, and the catchy repetition of “Seeex-eee Fri-daaay” became a weekly staple I began sitting down to watch alongside her. It only took this trio five years…

INTERVIEW: Timothy J. Cox, star of Simple Mind, Choosing Sides, and more

2013/11/202020/03/21 Jared Mobarak

Becoming a working actor is hardly an easy career path chosen lightly. For character actor Timothy J. Cox the journey towards independent film began by accident in 8th grade yet became a calling it would seem he was born to follow. Still, it took him almost a decade of living in New York City before making the decision to focus his professional efforts onto the film set above the theatrical stage. Whether performing in student thesis projects, indie shorts, contests, or features, Cox has made a name for himself through…