Film Reviews | www.jaredmobarak.com

REVIEW: Night Job [2017]

2017/03/15 Jared Mobarak

“People just use the night as an excuse to be someone completely different” Write what you know. These are fortune cookie words of wisdom, but they aren’t wrong. Our own lives are often strange and interesting enough to form the basis of a sitcom because they’re simultaneously universal and unique. Viewers relate to a sense of “common man” humanity, especially when thrust into a chaotic occupation dealing with eclectic characters every shift for as long as your tenure lasts. Think cashiers, salesmen, wait staff—you name it. We’ve all had similar…

REVIEW: The Deja Vuers [2017]

2017/03/15 Jared Mobarak

“Perhaps you should keep your deja vus to yourself” It’s nice to find a entertaining little gem every once in a while that doesn’t require you to think too far beyond its premise. This sounds like a backhanded compliment, but I don’t mean it as one. I think director Chris Esper would agree that his film The Deja Vuers is meant as an escapist lark with the sole purpose of putting smiles on its viewers’ faces. Screenwriter Jason K. Allen molds it as though a constantly evolving joke to ensure…

REVIEW: I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore [2017]

2017/03/142017/03/14 Jared Mobarak

“That’s how hard I threw it” There’s one specific thing differentiating actor Macon Blair‘s directorial debut I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore from the works of usual collaborator Jeremy Saulnier: comedy. Don’t tell me I’m wrong because the latter director shows his funny bone in Murder Party—I haven’t seen it. I’m not even saying Blue Ruin and Green Room aren’t without some effective humor in their own right either, just that Blair seems to have taken what he learned from those sets and infused it with his…

REVIEW: Grave [Raw] [2017]

2017/03/132017/03/14 Jared Mobarak

“Two fingers will make it come up easier” We strive to become ourselves in college thanks to that first taste of freedom after adolescence’s long haul packed tightly at home and within part-time jobs and/or classes alongside peers who simply don’t want to be there. This is when we’re able to let loose and buckle down simultaneously, acknowledging our unique personalities and drive to succeed at a vocation of our choosing. But this rite of passage is never completely devoid of expectations or outside pressures. Some must maintain grades for…

REVIEW: The Love Witch [2016]

2017/03/122017/03/12 Jared Mobarak

“All it is is using your will to get what you want” It’s an ingenious aesthetic premise: to create new cinematic pursuits showcasing women as the empowered gender—a stark contrast to most Hollywood fare—by utilizing the old Technicolor look, feel, and tone of artifice. Writer/director Anna Biller in effect embraces the synthetic properties of her medium as a mirror reflecting the synthetic properties of life itself. We all play a role in the real world, everyone becoming what he/she needs to become in order to move ahead and achieve established…

REVIEW: Der blaue Engel [The Blue Angel] [1930]

2017/03/11 Jared Mobarak

“Beware of blondes. They’re special, every one.” It was interesting to discover Josef von Sternberg‘s career started in Hollywood, directing many late-silent era pictures. I assumed the Austrian-born auteur began in Europe because he was the man behind the camera for Germany’s first feature-length talkie, Der blaue Engel [The Blue Angel]. But his helming it was actually at the behest of German star Emil Jannings who—despite reportedly clashing on set of their previous film together, The Last Command, where he won the Oscar for Best Actor—wanted Sternberg to guide him…

REVIEW: Before I Fall [2017]

2017/03/092017/03/10 Jared Mobarak

“This isn’t you” The comparisons to Groundhog Day and Edge of Tomorrow are unavoidable when you have a story centering on a teenager reliving the same day over and over again like Before I Fall. It’s not bad either when each utilizes the trope in different ways and within different genres. Whether comedy, science-fiction actioner, or young adult coming-of-age drama, the construct remains resonate because we all have regrets. That’s what’s at the heart of these, this idea of going back to fix a wrong ultimately revealed to be much…

REVIEW: Brimstone [2017]

2017/03/092017/03/09 Jared Mobarak

“Retribution is coming” At a time when many supposedly God-fearing Christians in America blindly fear the idea of a Muslim insurgence implementing Sharia law (itself often warped by supposed Allah-fearing men to retain patriarchal control much like their Republican counterparts dictating what a woman can and can’t do with her body), it’s crucial to remember the Bible isn’t necessarily so different as far as fanatical readings go. When the word of God can be bent to the whims of man, anything is possible. Perverts can marry daughters to render covetous…

REVIEW: The Dark Below [2017]

2017/03/082017/03/16 Jared Mobarak

“Love is cold” The premise that director Douglas Schulze and co-writer Jonathan D’Ambrosio have cooked up for their film The Dark Below is a bold one. This 75-minute thriller is dialogue-free save one line at the start setting everything in motion, the story instead unfolding as a series of expressions through current duress and visually informative flashbacks while David Bateman‘s energetic score blasts you into the correct state of unease. Performances must be a bit over-the-top with sight and sound bordering on manipulative in order for it all to work,…

REVIEW: Kedi [2017]

2017/03/072017/03/08 Jared Mobarak

“Without the cat, Istanbul would lose part of its soul” I’m not an animal lover, a reality one subject in Ceyda Torun‘s documentary Kedi presumes means I cannot love anything. Such a sentiment is hyperbolic, but there’s something to be said about people’s interactions with animals exposing how they’ll interact with humans too. You don’t have to be an animal person to understand their role in others’ lives or the fact that they too are living, breathing entities. At a certain point you must reach down and give a dog…

REVIEW: Kong: Skull Island [2017]

2017/03/062017/03/08 Jared Mobarak

“Eating’s for the living” It’s amazing how a film’s success can create a tidal wave, but that’s exactly what Gareth Edwards‘ Godzilla did in 2014. We’re talking critical acclaim, half a billion dollars at the box office, and a rejuvenated plea for monster flicks. Well the first two are fact, the third merely hope on behalf of Legendary Pictures. Because their investment isn’t just sequels, it’s about a “MonsterVerse” so important to them that they got Universal Pictures to give Kong: Skull Island‘s rights to Warner Bros. so a single…