Tag: Catherine Hardwicke

TIFF22 REVIEW: Prisoner’s Daughter [2023]

Jared Mobarak

Everything dies with me. Maxine (Kate Beckinsale) isn’t having a good day. She’s barely slept after working the nightshift cleaning the place where she used to pole dance and hopes to earn enough tips at her waitressing day job to pay for her son Ezra’s (Christopher Convery) epilepsy medication when her ex (his father) Tyler (Tyson Ritter) causes a scene that ultimately gets her fired. Then the school calls to say the boys who assaulted her son were suspended as though it would soften the blow that he’s being punished…

Read More

REVIEW: Red Riding Hood [2011]

Jared Mobarak

“All sorrows are less with bread” Why, in movies, does a thrown axe/sword/dagger/knife always land squarely in the back of one’s opponent as he’s about to maim? Can’t it comically thud to the ground, short the half revolution necessary to inflict injury, allowing the antagonist to look at the camera with a twinkle in his eye before clawing the heroine’s face off? I know its Hollywood and audiences have preconceptions about good versus evil and all, but realistic physics mixed with plausible probability may help something called authenticity. But what…

Read More

REVIEW: Twilight [2008]

Jared Mobarak

“I don’t have the strength to stay away from you anymore” It’s a case of which came first for me—Twilight or The Southern Vampire Mysteries? After watching the film Twilight I couldn’t help but think about the stellar HBO drama series based on the latter. For some reason, vampires are making a huge comeback and while the youngsters can’t watch the swearing and nudity featured with Sookie Stackhouse, they can swoon over Edward Cullen and wish to be Bella Swan. And unfortunately, (or maybe fortunately in a purely entertaining, surreal…

Read More