Tag: Cops

REVIEW: The House I Live In [2012]

Jared Mobarak

“We become victims of the sound bite” The Grand Jury Prize winner for documentary at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, Eugene Jarecki‘s look an American drug policy—The House I Live In—began with a desire to reacquaint himself with his family’s old housekeeper Nannie Jeter. A black woman who was a part of the great migration north to escape Jim Crow Laws in the sixties, her taking the job with the Jareckis changed her life. She was able to provide for a growing family of her own in New Haven now…

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REVIEW: End of Watch [2012]

Jared Mobarak

“Comfortable footwear. Police is all about comfortable footwear.” If David Ayer is to be believed, life as a South Central L.A. cop is a ticking time bomb ready to explode. What the region isn’t, however, is a cesspool of corrupt officers on the take forming yet one more gang of street thugs to combat. This is a new development in a career built on the nefarious deeds of men in power and the amorality of fresh blood taken under their wings. The writer/director of Harsh Times, Street Kings, and scribe…

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REVIEW: The Interrupters [2011]

Jared Mobarak

“Tell my mom I said hi” Until you’ve been there, you can’t understand. This is the theory behind those who call themselves The Interrupters in Steve James‘ new documentary. A group of former high ranking gang members from the streets of Chicago, these men and women meet to brainstorm and come up with solutions to the rampant violence destroying the youth of their city. They have joined together to become the initial transmission of interruption into conflicts containing the potential to explode into a powderkeg of blood over as little…

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REVIEW: Buster Keaton’s Cops [1922], One Week [1920], The Boat [1921] & The Play House [1921]

Jared Mobarak

If you’re going to watch short films by Buster Keaton, you should do a marathon if possible. Watching four in a row, as I did, allows you to truly appreciate the comedic talent he was—writing and directing with Edward F. Cline, choreographing his own insane stunts, and creating laughter without ever breaking into a smile. Far better, in my opinion, than his contemporary Charlie Chaplin, Keaton utilizes a brand of intelligent slapstick to earn the physical laughs received as well as the cerebral ones with shrewd filmmaking, smart writing, and…

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BNFF10 REVIEW: Canine Instinct [2010]

Jared Mobarak

“A dog is only as good as his stay” There is a reason I’ve never been a huge fan of documentaries. Besides feeling as though I’m in school being force-fed information I could really care less about, with stats and figures that bore me to sleep as they attempt to shock me with human travesty, I truthfully just have more of an emotional connection with fictional narratives that allow me to escape from real life. Every once in a while, though, a documentary will arrive to show a subject I…

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