Criterion Collection | www.jaredmobarak.com

REVIEW: In a Lonely Place [1950]

2017/10/152020/04/25 Jared Mobarak

There’s no sacrifice too great for a chance at immortality. Just because you might be innocent of one crime doesn’t mean you’re a saint who’d never commit another. We’ve seen this type of complex premise as recently as “The Night of”, a miniseries about racial prejudice and police neglect wherein the accused (and audience) is unaware of whether he committed murder. And as facts of the evening in question are put into context, details also surface about the defendant to color him in a different light than initially assumed. Our…

REVIEW: Videodrome [1983]

2017/09/262019/01/20 Jared Mobarak

“Better on TV than on the streets” To watch David Cronenberg‘s Videodrome today is to acknowledge his clairvoyance as far as technology’s capacity to control via (mis)information. He filmed this body horror classic about subliminal messaging in mass consumption in 1983: years before the political firestorm in 1992 revolving around ubiquitous violence in videogames via Mortal Kombat, the 2007-08 television writers strike that spawned the proliferation of reality TV, the 24-hour news cycle that transformed real-life tragedies into entertainment, and social media placing false content at our fingertips with an…

REVIEW: The Killers [1946]

2017/08/142019/03/16 Jared Mobarak

“Stop listening to those golden harps, Swede” “The Killers” is a dialogue-driven short story by Ernest Hemingway that describes the melancholic criminal comeuppance of a man long-removed from the deeds that signed his death warrant. It reads like a fast-paced and stripped-down script whose intrigue is built out of that which we’ll never know. Context provides motivations rather than meaning, the underlying sorrow ingrained within its matter-of-fact, gangster machinations conjuring existential empathy rather than good versus evil justice. The men tasked with killing a Brentwood resident they’ve never met aren’t…

REVIEW: Billy Liar [1963]

2017/08/142018/05/03 Jared Mobarak

“Today’s a day of big decisions” When you live in a small town where everyone knows your name, flights of fancy can prove your only escape. Not everyone imagines a whole country to forget him/herself in when times get tough, but Billy Fisher (Tom Courtenay) is a one-of-a-kind guy. You can’t even blame him since fantasies of unearned heroics and power do sound better than a sedentary life at home with nagging (for good reason) parents (Wilfred Pickles‘ Geoffrey and Mona Washbourne‘s Alice) and at work as a mortuary clerk.…

REVIEW: David Lynch: The Art Life [2017]

2017/05/212018/05/03 Jared Mobarak

“They got along like Ike and Mike” If you remember back to 2007, a documentary entitled Lynch came out portraying an all-access pass into the creative process of auteur David Lynch‘s final feature-length film, Inland Empire. There was a lot of smoke and mirrors surrounding its release from the use of a nom de plume where the director was concerned (some even speculated it was Lynch himself at the time) to the notion of a collective known as the Lynch Three Project. This film became “One” with a short named…

REVIEW: Bacalaureat [Graduation] [2016]

2017/04/272018/05/03 Jared Mobarak

“Do what’s best for you” The amount of corruption to simply exist within the borders of Romania as displayed by Cristian Mungiu‘s Bacalaureat [Graduation] is insane. So much so that I feel bad admitting to what it reminded me of on a much more insidiously vile scale. Yes, it was nearly impossible not to see my hometown of Buffalo, New York as though looking in a mirror: the nepotism and the continuous promise of a future on the rise. It’s more than just Alexandra Davidescu‘s character talking about a reality…

REVIEW: Personal Shopper [2016]

2017/03/282018/05/03 Jared Mobarak

“I just need to see it to the end, that’s all” At the heart of Olivier Assayas‘ Personal Shopper is an idea of fear. This isn’t surprising considering it’s a genre ghost story, but its target is. Lead character Maureen Cartwright (Kristen Stewart) isn’t afraid of ghosts, spirits, or the supernatural because she’s a medium like her recently deceased twin brother Lewis. And even though she doesn’t quite believe their abilities prove what he did—the afterlife’s existence—she trusts and respects him enough to make good on the oath they struck…

REVIEW: Córki dancingu [The Lure] [2015]

2017/03/272018/05/03 Jared Mobarak

“Would you eat him?” Not all fairy tales must be for children as their lessons resonate with ages young and old. There’s a reason many original forms of such tales deliver more blood and horror than Disney counterparts—that sense of fear allowing adults to find dramatic value and kids a scare to remember the moral as more than cutesy romantic bliss. And as far as mythical creatures go, the idea that they can and will project their dominance upon humanity is natural. Just as we’ve taken over the mantel of…

REVIEW: Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me [1992]

2017/03/252018/05/29 Jared Mobarak

“And the angels wouldn’t help you cause they’ve all gone away” Without European money, American auteur David Lynch wouldn’t have many features to his name. His style isn’t necessarily conducive to our general population’s tastes, its surrealistic and highly sexualized depictions of the darkness underlying American society’s false façade of harmony a hard sell. So it was surprising he’d have a primetime television show at all, let alone one that sparked as much excitement as “Twin Peaks” during its Season One heyday. But there it was: a goofier and more…

REVIEW: Cameraperson [2016]

2016/11/152018/05/03 Jared Mobarak

“You’re making me cry even though I don’t understand the language” The camera doesn’t lie. It captures private moments, immortalizes public, and adds ten pounds (so maybe it does). It shows a world we can never see: at once untouched perfection and fabricated by the operator’s gaze. And as those among us age and forget, the camera proves a tool of permanence. Cinematographer Kirsten Johnson‘s mother battles Alzheimer’s—losing time, place, and self—while she endures journalistic accounts of terror most wish to leave behind. Just because what Johnson filmed during a…

REVIEW: The Player [1992]

2016/10/292016/10/30 Jared Mobarak

“… with a heart” When thinking about a satire on Hollywood, the idea to glorify its luck, ego, and excess rather than vilify probably wouldn’t be the direction your mind gravitates towards. To some extent this may ensure the exercise will prove pointless because the message shifts from showing everything wrong that needs fixing into everything wrong that you can also enjoy if the opportunity to join the hedonistic fun ever presented itself. You wouldn’t necessarily take the time to lambast if you weren’t angry at the status quo and…