James Landry Hébert | www.jaredmobarak.com

REVIEW: To Leslie [2022]

2022/10/062022/10/07 Jared Mobarak

You’re trying to do what I didn’t do. Despite what she tells herself as she scrounges up enough money for that first beer at the bar before quickly pivoting to flirting for free drinks the rest of the night, Leslie (Andrea Riseborough) hit rock bottom a long time ago. Leaving home merely postponed that self-realization by allowing her to avoid the carnage left in her wake much longer than she should have. If she finds another motel to sleep in without paying rent and another man to facilitate her addiction,…

REVIEW: Psychopaths [2017]

2017/11/272020/04/18 Jared Mobarak

Evil’s a straight and simple ‘just because’. It’s hard to reject a film as having no substance when its narrator apologizes for that very fact. Was its hollowness therefore an intentional commentary on the empty nihilistic void that we call life or was the filmmaker throwing us for a “meta” loop with a tongue-in-cheek laugh that knowingly commends our having sat through it in its entirety nonetheless? In this vein Mickey Keating‘s Psychopaths could be profound or worthless. It could be a full-fledged movie that seeks to entertain in its…