Julianne Nicholson | www.jaredmobarak.com

REVIEW: Monos [2019]

2019/09/282020/03/23 Jared Mobarak

The Organization is our family. A scene of kids having fun playing a game of blindfolded soccer at night turns into a day of boot camp with an unknown man (Wilson Salazar) berating them like a drill sergeant to run faster, look meaner, and stand straighter. These child soldiers are hiding high up in the Colombian mountains—passing time with automatic rifles at the ready while watching over a kidnapped woman (Julianne Nicholson‘s Doctora) held for reasons also unknown. Our assumption is political leverage because they put her in front of…

REVIEW: I, Tonya [2017]

2017/12/102020/04/18 Jared Mobarak

I mean those bitches didn’t know what hit ’em. You don’t get more American than 1994, a year when O.J. Simpson was arrested in conjunction with the brutal murder of his ex-wife and her friend just five months after Nancy Kerrigan made a stunning recovery to win silver at the Winter Olympics despite having her knee clubbed barely thirty days earlier. The twenty-four hour news cycle was in its infancy to the point that one could say this year cemented it as the tragedy-driven entertainment enterprise it has become today.…

REVIEW: Black Mass [2015]

2015/09/142015/09/17 Jared Mobarak

“If nobody sees it, it didn’t happen” The story of Southie crime boss James “Whitey” Bulger (Johnny Depp) is perfectly suited for a sprawling, character-driven cinematic adaptation because of the corruption level involved. Based on the book by Boston Globe reporters Dick Lehr and Gerard O’Neill, Black Mass screenwriters Mark Mallouk and Jez Butterworth take us through an in-depth look at a local gangster making good on his promise to watch out for South Boston just as he helps ruin it with drugs and murder before ultimately transforming into an…

REVIEW: August: Osage County [2013]

2014/01/182014/01/20 Jared Mobarak

“I’ll be sickly sweet” I’m drawn to dysfunction—especially when it’s of the familial persuasion. It’s probably because I didn’t really get exposed to much as a kid growing up with a family most would give anything to have. When you see the looks others who know dysfunction’s definition like the back of their hands telling you that what you believed was an example from your past is laughably quaint to say the least, experiencing a bit of that fiery vitriol at the movies can be invigorating. And when you have…