Kelly Marcel | www.jaredmobarak.com

REVIEW: Venom: Let There Be Carnage [2021]

2021/10/132021/10/13 Jared Mobarak

Responsibility is for the mediocre. I’m pretty sure there’s more exposition in Venom: Let There Be Carnage than there was in Venom. It’s not without reason. At the time of the original’s inception, Sony had their hands tied. The Marvel characters they had—namely those from the Spider-Man universe—couldn’t integrate with the Marvel Cinematic Universe at-large without an agreement like the one that allowed Spidey into the Avengers. And since Spider-Man was an Avenger, he couldn’t interact with those characters either. Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) was therefore on an island alone…

REVIEW: Venom [2018]

2018/10/042020/04/01 Jared Mobarak

Have a nice life. If you really think about it, Venom was never going to be R-rated. I don’t care what director Ruben Fleischer alluded to in an interview before production began or that star Tom Hardy currently believes the best forty minutes of the film were cut. As soon as Sony decided to move ahead with this long-gestating spin-off title despite Spider-Man himself making his way to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (and seemingly rendering it impossible to ever put the two onscreen together), the reality was cemented for Eddie…

REVIEW: Fifty Shades Darker [2017]

2017/02/222017/02/23 Jared Mobarak

“Nothing lasts” Considering the Fifty Shades of Grey series is Twilight fan-fiction barely polished from its sordid internet origins, it shouldn’t be surprising that a villain besides dominant millionaire Christian Grey’s (Jamie Dornan) sadist side would arrive. Child molester Elena Lincoln (Kim Basinger) was alluded to in the first film, but not seen. So we anticipated this older woman who taught a fourteen year-old Christian about sex (propelling him onto the path he struggles to battle today) would receive a bigger role once Grey and naïve “I’m not a submissive!”…

REVIEW: Fifty Shades of Grey [2015]

2015/02/112015/02/13 Jared Mobarak

“I enjoy various physical pursuits” Author E.L. James should be ecstatic that the crazy fervor surrounding her trilogy of BD/SM propelled it towards a movie deal because now artists more qualified to bring her kinkiness to life can get their hands on it. I’m not saying she’s a bad writer—I’ll let the myriad commenters on the interwebs too haughty to accept someone who turned a pornographic Twilight fan-fiction into a worldwide bestseller do that. I’m also not saying she’s good—I haven’t read her novel, but have been exposed to the…

REVIEW: Saving Mr. Banks [2013]

2013/12/052014/04/10 Jared Mobarak

“A leisurely stroll is a gift” If you thought Mary Poppins couldn’t get more uplifting in its journey towards giving two young children the love they always desired from their downtrodden dad, Saving Mr. Banks will prove you wrong. Utilizing a script by Kelly Marcel (a second credit was later added to Sue Smith) that only lasted one year on the screenplay Black List before being scooped up by the studio prominently featured within it, we’re shown a rather humorous behind-the-scenes look at the culmination of a twenty-year business courtship…