Tag: Lauren Holly

TIFF19 REVIEW: Tammy’s Always Dying [2019]

Jared Mobarak

I just want to play the game. You have to give credit to any story that allows its despicable characters to be despicable without also demanding forgiveness from their victim. This is especially true in tales concerning a parent and child considering society seems to crave this ideal that the former is due some benefit of the doubt they’ve never earned. Screenwriter Joanne Sarazen refuses to go that route. She won’t pander to audiences by making Tammy MacDonald (Felicity Huffman) anything but the narcissistic, alcoholic screw-up devoid of self-control she…

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FANTASIA17 REVIEW: Dead Shack [2017]

Jared Mobarak

“I think when the blood’s black there’s no going back” I like when a director knows what he/she wants from his/her film—even if the goal is to entertain on a level that ensures its legacy falls short of cinematic greatness. Some of my favorite movies are those that demand to be re-watched not for comprehension’s sake or to acknowledge metaphor underneath formal expertise, but because they’re fun. Horror/comedy is ripe for delivering exactly that result with its ability for work to simultaneously excel as an example of the genre’s common…

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REVIEW: The Blackcoat’s Daughter [2017]

Jared Mobarak

“I look for Him in the unlikely things that happen” It maybe but a dream, yet it feels so real. Fifteen-year old Katherine (Kiernan Shipka), readying for a week’s vacation from her Jesuit boarding school, experiences one sparking a sense of foreboding. Parents will be arriving on Thursday to watch the children’s talent show before everyone—students, nuns, priests, and the headmaster himself—leaves for home. Kat has been preparing a vocal performance at the piano for this year’s engagement, but the dream has distracted her enough to grow distant and odd.…

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REVIEW: Dumb and Dumber [1994]

Jared Mobarak

“You sold my dead bird to a blind kid?” It’s the film that brought us the high concept, gross-out comedy sensibilities of Peter and Bobby Farrelly and it has some of the most memorable laughs of the 90s. The filmmaking brothers would go on to create a mixed bag of obnoxious, offensive, and hit or miss work that steadily grew tiresome while revealing they were for all intents and purposes one-trick ponies. Just because the trick wasn’t able to sustain the public’s love, however, doesn’t mean it wasn’t riotous at…

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