Nina Simone | www.jaredmobarak.com

REVIEW: Krisha [2016]

2017/06/082017/11/30 Jared Mobarak

“Them cars are getting faster and them wings are getting weaker” While it may not be autobiographical in a plot sense, no one can watch Trey Edward Shults‘ debut Krisha without a full recognition of its honesty and authenticity as far as the emotional turmoil running through the writer/director’s mind. I say this more than just as a result of acknowledging how he shot the film in his parents’ home with a cast almost exclusively made up of family and friends either. Whether these actors are seasoned or amateur and…

REVIEW: The Birth of a Nation [2016]

2016/10/132016/10/14 Jared Mobarak

“I pray you sing to the Lord a new song” It’s impossible to watch Nate Parker‘s The Birth of a Nation today without making note of the controversy surrounding him. Emotions have run high and the first-time director has met a backlash of calls for boycott stemming from a 1999 rape case of which he was acquitted. The victim later committed suicide and his public response upon discovering this news didn’t necessarily show remorse like many believed it should. It’s tough to say now whether he was innocent of wrongdoing—look…

REVIEW: What Happened, Miss Simone? [2015]

2016/02/062016/02/07 Jared Mobarak

“I’ll tell you what freedom is to me: no fear” As someone who heard “Feeling Good” on a Muse album in the early 2000s thinking it was their song until the promotional advertisements for season four of “Six Feet Under” got me researching the female vocalist singing its “new” rendition, a documentary on Nina Simone is something my musical education was in desperate need of watching. But that doesn’t mean Liz Garbus‘ film won’t also resonate with the musician’s most ardent fans—it’s extensive look at her tumult and genius can…

REVIEW: 20,000 Days on Earth [2014]

2014/08/262014/09/19 Jared Mobarak

“And if that doesn’t do it—you shoot the clown” I must have been nineteen or twenty when I was first introduced to Nick Cave‘s music. As a college kid trying to broaden my horizons cinematically with “classics” from foreign auteurs, I popped in Wim Wenders‘ Wings of Desire for reasons I no longer recall. While a brilliant film regardless, I could not shake the violence in Cave’s stage presence or the intensity of his songs against the romantic plot thrusting my ears into its wake. So even though I knew…

REVIEW: Intouchables [The Intouchables] [2011]

2012/07/102014/04/23 Jared Mobarak

“We’ll escort you. It’s safer.” Leave it to my Americanized way of looking at things to go into the César Award-nominated French film Intouchables [The Intouchables] by thinking it would be yet another run-of-the-mill rich white guy helping poor black guy tale. With a Hollywood remake already in the works, I see our adaptation falling into such tropes by increasing hostility as lead character Driss turns into a punk who falls prey to outside preconceptions and lets his employer down before redeeming himself. But Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano‘s film…