Tag: Rebecca Henderson

REVIEW: Werewolves Within [2021]

Jared Mobarak

Everyone here is a little … questionable. If not for the Ubisoft logo revealing the game company as a producer of Werewolves Within, I would be wondering what the point of buying licensing rights was since this adaptation isn’t even set in medieval times. I’m not sure if there’s more that sets it apart from other variations on Mafia (the deduction party game created in 1986 by Dimitry Davidoff before getting a fresh spin as Werewolf by Andrew Plotkin in 1997 and more recently appropriated into the online sensation Among…

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REVIEW: Mickey and the Bear [2019]

Jared Mobarak

Sometimes you just lose track of time. Set in the small Montana town of Anaconda, writer/director Annabelle Attanasio‘s feature debut Mickey and the Bear takes pride in its authenticity. She was given a grant to conduct “ethnographic and visual research” into the community there so she could better understand its veteran population and close-knit history of helping each other cope with re-assimilation under increased financial, emotional, and psychological duress. Everybody knows everybody—a fact Attanasio uses to create a complex situational bubble around her lead character Mickey Peck (Camila Morrone). This…

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REVIEW: Appropriate Behavior [2015]

Jared Mobarak

I hate so many things too. It would be easy to minimize the broken relationship at the heart of Desiree Akhavan‘s debut feature Appropriate Behavior to Shirin’s (Akhavan) inability to come out as bisexual to her traditional Iranian parents. This is obviously a factor after watching her ex-girlfriend’s (Rebecca Henderson‘s Maxine) increasing frustrations via flashbacks because there’s an issue of trust, identity, and freedom being stifled. But what about the trust, identity, and freedom of Shirin—the half of this coupling who knows that telling her family the truth could make…

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