Tag: sabi pictures

REVIEW: Train to Stockholm [2012]

Jared Mobarak

“What’s Bruce Lee’s favorite drink?” A very intimate portrait into the life of a young man lost amidst a foreign culture, J. Erik Reese‘s Train to Stockholm is an emotionally naked work composed of the crossed signals and false starts lining everyone’s path towards personal identity. We’re the product of our environment, upbringing, and curiosity—forever changing as adventures, relationships, and time progress. Some keep a practical head by orientating their lives along a series of successive goals while others break free from the mold to explore the unknown. It’s through…

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BNFF11 REVIEW: White Knuckles [2010]

Jared Mobarak

“Why don’t you give me something to be joyful about?” Love can seem so easy from the outside. Two people: completely enamored with each other, their smiles easy, serene, and unmistakably genuine. You look at them and think 40-years of marriage would be pure bliss, a harmonious dance that could never last as long as it should. But we forget that behind each joyful façade lurks the reality of who we are. A relationship takes work and the longer it spans the more care is necessary to keep it viable.…

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BNFF11: The 5th Annual Buffalo Niagara Film Festival Recap

Jared Mobarak

Another year—another Buffalo Niagara Film Festival complete. 2011 was definitely an evolution for Bill Cowell’s brainchild, bringing in the most filmmakers to promote their work I’ve seen, the inclusion of a new venue with Niagara Falls’ Rapids Theatre, and the first ever ‘Star’ on the BNFF Walk of Fame. The ten-day event smartly coincided with the end of the Buffalo Sabres’ hockey season rather than the start of a playoff run like last year; saw some cold days, but no snow; and did whatever it could to increase audience attendance.…

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BNFF11 REVIEW: Heart of Now [2011]

Jared Mobarak

“The bottom line—I don’t feel good about what happened” Very near the beginning of Heart of Now, a young girl, Monica (Mary Elise Hayden), makes the quasi-pithy, half-serious/half-joking statement that all women need a man who will give them ‘loads of intensity and massive support’. Couldn’t this observation expand further to blanket all of humanity, though? Don’t we all need that mix of feeling and security to go about our daily lives with meaning? Well, if we are to use Zak Forsman’s lead Amber (Marion Kerr) as an exemplification for…

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