Tag: The Jazz Singer

REVIEW: American Milkshake [2013]

Jared Mobarak

“I wish I was one of them” As someone who graduated with the Class of 2000, the idea of high school comedy American Milkshake taking place in the 90s definitely piqued my interest. I often joke I’m a child of the 80s despite knowing the descriptor doesn’t fit someone who was only eight at decade’s end, so seeing a film try to do to my teen years what The Breakfast Club did to the previous generation’s seemed exciting. After watching writers/directors David Andalman and Mariko Munro’s creation, however, I’m beginning…

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FILM MARATHON: Movie Musicals #9: Singin’ in the Rain [1952]

Jared Mobarak

“Dignity, always dignity” With just two Oscar nominations—for supporting actress and musical score—the lack of love for Singin’ in the Rain at its release shouldn’t be too surprising. Crafted by MGM’s Arthur Freed to reuse the songs he and Nacio Herb Brown wrote for a slew of musicals in the 1930s, the film feels like a pastiche from start to finish, its flimsy underlying look behind the scenes at a few silent movie stars making the transition to talkies a simple construct on which to sing and dance. No disrespect…

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FILM MARATHON: Movie Musicals #7: 42nd Street [1933]

Jared Mobarak

“Jones and Barry are doing a show” For being the American Film Institute’s 13th best musical on its 2006 list, 42nd Street is surprisingly devoid of song. Depicting the behind the scenes comings and goings of a big scale production, the fact its subject is a musical seems more relevant than it being one itself. The first bit of singing from the show within the show’s star, Dorothy Brock (Bebe Daniels), isn’t until about twenty-five minutes in and it’s not until the final ten minutes where we are treated with…

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FILM MARATHON: Movie Musicals #1: The Jazz Singer [1927]

Jared Mobarak

“A jazz singer—singing to his God” Mirroring the actual life of star Al Jolson, playwright Samson Raphaelson wrote The Jazz Singer about a young Jewish performer who was cast out of his own home for choosing jazz over the traditional synagogue hymns taught to him by his Cantor father. Gone for years to try his hand at entertaining, a fortuitous job on Broadway brings him back home to New York where an impromptu visit to the place he swore he’d never return brings back the memories of a mother’s universal…

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FILM MARATHON #3: Movie Musicals (Broadway & Original)

Jared Mobarak

The reason I started doing my marathon series was to finally start seeing films I’ve neglected and needed to see. Doing the filmography of Terrence Malick couldn’t have turned out better with some of the greatest works of cinema I’ve ever seen. Days of Heaven easily vaulted itself into my top 10 of all-time and The Thin Red Line wasn’t too far behind. Checking out Julia Roberts films might have made me realize I’ve been wrongly ignoring her abilities as an actor, but Malick has given me a new auteur…

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