Tag: Will Brill

REVIEW: To the Moon [2022]

Jared Mobarak

You want to breathe from your gut. The word Dennis (writer/director Scott Friend) uses to describe his estranged brother Roger (Will Brill) is malevolent. That’s quite the adjective without context, but one that quickly seems to fit as more details begin to surface. There’s a medical book in their parents’ old home—which now belongs to them both equally—that Dennis’ wife Mia (Madeleine Morgenweck) finds defaced with a child’s drawings that make it seem Roger wasn’t happy to be getting a brother. Talk about where the elder sibling has been gleans…

Read More

REVIEW: Test Pattern [2021]

Jared Mobarak

Just hear me. Okay? Renesha (Brittany S. Hall) moved to Austin for grad school and stayed upon earning a lucrative job in corporate America. Money has a way of excusing many of the social inequities a state like Texas has for a Black woman because it often provides an avenue around them. And when she meets the shyly sensitive Evan (Will Brill), things seemingly get even easier. The two fall in love, buy a house together, and find themselves in the sort of happy state of living that allows for…

Read More

FANTASIA16 REVIEW: The Eyes of My Mother [2016]

Jared Mobarak

“Why would I kill you? You’re my only friend.” This is isolation, suffering. It’s also normal. We on the outside see Nicolas Pesce‘s debut feature The Eyes of My Mother as the former, young Francisca (Olivia Bond) swimming in a pool of abject dread as death proves a natural evolution for all living things. For this girl, however, nothing depicted onscreen is wrong. Nothing is out-of-place. She’s the daughter of a former Portuguese surgeon, a mother (Diana Agostini) who was as much a guardian and teacher as she was a…

Read More

REVIEW: Beside Still Waters [2014]

Jared Mobarak

“Nothing, buddy. You keep on … sulking.” When a feature length debut bows at only 76-minutes you think two things. One: it barely contains a short film worth of content and has been pumped full of fat. Or Two: it’s a shallow piece that goes nowhere and inevitably feels incomplete. It’s a horrible thing that these became the only two options I could see in front of me when sitting down to Chris Lowell‘s (Piz for all you “Veronica Mars” fans) Beside Still Waters. I was actually excited to check…

Read More