Author Archive: Adam Mohrbacher
Adam Mohrbacher is a freelance film critic who has been published online with filmophilia.com, examiner.com and of course Film Monthly. He loves the work of Ryan Gosling, Guy Pearce, Gary Oldman and the one and only Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Strange Frame
Explosions of color, trippy character animation and melodramatic vocals collide in a story about love and music in the distant future. Strange Frame, by directors GB Hajim and Shelly Dotty, may make some feel like they are on the bad-side of an acid trip, with its hallucinogenic, cut-out animation style. However, the film possesses such an [...]
Les Miserables: From Stage to Screen
The new book: Les Miserables: From Stage to Screen takes the prize for one of the geekiest books ever written, and this is very good thing, if you’re a Les Mis fan that is. Bursting at the seams with related memorabilia and dozens of intriguing photographs, this book serves as the perfect summation of the [...]
The Flat
The title of the this 2011 Israeli documentary refers to the Tel Aviv apartment of recently deceased, 98 year old Gerda, the grandmother of The Flat’s director, Arnon Goldfinger. The premise of the film is immediately intriguing, titillating even: One day, while clearing out the remnants of the flat, Goldfinger stumbles across evidence of his [...]
Edie and Thea
It’s a tale highly topical to our present day, wildly polarized political landscape. However the themes of love and adversity found in the documentary Edie and Thea are powerfully universal and sadly have been found in every prior epoch. Edie and Thea concerns the long, vibrant relationship that existed between Edie Windsor and Thea Spyer. The [...]
Arbitrage
At one point in Nicholas Jarecki’s film Arbitrage, Richard Gere’s hedge fund big wig, Robert Miller, is asked if he honestly thinks money is going to solve the problems he has created for himself, to which he responds “What else is there?” The line is spoken with a beautiful air of genuine, nuanced incredulity, and [...]
My Big Fat Greek Wedding: 10th Anniversary Edition
Nia Vardalos’ semi-autobiographical comedy, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, took over the planet all the way back in 2002, grossing well over $350 million dollars worldwide and earning Vardalos an Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay. However, run-away commercial success, at least here, is not really indicative of the film’s artistic value. My Big Fat Greek [...]
Javier Bardem 3-Film Collection
Any actor with as expansive a range and as accomplished a filmography as Javier Bardem deserves a three film collection of some of his most memorable cinematic creations, and that is just what Lionsgate delivers in their new release profiling the great Spanish actor. This new collection includes three good albeit heavy films featuring Bardem, [...]
Ella Enchanted
Ella Enchanted seems to want to exist in the same world of The Princess Bride, Shrek, and Monty Python. Sadly, this Anne Hathaway vehicle from 2004, (which premieres on Blu Ray on October 16th), plays like an watered-down version of those films, and is missing their subversive edge. Oh Hathaway has pluck, and there is some chemistry between her [...]
Everybody’s Fine
At the turn of the century Robert De Niro went to sleep in regards to his professional life. Throughout the 2000′s he would slumber, drifting in this zombified state through cartoon camp, (The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle), listless drama, (Hide and Seek, Men of Honor), and abrasive self-parody, (Meet the Fockers, Analyze That). However, [...]
Cherry Bomb
Cherry Bomb is a film which strives to channel the same sort of throw-back, grind-house exploitation thoroughly reveled in by the likes of Tarantino, Rodriguez, Roth and every other dork who ever raided his or her local video store for forgotten “treasures” from the 1970′s. However, while these cinephiles were able to imbue their films [...]
Connect