Jared Mobarak

[Review] Elstree 1976

Everybody knows Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, and Carrie Fisher. When Disney bought Lucasfilm from George Lucas and announced they'd be producing a new Star Wars ...

[Review] Welcome to Happiness

When you think of short stories like W.W. Jacobs' "The Monkey's Paw" or Richard Matheson's "Button, Button" (adapted to the small screen for The Twilight Zone a...

[Review] Almost Holy

The most fascinating part of Steve Hoover's latest documentary Almost Holy is how its subject Gennadiy Mokhnenko parallels the life of well-known Russian cartoo...

[Review] Pelé: Birth of a Legend

It may be called Pelé: Birth of a Legend, but Jeff and Michael Zimbalist's film is really about Ginga soccer and Brazil at risk of losing its soul. The climax d...

[Review] Cash Only

An arson insurance scam attempt gone tragically wrong leaves low-rent criminal Elvis Martini (Nickola Shreli) with little to hold onto besides his young daughte...

[Review] Being Charlie

After a string of hits in the 80s and 90s, director Rob Reiner has struggled to achieve the same success. Some of his projects post-2000 have made money and som...

[HotDocs Review] Hotel Dallas

Despite the name Hotel Dallas and general premise surrounding a replica of Southfork Ranch (where both the old and new Dallas series were filmed) built in Roman...

[Review] The Man Who Knew Infinity

A bit character in Matt Brown's affecting biographical drama The Man Who Knew Infinity chants "Din, Din, Din, Gunga Din" a couple times in friendly jest as a re...

[Review] Dough

Think of John Goldschmidt's latest film Dough (his first in the director's chair since 1987) as a cinematic peace pipe for race relations and religious zealots....

Jared Mobarak

Jared Mobarak is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic for The Film Stage, Art Director for Buffalo, NY film series Cultivate Cinema Circle, and member of OFCS and GWNYFCA. You can follow his cinematic viewing habits at Letterboxd.