Jared Mobarak

[Review] Divergent

Like it or not, the twenty-first century has brought cultural alterations. For instance, the conversation about futuristic dystopias and/or social upheaval no l...

[Review] The Missing Picture

How do you tell the story of something as horrific as Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge's four-year rule over Cambodia after the Kampuchean Revolution when the only f...

[Review] Muppets Most Wanted

Is it a coincidence the Muppet renaissance follows the same trajectory as its subjects' original cinematic saga? 2011's The Muppets was enjoyable if not a tad o...

[Review] Le Week-End

Children are our legacy—our immortality. We sacrifice everything to raise them in our image, hoping for the best until they're set free as fully formed adults r...

[Review] Enemy

When one reads a synopsis for the late Nobel Prize-winning author José Saramago’s The Double you’ll find a very straightforward tale of doppelgangers. There’s t...

[Review] Particle Fever

Science! You either see it as the backbone to understanding or you don't, and everyone who doesn't, may want to avoid Mark Levinson's Particle Fever because it'...

[Review] 300: Rise of an Empire

This is what a copy of a copy looks like. It pretends to be equal to the original—and in some aspects proves to be exactly the same—yet arrives seven years afte...

Posterized March 2014: ‘Noah’, ‘Nymphomaniac,’ ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel,’ ‘Enemy’ & More

Has summer started early? Big blockbusters like Divergent, Noah, 300: Rise of an Empire, and Need for Speed are releasing in March—I guess they must therefore be the studios’ lesser box office juggernauts. You know, the ones they aren’t quite sure will earn the bank they had hoped when forking over the cash for production. Tween action/romances did not fare well last year, no one knows who Noah is targeting besides Darren Aronofsky fans, Rise looks like a 300 rip-off, and Need for Speed is, well, exactly what you’d think from a racing video game property. At least some of their posters are pretty …...

[Review] Odd Thomas

It's August 14th in Pico Mundo, CA and the world is about to end. Well, not the world per se, but the community young Odd Thomas (Anton Yelchin) resides. Sort o...

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.