Jared Mobarak

[VIFF Review] Innocence

According to the program for this year’s Vancouver International Film Festival, director Jan Hrebejk and writer Petr Jarchovsky have visited many times with...

[VIFF Review] Pure

What’s worse than giving sex to a married man for money? Giving it for love. It’s a tough distinction to delineate for a reformed twenty-year old prostitute...

[VIFF Review] Kill List

Some films find a way to surprise, intrigue, and confound all at once, leading you down a rabbit hole that becomes bleaker with every step as it uncovers se...

[VIFF Review] The Sandman

What would you do if you woke up one morning to find sand in your bed? You haven’t gone to the beach and you didn’t do anything at night besides dream a ver...

[VIFF Review] Bullhead

The name Michael R. Roskam may become very familiar around cinematic circles—possibly as soon as next spring. Beating out all other accomplished filmmakers ...

[Review] Footloose

Whether it takes place in 1984 or 2011, the Footloose premise will never be plausible. No matter how small the place, I can’t wrap my head around a town cou...

[Review] Dolphin Tale

People who have seen the trailer love to call it Free Willy 2011. While the subject of a kid doing all he can to save a marine animal from death does eventu...

[TIFF Review] Shame

Three years after their first collaboration—and the director’s debut film—Steve McQueen and star Michael Fassbender return with the viscerally intense Shame...

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.