April 26th, 2019 by Jared Mobarak
“Let’s see what he has to say” Films devoid of main protagonists are generally created as such because the event orbited by their ensemble of characters proves the focal point instead. So when that central moment…
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April 15th, 2019 by Jared Mobarak
“He kept her memory alive with every bowl of ramen” While Eric Khoo‘s Ramen Teh [Ramen Shop] is at its core a story about a young man looking to reclaim a part of his heritage that was lost, it’s…
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April 5th, 2019 by Jared Mobarak
“I just wanted to be a family again” Remakes are often thankless jobs because you’re stuck trying to live up to or best your predecessor while also creating something wholly different. Most attempts based on…
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March 29th, 2019 by Jared Mobarak
“Remember, the whole world will be watching” An Indian man who’s risked his life helping to save wealthy guests at the posh hotel where he works as head chef (Anupam Kher‘s Oberoi) is imploring a group…
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March 24th, 2019 by Jared Mobarak
“We could all die tomorrow” I hate the argument that remakes of foreign films allow English-speakers to invest more in the story and performance because they aren’t dividing attention between dialogue and imagery,…
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March 15th, 2019 by Jared Mobarak
“Characters from famous paintings continue to attack me” Writer/director Milorad Krstic has combined his love for painting and film into an action thriller as surreal as it is familiar. The whole uses his own…
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March 10th, 2019 by Jared Mobarak
“I’m not what you think I am” With the snap of his fingers, Thanos made half of Earth’s population disappear. It was the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s most harrowing climactic cliffhanger and it did…
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March 3rd, 2019 by Jared Mobarak
“Listen to the music” A film like The LEGO Movie is a once-in-a-decade type achievement (so to see its filmmakers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller also write/produce another once-in-a-decade…
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February 22nd, 2019 by Jared Mobarak
The 90th Annual Academy Awards hits airwaves Sunday, February 24th, 2019 at 8:00pm on ABC. For those handicapping at home, here are the guesses of Buffalo film fanatics Christopher Schobert, William Altreuter, and myself.…
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February 2nd, 2019 by Jared Mobarak
“Sounds fishy” When times are tough, you improvise. Look at the Shibata family for example. Osamu (Lily Franky) and Nobuyo (Sakura Andô) both work part-time jobs to bring home meager earnings that can be added…
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January 28th, 2019 by Jared Mobarak
“Do we really need that trunk?” As someone completely unversed in the Laurel and Hardy oeuvre, I’m not sure there could have been a better introduction to the comedic duo than through their last year together.…
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January 18th, 2019 by Jared Mobarak
“Why are we the only ones?” It began nineteen years ago with a tale about emotional and physical duress—byproducts of tortured lives being led by purportedly “great” men too defeated to reach their…
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January 11th, 2019 by Jared Mobarak
“You’re all still scared of me” There’s no way to discuss the second of Ben is Back or Beautiful Boy that you watched without also mentioning the first. Maybe I’d think differently…
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December 28th, 2018 by Jared Mobarak
“What do we believe?” It’s still weird thinking the guy who joked around with Will Ferrell for years is an Oscar winner, but that’s exactly what Adam McKay is. Weirder still is my being…
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December 22nd, 2018 by Jared Mobarak
“It’s fish-MAN” Arthur Curry’s Aquaman has been known in mainstream pop culture circles as DC’s whipping boy for a long while since it’s easy to mock an orange spandex-wearing dude who talks…
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December 14th, 2018 by Jared Mobarak
“We’ve been laying very different games” This isn’t your parents’ period piece. If the name Yorgos Lanthimos under the header of director didn’t already give you that impression, there…
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December 7th, 2018 by Jared Mobarak
“I am my paintings” Vincent Van Gogh is quite the enigmatic figure in the art world as a man whose genius was ahead of its time. His greatest works were painted in the final two years of his life while combatting…
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December 1st, 2018 by Jared Mobarak
“Green means go” Megan Reed (Shay Mitchell) is so intentionally drawn for the plot of The Possession of Hannah Grace that you can take bets before sitting down on whether she’ll prove the hero (itching…
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November 26th, 2018 by Jared Mobarak
“This isn’t your world” When the first trailer for Widows dropped, I thought, “Steve McQueen is branching out to genre fare now.” This wasn’t a slight, just an observation. I…
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November 17th, 2018 by Jared Mobarak
“We mustn’t be what they say we are” Who is Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne)? This is an important question we have to ask while watching Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, one we didn’t…
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November 8th, 2018 by Jared Mobarak
“Of what do you ask?” I’m no big fan of Dario Argento‘s Suspiria. It’s a gorgeous film overflowing with mood and aesthetic that ultimately becomes the poster child for style over substance…
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October 26th, 2018 by Jared Mobarak
“I realize my body would just explode on impact” Free climbing a mountain wall at any height is insane to me. So watching Alex Honnold gaze upon El Capitan with the simultaneous declarations that it scares…
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October 19th, 2018 by Jared Mobarak
“Know your worth” The progression of The Hate U Give‘s genesis reveals its message’s importance. Angie Thomas began its short story precursor back in college as a response to Oscar Grant’s…
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October 13th, 2018 by Jared Mobarak
“It might ruffle some feathers back home” What Wash Westmoreland (who co-wrote with his late husband Richard Glatzerand Rebecca Lenkiewicz) has done with Colette is craft an origin story…
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October 5th, 2018 by Jared Mobarak
“I love the way she sees them” It began with Hollywood as William A. Wellman and Robert Carson won an Oscar for their story about a young actress dreaming of super stardom in 1937. From there it…
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September 27th, 2018 by Jared Mobarak
“Never stand in the way of true love” You have to respect the way Ethan Hawke approached his latest film Blaze and its central character Blaze Foley. He’d never heard the artist’s name…
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September 21st, 2018 by Jared Mobarak
“I never wanted anything from you” The level of intrigue surrounding Andrew and Abby Borden’s murders in 1892 is crazy because it’s only increased since. We’re talking the O.J. Simpson trial of the…
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September 14th, 2018 by Jared Mobarak
“Oopsy” You don’t wonder which woman has secrets after meeting Stephanie Smothers (Anna Kendrick) and Emily Nelson (Blake Lively). Instead you wonder which has more. They’re built to be hiding something…
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September 7th, 2018 by Jared Mobarak
“There’s no hiding from God” “Separation of church and state” has always fascinated me since the only consistency within is the ability to pick and choose when and how it’s enforced. We’re…
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August 17th, 2018 by Jared Mobarak
“Family never says thank you” While I haven’t read Kevin Kwan‘s novel Crazy Rich Asians, I can definitely see why producers would have approached him with the note: “Where’s your…
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August 11th, 2018 by Jared Mobarak
“Did you just use your real name?” The fact that Spike Lee‘s BlacKkKlansman is based on a true story is absolutely crazy. A black rookie cop in Colorado calls the Ku Klux Klan, wins them over…
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August 4th, 2018 by Jared Mobarak
“Gucci!” The transition between middle school and high school is weird and frightening for everyone—those who disagree are lying. It’s crazy how different those two worlds prove to be since elementary…
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July 31st, 2018 by Jared Mobarak
“We’re never free” The former leader of a group of rogue agents seeking to unite people against unchecked government oversight—a cause worthy of pause if not for the terrorist acts of genocide utilized…
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July 21st, 2018 by Jared Mobarak
“More like apples and the Holocaust” If you’re still unsure about whether capitalism brought the United States to its current position with extreme political divisiveness and the fallacy of what’s left…
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July 13th, 2018 by Jared Mobarak
“We can still think our own thoughts” It’s easy to depict PTSD-suffering war veterans as unstable, dangerous, and beyond help from inevitable tragedy. This depiction has sadly become the Hollywood norm to conjure…
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July 6th, 2018 by Jared Mobarak
“Like Baba Yaga …” While a lot of fans were instantly and irrationally mad upon learning that Avengers: Infinity War wouldn’t include Hawkeye or Ant-Man, I rejoiced knowing that Ant-Man…
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July 5th, 2018 by Jared Mobarak
“Whoopie pies and Spotify” It’s often at extreme times of upheaval that we find ourselves taking stock of our life, ambitions, and loves. While working hard to be successful enough to support our families, we…
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June 24th, 2018 by Jared Mobarak
“Like what?” The more you hear about privileged white kids shooting-up schools because they’re under such “debilitating” pressure alienating them from the “cool” kids, turning “alt-right”…
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June 15th, 2018 by Jared Mobarak
“Our friend is a psychopath and this is scary” The most memorable moment throughout Jeff Tomsic‘s Tag is the introduction of one of the five grown men engaged in a thirty-year game of trading…
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June 11th, 2018 by Jared Mobarak
“A life without despair is a life without hope” We live in a time of extremism—where our reaction dial is turned up to eleven regardless of our true interest in a cause or its true importance. Somewhere along…
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