Science Fiction | www.jaredmobarak.com

REVIEW: Black Wake [2018]

2018/02/162020/04/11 Jared Mobarak

I’m the prophet and you’re the messenger. The amount of zombie properties flooding the market these days has created an unavoidable sense of fatigue. As a result artists have begun turning certain aspects on their heads in order to differentiate one vision from any other. Sometimes this means crossing genres, manufacturing elaborate new mythologies, or playing with aesthetic. Jeremiah Kipp‘s Black Wake attempts to do all three as it utilizes a found footage format to reveal a calamity that’s more invasion than viral apocalypse. There’s still a horde of blood-hungry…

REVIEW: Black Panther [2018]

2018/02/152020/04/11 Jared Mobarak

We had to maintain the lie. It’s easy to forget how important Creed was to getting this specific Black Panther made. From Wesley Snipes wanting to get something off the ground in the 1990s to Kevin Feige courting Ava DuVernay as director post-Selma success, things could have been very different. Hiring Ryan Coogler before his Rocky sequel took the box office by storm with almost universal critical acclaim would have made it very different too. Suddenly the man who made his name off the fantastic indie Fruitvale Station was a…

REVIEW: Maze Runner: The Death Cure [2018]

2018/01/252020/04/13 Jared Mobarak

It’s about knowing when you’ve lost. Could you sacrifice a percentage of the population if it meant saving mankind in its entirety? What about if it merely gave you a chance at that salvation? These are the big questions we ask ourselves at the end of the world—ones that force us to face the reality of our inevitable demise. We can infer that we’ll reach this point because we made a wrong decision in the past. And if the whole reason we’re about to be lost forever is our fault,…

REVIEW: Future ’38 [2017]

2018/01/042020/04/13 Jared Mobarak

Watch this classified film strip briefing. If you ask how scientists are smart enough to invent time travel yet can’t find a way to defeat Hitler without needing time travel to augment their weapon’s power, Jamie Greenberg has succeeded. He’s succeeded if you don’t ask that question too because you’ll have given yourself fully to his unapologetically punny, “lost” film known as Future ’38. So Greenberg can’t lose. His film entertains with overt playfulness and reveals the pedants in the audience unable to simply laugh and have a good time…

REVIEW: Downsizing [2017]

2017/11/292020/04/18 Jared Mobarak

Lots of people are in pain, Ma. In all sorts of ways. It’s an ingenious comedic premise. With Earth’s population untenable, a couple of Norwegian scientists discover a way to combat our impending doom: genetic shrinkage. With a syringe of blue formula and a microwave oven (the logistics are never explained beyond surface visuals), any biologic entity can be miniaturized to a fraction of its size and mass. Since over-population is a main component of global warming, food shortages, and poverty, this solution is a timely miracle. Add the fact…

REVIEW: Blade Runner 2049 [2017]

2017/10/232020/04/25 Jared Mobarak

Because you’ve never seen a miracle. Survival is a selfish endeavor, but not necessarily one driven by ego. On the contrary, survival is often a selfless means to place community ahead of the individual. Look at our country’s current, abhorrent divisions along lines we should have erased decades ago or never created in the first place. As long as privilege exists and one race, gender, religion, et al holds power and sway above the rest simply because it fears relinquishing its place atop the “status quo,” rebellion is only a…

REVIEW: Halloween III: Season of the Witch [1982]

2017/10/212020/04/25 Jared Mobarak

They’re fun. They’re frightening. And they glow in the dark. After the insane success of John Carpenter‘s Halloween and the modest follow-through of its sequel Halloween II ($70 million on a $300,000 budget and $25.5 million on a $2.5 million budget respectively), the director readied to leave Haddonfield, Laurie Strode, and their malevolent predator behind. How many times can you bring the same supernatural monster back to life anyway? (Wink, wink.) His idea was to therefore pivot the franchise into an anthology series wherein the generic title/holiday would constitute the…

REVIEW: Blade Runner [1982]

2017/10/022017/10/03 Jared Mobarak

“All those moments will be lost in time like tears in rain” An over-populated Earth circa 2019 uses synthetic androids known as replicants for the hard labor of colonization. Their lifespans are barely four years long, their circuitry prone to fits of amoral aggression. Each subsequent version becomes stronger and smarter, the risk of mutiny forever increasing. So they’ve been outlawed on mankind’s home planet, any violator made subject to a shoot-to-kill order on behalf of the law enforcement wing known as blade runners. Amongst the violent cesspool that is…

REVIEW: The Osiris Child: Science Fiction Volume One [2017]

2017/10/022017/10/02 Jared Mobarak

“Insanity is a very common affliction around these parts” Here’s the harsh truth: a low-budget sci-fi from Australia propped up by its secondary lead because the actor playing him is the most recognizable and thus “bankable” star involved is never a home run. Sorry Kellan Lutz, but it’s not. The result conjures the type of shoulder shrug many bestow upon straight-to-DVD fare without taking the time to realize it’s actually hitting select theaters the same day it moves from DirecTV exclusivity to major VOD platforms. And while I would often…

BIFF17 REVIEW: Prodigy [2017]

2017/09/272018/03/14 Jared Mobarak

“Love is the guise under which selfishness operates” Guilt is a powerful thing. It can make you act in ways that go against your own survival and yet still ensure those actions are selfishly motivated. You aren’t necessarily acting to help another or have their best interests in mind. You’re goal is to make-up for something you did previously. It’s about feeling better and feeding a misguided notion that you’re somehow the center of attention—the inevitable bringer of unwarranted pain and suffering. Wars have been fought over guilt. Religions have…

REVIEW: Videodrome [1983]

2017/09/262019/01/20 Jared Mobarak

“Better on TV than on the streets” To watch David Cronenberg‘s Videodrome today is to acknowledge his clairvoyance as far as technology’s capacity to control via (mis)information. He filmed this body horror classic about subliminal messaging in mass consumption in 1983: years before the political firestorm in 1992 revolving around ubiquitous violence in videogames via Mortal Kombat, the 2007-08 television writers strike that spawned the proliferation of reality TV, the 24-hour news cycle that transformed real-life tragedies into entertainment, and social media placing false content at our fingertips with an…