Tag: Thomas Jay Ryan

REVIEW: Cryptozoo [2021]

Jared Mobarak

Without dreams, there can be no future. Ever since childhood, Lauren Gray (Lake Bell) hoped to save cryptids. Her first encounter came while struggling to conquer a steady stream of nightmares in youth. Fate would have it that a Baku (an elephant/pig hybrid that steals dreams) happened to be nearby. It came to Lauren while she slept and sucked all the bad thoughts from her mind, ostensibly saving her life. In order to repay the favor, she dedicated her existence to helping animals and, by extension, cryptids like her savior.…

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REVIEW: Scenes from an Empty Church [2021]

Jared Mobarak

A Bible and a fifth of bourbon. We all look for signs and we all interpret them how we see fit whether doing so is correct or not and despite those so-called “signs” proving nothing but coincidences to which we’ve ascribed unearned meaning. It’s how we find comfort. It’s how we wake up in the morning. And it’s the point where spirituality and religion intersect before ultimately diverging since the former deals in faith’s freedom and the latter in faith’s commoditization. One allows us to believe what we believe without…

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