“Do we loathe our masters behind a facade of loving, or do we love our masters behind a facade of loathing?” Balram It is fitting that the first words heard in The White Tiger are spoken by Jay-Z. On the soundtrack as the movie begins is “Beware of the Boys,” Jay’s collaboration with British Indian […]
The White Tiger

Film Title
The White TigerSynopsis
An Indian driver tries to use all his wits to escape poverty
Director
Ramin BahraniCast
Adarsh Gourav
Rajkummer Rao
Priyanna Chopra
Vedant Sinha
Kamlesh Gill
Satish Kumar
I, Frankenstein (2014)

Film Title
I, FrankensteinSynopsis
We are bored
Director
Stuart BeattieCast
Aaron Eckhart
Yvonne Strahovski
Miranda Otto
Bill NIghy
Aden Young
Kevin Grevioux
The longer you watch I, Frankenstein, the harder it is to believe that it is an actual theatrical feature and not just a bad TV movie made for the Syfy channel. Despite big-name, reliably good actors like Aaron Eckhart, Bill Nighy, and Miranda Otto, and special effects that, at their best, at least look like […]
Uplift the Race: 3 Spike Lee Joints
For over 30 years now, ever since his debut feature She’s Gotta Have It in 1986, Spike Lee has been one of the most innovative and provocative filmmakers of our time. As expressed numerous times throughout his many films, Lee’s highest goal is to “wake up” and uplift all oppressed and deluded people, but he […]
Baby’s Day Out

Film Title
Baby's Day OutSynopsis
A kidnapped kid is lost. Who cares?
Director
Patrick Read JohnsonCast
A baby
Another baby
A bunch of other people we've never heard of
As anyone who has read my in-depth review of Beethoven knows, family movies from the 1990s are often covert founts of darkness and despair, sometimes to the point that it is nigh impossible to see them any other way. Another great example of this curious phenomenon is the 1994 film Baby’s Day Out, which depicts […]
Birdemic: Shock And Terror

Film Title
Birdemic: Shock and TerrorSynopsis
An inept attempt at cashing in on Hitchcock’s masterpiece.
Director
James NguyenCast
Alan Bagh
Whitney Moore
Tipi Hedren (archive footage)
Other random people off the street
Birdemic: Shock and Terror was clearly made without the benefit of anyone who knew absolutely anything about filmmaking within a hundred yards of the set. Witness production values and acting that make Tommy Wiseau’s notorious 2003 classic The Room look like a legitimate masterpiece. Witness sound editing and mixing apparently done by a pair of […]
Beethoven (1992)

Synopsis
A slobbering St. Bernard must be saved from the perils of a nefarious Vet who is determined to experiment on animals
Director
Brian LevantCast
A slobbering St. Bernard Dog
A bunch of other people
Despite evidence to the contrary, much of it written by me, I am not a monster. Like virtually any human being, I have certainly been known to find dogs charming, but I am happy the building in which I live only allows cats because I would rather see my neighbors’ pets than hear them, and […]
Ezra’s Top 10 Favorite Movies of 2020
Allow me to be the absolute first to say, 2020 was a strange year, and not least of all for movies. Beyond the fact that I no longer work in the industry after 20 years of doing almost nothing else for a living, there came a time about a month ago when critics began dropping […]
The Legacy Of Silent Film
When Louis and Auguste Lumiere first showed their short film The Arrival of a Train in 1895, they certainly had no inkling that, almost a hundred years later, it would be the film-within-a-film in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Nor could Carl Theodor Dreyer have suspected that his 1928 feature The […]
Diary Of A Serial Killer-aka Rough Draft (1998)

Film Title
Diary Of A Serial KillerSynopsis
Transvestites and serial killers
Director
Joshua WallaceCast
Gary Busey
Michael Madsen
Arnold Vosloo
Reno Wilson
Julia Campbell
Right from the opening frame of the 1998 straight-to-video thriller Diary of a Serial Killer (aka Rough Draft), it is obviously a cheesy affair. The score, with its heavy saxophone wailing and bombastic drum-machine track, feels more like something from the 80s than the late 90s, and the rest of the movie feels the same way. Our protagonist, […]
Dragged Across Concrete

Film Title
Dragged Across ConcreteSynopsis
Two suspended cops must go bad to make a living
Director
S. Craig ZahlerCast
Mel Gibson
Vince Vaughn
Tory Kittles
Michael Jai White
Don Johnson
Fred Melamed
Jennifer Carpenter
Laurie Holden
S. Craig Zahler has been accused, even by those who (rightly) praised his first two features, of harboring a reactionary worldview, and Dragged Across Concrete feels like his response to this criticism in much the same way that The House That Jack Built felt like Lars Von Trier’s response to critics who see his work […]