As I write this, it is January 2021. A few days ago, rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol, attempting a violent insurrection of the U.S government, fueled at its core by anger, hatred, and lies. That event is still very raw for us, and in some ways, it made watching this movie very uncomfortable. It sparked…

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,…

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…

Here are some quotes that have not aged well, due to 2020 being a rotten asshole of a year. “Luckily, we haven’t gone so far down the rabbit hole that we all can’t sit in a theater and enjoy a film together.” “As usual, and despite the continued predictions that a fill-in-the-blank-enemy will force theaters…

One of my wife’s biggest movie pet peeves is when kids are smarter than adults. While some kids are most definitely smarter than some adults, this theme almost always goes way too far when asking you to suspend your disbelief. Home Alone, Rookie of the Year, The Goonies, Spy Kids, Holes, any of the Harry…

As has become customary of late, the sound mixing in Nolan’s much anticipated, much delayed film was a topic of contention, and though intentional, it seriously interfered with desired immersion. Decrypting whose desire it was optimized for—the audience’s or Nolan’s—just may yield the most succinct review possible. I could go one further and declare it…