If you enjoy being smothered to death with a pillow, then Traitor is the movie for you. Ostensibly a thriller about an American Muslim who has gone deep undercover into an Islamic terrorist cell, it turns into a case study for the failure of good intentions.
 
The film follows Samir (Don Cheadle), a vagabond […]

[Read more →]

Music review by Aaron Shay
Imagine that Van Morrison is singing in a band with Lou Reed and that they’re playing songs that Neil Sedaka wrote while drunk and manic depressive.  Now imagine that this event was recorded.  In 2008.  Also, imagine Morrison with a heavy Bronx accent.  That’s what Vic Ruggiero’s solo […]

[Read more →]

 As many of you know, I’m inordinately fond of The Fast And The Furious 3: Tokyo Drift. Director Justin Lin started with a clean slate and made one of the most enjoyable B movies in years. He was rumored to be working on an American re-make of the Korean thriller Oldboy, which would be a […]

[Read more →]

Man On Wire is the exhilarating re-telling of Philippe Petit’s high-wire walk between the two towers of the newly constructed World Trade Center in 1974. Carefully constructed from interviews, archive footage, and Errol Morris worthy re-creations, director James Marsh weaves a dazzling narrative that inspires awe, amazement, and wonder.
Frenchman Philippe Petit is a hyperactive Frenchman […]

[Read more →]

By: Aaron Shay
Sometimes, when one digs through the dung pile long enough, a nugget of gold can be found.  This is the only way to describe the experience of watching Hamlet 2.
The story: Failed actor Dana Marschz (Steve Coogan) has taken up the job of a stereotypical drama teacher in Tucson, […]

[Read more →]

By Aaron Shay
Today is that day, gentle reader.  Today is the day I write of my cinematic disappointment.
Stoner films have a proud history, though not a credited or cultured one.  Cheech and Chong are the collective Orson Welles of marijuana films, giving one an idea of the quality stoner films aspire […]

[Read more →]

Never Go Full-Retard: A Review of Tropic Thunder
By Aaron J. Shay
My history with Ben Stiller is as follows:

Being exposed repeatedly to “Keeping the Faith” at Jewish Sunday school when they didn’t have anything for us to learn.  Decent movie, at least for the first […]

[Read more →]