This year, a bunch of pretty fantastic celebs will receive stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, including Jeffrey Tambor (Transparent, Arrested Development), Sarah Silverman, Jerry Goldsmith (he composed the Alien and Chinatown and a bunch of Star Trek soundtracks and so much more!), and Brett Ratner, the director of The Family Man (a really, really good and heartfelt Christmas movie with Nicholas Cage, Téa Leoni, Don Cheadle, and Jeremy Piven) and the Rush Hour films, which is impossible to turn off once it meets your eyes. Ratner will be honored at a ceremony Thursday, Jan. 19.
Ratner—who penned an article about growing up in Miami Beach and hanging out on the set of Scarface for the inaugural issue of Tablet magazine in print—obviously didn’t begin his career making movies with Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker, or with a star cemented onto a sidewalk in California. No, in a way, he began his career making short, seemingly homemade films with his friends. Here’s one of his first movies.
Jonathan Zalman is a writer and teacher based in Brooklyn.