“What. Do. You. Call. A. Three. Humped. Camel?” We’ve all walked into the Department of Motor Vehicles, and then left some life force behind when we emerged hours later. So I must say it’s more fun to watch the suffering than to personally experience it. And I, for one, love watching animated sloths smile at stupid jokes it took way too long for them to tell.

Continue reading The Two-Minute Smile →

When Josh Brolin’s character tells you that, “an army of technicians, actors, and top-notch artistic people are working hard to bring to the screen our biggest release of the year,” you cannot help but think he is not just talking about a fictional movie production. The Coen Brothers’ latest film Hail, Caesar! creates a glamorous world of nostalgia for the Golden Age of Hollywood, but is the film self-deprecating or self-indulgent?

Continue reading The Coen Brothers’ Roman Forum →

When you watch the trailer for Touched with Fire, it’s easy to feel lost. It presents parallel mental breakdowns of a young woman and man, who recite pieces of poetry as they frantically write, draw, and stir a sense of confusion and anxiety in those around them. The hollow beat in the background grows louder as the trailer cuts sporadically from one image to the next, creating a crescendo effect that absorbs you into the panic as well. Everything blends into a fast blur of voices and images—and then it all stops. Suddenly, the pace of the trailer slows, and we see the same woman and man in a mental hospital trying to negotiate their way out. Continue reading Touched with Fire: The Insanity Behind Art and Love →

When I was five years old, I always wondered what my dog did when she was alone. Could she talk? Could she read? Could she use the toilet instead of relieving herself right smack in the middle of the living room rug? Oh how I hoped so—and not just because I wouldn’t have to clean up her mess.

Chris Renaud’s The Secret Life of Pets has finally come to answer these burning questions. And from the film’s teaser trailer, the audience gets a sense that pets are secretly rather creative and adorably quirky—not unlike people.

Continue reading The Secret Life of Pets—Revealed! →

Tarantino is back, and so is my overzealous fanboyism for the now-infallible auteur. Tarantino’s past few movies haven’t lived up to Reservoir Dogs or Pulp Fiction, but who cares? They’re still much better–aesthetically (gotta love 70mm), conceptually, etc.–than 99% of the movies that get put out in any given year. The Hateful Eight’s bottleneck concept is definitely a call back to Tarantino’s first feature, Reservoir Dogs, but I’m pretty sure, just by it’s silliness, The Hateful Eight will not be a return to true greatness. Just a continuation of good, solid filmmaking. It looks like Tarantino just wanted to have fun making a good-looking movie, in which Samuel L. Jackson gets to grow out his beard, dress up as a cowboy, and shoot white people with big fake guns. And that’s more than all right with me.

The Hateful Eight will be out in select cities on Christmas; everywhere January 8.

With a title like Chiraq, the controversy surrounding the preview for Spike Lee’s latest film was inevitable. The title is a portmanteau of Chicago and Iraq, drawn from the estimation that the homicide rate in Chicago has surpassed the death toll of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq. In Lee’s trailer, a smiling Samuel L. Jackson in a loud orange suit greets the audience warmly, disturbing the serious tone expected of the film. Luckily, Chiraq is satire, based on the ancient Greek comedy Lysistrata. In Lysistrata, Greek women pledge celibacy until their partners negotiate a peace deal to end the Peloponnesian War. In Chiraq, the women of Chicago aim to bring an end to the city’s gun violence by doing the same. The colorful trailer sets gunshots and funerals against barbershop laughter and men gawking in strip clubs. Lee is asking substantial favors of his audiences: to trust that the comedic elements of Chiraq will not eclipse the severity of the actual gun violence that plagues the city and that he as a director can rise to such a sensitive task. But satire or not, is the city of Chicago prepared for such a film? It was only weeks ago that 9-year-old Tyshawn Lee was shot dead in an alley in the city, a tragic result of gang violence. No matter Lee’s intention, perhaps it is far too soon for the subject to be broached with anything other than a solemn tone.

Chiraq opens in select theaters on December 4^th.

Have you been wondering when someone would finally make a film about the inventor of the Miracle Mop? This reviewer certainly hasn’t. A comedy-drama loosely based on the life of single mother and entrepreneur Joy Mangano, David O. Russell’s third and most recent collaboration with Jennifer Lawrence tackles a subject few, if any, would consider prime material for a big-budget Christmas film. While I remain somewhat skeptical of her ability to believably portray a mother of three in her late thirties, Lawrence is predictably charming and magnetic as she introduces the film via monologue. For all the enigmatic appeal of its principal actor, however, Joy’s trailer commits the familiar fault of dragging on a little too long and giving away a little too much. Upon watching the trailer one may as well have seen an abridged highlights reel of the film, complete with the most memorable lines and moralizing subtext. If only for a strong performance by Lawrence already receiving Oscar buzz, Joy will likely still be worth your time. That said, the choice to not only cast but purposefully create roles for Lawrence, Bradley Cooper, and Robert DeNiro alongside one another again so soon seems questionable at best. With Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle both fresh in recent memory, a palate cleanser may have been in order. 

Grade: D

Joy’s trailer is no masterpiece, but it doesn’t have to be. People will watch the film for its star-studded cast even if Russell can’t seem to move on.