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.