Author name: Vincent Volcano

By Vincent Volcano, emeritus arsonist of emotion and retired director of Eternal Ember and Inferno’s Gate. Scarf blazing, patience smoldering. Let’s light this wick. Netflix has stretched the Hawkins farewell tour like taffy over a lava vent, carving the final season into Volumes, Chunks, Slices, and—if executives get peckish—Fun-Size Episodes you can trade at recess. […]

By Vincent Volcano, retired scourge of Hellwood, scarf aflame and patience extinguished. Initial Inferno A24 has gift-wrapped us a 150-minute Christmas stocking of sweaty paddles and weaponized quirk. Josh Safdie, now a soloist in the orchestra of anxiety, serves up Marty Supreme, a ping-pong passion play “inspired” by 1950s table-tennis zealots who dared to believe

By Vincent Volcano, retired Hellwood arsonist of emotion, still smoldering in a director’s chair that squeaks like a B-movie dolly shot. Flames Fade, but Classics Burn Forever! Let’s irradiate the obvious: Fallout Season 2 arrives on Prime, still swinging a sledgehammer made of tonal whiplash and nostalgia scrap metal. It’s an adaptation that, like most

By Vincent Volcano, Retired Director, Occasional Arsonist, Reluctant Optimist Flames Fade, but Classics Burn Forever! If you’ve ever stared at the fuzz under your bed and thought, “This should be 106 minutes of baroque melancholy punctuated by bloodless carnage and an assassin with no name,” congratulations—you may already be Bryan Fuller. Dust Bunny is a

By Vincent Volcano, Retired Hellwood Arsonist-in-Chief, scarf ablaze and patience extinguished Ah, the animatronics are back, and so are the jump scares timed like a metronome in a funeral dirge. Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 arrives with the stealth of a birthday clown and the subtlety of a chainsaw, promising to appease both lore-goblins and

By Vincent Volcano, retired Hellwood firebrand, scarf aflame and patience extinguished Rian Johnson returns with Wake Up Dead Man, the third Benoit Blanc frolic, a whodunnit so glossy it reflects the audience back at itself—smirking, congratulatory, and convinced it’s clever for recognizing the trope it’s about to applaud. It’s the cinematic equivalent of a magician

By Vincent Volcano, Retired Tormentor of Taste and Former Director of Things That Actually Used Fire You can always tell a modern awards-season hopeful by the way it whispers, “I’m sensitive,” while hiring a trailer editor who cuts like a caffeinated hummingbird. Rental Family, courtesy of the unflappably tasteful Hikari, is a gentle comedy-drama about

By Vincent Volcano, retired Hellwood arsonist of emotion and defender of smoldering craft. Flames Fade, but Classics Burn Forever! In Your Dreams arrives sleepwalking into theaters November 7 and onto Netflix November 14, which is perfect: the film is basically a bedtime story with a marketing calendar. It’s a PG animated “adventure” about siblings surfing

By Vincent Volcano, emeritus arsonist of emotion and retired ringmaster of Hellwood’s practical pyrotechnics Flames Fade, but Classics Burn Forever! Initial sparks Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value arrives in the mortal multiplex like a carefully arranged matchbook: tasteful, melancholy, and suspiciously nonflammable. It’s a family psychodrama about an aging auteur who tries to exhume his past

By Vincent Volcano, Retired Hellwood Arsonist of Emotion, Scarf Ablaze Flames Fade, but Classics Burn Forever! Netflix has tossed another log on the IP bonfire with The Twits, a Roald Dahl adaptation so politely mischievous you can practically hear the executives whisper, “Please don’t upset anybody, but do sell the lunchboxes.” Phil Johnston, who once