Matt Singer

Bill Westenhofer. Lubo Hristov. David Lauer. Gullaume Rocheron. Depending on your beliefs, you may or may not believe that God created the heavens and earth in seven days -- but I can say with some certainty that those men, a quartet of visual effects supervisors and designers (along with many other talented people) created the wondrous sights of 'Life of Pi.' It took them a lot more than seven days, though.

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Movies allow us to experience life through another person's eyes. Video games allow us to experience life through another person's eyes -- and to control their decisions. We spend hours upon hours with these video game characters, until we feel like we know them; Mario, Sonic, Pac-Man, their adventures are so memorable, and their personalities so vivid that they almost seem alive. But of course their adventures and their personalities are all predetermined by programming, and they remain forever trapped by their unbreakable directives. If these characters weren't just a series of electronic impulses and computer code, it would be a tragic existence.

That, essentially, is the premise of 'Wreck-It Ralph,' a manic children's film about the souls of video game avatars. Made by Disney, it greatly resembles the premise of Disney's (and Pixar's) modern classic 'Toy Story,' in which toys are revealed to have lives and thoughts of their own when no one's around to play with them. Here we learn that when a suburban arcade shuts down for the night, the characters inside all the games cross over into each other's universes to socialize.

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Matt had just typed out the title of his 'Seven Psychopaths' review, his byline, and the rating (seven -- no, make that eight --out of ten?) when his wife Melissa walked into the room.

"How was the movie?" she asked as she flopped down on the couch and flipped on the television.

"Good. Really good," Matt replied. "Interesting."

"Interesting? Why interesting?" Melissa said. She started flipping channels.

"It's about a writer who writes himself into his work. Colin Farrell plays this struggling screenwriter named Martin -- and the movie was written and directed by this guy, Martin McDonagh, who wrote that play we saw on Broadway with Christopher Walken in it."

"Right. That was weird."

"It was," he said, nodding. "Weird but good. So, anyway, Colin Farrell plays this writer named Martin. He's come up with a title he really likes for a screenplay -- 'Seven Psychopaths.' But that's all he has, the title. He doesn't even have the seven psychopaths. But then these people in his life -- or perhaps these characters he's invented -- are all revealed to be psychopaths, and he gets caught in the middle of this elaborate gangster-slash-revenge comedy with them involving a kidnapped dog."

Melissa yawned again. "A writer writing himself into his work? That sounds like a terrible idea." 

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