‘Death of a Unicorn’ Hooks Its Horn Into an Eat the Rich Adventure

March 25, 2025

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This is what looks like when a unicorn dies (CREDIT: Balazs Goldi/A24)

Starring: Jenna Ortega, Paul Rudd, Richard E. Grant, Will Poulter, Téa Leoni, Anthony Carrigan, Sunita Mani, Steve Park, Jessica Hynes

Director: Alex Scharfman

Running Time: 104 Minutes

Rating: R for Supernatural Creature Violence and Some Drug Use

Release Date: March 28, 2025 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: Widower Elliot Kintner (Paul Rudd) and his daughter Ridley (Jenna Ortega) are on their way to sort out some legal business at the mansion of Elliot’s boss, Odell Leopold (Richard E. Grant). The occasion is that Odell has terminal cancer, and he’s put Elliot in charge of sorting out his estate. But thanks to an unexpected visitor, they may not have to worry about that, as Elliot and Ridley crash into a one-horned mythical quadruped right before arriving. The unicorn looks like a goner, but before it perishes, its blood appears to magically cure Elliot’s eyesight and Ridley’s acne. And do those healing properties extend to cancer? Why yes, they seem to be limitless. The Leopolds quickly become greedy with the possibilities of curing every physical ailment everywhere, while Ridley tries to warn everyone that they might want to be careful about slaughtering these majestic creatures.

What Made an Impression?: Predictably Vicious: If you find yourself sympathizing with Ridley throughout Death of a Unicorn, then you are watching this movie in the way that the universe intended. If however you find her annoying, then you might be a rich a-hole. Or perhaps more generously*, you agree with her but you wish that there were more depth to these characters. (*-More generous to you, not to the movie.) Basically, everyone behaves exactly as you would expect them to considering this situation. Ridley is befuddled and indignant, Elliot is ineffectual, the Leopolds are outrageously arrogant, and the unicorns are magnificent and prideful. That predictability is more of a feature than a bug, as you’re supposed to be eternally frustrated at all the would-be modern-day Prometheuses.
Something Mystical: Here are a couple of things that happen in Death of a Unicorn that you might not be able to predict from the trailer: Ridley develops a psychic connection with the unicorns, and she remembers when she was on vacation with her parents and they saw tapestries at a museum depicting people being slaughtered by unicorns. That woo-woo and that alternate history certainly make sense when supernatural animals play a big part in the story. Although for the most part the action all remains grounded in the real world, at least as much as it can. Perhaps some viewers would prefer going further off the deep end. As for me, I was mostly satisfied with the pleasant mix of a fantastical flight of fancy, sarcastic humor, and bursts of grievous horror.

Death of a Unicorn is Recommended If You Like: Body horror crossed with Amblin wonderment

Grade: 3 out of 5 Horns

Catching Up on Movies I Happened to See in March 2025

March 22, 2025

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CREDIT: (Clockwise from Top Left): Marvel Entertainment; Ketchup Entertainment; Stan Alley/IFC Films; Cinetic

Oh wow, look at the time! I guess I’ve been pretty busy the last few weeks. (For a variety of reasons!) That means I’ve got more than one movie to catch up with my thoughts about. It’s quite a mix that we’ve got on the agenda: some blockbusters or would-be blockbusters, a heartbreaking award winner, and an indie from the depths of the muck.

First up, we checked back into the MCU, and I found myself in rare agreement with SNL‘s Drunk Uncle, which is to say: “Not my Captain America!” Nah, actually, Sam Wilson, you’re cool, dude. But Brave New World was neither brave, nor new, nor a world. Discuss.

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‘Misericordia’ Answers the Question: What if Hitchcock Were Queer and French?

March 20, 2025

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TFW you have Misericordia (CREDIT: Janus Films/Screenshot)

Starring: Félix Kysyl, Catherine Frot, Jean-Baptiste Durand, Jacques Develay, David Ayala, Sébastien Faglain, Tatiana Spivakova, Salomé Lopes

Director: Alain Guiradie

Running Time: 102 Minutes

Rating: Unrated, But Featuring Graphic Nudity and A Few Bursts of Violence

Release Date: March 21, 2025 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: It only takes one person to rock an entire community to its core. Especially when that community is a small enclave in rural France, and that person is the enigmatic Jérémie (Félix Kysyl). He’s back in his hometown to attend a funeral, and he ends up staying in an empty bedroom at the house of the widowed Martine (Catherine Frot), mother of his childhood friend, the hot-tempered Vincent (Jean-Baptiste Durand). Vincent suspects that Jérémie is trying to sleep with his mother, which he almost definitely isn’t, but Jérémie isn’t exactly the sort to just let a little offense roll off him easily. Eventually, the conflict boils over to the point that everything changes irrevocably.

What Made an Impression?: There Was Never Any Turning Back: Misericordia is one of those movies where something shocking happens about a third of the way through, so it would be fair to call that part of the premise. And indeed, it’s in the synopsis and the trailer, though it plays more like a twist that you don’t see coming. Considering this film’s powerful Hitchcockian vibes, I must say that this situation is like the conundrum of describing Psycho: is Norman Bates killing Marion Crane part of the premise, or a surprise dagger? (Spoiler alert.) If you were watching it in 1960, perhaps it was the former, but ever since then, it’s been the latter. And I imagine our conceptualization of Jérémie as a moviegoing society will turn out to be quite similar. If you’re fated to see Misericordia with no preconceived notions, you’ll be wondering how he could do such a thing. But eventually you’ll surely come to understand that that was the only way he ever was.
Identity Crises: And yet, despite that firm conclusion I just made about Jérémie, much of Misericordia is about his struggle to reconcile his own behavior with his sense of self. He can’t explain why he did what he did in that moment, but you get the sense that he would struggle to define himself even without a guilty conscience. He’s just a lost soul awkwardly wearing a human costume as he wanders along this unforgiving plane. Just about every other character wears their ostensible roles awkwardly as well. There’s the local priest (Jacques Develay), who’s more interested in seducing the mysterious protagonist while also offering a warped version of spiritual guidance that’s useful in some ways, morally dubious in others. A neighbor named Walter (David Ayala) becomes Jérémie’s loyal drinking buddy, while also becoming baffled by everything that’s going on around him. Meanwhile, Martine is too stuck in grief to act rationally, while the lead detective (Sébastien Faglain) has no idea how much of a fool he is. It’s a relentlessly topsy-turvy world when we bumble our way through moral dilemmas.

Misericordia is Recommended If You Like: Psycho, Match Point, Mushroom Foraging

Grade: 4 out of 5 Houseguests

Bill Skarsgård Ends Up ‘Locked’ in a Car by Anthony Hopkins, and That Goes About as Well as You’d Expect

March 19, 2025

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The Locked guy before he gets Locked (CREDIT: The Avenue)

Starring: Bill Skarsgård, Anthony Hopkins

Director: David Yarovesky

Running Time: 95 Minutes

Rating: R for Road Rage in a Parked Cars

Release Date: March 21, 2025 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: Eddie Barrish (Bill Skarsgård) is desperate. Desperate, I say! And I’m pretty sure you’ll be inclined to agree with me if you go see Locked. He’s been trying to get his life back on track for the sake of his young daughter, but that’s a little hard to do when he doesn’t have the cash he needs to pay for his car repairs so that he can go pick her up from school. So he turns to carjacking for a quick score, which turns out so much worse than he ever could have possibly imagined. That’s because the vehicle he targets happens to be owned by a fellow named William (Anthony Hopkins), who’s been a victim of one of too many carjackings himself. So Eddie ends up trapped in the car, with William having rigged it up so that everything is controlled remotely. A simple apology is hardly enough to end this nightmare, and thus a deadly game of very targeted vigilantism commences.

What Made an Impression?: Sociopathic Overload: William is basically the answer to the question, “What if instead of bats, Bruce Wayne was inspired by felines, specifically the way that they mercilessly toy with mice before eating them?” The police were useless to him when he needed them, so now he’s enforcing his own brand of justice. But you get the sense that he’s just been looking for an excuse to behave this way for a very long time. Whenever Eddie pleads with him about how the deck is stacked against guys like him, William just automatically shuts him down and ups the torture. Hopkins is certainly talented enough to make William’s sociopathy entertaining, but it’s more than a little overwhelming when it’s this relentless.
Efficient Mileage: About 75% of Locked takes place in one location, and its cast consists almost entirely of just two guys, one of whom primarily phones in his performance. With a movie like this, you will likely end up with one of two reactions: either “Wow, this is cheap, and it shows,” or “Wow, this is cheap, but they worked around their limitations.” In this case, it’s mostly the latter. The subject matter may be torturous, and the villain may be overcooked, but director David Yarovesky keeps everything locked in gear. All the tightly contained torture may turn a lot of viewers claustrophobic, but it’s possible to appreciate the technical chops even while you’re wincing.

Locked is Recommended If You: Wish That One of the Saw Movies Had Taken Place in a Car

Grade: 2.5 out of 5 Vigilantes

‘Black Bag’ Review: The Couple That Spies Together, Rides or Dies Together

March 11, 2025

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What’s in the Black Bag?! (CREDIT: Claudette Barius/Focus Features)

Starring: Michael Fassbender, Cate Blanchett, Marisa Abela, Tom Burke, Naomie Harris, Regé-Jean Page, Pierce Brosnan

Director: Steven Soderbergh

Running Time: 94 Minutes

Rating: R for Adults Talking About Their Adult Affairs, as Well as a Few Bursts of Violence

Release Date: March 14, 2025 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: George Woodehouse (Michael Fassbender) and Kathryn St. Jean (Cate Blanchett) are a happily married childless couple. But it’s a little complicated because they’re both spies and therefore can’t exactly always be 100% honest with each other. But somehow they’ve managed to make it work! It perhaps helps that they carefully cultivate relationships with some of the younger employees at their agency, even if things do occasionally get a little (or a lot) messy. When Kathryn flies out for her latest covert meeting, it looks like she might be turning treasonous, or perhaps it’s all a setup. So how far will George go to protect his wife, and is anyone foolhardy enough to stand in his way?

What Made an Impression?: Confusing, Until It’s Not: I’ve long since given up on trying to understand the plots of espionage movies, and the beginning of Black Bag didn’t do anything to change my mind. Instead, it felt like an homage to Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? that had me going, “Did the trailer just straight-up lie about this movie’s plot?” But then after about 40 minutes of finely deliberate setup, screenwriter David Koepp and director Steven Soderbergh finally showed their hands, and they had me going, “Ah, there are the stakes.” I won’t delve too much more into this point because much of the pleasure of Black Bag is that “a-ha” feeling. But let’s just say that Soderbergh has demonstrated once again that it pays to figure out what you want to do ahead of time and then go ahead and execute that plan.
Scenes From a Marriage: Are George and Kathryn #couplegoals? I’d certainly be happy to see that conversation play out in the wake of Black Bag‘s release. They undoubtedly have each other’s backs, and they also consistently give each other the benefit of the doubt. But on the other hand, they leave a bit of a trail of destruction in their wake, although that might say more about their profession than it does about them. And though they don’t have any kids, you can kind of think of the characters played by Marisa Abela, Tom Burke, Naomie Harris, and Regé-Jean Page as their stand-in children. But that interpretation makes things go a little wibbly-wobbly, as it probably isn’t the best idea for parents to subject their kids to a round of polygraph testing. And yet, that is something that indeed happens in this movie. In conclusion, George and Kathryn’s ultimate suitability as a couple remains uncertain, but their turns as Spy Daddy and Spy Mommy are finely fulfilled.

Black Bag is Recommended If You Like: Leather and wine

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Satellite Feeds

‘Mickey 17’ Mines Quite a Tale Out of a Deadly Existence

March 5, 2025

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Oh, Robert, you’re so fine (CREDIT: Warner Bros./Screenshot)

Starring: Robert Pattinson, Naomi Ackie, Mark Ruffalo, Toni Collette, Steven Yeun, Anamaria Vartolomei, Holliday Grainger

Director: Bong Joon-ho

Running Time: 137 Minutes

Rating: R for Violent Illnesses, Bloody Accidents, and Fictional Illicit Drug Use

Release Date: March 7, 2025 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: Things aren’t going so well for Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson) on Earth in the middle of the 21st century. So he decides to try his luck on an interstellar mission to colonize the distant planet Niflheim. But here’s the kicker: he’s signed up to be an “expendable,” meaning he carries out the most dangerous mission with the expectation that he is almost certainly going to die. But that’s no big deal, because a new version of him with all of his memories and the same personality is just going to be 3D-printed every time that happens. After a particularly blistering day, the 17th iteration of Mickey returns to his bed, only to find … Mickey 18! And that status quo just cannot stand, as multiples are not supposed to exist side by side.

What Made an Impression?: Pushed to the Limit… and the Limit and the Limit and the Limit: Mickey 17 is just the latest triumphant example of director Bong Joon-ho indulging his speciality of characters hanging on the economic precipice who wind up in absurd scenarios to achieve some semblance of peace and justice in this ridiculous universe. Mickey is in such dire straits because he and his buddy Timo (Steven Yeun) are impossibly indebted to a loan shark. And he ended up an Expendable because he basically didn’t read the dozens and dozens of pages of fine print. Now, he and the rest of the ship finds himself at the mercy of garish politician Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo) and his wife Ylfa (Toni Collette), aka Lady Macbeth by way of the Real Housewives of Outer Space. And the slop served on board the ship runs the full spectrum of the dystopian rainbow: from gray to brown to chrome to sepia. Mickey’s situation is not enviable in any way according to any reasonable analysis, but at least he has a droll humor about it all, not to mention a wildly enthusiastic and slightly unhinged girlfriend (Naomi Ackie). If you can see yourself in Mickey, you’re probably doing all right at not doing all right.
Our New Alien Neighbors: Niflheim is not a barren planet, as it’s populated by a species dubbed Creepers that are essentially giant pill bugs. If this were a B-movie from the 50s and 60s, the appropriate response to them would be, “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Monsters!!!!!!!!!!!!!” But if they had instead arrived on the scene in the 80s in the wake of E.T., we probably would have said, “Oh, I think they might actually be our friends.” In 2025, it’s a little more complicated, especially in one of director Bong’s signature loony landscapes. They’re kind of like the creatures from Arrival in their attempts to communicate with the humans, but a lot edgier and scrappier. And that’s the key that Bong continues to successfully play in: his influences are clear, but this isn’t quite something that moviegoers have ever quite had the opportunity before to experience or  make sense of.

Mickey 17 is Recommended If You Like: Any of Bong Joon-ho’s other movies, but you wished they’d been set on another planet

Grade: 4 out of 5 Mickeys

‘On Becoming a Guinea Fowl’ Review: Dead Uncle + Dysfunctional Family = Kinda Surreal

March 4, 2025

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How fowl. (CREDIT: A24)

Starring: Susan Chardy, Elizabeth Chisela, Henry B.J. Phiri

Director: Rungano Nyoni

Running Time: 95 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Mature Themes Including References to Abuse

Release Date: March 7, 2025 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: A woman named Shula (Susan Chardy) is on her way to see her family, but first, she has a very important phone call to make to her father. She’s just encountered her Uncle Fred on the side of the road, and he’s dead. Shula’s reaction to the situation is a little hard to parse. She’s far from devastated, though she is aware that practical matters like corpse collection must be taken care of. Just who was Uncle Fred to Shula, and for that matter, who is Shula within the scheme of her family? Those questions will be answered – or perhaps ignored – as all the grudges and secrets among her extended Zambian relatives come spilling out in the wake of the funeral.

What Made an Impression?: Death Breaks Reality: Shula’s encounter with dead Uncle Fred is like a dream, but one of those low-stakes dreams where basically nothing happens, and yet somehow everything feels mildly/completely off. Her dad doesn’t seem to register what’s going on, Shula’s dressed like Missy Elliott in “The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)” music video, and there’s some impenetrable bureaucracy and a drunk person for good measure. It’s like we’ve entered an alternate universe, or a simulation, where almost everything is completely the same.
Human Behavior: On Becoming a Guinea Fowl ultimately leads up to a climactic shouting match between two warring factions within the family, filled with apparently ritualistic attempts to make amends and/or assert dominance. Writer-director Rungano Nyoni was born in Zambia and moved to Wales with her family when she was a child. As a viewer who has basically zero knowledge of the culture of Zambia, I found myself asking: is this typical behavior of British-Zambian families? Or are Shula’s clan members the outcasts? Or did Nyoni create a wholly new, fictional dynamic, but perhaps rooted in her own lived experience? Whatever the case, I was struck by what is to me at least an undeniably original vision.

On Becoming a Guinea Fowl is Recommended If You: saw I Saw the TV Glow and wanted something with vaguely similar vibes from another continent

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Funerals

‘The Monkey’ Leaves a Record Trail of Death and Destruction in Its Wake

February 20, 2025

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Monkey see, monkey do your worst (CREDIT: NEON)

Starring: Theo James, Tatiana Maslany, Christian Convery, Colin O’Brien, Rohan Campbell, Sarah Levy, Oz Perkins, Adam Scott, Elijah Wood

Director: Osgood Perkins

Running Time: 98 Minutes

Rating: R for A Countless Mass of Displaced Limbs and Loose Guts

Release Date: February 21, 2025 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: Twin brothers Hal and Bill Shelburn (both played by Theo James as adults, and by Christian Convery as teenagers) have been haunted by a simple plaything their entire lives. Whenever this toy monkey drummer flashes its chompers and starts banging away, blood and guts are sure to follow. Once you wind it up and let it do its thing, someone nearby will undergo the most disturbingly gruesome death imaginable. Hal and Bill attempt to wield this power against their enemies, but the monkey does not take requests. They also attempt to get rid of it, but it’s clearly indestructible and inescapable. If you survive your encounter with this demonic entity, you might consider yourself lucky, except that the guilt and paranoia it causes will almost certainly lead to alienation.

What Made an Impression?: Remember to Believe in The Monkey, or It’ll Kill You: I’ve gotta be honest with y’all. While watching The Monkey, I couldn’t help but wonder, “Isn’t this just a redo of that Mystery Science Theater 3000 movie, Merlin’s Shop of Mystical Wonders?” And in fact, it is! But it’s a little convoluted. Merlin’s Shop is a 1996 fantasy horror flick featuring a subplot revolving around a toy monkey that causes death whenever it bangs its cymbals together. That subplot actually consists of recycled footage from another movie, released in 198,4 called The Devil’s Gift, which appears to be an unofficial ripoff of a Stephen King short story published in 1980 called … “The Monkey”! And that short story is, as you may have guessed, the source material for the new Osgood Perkins-directed film of the same name. This genuine adaptation is certainly more professionally constructed than The Devil’s Gift, but I have a bit of a soft spot for that earlier effort. This rendition is just so unrelentingly brutal, which to be fair is kind of the point.
I Can’t Laugh, Because I’m Dying Too Hard: The Monkey is presenting itself as a horror comedy, but my most frequent reaction to the bloody mayhem was “Egads!” rather than “Hahaha-egads!” There are certainly a few dark streaks in my funny bone, but Perkin’s primary m.o. appears to be expanding the depths of Grand Guignol entertainment rather than being particularly clever about it. Sure, occasionally there’s a well-timed amputation that you can’t help but chuckle at just to verify that you’re still alive. But the overall effect is more grotesque and existential than howlingly ridiculous. Similarly, there’s one scene when teenage Hal is covered in banana goo, and that might sound like the silliest big screen image of the year, but instead it’s a symbol of children’s profound capability for cruelty that’s so typical of Stephen King stories.
Life is Death: The haunting lesson that The Monkey eventually grapples with is the acceptance that everyone around us is going to die soon enough anyway. Sure, most demises aren’t quite as dramatic as those of Hal and Bill’s acquaintances, but this simian forces us to wonder: does that even matter? If you’ve lived through trauma, and are pretty sure that even more trauma is on the way, do you fully retreat, or instead find whatever happiness you can after being dealt a historically terrible hand? I wish this conundrum had been addressed more directly (though it does flow throughout as a subtextual undercurrent), but ultimately this movie is more about being paralyzed by terror instead of seeking answers from it.

The Monkey is Recommended If You Like: Final Destination, Sibling rivalries, Uncannily realistic doll teeth

Grade: 3 out of 5 Drumsticks

2024 Movie Awards Season Catch-Up Quick Hits

February 19, 2025

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CREDIT (Clockwise from Top Left): A24; Janus Films/Screenshot; Sony Pictures Classics/Screenshot; A24)

I did some awards season catch-up at the cinema in the past few weeks, and I’m going to digest all of that right now. Each of the movies in this roundup is nominated for multiple Oscars; a couple of them are even up for Best Picture. So here are some quick-hit reactions in which I answer the question: Am I glad I watched this movie during awards season?

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On ‘Becoming Led Zeppelin’

February 18, 2025

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CREDIT: Sony Pictures Classics/Screenshot

Starring: John Paul Jones, Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, Archival Footage of John Bonham

Director: Bernard MacMahon

Running Time: 121 Minutes

Rating: PG-13

Release Date: February 7, 2024 (Theaters)

True to its title, the documentary Becoming Led Zeppelin did a pretty fine job revealing how Misters Page, Jones, Plant, and Bonham in fact became a four-piece band named Led Zeppelin. So much so that I would like to one day be able to say about myself that I also became Led Zeppelin. But you know, metaphorically. That is to say, I hope that my personal transformation will prove to be sufficiently cinematic. Maybe it already has been! I don’t need there to be an actual movie made about my life story, but if there is, I hope it’s as cool and as edifying as Becoming Led Zeppelin.

In conclusion, Zeppelin is still one of my favorite bands. I could tell by how much I was tapping my toes in rhythm.

Grade: Still a Whole Lotta Love After All These Years

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