‘Caught Stealing’ and ‘The Roses’ Invite Us to Reflect at the Cinema This Labor Day Weekend

August 27, 2025

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

A Collage of Two Movies Coming Out in Theaters in Late Summer 2025 (CREDIT: Niko Tavernise/Columbia Pictures; Searchlight Pictures/Screenshot)

Caught Stealing

Starring: Austin Butler, Regina King, Zoë Kravitz, Matt Smith, Liev Schreiber, Vincent D’Onofrio, Griffin Dunne, Benito A Martínez Ocasio, Yuri Kolokolnikov, Nikita Kukushkin, Carol Kane, D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai

Director: Darren Aronofsky

Running Time: 107 Minutes

Rating: R for Reckless Violence, Some Drunken Debauchery, and a Little Bit of Sex

Release Date: August 29, 2025 (Theaters)

The Roses

Starring: Benedict Cumberbatch, Olivia Colman, Andy Samberg, Kate McKinnon, Sunita Mani, Ncuti Gatwa, Jamie Demetriou, Zoë Chao, Hala Finley, Wells Rapaport, Delaney Quinn, Ollie Robinson, Belinda Bromilow, Allison Janney

Director: Jay Roach

Running Time: 105 Minutes

Rating: R for Rather Colorful Language

Release Date: August 29, 2025 (Theaters)

Labor Day is typically known as the unofficial end of summer in the Northern Hemisphere, even though technically autumn doesn’t really arrive until the final third of September. Either way, it’s a time for altering routines and reflecting upon what you’ve been up to the past few months. In that spirit of looking back, we’ve got a couple of new releases for Labor Day Weekend 2025 that are both throwbacks in their own particular ways.

More

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

March 25, 2025

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

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

Who’s Feeling ‘Spirited’? Let’s Find Out!

November 14, 2022

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

No spirits for you! (CREDIT: Apple TV+)

Starring: Will Ferrell, Ryan Reynolds, Octavia Spencer, Sunita Mani, Patrick Page, Joe Tippett, Andrea Anders, Marlow Barkley, Tracy Morgan, Aimee Carrero

Director: Sean Anders

Running Time: 127 Minutes

Rating: PG-13

Release Date: November 11, 2022 (Theaters)/November 18, 2022 (Apple TV+)

Right before seeing Spirited, I walked a few blocks past the theater and picked up a gelato milkshake. It was my first Christmas movie viewing of the season after all, and I wanted to feel festive. Now, it may be true that I didn’t order a candy cane variety or any other seasonal flavor, and it’s also true that I eat ice cream pretty much year-round anyway. But this shake managed to hit the spot I was seeking nonetheless. Anyway, I think the added sugar may have helped me stay awake the whole time, so I have to say thank you baby Jesus, because we’re talking a 2-hour-plus runtime here! Anyway, this riff on A Christmas Carol managed to pull off a minor heist, and the main love story was not what I would have guessed, so it’s got that going for it.

Grade: 2.5 Milkshakes out of 4 Bags of Popcorn

It’s Adorable But Deadly Aliens vs. An Adorable But Scatterbrained Couple Attempting to Disconnect in ‘Save Yourselves!’

September 28, 2020

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews , , , , Leave a comment

Sunita Mani in “Save Yourselves!” (CREDIT: Bleecker Street)

Starring: Sunita Mani, John Paul Reynolds

Directors: Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson

Running Time: 93 Minutes

Rating: R for Profanity Screamed When Discovering a Little Alien

Release Date: October 2, 2020 (Theaters)/October 6, 2020 (Digital)

Young adults sure are so stuck in their own worlds that they could easily miss an entire invasion of aliens or monsters or some other army of supernatural creatures. I don’t think this is a generational thing. I suspect all people of past, current, and future generations are liable to succumb to this when they’re in their twenties and thirties. Although I wouldn’t be surprised if this pattern really started to take hold as cultural norms shifted to where they are now, with marriages happening later in life and job stability frequently in flux. There’s so much uncertainty about becoming a responsible adult! That was certainly the case in 2004’s Shaun of the Dead when zombies snuck their way into a land thick with ennui, and it’s a hot topic once again in Save Yourselves! as little killer furball aliens find themselves up against a millennial couple in the midst of a technology detox.

John Paul Reynolds in “Save Yourselves!” (CREDIT: Bleecker Street)

Su (Sunita Mani) and Jack (John Paul Reynolds) are your basic Brooklynites who think it would be really good for themselves to head to an upstate cabin in the woods where the Internet is unplugged and the cell phone service is nonexistent. Reynolds is an especially smart casting choice here, as he’s best known for the sitcom Search Party, which has a similar (though much more biting) satirical lens as Save Yourselves! Writer/directors Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson frame Su and Jack as somewhat worthy of ridicule, but they also present them as kind of adorable. They’re agitated by the daily grind of modern life and their own annoying habits, but they also make an effort to listen and be affectionate to each other. We’re primed to be on their side!

Before the aliens arrive, it’s fun to watch Su and Jack struggle to keep straight the rules of unplugging. Among their quandaries is the classic of: are you allowed to refer to an online listicle that you saved from earlier, or is that off-limits because it originated on the internet? At a certain point, though, their antics do grow a little tiresome. Luckily, the real stars of the show are those extraterrestrials. They’re basically little piles of hair (think the Tribbles from Star Trek) with tongue-like appendages hidden within their fluff that are as deadly as a gunshot. Su and Jack’s attempts to engage with them are as fraught as any life-or-death situation, but also as silly as any slapstick scenario could possibly be. The creatures have a weakness for alcohol that our heroes do their best to exploit, but they’re also so bizarre and foreign and just plain adorable that it seems like there’s just no way to figure out what to do with them. It’s a metaphor for our times, methinks. Modern life is overwhelming and pretty much impossible to navigate no matter how much you are or are not plugged into the Information Overload.

Save Yourselves! is Recommended If You Like: Shaun of the Dead, Search Party, Furbys

Grade: 3 out of 5 Pouffes

‘The Death of Dick Long’ is Another Triumph of Bizarre Odds From ‘Swiss Army Man’ Director Daniel Scheinert

September 23, 2019

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

CREDIT: A24

Starring: Michael Abbott Jr., Virginia Newcomb, Andre Hyland, Sarah Baker, Jess Weixler, Roy Wood Jr., Sunita Mani, Poppy Cunningham, Janelle Cochrane

Director: Daniel Scheinert

Running Time: 100 Minutes

Rating: R for Casual Cussing and Discussions of an Unusual Medical Accident

Release Date: September 27, 2019 (Limited)

The Death of Dick Long is a lot like director Daniel Scheinert’s last film, Swiss Army Man (which he co-directed with Daniel Kwan), which famously starred Daniel Radcliffe as a farting corpse. Dick Long is similarly interested in the prurient nature of life as a human being on Earth. But I can’t tell you any more than that. Not because the people who worked on the film or the studio reps at A24 asked me not to. They didn’t have to. What starts as a Coens-esque dark comedy about a couple of bumbling fools who have no idea how to clean up a bloody, possibly criminal mess evolves into a meditation about how everyone always deserves to be treated like a human being, no matter how abnormal their predilections are.

Dick Long is indeed dead. He’s dead almost from the get-go. That’s not the part that needs to be kept secret. The wretched state that his buddies Zeke (Michael Abbott Jr.) and Earl (Andre Hyland, who comes across like a redneck Mikey Day) leave him in at the hospital after a wild night together suggests that foul play was involved. But Zeke’s efforts to not upset anyone and Earl’s generally blasé attitude suggest that someone else, or something else, may have been responsible for Dick’s demise.

Most of the film consists of Zeke’s wife (Virginia Newcomb), Dick’s wife (Jess Weixler), and a couple of police detectives (Sarah Baker and Janelle Cochrane) doggedly attempting to suss out exactly what happened. They eventually uncover a whole lot more than any of them or any of us bargained for, and this revelation could easily lead to a hail of gross-out humor or condemnation. But instead, the whole affair concludes on a note of “People sure are inscrutable on their insides.” It’s altogether stunning how little The Death of Dick Long grossed me out and how much I found it moving. The magic of cinematic empathy extends far and low.

The Death of Dick Long is Recommended If You Like: Swiss Army Man, Fargo, Raising Arizona, Unexpectedly deep humanism

Grade: 4 out of 5 Car Seat Blood Stains