Category: now in theatres

400 Words on: The Shrouds (2024)

or, “Reconciled to Live from the Sidelines”:
A spoiler-free mini movie review.

1.5 out of 5

“…it’s been so long since I did that stuff, I literally cannot remember how we did most of it. […] I really have to insist that we don’t talk about ‘Scanners’, or special effects, or exploding heads…”

– Canadian filmmaker David Cronenberg on
Ken Finkleman’s “The Newsroom”, 1996

“The Shrouds” is an 82-year-old artist’s auto-elegiac statement. It’s aesthetically pleasing, and way too talky; its themes cerebral, though defeatist; its characters horny but dispassionate; and it’s told from a sanctimonious perspective that engenders viewer apathy.

My high school friends & I once drove an hour to see “A History of Violence”. We walked in late to the screening after getting a parking ticket, and immediately after the big 69’ing scene (but before the diner shootout). We didn’t find out until much later what else we had missed.

[cont’d]

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400 Words on: Until Dawn (2025)

or, “Buying-In to the Confusion”:
A spoiler-free mini movie review.

3 out of 5

While my wife would call me a “gamer”, I don’t clock nearly as many hours as when I was a kid: life gets in the way. So when I do play, it’s almost exclusively ‘arcade-style’ games that I can disconnect from quickly – physically & mentally – and there must be a Pause button.

Though I can’t attest, “Until Dawn” seems regarded as one of the premier, Western-made, story-driven video games of the previous console generation: a group of disposable teens trying to survive a throng of wendigos, with a branching narrative based on player interaction. “Until Dawn: The Movie” swaps out the choose-your-own-adventure input for a “Groundhog Day” esque time-loop, with some other surprises meant to mimic the discovery a player would get from the game.

My surprise was palpable. Though lacking the original’s star-power (which featured Rami Malek & Hayden Panettiere), the movie’s twenty-something players do a convincing job and, tonically, all five are spotlighted equally throughout the script. The savagery is effective, including a show-stopping water tower sequence & a close-up of a crushed face that gave me “Irréversible” flashbacks. The dialogue isn’t bad either, often breaking the fourth-wall to cheekily address the core plot’s uninspiredness, or the suicidal inclinations of its protagonists to reset the loop & try again.

[cont’d]

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400 Words on: The Amateur (2025)

or, “Bringing the Chicago-Wednesday Vibes”:
A spoiler-free mini movie review.

1.5 out of 5

In an effort to engage more with my fellow hobbyist writers, here’s a tip that’s been beaten over my head through the years: use a thesaurus. Getting started is as easy as searching “synonym for word” on Google, and sprinkling some five-dollar expressions like Meghan Sussex sprinkles edible flowers is a good thing.

Let’s tutorial this by deep-diving into a few curated terms that I would use to describe “Mr. Robot” & “Bohemian Rhapsody” star Rami Malek’s new film, “The Amateur”:

en’co’pre’si’tic

A made-up adjective from the medical diagnosis “encopresis”; or, as 2001’s “Rat Race” calls it, “prairie-dogging.” The Amateur made me feel encopresitic: it was engaging enough to have convinced me to hold it in, so as not to miss anything.

bull’shit

Oxford calls it “stupid or untrue talk… typically to be deceptive.” The last ten minutes of The Amateur are bullshit, and ruin it. There’s no twist; no full-circle; and no viewer catharsis, anticlimactically concluding with little more than a subdued conversation, and a “where are they now.” I held my poop in for that?

[cont’d]

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400 Words on: The Alto Knights (2025)

or, “Running Around the Woods with Shrimp Cocktails”:
A spoiler-free mini movie review.

2.5 out of 5

There are few things more comforting to a cinephile than Robert De Niro calling someone an expletive & unloading an entire pistol clip into them.

It’s unwholesome, but this has been his playground for decades. The Alto Knights is an impassioned throwback to the Scorsese/De Niro collaborations of old, but lacks the oomph of those masterpieces.

GQ’s 2006 interview with Bob is required reading for anyone wanting an encapsulation of the stubborn actor. I’m not here to rag on De Niro: he’s had many legendary performances over his long career. But like any artist (*cough* senior), he’s set in his ways, rejects change, and becomes crotchety when he feels disrespected.

Now an octogenarian, Bob can’t just go back & retroactively change his De Niro-isms, no matter how much digital technology de-ages him (like in Scorsese’s The Irishman). Now forced into ‘grandpa’ roles that he may or may-not feel are beneath him (being a new dad at 81 certainly increases that obligation), audiences know exactly what to expect.

[cont’d]

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400 Words on: Snow White (2025)

or, “A Big Studio Budget Retained for Payroll”:
A spoiler-free mini movie review.

1 out of 5

Snow White 2025 is as much a product for consumer consumption as it is a snapshot of Disney’s current socioeconomic agenda – from Lion King’s Pride Rock in the background of their vanity card; to bookending sequences so similar to Beauty and the Beast’s you’d swear copycat if they didn’t both originate from the same company; to Dopey’s now-curable neurodivergence.

It attempts to redux the material as a feminocentric Robin Hood with a protagonist who’s ‘her own woman,’ but she’ll still drop everything to jubilate musically about her new White beau.

As the titular character, Rachel Zegler opts for the Queen of the High School Drama Department approach: she’s kinda hot and can carry a tune, but emotionally empty from crying about her now off-again boyfriend right before showtime. Watch her strain during the movie’s one big moment for her to act: like Zachary Levi’s recent dramatic try in The Unbreakable Boy, Zegler lacks the skill required to convincingly portray painful remorse. Go do some indies and get back to us.

[cont’d]

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