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]