Death of a Unicorn (2025) – Review
Quick Thoughts:
- Grade – B-
- Jenna Ortega and Will Poulter steal the show.
- I love a good mood board.
- Paul Rudd has gone full wet noodle
- If you’re looking for something with an edge, the unicorns and their spiraled cones of death might not be for you.
After years of outlining, researching and writing, Director Alex Sharfman has delivered a film that tackles pharmaceutical companies, unicorn lore, parent death, class commentary, and financial anxiety to create a relatively grounded “unicorns murder rich people” satire. Death of a Unicorn works best as a horror comedy with an emotional center, and even though it’s being described as a “satire,” don’t think of it being on the satirical level of American Psycho, The Menu, Sorry to Bother You or Triangle of Sadness.
The movie opens with a sweet moment on an airplane involving a recently widowed lawyer named Elliot (Paul Rudd) enjoying the fact that his sleeping college-aged daughter Ridley (Jenna Ortega) is using his shoulder as a pillow. While Ridleys sleeping, Elliot is going over a work presentation that finds its way onto the floor. Instead of asking for help, he bends over to collect the papers and Ridley’s head crashes onto the armrest between their seats – which pretty much explains their relationship. Ridley wants her dad’s attention, and he wants the business files that he dropped on the ground.
The duo are on the airplane because they are traveling to the sprawling and isolated estate of Odell Leopold (Richard E. Grant), Elliot’s cancer-ridden boss and pharmaceutical billionaire who wants his family to meet Elliot before he gets too sick to run the company. The plan is for Elliot to become the family lawyer/proxy for Odell’s wife Belinda (Téa Leoni) and his son Shepard (Will Poulter), and they want to meet Elliot before agreeing to the big promotion. While driving to the mansion, the cellphone-obsessed Elliot takes his eyes off the road and plows into the hefty body of a baby unicorn as it’s crossing the road. As the unicorn lies dying, Ridley touches its horn and is mentally transported to a heavenly place, but before she can communicate with a unicorn higher power, Elliot bashes the baby’s head with a tire iron and the duo gets soaked with unicorn blood. Typically, getting splattered with blood isn’t a great thing, but the unicorn blood acts as a healing agent that clears Ridley’s acne and cures Elliot’s allergies. It’s perfectly bad timing, as not only are they visiting titans of the pharmaceutical industry, but the cancer-ridden Odell and his family want to find more unicorns that can be used to save lives (for incredible amounts of money).
What follows is a bloody romp that features impalements, head stomps, intestine shredding and rich people snorting crushed unicorn horn debris up their noses. What’s interesting is that despite all of the gore and profanity, it’s a laid-back experience that is more comfort food than “eating the rich.” For an A24 release from the guy who helped produce The Witch, Blow the Man Down (great movie), and Resurrection (holy moly), it’s unexpectedly subdued considering it features pissed-off unicorns impaling scientists who are attempting to sell their body parts for huge profits.
The Most Valuable Unicorn Killer (MVUK) of the film is Will Poulter and his short shorts which allow him to do his best Paul Mescal impersonation. We’ve seen characters like Shepard before in Ready or Not and Knives Out, but Poulter plays the cocaine-addled bow hunter (who loves a good mood board) in a grounded way that makes everything funnier. Shepard is interesting because he’s insanely rich and he knows that he’s insanely rich – which allows him to not behave like a stereotypical rich jerk (that’s something less rich people do). Shepard is a guy who drinks bloody marys for breakfast and knows his butler Griff (Anthony Carrigan – great) will get him whatever he needs whenever he needs it. He also knows that he is a disappointment to his family, but he gets along well with them and he isn’t a complete liability to their fortune. There isn’t a person on the planet who could say that the Leopolds are likable people, but, it’s interesting, that they like each other and avoid many of the tropes that rich families in films like Ready or Not or Knives Out deal with (E.G. – lots of infighting and pettiness).
The weakest aspect of Death of a Unicorn is Paul Rudd’s Elliot character. His entire arc is based around him learning that earning heaping amounts of money won’t make his relationship with his daughter any better. Elliot is a one-note character and he’s so ineffectual that he slows down the film whenever he appears. As always Jenna Ortega is excellent and her scenes with the charmingly sarcastic Téa Leoni work well. Also, watching Ortega spar with Poulter over her sh*t board (a bad mood board) is a highlight of the film. Overall, Sharfman’s script is constantly engaging and there are some excellent lines, but because he wedged in so many elements the final product is a bit watered down because of all the plot distribution.
Share this post:
You can download or stream the pod on Apple Podcasts, Tune In, Podbean, or Spreaker (or wherever you listen to podcasts…..we’re almost everywhere).
If you get a chance please make sure to review, rate and share. You are awesome.
Mark and Erik talk about their favorite movie bosses from Empire Records, Support the Girls, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, The Way, Way Back, and Greyhound. Enjoy!
If you are a fan of the podcast, make sure to send in some random listener questions (we love random questions). We thank you for listening, and hope you enjoy the episode!
You can download the pod on Apple Podcasts, Tune In, Podbean, or Spreaker.
Share this post:
You can download or stream the pod on Apple Podcasts, Tune In, Podbean, or Spreaker (or wherever you listen to podcasts…..we’re almost everywhere).
If you get a chance please make sure to review, rate and share. You are awesome.
Mark and Aaron draft their favorite action scenes from 2018 movies. In this episode, you’ll hear them talk about The Night Comes for Us, Mandy, Revenge, Mission: Impossible – Fallout, Upgrade, Unstoppable, Shadow, Revenger, Black Panther, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Game Night, Den of Thieves, Ready Player One, Overlord and more cool action films. Enjoy!
Make sure to check out Aaron’s new podcast “Two Black Guys Talk Godzilla” wherever you listen to podcasts.
If you are a fan of the podcast, make sure to send in some random listener questions (we love random questions). We thank you for listening, and hope you enjoy the episode!
You can download the pod on Apple Podcasts, Tune In, Podbean, or Spreaker.
Share this post:
Black Bag (2025) – Review
Quick Thoughts:
- Grade – A
- It’s my favorite film of 2025 (so far)
- Black Bag is a stylish and breezy film that feels like Ocean’s 11 met Out of Sight and created a well-dressed spy thriller
- Cate Blanchett, Michael Fassbender, Marisa Abela, Tom Burke, Naomie Harris, and Regé-Jean Page know the assignment and are perfect in their roles
- 93 minutes!
- David Koepp’s script pops
- Yes, this is a lot of praise, but I love the movie.
With 36 years of feature film directing experience Steven Soderbergh has gotten to a place in his career where can make a well-crafted and handsome film like Black Bag feel effortless. A lot of work went into making Michael Fassbender, Cate Blanchett, Marisa Abela, Tom Burke, Naomie Harris and Regé-Jean Page look amazing as they deliver David Koepp’s witty dialogue (that doesn’t feel overly witty) – but the 93 minutes are so efficient and lean that you almost think Soderbergh shot it over a long weekend. Maybe it’s because Soderbergh and Koepp have worked together three times in the 2020’s (Kimi, Presence, Black Bag), or that Cate Blanchett can do no wrong, or after Prometheus, Alien: Covenant, and The Killer, Fassbender can play “the smartest guy in the room” with ease. Whatever the case, Soderbergh has made one of the most enjoyably breezy films since Ocean’s 11 (which he also directed).
Michael Fassbender stars as George Woodhouse, a well-dressed operative who works for Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC). Woodhouse is known for his human lie detector abilities which is why a fellow operative Phillip Meacham (Gustaf Skarsgård) gives him a list of possible traitors which includes his wife Kathryn St. Jean (Cate Blanchett), a fellow NCSC operative. To root out the mole, he and Kathryn throw a dinner party and their swanky home, and this is where we meet Freddie Smalls (Tom Burke), Dr. Zoe Vaughan (Naomie Harris) Col. James Stokes (Regé-Jean Page) and Clarissa Dubose (Marisa Abela). All four of them work at the NCSC, and they have a night to remember that involves witty repartee, steak knife shenanigans, and Woodhouse watching every move that each character makes. The dinner party ends chaotically, and what follows is a fun spy thriller in which Woodhouse attempts to save thousands of lives while making sure his beloved wife doesn’t get into any trouble.
The charming chemistry between Blanchett and Fassbender is reminiscent of the rapport between George Clooney and Julia Roberts in Ocean’s 11, and Clooney and Jennifer Lopez in Out of Sight (another Soderbergh movie). It’s nice watching a happily married movie couple who are really into each other because it streamlines the plot by keeping out unnecessary marital issues (Black Bag doesn’t have time for that). What’s impressive is that you’re able to figure out their dynamic instantly (they really like each other) which is a credit to Koepp’s writing, Soderbergh’s cinematography. and the costumes designed by Ellen Mirojnick (Kimi, Logan Lucky, The Knick, Behind the Candelabra) Both actors have worked with Soderbergh before (Haywire, The Good German), so the rapport is evident and and Blanchett agreed to work on the film before reading a script because she loves Soderbergh and Koepp so much.
Being familiar with the always solid work from Fassbender, Harris, Blanchett, Burke and Page, the standout of the film is Marisa Abela (I need to watch Industry on Max), who gives a layered and and interesting performance as Clarissa Dubose, a high-level British analyst who is in a tumultuous relationship with Freddie Smalls (Burke). Whether it’s using a steak knife in an interesting way or actually enjoying the brutal party games that Woodhouse makes them play, Dubose is always a welcome presence on screen and it’s nice having a wildcard amongst all the veteran actors. Her polygraph scene is a highlight of the film and it’s fun watching her shake the unshakeable Woodhouse as he realizes how sharp her character is.
Since it’s a spy thriller expect twists, turns, lies and a little dose of TInker Tailor Soldier Spy. Also, Soderbergh is a huge fan of the movie Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (his DVD commentary with Mike Nichols is legendary in the DVD commentary community), so be ready for some truth bombs and no-holds barred insults that you can tell the actors loved unleashing (Harris and Burke especially).
Finally, Phillip Messina’s (Ocean’s 11, Kimi) production design work is impeccable and the design highlight of the movie is the house that George and Kathryn reside in. It’s a bit naive, but at first I thought that they shot in an actual house, but after some research I learned that their home was built in a Pinewood UK soundstage. This makes sense considering a large chunk of the movie is spent in the gorgeous home, but I never felt any artifice to the location and love how lived in and real it feels. Between Mother!, Heretic, Kimi, and now Black Bag, Messina is the king of creating incredible movie homes.
Final Thoughts – Black Bag rules. Watch it.
Share this post:
The Movies, Films and Flix Podcast – Episode 610: X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009), Bathroom Destruction, and Hugh Jackman
You can download or stream the pod on Apple Podcasts, Tune In, Podbean, or Spreaker (or wherever you listen to podcasts…..we’re almost everywhere).
If you get a chance please make sure to review, rate and share. You are awesome.
Mark and Nathan talk about the 2009 prequel X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Directed by Gavin Hood and starring Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber, Ryan Reynolds and Silent Deadpool, the prequel kind of explores the origins of X-Men member Wolverine. In this episode, they also talk about rushed prequels, bathroom destruction, and comic book movies with Rotten Tomatometer scores. Enjoy!
If you are a fan of the podcast, make sure to send in some random listener questions (we love random questions). We thank you for listening, and hope you enjoy the episode!
You can download the pod on Apple Podcasts, Tune In, Podbean, or Spreaker.
Share this post:
Mickey 17 (2025) – Review
Quick Thoughts:
- Grade – B-
- Naomi Ackie and Robert Pattinson are great
- It lacks momentum, which makes it feel overly long
- Don’t invest in macaroons
- I love the creatures
- It’s far from my favorite Bong Joon Ho film, but it’s still worth watching because an auteur was given a boatload of money and he allowed Robert Pattinson to base one of his characters after Jim Carrey from Dumb and Dumber.
Before I get into the review I want to applaud Warner Brothers for shelling out $118 million so Bong Joon Ho could make an expensive science fiction comedy that’s loaded with sex, violence, clones, misunderstood aliens and Mark Ruffalo’s gigantic fake teeth. I love when Bong goes sci-fi (Snowpiercer, Okja, The Host) because the result is always interesting. I’m sad to say that Mickey 17 ranks behind his prior sci-fi efforts, but it’s still worth watching because an auteur was given a boatload of money and he was fine with his lead actor Robert Pattinson basing one of his characters after Jim Carrey from Dumb and Dumber.
Based on Edward Ashton’s 2022 novel Mickey7, Mickey 17 is a lot – which is a good and bad thing. The film starts with Robert Pattinson’s titular character stuck in an ice cave and then goes back in time to explain why he left Earth (macaroon store debt) and became an “expendable” crew member on a spaceship headed to a colony that is far away from murderous debt collectors. After skimming through his employment contract, Mickey agrees to become an “Expendable,” which means he can be killed and brought back (with all of his memories) by a cloning system that is only legal in space. Because Mickey can be easily cloned, he is gassed, irradiated, chopped and used as a guinea pig to cure outbreaks. It’s a terrible existence that is made easier by the presence of his cool girlfriend Nasha Barridge (Naomi Ackie), a security officer who isn’t afraid to put on a hazmat suit so she can sit with Mickey when he’s forced to die a slow death in a toxic gas chamber for research.
The leaders of the expedition are a religious nut job/failed politician (who dances like Donald Trump) named Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo) and his wife Ylfa (Toni Collette), who plan on starting a “pure” colony on a near-uninhabitable ice planet that’s inhabited by “Creepers,” who look like a guinea pig, wooly mammoth, armadillo and a caterpillar smooshed together to create something new. Since Kenneth and Ylfa are horrible people, they plan on killing the creatures, so they task Mickey with catching one of the baby creepers so that it can be studied for weaknesses. Things get complicated when Mickey #17 supposedly dies during his mission in the ice caves (the creepers save him), and the scientists create Mickey #18. The additional clone is a problem because according to an intergalactic law created after a serial killer had copies of himself made, it’s illegal to have multiple clones. The punishment is permanently deleting the person(s) and all their memories – which both Mickey #17 and Mickey #18 don’t want to happen. What follows is a madcap finale that involves explosions, screaming creepers, and Toni Collette making sauce.
As much as I love Ruffalo and Collette, their characters might be the weakest part of the film as they go so over-the-top that they feel like they’re in another movie. Bong has never shied away from class-based themes or hammering home his point, but they are so heavy-handed that they don’t register as humans. The biggest problem with the movie is that it’s so scattershot that it loses focus and the lack of focus makes the experience feel longer than it is. There isn’t much momentum and it very much feels like Bong went a little overboard and lost focus due to him having final cut and very little supervision. To be fair, Bong Joon Ho has earned this blank-check movie, and there’s a lot to like here, but it’s not as tight or propulsive as his other science fiction classics.
Share this post:
Eye for an Eye 2: Blind Vengeance (2024) – Review
Quick Thoughts – Grade – B – Directed by upcoming action director Bingjia Yang (Fight Against Evil 2, Eye for an Eye), this sequel packs a lot of fun action into its 90-minute running time and is another solid release from Well Go USA (watch One-Percent Warrior, The Prosecutor, Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In, and 100 Yards now)
Eye for an Eye 2: Blind Vengeance focuses on Cheng Xiazi (Xie Miao), a blind swordsman/bounty hunter who takes a young orphan girl (played by Yang Enyou) under his wing after her younger brother is murdered by a gang of corrupt city officials. The two street urchins were trying to steal some food and instead witnessed the slaughter of a group of townsfolk who were meeting to discuss a rebellion against the well-connected city leaders. The leader of the murder-happy gang is a comically drug-addled maniac (played by Huang Tao) who kills women, dogs, children, and the elderly (he reminds me of the villain in 13 Assassins – but a little less evil). He’s the worst of the worst and you can’t wait for him to catch some blind vengeance.
What follows is a familiar revenge tale that features all the tropes of the “orphan adopted by a professional killer/bounty hunter” genre (It feels like a remake of 1994’s The Professional). After being saved by the blind swordsman, the orphan slowly integrates herself into his daily life, and she starts helping him on his various trips to collect bounties in hopes of building the necessary skills to get revenge on the evil city officials. My favorite bounty hunting trip involves a fight on a houseboat that is home to two serial killers who stash their victims underneath the dock that leads to their house. It’s a brutal affair that’s surprisingly violent and leads to some fun water shenanigans and gushing blood.
This all leads to a massive final battle in which Xiazi and the kid battle hordes of villains before they can get to the final boss. The fights were designed and director by direct-to-streaming superstar Qin Pengfei (Red Cliff, Eye for an Eye, Fight Against Evil 1 & 2), and the action set pieces allow Xie Miao to showcase his action skills in bars, boat houses, banks, alleys, and villain’s cavernous lair. I was looking at Pengfei’s IMDb page and he seemingly doesn’t sleep because he either designed the actor or directed five films released in 2024. The action in Eye for an Eye 2: Blind Vengeance is occasionally edited into oblivion, but it does find a welcome rhythm and is well-designed for a straight-to-streaming release.
Final Thoughts – The chemistry between Miao and Enyou is solid and it’s likely due to Miao’s history as a child actor in movies like My Father is a Hero (1994). The two work well together and they make the familiar story feel fun and fresh. Most importantly, there are some fun action set pieces that make it a worthwhile watch.
Share this post:
The Movies, Films and Flix Podcast – Episode 609: The Village (2004), M. Night Shyamalan, and Roger Deakins
You can download or stream the pod on Apple Podcasts, Tune In, Podbean, or Spreaker (or wherever you listen to podcasts…..we’re almost everywhere).
If you get a chance please make sure to review, rate and share. You are awesome.
Mark and Zanandi discuss 2004 thriller The Village. Directed by M. Night Shyamalan, and starring Joaquin Phoenix, Bryce Dallas Howard and Adrien Brody, the polarizing film is considered to be a colossal miscalculation by some and a beautiful romance by others (which makes it great to talk about). In this episode, they also talk about misleading marketing, Roger Deakins, and the excellence of M. Night Shyamalan. Enjoy!
If you are a fan of the podcast, make sure to send in some random listener questions (we love random questions). We thank you for listening, and hope you enjoy the episode!
You can download the pod on Apple Podcasts, Tune In, Podbean, or Spreaker.
Share this post:
Last Breath (2025) – Review
Quick Thoughts
- Grade – B
- I love watching capable people being capable.
- 93 minutes!
- Between Murina, Whale Rider, The Meg 1 & 2, Deep Rising, Virus, Avatar: The Way of Water, True Spirit, and The Fountain – Cliff Curtis loves acting in water movies.
- Simu Liu is the MVP.
- It’s an authentic feeling experience that’s free of unnecessary drama. It’s nice.
In 2012, a saturation diver named Chris Lemons was left stranded on the bottom of the North Sea with only 5 minutes of breathable gas in his backup tanks after his umbilical cable (which supplied him with oxygen) was severed due to bad luck and bad weather. Stuck 330 feet below the surface, Lemons laid on top of the submerged platform he was working on with little chance of being saved. What’s wild is that Lemons spent 30 minutes under the water before he was rescued by fellow divers and he survived without any long term effects to his brain or body. It’s a wild tale that becomes more exceptional when you learn that scientists and doctors still can’t exactly pinpoint why Lemons is still alive. It’s a great story that was covered in a 2019 documentary (of the same name) and is now being retold with an A-list cast.
Directed and co-written by Alex Parkinson who directed the 2019 documentary, Last Breath strives for authenticity with its handheld camerawork by Nick Remy Matthews (Hotel Mumbai, I.S.S. – he loves shooting movies featuring people stuck in places), that puts the focus on all the small details inside the gigantic boats that house the divers who repair underwater pipelines. It’s a world I know nothing about, and Parkinson does a fine job of showcasing how intricate and dangerous the world of underwater pipeline maintenance can be. Production designer Grant Montgomery deserves praise for believably recreating the pressurized cabins that house the divers and allow them to remain under pressure for weeks at a time while working in absurd depths. These cabins allow the divers to depressurize only once (which takes days) at the end of each job, which allows them to work more efficiently. Working as a saturation diver is one of the world’s most dangerous jobs, and Last Breath (2025) does a fine job of seemingly getting the small details right which greatly adds to the overall experience.
The best thing that can be said about the 2025 film is that it keeps the story simple and dedicates its breezy 93-minute running time to faithfully recreating the undersea rescue without adding too much superfluous drama. Actors Finn Cole, Woody Harrelson (and his pillow) and Simu Liu are excellent and they create a likable work family who would believably put their lives at risk to save each other. I’ve become a big fan of Liu after watching Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Jackpot! Barbie, and Arthur the King, so I enjoyed watching Liu play a no-nonsense diver whose physicality and professionalism help save his coworker.
Finn Cole also does a solid job of creating a character you want to be saved, and his relationships with Woody Harrelson’s mentor characters feels real. It’s a simple story and there isn’t a lot to pad out the running time, so a chunk of the film is dedicated to the boat’s crew who try (and succeed) in navigating the rough waters to get back to Lemons. Cliff Curtis (Murina, Whale Rider, The Meg, Deep Rising, Virus, Avatar: The Way of Water – he loves acting in water movies), Mark Bonnar, MyAnna Buring, and Josef Altin are solid as the boat’s crew, and the time spent with them never feels unnecessary or intended to pad the running time.
Filmed in Malta, which is currently the hotbed for productions in need of a large water tank (Gladiator II, Deep Fear, Last Voyage of the Demeter, and Shark Bait all shot there), the handsomely made production looks great because Parkinson and his producers knew exactly where to spend the money. The underwater sets look believably murky and the underwater photography from Ian Seabrook (great name for an underwater DP) is excellent as it manages to recreate the isolation of being stuck deep in the ocean.
Final thoughts – I love well-crafted films about capable people being capable.
Share this post:
The Movies, Films and Flix Podcast – Episode 608 – The 97th Academy Awards Special
You can download or stream the pod on Apple Podcasts, Tune In, Podbean, or Spreaker (or wherever you listen to podcasts…..we’re almost everywhere).
If you get a chance please make sure to review, rate and share. You are awesome.
Mark, Megan and David Cross (@itsmedavidcorse.bsky.social) talk about the 97th Academy Awards and decide which 2024 film deserves to win the Movies, Films and Flix Best Picture Award. Enjoy!
If you are a fan of the podcast, make sure to send in some random listener questions (we love random questions). We thank you for listening, and hope you enjoy the episode!
You can download the pod on Apple Podcasts, Tune In, Podbean, or Spreaker.
Movies, Films & Flix 