Reaction Shots

Right off the bat, I really liked The Roses . A lot. It’s not as dark a comedy as one might be led to believe, but it is farce. This sets it apart from satire by default, and the choices made by Tony McNamara’s script reflect a considerable difference in emphasis from the source material or Danny DeVito’s classic The War of the Roses . I mention this because The Roses is a solid piece of entertainment that works on its own, but seems to suffer in comparison with the earlier works. This points up a problem with adaptations in general. It is often the case that “the book is better than the movie”. There are exceptions, the notable ones that come to my mind are King’s The Shining and Kubrick’s adaptation; both are fine - and one is a genuinely great work of cinema - as they are; American Psycho ; where the film was much livelier, coherent and funny than the novel. Barry Giffords’ Wild at Heart and Lynch’s adaptation are both on equal tier to me. You get the idea. But what happens when ...

  NOTE: SPOILERS ON TOP OF SPOILERS FOR EDDINGTON AND WEAPONS! Don’t read any further unless you don’t care or aren’t going to see the movies or are going to but don’t like surprises (really, you should see these films cold and then circle back with me later.) 2025 has dealt us some compelling films in the horror or horror adjacent genre. Companion , Heart Eyes , Sinners , The Monkey , Eddington , and Weapons come to mind right off the bat. It’s the last two that have been sticking with me the most and not just because they are the most recently watched. Both are jam-packed with ideas, both are told masterfully, intelligently, and both have subtexts that don’t necessarily beat you over the head because the drama unfolding onscreen is so gripping. I find both refreshing because they act as sort of course corrections for much of what has been referred to as “elevated horror”; genre pieces that employ narrative and narrative tropes to interrogate fairly meaty, if not profound themes....