The Actor (2025)

"People always talk about happy endings. I think beginnings are much happier. You still have the whole movie ahead of you."

An actor struggling with memory loss tries to find his way back home. There's a bit of a Memento feel as it unfolds piece by piece, in a dreamlike fashion. It becomes apparent before long that certain actors are playing different roles, like a theater troupe in a play. Is it a stylistic choice or something profound?

This live-action film was directed by stop-motion filmmaker Duke Johnson, one-half of those responsible for the wonderful Anomalisa, and as such, the film has distinct Charlie Kaufman vibes, although he only serves as executive producer here. It's actually based on Donald Westlake's neo-noir mystery novel, Memory, originally written in 1963 (but released posthumously in 2010).

It feels like this movie has a point but it never quite manages to gets there. Its meaning escapes me, but I'm sure it was meant to be poignant.

2½ chairs out of 5

Death of a Unicorn (2025)

A family hits a unicorn with their car and promptly learns about the magical healing properties it possesses, and the potential for scheming and marketing opportunities that presents. The shitty unicorn CGI looks horrendous and takes away from any possible gravitas this movie may be trying to muster. For such a wild and imaginative premise, this should have been a lot more fun than it is. As a lackluster, uninspired horror comedy, it's what the kids would call "mid."

2 glowing horns out of 5

Snow White (2025)

Mirror, Mirror, on the wall, what is the shittiest remake of all?

Oh, it's not that bad. A Latina playing the part of Snow White with "skin as white as snow" is akin to hiring a black woman to play a redhead in The Little Mermaid. It's like Disney is intentionally creating ragebait to poison the apple of conversation. Similarly, we've replaced little people (literal dwarves) with hideous-looking CGI trolls. All in the name of social progress, you see.

The latest in a series of politically correct live-action remakes of Disney animated classics stars Rachel Zegler as the titular princess who is ousted from her kingdom into the woodlands by an Evil Queen (Gal Gadot) who lives up to her name. This was such a nothingburger. Zegler elevates every scene she's in, but somehow it all feels so empty, like a mere shell of a story. There is magic in her voice and in the music, but the dwarfs are out of a fever dream. Despite the beauty of the forest, it's filled with glaring CGI and uncanny valley hell. There's an otherworldliness to the proceedings, but it feels like all these separate elements at play don't coalesce into anything meaningful.

As one can deduce from the shortened title, the focus here is on Snow White herself, not on any of the aforementioned dwarfs. Likewise, the prince has been excised from the story completely, and replaced by a mere commoner. They only employ three of the eight songs from the original film and create their own to fill out the soundtrack, which leaves the viewer with a confusing and jarring mishmash of old and modern styles that work to varying effect.

Despite all the cosmetic changes, the general framework of the story remains the same, so it turns out they made a big fuss over nothing. There's a reason why people usually default to the original; and that's because there was nothing fundamentally wrong with it in the first place.

2 shitty-looking Docs out of 5

Note: This film has languished in different stages of development hell since March 2020, so it's like the universe was trying to prevent it from getting made. After the financial losses they suffered, I bet Disney wishes it hadn't.