"The Pickup," "Death of a Unicorn," "The Woman in the Yard" and "Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me:" My Movie Picks and Pans for August 2025

[I review "The Pickup," the new Eddie Murphy-Pete Davidson buddy movie as well as two horror films and a documentary - "Death of a Unicorn," "The Woman in the Yard" and "Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me," a documentary about a rock band you might not know about]

The Pickup (2025)

Two mismatched armored car drivers find themselves in a heist situation.

I have always been a big Eddie Murphy fan ever since he was on SNL. He created some of the funniest characters of all time. But is it me?  Do comedians get less funny as they get older?  I noticed it with Richard Pryor, Chevy Chase and others. It seems as they age like they start to take themselves too seriously and suddenly aren't funny anymore. I think that has happened to Eddie.

Russell Pierce (Murphy), a veteran armored car driver close to retirement, and Travis Stolly (Pete Davidson), a rookie who aspires to be a police officer, team up for the first time on duty. It's Russell's 25th Wedding Anniversary and he needs to get home to take his wife, Natalie (Eva Longoria), out for dinner and surprise her with the ring he had reset for her, so he is not happy that they have a particularly long day of pickups. And he is really unhappy when young criminal mastermind Zoe (Keke Palmer) and her cohorts, Banner (Jack Kesy) and Miguel (Ismael Cruz Cordova), ambush them. 

After an intense car chase with cars blowing up and money containing dye thrown all over the place, Zoe manages to hijack the armored car. Travis recognizes Zoe because...wait for it. Wouldn't you know? Travis and Zoe had "met cute" the day before and had a one-night-stand where he had just coincidentally told her everything about his work including his schedule and the route he was going to take. Assuming that Banner and Miguel are dead after both of their vehicles have violently crashed, Zoe reveals that it's not the money in the truck that she wants, it's the armored truck itself because her plan is to use it for a pickup of $60 million from an Atlantic City casino, and she wants Russell and Travis to help her. Since she has a gun on them, they figure they don't have much choice.

However, Banner and Miguel survive and now they are mad that Zoe has abandoned them so they are on the hunt for Zoe, Russell and Travis. In the meantime, Zoe reveals her real reason for wanting to rob the casino and Russell's wife, Natalie, has tracked them down, because, hey, it's her 25th Wedding Anniversary and she wants to know where the heck Russell is.  Now she is also involved but why she is even in this movie is a mystery. Eva must have needed the work.

More car chases, more shenanigans, more I don't care anymore.

Written by Kevin Burrows and Matt Mider and directed by Tim Story, this is the #3 most popular movie on Netflix right now, so I guess Eddie Murphy can still pull an audience but, like I said, sadly he just isn't funny anymore, nor is this movie. Eddie used to have the funniest facial reactions and doesn't even do that here for a cheap laugh. Pete does Pete, that Chad character he created on SNL, but the relationship between Eddie and Pete just didn't work. This is supposed to be a "buddy movie" but these guys have zero buddy chemistry. And I have never been a Keke Palmer fan. She always tries too hard to be perky, but at least here she has toned it down so I didn't mind her as much. And Andrew Dice Clay as the armored truck company boss was unrecognizable. He used to be funny too. 

I think this movie was supposed to be fun, but it wasn't. Even the car crashes weren't fun. They were over-the-top and unrealistic. How many car crashes in slow motion do we have to see?  

Rosy the Reviewer says...predictable and dumb. Cliche after cliche after cliche. I felt used. I liked Eddie better when he was funny.  (Amazon Prime)

Death of a Unicorn (2025)

While on his way to a weekend retreat at his boss's house with his daughter, a man who works for a pharmaceutical company kills a unicorn which leads to mayhem.

I like the occasional horror film, but for some reason this month I have been drawn to them.  Maybe it's because pretend horror takes my mind off the real life horror of world events. And I am not alone. It's actually been documented that in times of economic and political upheaval, more people are drawn to horror films. 

Elliot Kintner (Paul Rudd) and his teenage daughter, Ridley (Jenna Ortega), are travelling through the Canadian Rockies on their way for a weekend at the estate of Elliot's boss, Odell Leopold (Richard E. Grant) and his family- his wife Belinda (Tea Leoni) and son, Shepard (Will Poulter). Elliot is up for a promotion in Odell's pharmaceutical company. Odell is suffering from cancer. 

On the way, Elliot accidentally strikes and injures a unicorn with his car. Okay, I know. Unicorns don't really exist.  Suspend your disbelief.

When Elliot and Ridley inspect the unicorn, Ridley touches its horn and is cosmically transported until Elliot bashes it with a tire iron, splashing them both with blood.  They stash the unicorn in the trunk and head to the Leopolds' estate. Elliott plans to bury the unicorn after everyone is asleep.  Ooo---kay. Not sure that's a good plan. But then something really strange happens. Ridley discovers that her acne is gone and Elliot's vision suddenly improves and so do his allergies. It looks like unicorns have healing powers.

After arriving at the Leopolds' estate, they all discover that the unicorn wasn't dead. They shoot it but when Odell learns that the unicorn has healing powers, he brings in a bunch of scientists who grate pieces of the unicorn's horn off.  Odell ingests it and suddenly Odell's cancer is gone. Still with me?

Gee, Odell runs a pharmaceutical company.  I wonder what his plans are for the unicorn. Yes, he plans to exploit it.  In the meantime, Ridley remembers seeing the famous Unicorn Tapestries and gets the feeling that something bad is going to happen. Ya think? Well, she's right. Turns out, there is more than one unicorn, and they don't like that their friend is being taken off to be experimented on. All hell breaks loose.

Written and directed by Alex Scharfman, this is one of those "what if" stories.  What if unicorns are real and have curative powers and also get violent when Big Pharma tries to exploit them? 

All of the characters in this are larger than life which is sometimes fun but here could be interpreted as over-acting. There is lots of guts and gore (there is a fun homage to "Alien"), but is this film really a horror film?  It wants to be, but since it's so over-the-top, it's not really scary. It's more of a cartoon. Yes, it is funny at times, makes fun of rich people and it's a statement about the greed of Big Pharma, but I'm not sure the presentation really makes that hit home. Though the film has some originality and may have meant well, it has a one note premise: unicorns gone wild, and it went on way too long with a very strange ending. When the police arrived, I couldn't help but wonder, how do you tell the police, "Unicorns did it?"

I like Paul Rudd. He does "dufus" really well. Jenna Ortega is everywhere these days and Poulter has made a name for himself playing bullies (he does it again here) but redeemed himself in his recent stint on "The Bear." Leoni and Grant are veteran actors but despite all of this star power, it wasn't enough to save this movie. I liked the idea of unicorns running wild in a horror film and there were some fun moments, but not enough for me to recommend this movie. 

Rosy the Reviewer says...much as I sometimes like to watch horror films to take my mind off real life horror, sadly, this movie just reminded me that I don't like silly, over-the-top horror. But if that's your jam, you might like it. (HBO Max)

The Woman in the Yard (2025)

What would you do if a mysterious woman clad in black appeared sitting in your yard and she wouldn't leave?  Call the police?

Well, that's not what Ramona (Danielle Deadwyler) did. She should have.  Ramona is a widowed mother living on an isolated farm.  She was in a car accident that killed her husband. She is grieving, hobbling around on crutches, and not doing well, distancing herself from her two children, Taylor (Peyton Jackson) and Annie (Estella Kahiha).  

Suddenly, a woman all in black appears sitting in their front yard and says  "Today's the day."  There are repeated attempts to get the woman to leave by both Ramona and Taylor but the woman remains, and in fact, appears to be moving closer and closer to the house. Then the cell service and power goes out and Charlie, the dog, goes missing.

Turns out there is more to the car accident than Ramona has revealed.

Not sure if it's Deadwyler, the screenplay by Sam Stefanak, or Jaume Collet-Serra's direction, but Ramona was not a sympathetic character. Yes, she is a grieving widow but she is actually a pain in the butt to her kids and to the audience watching this film.  She is useless.  As she hobbles from her bedroom down the stairs, I couldn't help but say to myself, "Why doesn't she sleep downstairs?" And why is the crashed car sitting on the property? I rolled my eyes more than once, and finally said out loud to the TV, "What the Hell?"  If Deadwyler had generated a bit more warmth or smarts, I might have cared, but I didn't. It doesn't take much to figure out what the woman in the yard represents but even figuring that out, I still didn't care.

I was hopeful going into this film.  I usually like Blumhouse horror films, but I can't say this film was actually a horror film.  It was more of a psychological look at grief and guilt with a few gotcha moments, but even so, not that well done.  And I am not a fan of an ambiguous ending that makes me go "Huh?"

Rosy the Reviewer says...when it comes to horror, I have been a big fan of Blumhouse productions but they have their ups and downs and this one was definitely a down. Not recommended. (Peacock)

Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me (2012)

A rock documentary about the rock band, Big Star, that received critical acclaim but commercial failure though today it is a success as a cult band phenomenon.

Remember The Box Tops and the song "The Letter?"  Alex Chilton was the lead singer for The Box Tops and was only 16 when he recorded that song.  He had huge success at a young age and later formed the band Big Star with Chris Bell.  This documentary tells the story of what happened to Chilton and Bell as they starred in the most famous band you have never heard of. 

Founded in 1971 in Memphis, the band found a home at Ardent Studios, noted for its connection to Stax Records (Sam and Dave, Led Zeppelin and Isaac Hayes recorded there). Their albums were critically acclaimed but a series of events caused distribution issues, and despite their getting credit for influencing other bands like R.E.M. and Cheap Trick, they never really had success until much later, when they had a cult following in the 90's. Their song "In the Street" was the theme for "That '70s Show," though it was performed by Cheap Trick.  

Written by Drew DeNicola and directed by DeNicola and Olivia Mori, the film uses archival materials and all kinds of talking heads to track the history of Chilton, Bell and Big Star, but the talking heads are people you will probably not recognize nor are they routinely identified, and that's the problem with this movie. It is never clear who is talking and what their connection to Big Star was. 

The story of Big Star is an intriguing one but the film goes on too long with too many people talking and conjecturing with little actual footage of the band performing and the film doesn't really manage to make a point about why Big Star didn't make it big. There are hints at drug and alcohol use that contributed to Chilton and Bell never really finding their niches, but there is never enough information to understand what really happened and why they didn't become big stars during their lifetimes.  Both died young - Bell is in the "27 Club" and Chilton died at 59.

Big Star was clearly a band ahead of it's time with an interesting story, and I am glad it is getting some props. However, even though I am a big fan of music documentaries, this film just did not come together for me.

Rosy the Reviewer says...if you are/were a fan of Big Star or are a rock documentary nerd, you might enjoy this, but otherwise, not recommended. (HBO Max).

See You Next Time!

If you enjoyed this post, feel free to like it and share it on Facebook, X, or other sites; email it to your friends and/or follow me on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/rosythereviewer where I share short reviews about TV shows I am watching, books I am reading and all sorts of other fun stuff that doesn't appear here!

And next time you are wondering whether or not to watch a particular film, check out my reviews on IMDB (The International Movie Database). Go to IMDB.com, find the movie you are interested in.  Scroll over to the right of the synopsis to where it says "Critics Reviews" - Click on that and if I have reviewed that film, you will find Rosy the Reviewer alphabetically on the list (NOTE:  IMDB keeps moving stuff around so if you don't find "Critics Reviews" where I am sending you, look around.  It's worth it)!

"Maestro" and The Week in Reviews

[I review "Maestro," the new Bradley Cooper biopic about Leonard Bernstein as well as "Pain Hustlers," an expose of some bad practices in the pharmaceutical industry, and Eddie Murphy's holiday film, "Candy Cane Lane"]

Maestro (2023)

Not just a biopic about conductor/composter Leonard Bernstein, it's also a complicated love story.

The film industry is strange right now.  Movies open in "limited release" in theatres, and then open big on streaming platforms like Netflix.  A good example is this film.  I kept waiting for it to show up in my town, because I have a standing date with a good friend to see movies in the theatre, but it never came.  But now here it is, only a few weeks after it's so-called limited release in the movie theatres, on Netflix.  I am not complaining.  Except for not seeing it with my friend, I could watch it in my jammies with a glass of wine. And I did.

Leonard Bernstein was an American conductor, composer, pianist, teacher, author and activist. Considered to be one of the most important conductors of his time, he was the first American-born conductor to lead a major American symphony orchestra, the New York Philharmonic. He wrote music in many genres - classical pieces, scores for movies and Broadway shows, most notably the music for "West Side Story." He died in 1990, and despite his fame during the 50's,60's and beyond, I am wondering how many people of the younger generation even know who he is today.

But I am not a member of the younger generation, and I have personal memories of Bernstein. First as a little girl, when my mother wanted me to get out of her hair on a Saturday and go out and play, she would tell me, if I stayed inside, I couldn't watch cartoons, I would have to watch Bernstein's Young People's Concerts, a part educational show about music that included performances by the New York Philharmonic.  I went outside.  I was not a particularly sophisticated ten-year-old.  But when I was 12, I saw "West Side Story" and was obsessed with not just the film, but the music.  I bought the record and played it over and over and over.

So I couldn't wait to see this film.

It begins in color with Bernstein (Bradley Cooper) as an old man remembering his wife, Felicia Montealegre Cohn (Carey Mulligan), who had passed, and then the film switches to black and white with Bernstein as a young man getting his first break in 1943 as a conductor to fill in for conductor Bruno Walter at Carnegie Hall.  He was a success and his career took off. The film follows his career, his entanglements, meeting his wife and then the film switches back to color as Bernstein matures in the 60's and 70's.

However, this film is less a biopic and more of a love story and the story of a marriage.  It's as much about Bernstein's wife, Felicia, as it is about Bernstein and the personal journey they found themselves on.  Bernstein was a homosexual in a time when that was not accepted and many closeted men married and had families, especially those in the public eye. But that doesn't mean he didn't love his wife, Felicia.  He did. Though preferring men, Bernstein had affairs with both men and women.  He loved Felicia and they mostly stayed together until her death, though she knew of his desires for men and put up with dalliances taking place right in front of her.

Bradley Cooper is quite wonderful as Bernstein and, I say that as someone who was never particularly a big Cooper fan. Though named People Magazine's "Sexiest Man Alive" in 2011, I always thought he looked nerdie.  But nerdie or not, here he embodies Bernstein, and it's not just the prosthetics. And speaking of which, there was a big flap about those prosthetics. People were upset that he enlarged his nose because Bernstein was Jewish and Cooper was not.  I didn't find that distracting because Cooper really looked like Bernstein, and my feeling is that if Bernstein's family was not offended (and they supposedly were not), then get over it. But though Cooper was made to look like Bernstein, his embodiment of him wasn't just the make-up. Cooper had the mannerisms and voice cadence down, and he is spectacular in a scene where he conducts the orchestra in a Mahler symphony and captures Bernstein's dramatics, something he worked on for six years! It's a  tour de force performance and, I think, the apex of Cooper's acting career so far. That conducting scene is about as dramatic as you can get.

But like I said, this film is as much about Felicia as it is about Bernstein and Carey Mulligan is amazing as Felicia.  Just watch her eyes.  They tell Felicia's story as she goes from love struck wife to one who has to accept her husband's desires.  Both Cooper and Mulligan are nominated for Best Actor Golden Globes, and I expect Oscar nominations in their future.

Directed by Cooper (he also wrote the screenplay with Josh Singer), this has the feel of an old style film from the 40's and 50's.  It is a fairly linear tale, it has lush production values, with Bernstein's music punctuating the plot and a certain amount of melodrama, which I enjoy.  Though Cooper's directorial choices were odd at times, this film evokes a time gone by, when artistic people got together at parties, and instead of looking at their phones, performed for each other, told jokes, talked about their creative processes and smoked and smoked and smoked.  But the film is also a very human story, a linear love story about a man struggling with his sexuality and the woman who loved him.

I can't help but wonder, though, why is Bernstein's story being told now?  He died 34 years ago and few probably remember him today.  But don't get me wrong, his story deserves to be told and his music and achievements remembered because he was a very special man. This is clearly a labor of love for Cooper as well as the other executive producers - Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg - and maybe that's all the reason needed.

Rosy the Reviewer says...a fascinating film about a man who deserves to be remembered and performances that are a tribute to him. (Netflix)

Pain Hustlers (2023)

An expose of some criminal shenanigans in the pharmaceutical industry.

Based on a true story chronicled in the 2022 book "The Hard Sell" by Evan Hughes and adapted for the screen by Wells Tower, this is the story of Liza Drake (Emily Blunt), a stripper who has fallen on hard times but suddenly finds herself making tons of money as a pharmaceutical rep until it all comes crashing down.

In 2011, Liza Drake is a struggling single mother living out of her sister's garage in Florida with her epileptic daughter, Phoebe (Chloe Coleman). When working as a stripper, she meets Pete Brenner (Chris Evans), who works for Zanna, a pharmaceutical company, and he offers her a job as a pharmaceutical rep at his company.  Hey, stripper?...pharma rep?...sure, why not?

When things get even worse for Liza and her daughter's health worsens, she takes Pete up on his offer but since she is a high school dropout, Pete writes her a resume, giving her a degree in biochemistry.  In her interview with Dr. Jack Neel (Andy Garcia), the company founder, she impresses him and gets the job only to discover that Zanna has also fallen on hard times, finding it difficult to break into the pharma market. Neel gives her five days to convince a doctor to prescribe their drug, Lonafen, a pain medication for cancer patients. The "fen" part of Lonafen should give you a hint on what this drug is all about.

After some missteps, Liza manages to convince a Dr. Lydell (Brian d'Arcy James) to prescribe the drug, and it snowballs, giving Zanna a foot into the market and Liza is promoted to National Sales Director and Pete to COO. Things are looking good for Zanna, but when sales flatten, Neel gets greedy and he pressures the sales staff to market Lonafen for all types of pain, not just cancer. Now people are in lines outside of pain management clinics needing the drug.  And then bribery, illegal speaker programs and other criminal activities join the mix.

The U.S. Attorney's office eventually gets involved, and when people start dying from Lonafen, one of them Liza's friend's husband, Liza starts feeling guilty and agrees to testify against the company. And yes, Lonafen is basically fentanyl which is why non-terminal patients became addicts and often overdosed.

There is a reason why those pharma reps waiting outside your doctor's office are good-looking and dressed to the nines.  It's all about sales, and it seems back in the day some doctors could be charmed into prescribing certain drugs or even bribed, at least according to this film. Similar to the TV series "Dope Sick," which I thought was one of the best series of 2021, this film, directed by David Yates, is not as good but also exposes the dark side of the pharma industry, especially the unscrupulous methods that some used to get opioids into our health care industry.

Emily Blunt plays against type as a sort of Erin Brockovich character and Chris Evans eschews his "Captain America" uniform and heroic persona for a suit and tie and a sleazy attitude. Blunt is especially good.

Rosy the Reviewer says...this movie should make you mad...in a good way. (Netflix)

Candy Cane Lane (2023)

It's Christmas and Chris Carver (Eddie Murphy) is determined to win the big prize for best decorated house on his street.

Let me just say from the start, my little town has a Candy Cane Lane so we are used to over-the-top house decorating. Christmas Eve, it was a family tradition to have our Christmas Eve pizza, get in the car and sing Christmas carols as we toured our Candy Cane Lane and then returned home to open presents.  So I relate to the Candy Cane Lane concept.  However, I just could not relate to this movie. Remember that Rosy the Reviewer says "I see the bad ones so you don't have to?"  Well, you are welcome. It's bad.

Chris Carver needs to win the $100,000 prize for best decorated house because he lost his job and his wife, Carol (Tracee Ellis Ross), may not get the promotion she deserves. Their daughter, Joy (Genneya Walton), a high school track star, doesn't appear to want to attend USC, their alma mater, and son, Nick (Thaddeus J. Mixson), enjoys playing his tuba more than getting his math grades up.  So Chris needs a distraction, not to mention that hundred grand, so the race is on to find the perfect decorations. Oh, I forgot to mention the precocious younger, daughter, Holly (Madison Thomas).  There is always one of those in these kinds of movies. You know, the little kid who sees what the adults can't see?  And did you notice the names?  Chris, Carol, Joy, Nick, Holly.  That should give you some idea of what is to come and it ain't pretty.

One can't help but compare this movie to "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" and Chris to Clark Griswold, but I am sorry to say no real comparison. Not even close.  Even with the element of magic that is introduced, it just doesn't work. 

Chris, looking for Christmas decorations, takes a strange detour and ends up in a building under the freeway and a store run by Pepper (Jillian Bell), who turns out to be an evil elf. Of course, he doesn't know that.  She sells Chris a "Twelve Days of Christmas" tree that Chris is certain will win him the contest, but in order to buy the decoration he must sign an agreement, that, of course, he doesn't read.  

When the big night arrives, Chris lights up the tree and the decorations are spectacular until...all of the characters on the tree come to life and terrorize the neighborhood.  So now Chris must spend the rest of the movie reeling in the seven swans a swimming, the six geese a laying...well you know the drill...and he must find the five gold rings before midnight or he will turn into a teeny-tiny version of himself, a Christmas figurine. Remember that agreement he signed that he didn't read?  And remember I said that Pepper was an evil elf? Oh, didn't I tell you...when he was in the shop he met three other miniature humans (Nick Offerman, Robin Thede and Chris Redd) who had been turned into figurines by the evil Pepper (they didn't read their agreements either), and they just happened to hitch a ride over to his house, so they become part of the story as well.

Enough said.  Written by Kelly Younger and directed by Reginald Hudlin, bad jokes and cliches abound - even that over-used slo-mo power walk that we always see when some butt kicking needs to happen is in this.  I am fairly certain this movie was supposed to be funny and stir up some happy holiday memories.  But it isn't and it doesn't.  As a longtime Eddie Murphy fan, I had such high hopes for this film. What is it about these comedians who stop being funny when they get old and they fall into the sentimentality trap?  It happened to Richard Pryor, it happened to Chevy Chase and now it's happened to Eddie.  He's just not funny and neither is this movie.

Rosy the Reviewer says...this is one holiday chore you can skip. (Amazon Prime)

Thanks for reading!

See you next time!

If you enjoyed this post, feel free to like it and share it on Facebook, Twitter, or other sites; email it to your friends and/or follow me on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/rosythereviewer 

And next time you are wondering whether or not to watch a particular film, check out my reviews on IMDB (The International Movie Database). Go to IMDB.com, find the movie you are interested in.  Scroll over to the right of the synopsis to where it says "Critic Reviews" - Click on that and if I have reviewed that film, you will find Rosy the Reviewer alphabetically on the list (NOTE:  IMDB keeps moving stuff around so if you don't find "Critics Reviews" where I am sending you, look around.  It's worth it)!