Opus (2025) review

Feature film debut of former GQ editor (and "Style Guy") Green involves journalist Ariel Ecton (Ayo Edebiri) accompanying her boss Stan Sullivan (Murray Bartlett) to spend the weekend at the private compound of eccentric pop star Alfred Moretti (John Malkovich) in order to listen to his newest album, Caesar's Request, except the "activities" planned become increasingly weird (as do Moretti's sycophantic "followers") and several of the guests somehow go "missing."  Making an attempt to mock not only the hyper-inflated egos of celebrities but Scientology-like cults - with Malkovich playing a version of Marshall Applewhite from the Heaven's Gate "religious movement" - is insultingly easy to do, and the movie doesn't provide any new insights into why certain individuals are so deeply drawn to these groups.  It's a complete waste of time, Moretti's music is terrible (which may be yet another "ironic" joke) and the "larger plan" that's eventually revealed doesn't sting in the way it thinks it should: who reads anymore?  I don't know about the rest of you, but after they asked for my cell phone, stole my laptop and then made me take a bite out of a loaf of bread everyone else has had their filthy saliva on, I'm climbing the chain-link fence.