Oct 5, 2026 · 28 min · 8 segments
A true dark comedy, Zach Cregger’s *Weapons* (2025) combines a satire of suburbia, a study of addiction, and the satisfaction of a fairy tale. The film works so well because it takes its time to…
Dan MoranHost
Mike TaklaHost
This is a literal retelling of some kind of Grimm's fairy tale where, um, there is a witch, she is real, and she is destroyed at the end, uh, Hansel and Gretel style.
Um, I, I think that the, the director, in the way that people wear kind of like high-waisted jeans and the way that they drink milk and the way that they cut their lawn, there's obviously something going on here which is sort of like here's where the people think that they live, here's how they actually talk, and here's what's bubbling under the surface.
Also to complement that point is that everybody in the movie looks like a real person.
When I first saw Josh Brolin, who I did not know was in the movie, stand up at the parent meeting, I'm like, "Wow, that guy looks like Josh Brolin." And then I'm like, "No, it is.
That, that really is him." So he's the only, quote-unquote, movie star, but everybody else in it is so good, and it was so nice to see these people that look like real people.
There are, there are some distracting choices, and the reason I call it out is because producers go out of their way to reduce distracting choices.
They will tell an actor, like, "You can't have a mustache because your mustache is so distracting nobody's gonna be able to hear your lines." And any of those decisions, uh, it, it seems like were, were actively suppressed.
Here's the aesthetic that we're going after." And it's sort of like, uh, it's like Norman Rockwell meets COVID.
Except for the mustache worn by Adam Arkin, who plays Paul the cop, and that mustache is definitely an homage to John C. Reilly in Magnolia, which is a movie we both love, 'cause he acts like the cop in Magnolia.
But then when I thought about it for today, you know, it's kind of funny because the structure of this movie is very much like Magnolia, where you get all these coincidences and you watch one person's segment and you see how it overlaps with another person's segment.
And that's something that's a lot of fun to watch the first and the second time, because I watched it twice.
This is a literal retelling of some kind of Grimm's fairy tale where, um, there is a witch, she is real, and she is destroyed at the end, uh, Hansel and Gretel style.
Um, I, I think that the, the director, in the way that people wear kind of like high-waisted jeans and the way that they drink milk and the way that they cut their lawn, there's obviously something going on here which is sort of like here's where the people think that they live, here's how they actually talk, and here's what's bubbling under the surface.
Also to complement that point is that everybody in the movie looks like a real person.
When I first saw Josh Brolin, who I did not know was in the movie, stand up at the parent meeting, I'm like, "Wow, that guy looks like Josh Brolin." And then I'm like, "No, it is.
That, that really is him." So he's the only, quote-unquote, movie star, but everybody else in it is so good, and it was so nice to see these people that look like real people.
There are, there are some distracting choices, and the reason I call it out is because producers go out of their way to reduce distracting choices.
They will tell an actor, like, "You can't have a mustache because your mustache is so distracting nobody's gonna be able to hear your lines." And any of those decisions, uh, it, it seems like were, were actively suppressed.
Here's the aesthetic that we're going after." And it's sort of like, uh, it's like Norman Rockwell meets COVID.
Except for the mustache worn by Adam Arkin, who plays Paul the cop, and that mustache is definitely an homage to John C. Reilly in Magnolia, which is a movie we both love, 'cause he acts like the cop in Magnolia.
But then when I thought about it for today, you know, it's kind of funny because the structure of this movie is very much like Magnolia, where you get all these coincidences and you watch one person's segment and you see how it overlaps with another person's segment.
And that's something that's a lot of fun to watch the first and the second time, because I watched it twice.
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