The Nerdery Movie Night #263: Death of a Unicorn and Cumin Lime Popcorn

Dave forgot to take a photo of the popcorn, but trust us: it was delicious. Can we get a corporate sponsor now, plz?

Cumin Lime Popcorn (or the vestiges thereof)

Dave: Some unholy mix of The Craft and How to Train Your Dragon, Death of a Unicorn is an insane romp through vague references to medieval folklore, eat-the-rich 2020s chic, and ridiculous B-horror-style gore. Does it work? Kind of. Would I watch it again? Only if I was really drunk and there was nothing else available. Still, it was fun. (️️️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2)

I outdid myself this week with our popcorn thanks to a random recipe on Wesson’s website. While we didn’t technically use Wesson oil (there goes that sponsorship!), the popcorn probably didn’t suffer. It was salty, bright, and incredibly flavorful without blowing out our taste buds, as the late Anne Burrell used to say on Worst Cooks in America. The flavors were present but not ridiculously overpowering. The additional perk that this popcorn was incredibly easy to make might put it in our list of popcorns we aspire to make for guests if we ever actually made popcorn for guests. At any rate, I’d recommend trying it even if you need to buy cumin seed special for it. (️️️️️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)

Joe: A24 is kind of known for its edgy films, and I wish I could say that Death of a Unicorn fits that bill. Sure, it attempts to skewer capitalism and the greed of the 1%, but it fails at almost every step along the way. Mostly, the storytelling is marred by angsty conversations between a GenZ character (Jenna Ortega) and a GenX character (Paul Rudd, who could still get. it., all these years post-Clueless). The violence is pretty tame, tempered mostly by the fact that you want the unicorns to murder all the wealthy people. Still, I didn't hate it even though it was more annoying and eye-roll-y than it was scary/interesting (⭐️⭐️1/2)

At this point, we're scraping the barrel for reliable popcorn recipes, and it seems fairly apropos that Dave found one from the website of a corporate vegetable oil brand. Although it needed some salt, I found the spice combination delicious and literally licked most of the dregs from the bowl. We ate every single bit, and I still craved more! (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)

Popcorn: Wesson Oil™️

Death of a Unicorn on IMDb