User Reviews

"The Cold Open" (not really an official title) is a 4-minute television short film that was part of the 2019 Independent Spirit Awards. It is basically a comedic take on a group of witches uniting to perform a dark ritual that will have a negative impact on commercial films, sequel, remakes etc. everything that is not considered independent these days. There are concrete mentions that the gang likes and supports the stuff of Maya Deren and Alexander Payne. But as dark as it may sound, it is really not to be taken seriously at all. The funniest, almost only fun joke, to me was when they made a reference to host Aubrey Plaza starring herself in the next Chucky movie. I like her admittedly and thought she was the funniest thing here. You can clearly see that she has more of a comedy connection than basically everybody else in here with her years on Parks and Recreation and this includes Oscar-winning actresses too. I will not give you all the cast names here as you can check out the list for yourself, but given the talent involved in here, I was a bit diappointed about the outcome. Then again, I have never been a huge fan of Harden and almost all the others. Director is Joel Gallen, who is doing better with being in charge of awards ceremonies and variety special than with his filmmaking days a long time ago. But this one here does not have enough laughs, even for a film that stays clearly under the 5-minute mark. Only watch if you really adore several of the cast members here. Admittedly, you cannot only blame the actresses as honestly their material is not particularly good either and Plaza cannot make it work on her own. Skip and go for something else instead, the rating here on imdb is way too high.