Meek's Cutoff Is A Western Deconstruction Like No Other

As Meek's Cutoff opens, director Kelly Reichardt makes it apparent this movie will be adhering to a  transcendentalism style of filmmaking. Some of the core tenants of this filmmaking style, namely prolonged extended takes concentrated on minimal activity, turn out to be a perfect way to capture the experiences of the lead characters of Meek's Cutoff as they gradually make their way across the American frontier to an unspecified locale that's supposed to provide them all with prosperous riches. This is a journey that's arduous and slow with little in the way of actual progress to speak of so it's fitting that Reichardt opts to capture this voyage in a filming style that places an emphasis on slower pacing and minimalism.

Spectral Gets Flanked By Its Generic Nature

Spectral's struggle to getting released at all feels like as much of a struggle as any of the supernatural wartime battles seen in the movie itself. Filmed back in the late parts of summer 2014, the film was produced by Legendary Pictures and set to be released theatrically by Universal in August 2016. Then, two months prior to its release, Universal swiped it off the release schedule without explanation. Spectral basically ceased to exist until two weeks ago, when Netflix abruptly announced that they'd be the ones releasing it on their streaming service on December 9th. They dropped the title yesterday with zero fanfare, no even the official Netflix Facebook page was promoting this thing, instead deciding to further promote the newest season of Fuller House.