BE REEL

(Courtesy IMDb )   In our current cinematic trend of modern-day elevated horror, several up-and-coming filmmakers have helped push the genre to new lengths and heights, from Robert Eggers ( The Witch ) to Ari Aster ( Hereditary ) and, of course, certainly Jordan Peele ( Get Out ). The latest to join that list of daring and original filmmakers (and who has a thing or two in common with Peele) is Zach Cregger, a former comedian-writer who first broke out with the sketch comedy series Whitest Kids U Know , before writing and directing his first horror feature, the critical and commercial hit Barbarian , in 2022.  Already one of the most talked-about films of 2025, Cregger’s sophomoric feature, Weapons , sets its story up with a chilling premise—one that sounds like an urban legend or a scary bedtime story. 17 children from the same elementary school classroom mysteriously leave their homes at the exact same time one night and go missing. Questions arise rapidly: What exactly happ...

(Courtesy CMADDICT )   Although they are largely known for creating and producing faith-based content, independent film company/distributor Angel Studios has been getting a lot of rave reviews for their latest release: a fantasy-adventure about a little girl’s drawings that come to life. With a certified “fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes, Sean Worley’s feature-length adaptation of his 2020 short film, Darker Colors , centers on a single parent family struggling to move on after the death of the mother.  The youngest of two children, Amber (Bianca Belle), turns to sketching dark and scary pictures as a way of venting. Her dad, Taylor (Tony Hale), has a hard time communicating with his children, while his real estate sister Liz (D’Arcy Carden) tries to help them sell their home. When her older brother Jack (Kue Lawrence) discovers a magical lake in the woods, where their mother used to walk, and Amber’s notebook accidentally falls into it,  Along with Hale and Carden, Sketc...

(Courtesy IMP Awards ) Liam Neeson has a thing or two in common with the late, great Leslie Nielsen. Besides sharing the same initials (at least, professionally), both began their acting careers in serious dramatic performances. As Nielsen’s career forever changed when he accepted his now-unforgettable role in the aerial parody Airplane! , Neeson experienced an unexpected transition as a leading man—one with “a particular set of skills”—in action movies since starring in the intense thriller Taken in 2008. Since then, he’s been mostly typecast in that particular genre. So, imagine how funny it is to now see him lampoon that archetype—although, he did do that as the voice of Good Cop/Bad Cop in The Lego Movie —in an update of David Zucker’s slapstick farce The Naked Gun .  Succeeding Nielsen, Neeson plays the son of incompetent Police Squad detective Frank Drebin in this 2025 legacy sequel from producer Seth McFarlane (the Family Guy creator who directed the actor in A Million Way...

(Courtesy Letterboxd )   Eva Victor was previously known for writing and performing in several Comedy Central shorts on social media. These quirky and existential videos (which centered on Victor having anxiety over various things like soda cans, restaurant bills, and birthday cards) caught the attention of filmmaker-producer Barry Jenkins, who immediately saw a director in Victor. He then encouraged her to write a screenplay, which she would eventually headline and direct herself, marking her directorial debut . The result is the Sundance-winning human dramedy, Sorry, Baby , about a woman struggling to move on from a traumatic event.  The narrative in this quirky and engaging story is episodic, non-linear, and novelistic, focusing on Victor's Agnes, her friendship with her college roommate (Naomi Ackie), who is expecting a child; her time in graduate school, including when she was sexually assaulted (although this central incident is never actually seen); her later role as a ...

(Courtesy Disney )   Well, here we are.  After a few “unsuccessful” attempts to bring the team of Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic, Sue Storm/The Invisible Woman, Johnny Storm/The Human Torch, and Ben Grimm/The Thing to the big screen, Marvel’s “first family” is finally brought into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. From early reviews and trailers, not to mention a retro period production design, they may finally have gotten these characters right. The good news: they did.  Like James Gunn’s  Superman , the self-contained  Fantastic Four: First Steps  is not an origin story. (We’ve seen that before.) Director Marc Shakman and his team make a bold and fearless choice to get right into action, setting this episodic story in the 1960s (when the original comic book series by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby debuted), and four years after the four scientists/friends launched into space and encountered cosmos rays that gave them each unique superpowers (via pre-encounter Super ...

(Courtesy Superman Homepage )   After one decade, Warner Bros’ attempt at creating and building a film universe full of DC Comics characters felt like it came and went. Although entries like Wonder Woman and even non-canonical features like Joker were well-received, the DC Extended Universe just ended without a proper or respectable sendoff.  Enter James Gunn and Peter Safran, who were called by the studio to restart this franchise competitor to Marvel under a new banner, “DC Studios.” While he is well-known for Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy  series, Gunn gave WB and DC one of their most recent acclaimed features in 2021, with the ultra-violent The Suicide Squad , while Safran has had a prolific career as a film producer since the late-1990s, with credits on WB and New Line productions (including installments in The Conjuring series, as well as the DC blockbusters Aquaman and Shazam ).  As Zack Snyder helped initiate the previous DC Universe with a darker Man ...

(Courtesy Closing Logo Group ) PART I: THE ORIGINAL TRIFECTA  Open Season (2006)  On the heels of Pixar, DreamWorks, and Blue Sky, Sony decided to form its own animation studio after the turn of the 21st century. Their debut feature, however, was a standard issue project. In other words, an average CGI comedy that featured familiar elements from other studios and kid’s movies around the same time. A buddy comedy starring an unlikely duo? Check. Supporting animal characters? You bet. Toilet humor? As if we had to ask.  Raised by a forest ranger (voiced by Debra Messing), domesticated bear Boog (voiced by Martin Lawrence) gets his whole life turned upside down when he reluctantly rescues a one-horned deer named Elliot (voiced by Ashton Kutcher) who soon returns the favor by trying to persuade Boog to go to the outside world. A series of wacky events and misunderstandings soon land both animals into the mountains of the nearby forest, days before hunting season—and a revolt...