- LIFE AFTER LIFE: 4 Films at IANDS Conference in Chicago August 27-31 (August 25, 2025)
Four films about near-death experiences (NDE), shared death experiences (SDE), and related phenomena will be screened at the International Association for Near-Death Studies (“IANDS”) annual conference, August 27-31 at the Hilton in Oak Brook Hills, Illinois, said Janet Riley, the Executive Director of IANDS. The Annual Conference includes four days of education and workshops, and will bring together more than 800 near-death experience researchers, physicians, nurses, mental health professionals, and clergy, as well as those who have had near-death experiences or are interested in the field. Noted physician Dr. Raymond Moody, credited with early studies on NDEs, is a featured Keynote Speaker.
“Suffering Into Gold,” an award-winning documentary film, follows the journey of Paul Gralen, a terminally ill man with ALS, and his wife, Beth Orr. Following the screening, Chaz Ebert, Chicago author and publisher of RogerEbert.com, will moderate a discussion with Beth Orr and William Peters, founder of the Shared Crossing Project and a noted expert in the field of shared death experiences. SDEs have been called the most mystical end-of-life experiences. That film will be shown on Wednesday, August 27, at 7:30 p.m. with the panel to follow. The other films that will be shown are: “Witnesses,” “Raymond Moody’s Afterlife,” and “Every Soul Knows: The Joy of Remembering Who We Really Are.”
For more information about IANDS and a link to register for the conference, go to: https://conference.iands.org/
- My Window into Culture: Rachael Abigail Holder on “Love, Brooklyn” (August 25, 2025)
“Love, Brooklyn” is the story of three people who are stuck as the community they love changes around them. Roger (André Holland) is a journalist who can’t get started on his story about gentrification. Casey (Nicole Beharie) is a gallery owner and his ex, though they cannot quite figure out whether they want to get back together. Nicole (DeWanda Wise) is a recent widow and the mother of a young girl, who has an intimate relationship with Roger but is still mourning his husband and insists she is not Roger’s girlfriend.
In an interview with RogerEbert.com, director Rachael Abigail Holder discussed casting, locations, and her deeply personal connection to Brooklyn.
You have three of my favorite actors in this film, so I’d love to hear about the casting process.
It started six years ago. They were out to another actor when they took me on as the director. And that actor read the script, and he passed on the project. And I was like, “Wouldn’t it be cool if we made it Black?”
And André Holland has been one of my favorite actors for so long. That moment in “Moonlight” made me think, “We need to see this guy fall in love, like from the beginning.” And I thought it would be fun to see him be funny and a little softer than in the other roles he’s been in. So that was basically my pitch. He’d always wanted to work with Nicole, and so did I. But we didn’t know each other. We started pre-production in 2022, and she was shooting “The Morning Show.”
There was a world where we could have just recast her part and kept on going. And we just didn’t want to do it. The way I describe Nicole’s talent is that she creates more than just a little show; she writes multiple chapters of a story in her eyes. She’s amazing.
DeWonda and I have actually known each other since 2006. I cast her in one of my first New York plays. And we’ve just been like in each other’s worlds without really connecting. She’s playing a very different part than what we normally see her in. She had a juxtaposition of being a confident, blunt, and honest woman, yet also incredibly soft. I love her so much.
We often talk about a location being a character in a movie. Still, in this case, the location is the title character and a parallel for what is happening to the characters. You really made it look beautiful. What does Brooklyn mean to you, and what made it the right location for this story?
Brooklyn is and has always been one of the coolest places on Earth, and it has always been in a state of constant change. The best way to describe Brooklyn’s role as a character in our movie is the beginning of the story of this entire production. Paul Zimmerman wrote the script about his 20s, and Paul is now in his 70s. I read it in 2019, and I felt like he was writing about me and my friends. This particular change that we’re exploring in our story has happened before. I just thought that was wild, that it felt so timeless.
Personally, Brooklyn is where I lived while studying for my MFA. When I was growing up, I lived on Long Island in a predominantly white neighborhood, and I attended an entirely white school. I used to go to Brooklyn every Sunday to go to church with my family. And my family’s West Indian, and Brooklyn’s sort of the landing place for so many Caribbean, West Indian people that going there every Sunday, even if we didn’t go to church, even if we were, like, picking up roti and curry, it felt like I was visiting with family all the time. So, Brooklyn, to me personally, was like my window into my culture.
I want to ask you about one particularly striking scene, where Roger and Casey are at a dinner party with a wealthy art patron named Lorna, and Casey is under a lot of pressure to accommodate her so she will buy more art.
That was one of the funniest and most fun scenes we shot. Cassandra Freeman is another actor who hasn’t had a chance to do their thing. She’s so hilarious, but she’s only played for the most part very dramatic roles. I really wanted Lorna to be a black woman because gentrification is not solely one color. And we all have to look at our relationship to power. I fought hard for her to be a black woman. And I wanted her to be funny too. I wanted it to be light, and I didn’t want it to feel like in-your-face commentary.
In terms of moving the story along, this is a moment where Casey is vulnerable, and Roger picks up on it. She’s softened and upset in a way that only someone who really knows her can know. I think women, Black women, especially, we have this way when we’re upset, sometimes our upset-ness can look like we’re angry or tired. Nicole has this beautiful way of showing her softness and her vulnerability.
How does the theme of gentrification relate to the past and possible future romantic storylines?
It’s like what Roger says at the end of the movie. You can spend your time being mad about the past and holding on to what the current should be, or what the future should be. And you might be right. But I think life is about trying as much as possible to be mindful about how much you’re staying in the present.
The homes and other interior spaces in the film reveal a great deal about the characters.
Lili Teplan is a genius. She worked so hard with nothing and made all of my dreams come true. I had been building decks for every space in the film since 2019, and kept updating it and pulling images. It felt like the little version of me that would spend hours with my stuffed animals, playing, creating, and building. Meeting Lily and her artistry and her ability to make so much out of nothing was like our inner children meeting together. It was just so magical and amazing.
Our location manager, George Marro, compiled a list of homes and spaces to visit in Brooklyn that we explored extensively. We didn’t have to do a whole build-out.
What has been the best part of showing the film at festivals?
The American Black Film Festival was really fun, and I think that was the first time I watched it with a predominantly Black audience, a large group of Black people all together. I was like, “Oh, this is a different movie.” I felt like I was watching it for the first time, because a lot of the audience members were reacting and talking to the screen. And at the Black Star Film Festival, it felt like I was watching with my cousins.
- The Personal Becomes Universal in Moving, Funny “Long Story Short” (August 22, 2025)
Raphael Bob-Waksberg has left behind the shield of talking animals in “Bojack Horseman” and “Tuca & Bertie” to deliver a deeply personal family animated sitcom called “Long Story Short,” a 10-episode Netflix comedy that plays more like a powerful short story anthology than a traditional season of laugh-inducing television. With his writing team, Bob-Waksberg jumps around chronologically in the lives of the Schwooper family, going almost randomly from character to character and time period to time period in each episode, telling self-contained stories that gain added resonance in the accumulation. I can remember after the funeral of a beloved uncle when I was just a teenager, sitting in a back room and hearing his brothers and nephews tell stories about him. “Long Story Short” has that energy, a melancholic yet joyous tribute through comedic storytelling to a family that may not be your own but that isn’t all that far off either.
The Ben Stiller in this variation on “The Royal Tenenbaums” is Avi (Ben Feldman of “Superstore”), the oldest child of the Schwooper clan, which also includes Shira (Abbi Jacobson of “Broad City”) and Yoshi (Max Greenfield of “New Girl”). We will check in with these characters at various stages of their lives, seeing both a young Avi and one post-divorce; seeing Shira at a disastrous prom and as a mother; seeing Yoshi as an awkward troublemaker and becoming Orthodox Jew later in life. All of these events are in the shadow of a figure that’s powerful to the storytelling even when she’s absent, matriarch Naomi Schwartz (Lisa Edelstein), wife to the kind Elliott (Paul Reiser). Naomi checks a few boxes of the stereotypical Jewish mother in a comedy but Edelstein voices her with such depth and Bob-Waksberg gives her such unexplored interiority that when she’s passed away in episodes set closer to present day that we can still feel her presence.
Long Story Short (L to R) Paul Reiser as Elliot Cooper, Ben Feldman as Avi Schwooper, Angelique Cabral as Jen, Lisa Edelstein as Naomi Schwartz, Max Greenfield as Yoshi Schwooper, Abbi Jacobson as Shira Schwooper and Nicole Byer as Kendra in Long Story Short. Cr. COURTESY OF NETFLIX © 2025
The Schwoopers have significant others, friends, and children, including Avi’s wife Jen (Angelique Cabral), Shira’s partner Kendra (a wonderful Nicole Byer), Avi’s daughter Hannah (Michaela Dietz), and Yoshi’s idiotic friend Danny (Dave Franco). Once again, the writing is unpredictable in how it will branch off to tell a story about any one of these characters. My favorite episode of the season is unexpected back story for Kendra, the kind of developmental anecdote that allows you to see someone in a different light. “Long Story Short” introduces its cast and then spins off into their backgrounds just enough that we feel like we know them so much better when they’re reunited back in present day in the eighth episode.
Co-animated by ShadowMachine, who worked on projects as diverse as “Tuca” and “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio,” “Long Story Short” isn’t the most visually striking show on TV. At times, it feels almost like it has an animation style simplified enough to be the sketches of one of the characters, something that Shira might have scribbled in a memory book. It takes some time to get used to the style, but it’s deceptively simple, able to open up in ways that live-action would never be able to do. Animation also serves the time jumping, which would require recasting of voice actors of some of that “Irishman” de-aging voodoo if it were a traditional sitcom.
Long Story Short (L to R) Lisa Edelstein as Naomi Schwartz, Ben Feldman as Avi Schwooper, Abbi Jacobson as Shira Schwooper, Paul Reiser as Elliot Cooper, Dave Franco as Danny and Max Greenfield as Yoshi Schwooper in Long Story Short. Cr. COURTESY OF NETFLIX © 2025
The voice act is uniformly strong, especially Feldman, Jacobson, and Edelstein, who are all on the same comedic wavelength. Most importantly, the voice actors fade into the characters, never sounding like celebrities phoning it in while alone in a recording booth. Greenfield, Byer, Reiser, and Franco are all excellent too. It’s a case of a vocal ensemble clearly invigorated by very good writing.
To be fair, some of that very good writing verges on being overly sitcomish, especially with the follies of the teenage Schwoopers, but there’s an empathy and tenderness to it that can’t be underestimated. So many shows feel cynically crafted by writers who can barely stand their own characters; the team here loves the Schwoopers in all their flaws and wonders. You will too.
Whole season screened for review. Now on Netflix.
- “Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater” is the Definitive Way to Experience This Stealth Game Classic (August 22, 2025)
In an age of video game remakes and remasters, some developers have taken varying steps to modernize older titles. Last year, Konami and developer Bloober Team took a stab at their first remake of “Silent Hill 2,” which was built from the ground up and gave it both graphical and mechanical overhauls to modernize the horror classic. Remakes like “The Last of Us Part 1” were almost identical to their original versions, which puzzled some fans as the PS4 remaster was perfectly playable according to modern standards.
As a beat-by-beat remake of 2004’s “Metal Gear Solid 3,” 2025’s “Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater” feels like a mix of both, though tilting towards the latter, but it has just enough tweaks and new additions to justify its existence. With drastically improved visuals and a modern control scheme, “Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater” is the definitive way to experience one of the greatest stealth games of all time.
The game takes place in 1964 during the middle of the Cold War between the US and Soviet Union. Our protagonist, Snake (David Hayter), has to infiltrate the Soviet Union in order to rescue a Russian rocket scientist named Sokolov. It does a fantastic job utilizing real-world events to create a riveting historical fiction setting.
There’s a natural sense of escalation when Snake must also stop the Soviet Union from deploying a deadly superweapon that could destroy the US. As a result, the story manages to pull you in and keep you invested. Early on, his mentor, The Boss (Lori Alan), also defects to the Soviet Union, which adds a personal touch to Snake’s journey and makes us empathize with him more. These character dynamics and motivations elevate an already intriguing historical drama into a masterful act of storytelling.
This game is also unafraid of taking the “fiction” part of historical fiction to its limits. Along with confronting The Boss, Snake also has to deal with superhuman freaks like the bio-electrically enhanced madman Volgin (Neil Ross) and The Pain (Gregg Berger), who has the ability to control hornets. They make for eccentric antagonists and exhilarating boss fights that you wouldn’t expect in a seemingly more grounded stealth game.
It’s a wild and imaginative juxtaposition that makes “Metal Gear” stand out amongst its other stealth game contemporaries. For anyone who’s played “Death Stranding” and its sequel, you can see where director Hideo Kojima’s knack for wacky names and abilities manifested when he created the “Metal Gear” series.
Speaking of characters, “Delta” reuses the original voice lines from the 2004 game, and it’s impressive how well the voice acting has held up even after two decades. Hayter’s gruff portrayal of Snake complements Alan’s motherly tenderness as The Boss. The quality of voice acting wouldn’t sound out of place today, and that’s a testament of the original’s legacy.
For a game that was created in 2004, the original had stealth gameplay mechanics that were ahead of its time and created the foundation that many modern games take inspiration from. While you have the standard stealth game elements like choking enemies out, there are also some light survival mechanics. Snake’s stamina impacts his walking pace, aiming stability, and damage resistance. He’ll need to catch and eat the animals in the jungle to restore it. These mechanics may not be revolutionary by today’s standards, but there’s a sense of nostalgia and familiarity that kept me going.
The game’s unique stealth mechanic, however, is the camo index. You’re able to swap out Snake’s camouflage patterns at any given time. The jungle terrain is filled with various foliage, rocks, and bodies of water, so it’s important to blend in. The camo index displays how well Snake fits into whatever environment he’s currently in and that drastically impacts whether enemies can see him. It adds a strategic element to the stealth gameplay that constantly keeps you engaged with every enemy encounter.
The two aspects of “Delta” that received the biggest makeovers from the original game are the graphics and the controls. All of the characters, including Snake, The Boss, and all other villains and allies look like they underwent plenty of work to make them on par with modern visuals. The new lighting also makes the game’s lush jungle environments more vibrant than before.
However, “Delta” doesn’t take full advantage of current consoles and PC’s power. This game is a literal 1:1 recreation of the original, and that means the gameplay area segments are too. For example, a fortress you visit called Grozynj Grad is split into four different areas. When you travel between them using the doors, you’ll have to go through a loading screen, just like in the original game. Given how much more powerful modern hardware is now compared to the PS2, these segments could have been seamlessly strung together into one large area. Instead, we’re stuck with what was a byproduct of hardware limitations on up-to-date technology and platforms.
Fortunately, “Delta” feels great to play due to a new control scheme aptly called “New Style” which mirrors the one in “Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain.” This lets you run around in a third-person over-the-shoulder view like in modern games such as “Mafia: The Old Country” and “God of War Ragnarok,” as well as rotate the camera freely. The original’s top-down and fixed camera is also preserved in the “Legacy Style” control scheme option for those who want to relive the authentic PS2 experience.
For fans who’ve played the original, this new version will feel right at home. Chronologically, this entry is a prequel, so those who’ve never played a “Metal Gear” game won’t feel intimidated by the franchise’s extensive history and can start with this one. It’s unknown whether we’ll ever get a “Metal Gear Solid 6” given that Kojima has long since departed Konami and his quirky idiosyncrasies would be difficult to replicate, but in the meantime, “Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater” is subsistence enough.
The publisher provided a review copy of this title. It launches on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S on August 29.
- Clear Eyes, Full Heart, Can’t Lose: The Enduring Legacy of “Friday Night Lights” (August 21, 2025)
“It was in Odessa that I found those Friday night lights, and they burned with more intensity than I ever imagined… As someone later described it, those lights become an addiction if you live in a place like Odessa…As I stood in that beautiful stadium on the plains week after week, it became obvious that these kids held the town on their shoulders.” — H.G. Bissinger, Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team and a Dream (1990)
If the conversation is about the most significant and enduring book ever published about high school football, the universally acknowledged GOAT is H.G. Bissinger’s Friday Night Lights.
When we’re debating the best movies about high school football, my vote goes to Peter Berg’s adaptation of “FNL” (2004), just ahead of “All the Right Moves” (1983) and “Remember the Titans” (2000) and light-years ahead of the admittedly entertaining but borderline cartoonish “Varsity Blues” (1999).
As for TV series in this category, let’s broaden the discussion to include series covering all sports, at any level. I have a fond place in my memory bank for “The White Shadow” (1978-1981), and I loved “Ted Lasso” so much that I’m cautiously optimistic about the somewhat surprising news of a Season 4, even though I thought Season 3 wrapped things up in note-perfect fashion. Still, it’s the television adaptation of “Friday Night Lights” (2006-2011) that has remained atop my rankings of the best TV sports shows ever made.
High school football season is here. Hawaii and Alaska have already begun their 2025 seasons, with the vast majority of states kicking off their campaigns in the third or fourth weeks of August. With that in mind, let’s take a look at the legacy of “Friday Night Lights”—the book, the movie, and the TV show.
The Book
By the fall of 1988, the brilliant, then 34-year-old H.G. “Buzz” Bissinger was already a star journalist. Bissinger had won the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting while writing for the Philadelphia Inquirer, and he made another big splash with a Vanity Fair article titled “Shattered Glass,” an exposé of the fabulist catalog of work by Stephen Glass. (Writer/director Billy Ray’s adaptation of that piece was one of the best films of 2003.)
Bissinger spent a year in Odessa, TX, and immersed himself in the football-crazed community—and the result was the sensational bestseller Friday Night Lights, told in the “New Journalism” style pioneered by the likes of Truman Capote, Hunter S. Thompson, and Gay Talese. The book was about so much more than high school sports; Bissinger took us inside a West Texas community where solid, small-town values were stressed—but racism was prevalent, and football was given priority over academics, with the locals placing an inordinate amount of importance on the Friday night gridiron performances of a bunch of 17-year-olds.
The most tragic figure is the star running back Boobie Miles, who seems bound for Division I and perhaps even NFL greatness, until he suffers a brutal injury in a preseason scrimmage. At a time when Boobie most needed the support of the community, the easy grades teachers were handing him disappeared (at a time when education required to be stressed), and some members of the coaching staff reportedly made cruel and racist jokes about Boobie being useless. Even in the most tragic of passages, there is a poetry to Bissinger’s narrative, and this is a work of complexity and subtlety. He includes positive portrayals of head coach Gary Gaines and several players, including Brian Chavez, Ivory Christian, and Brian Winchell, but he never shies away from showing us the darkest side of those Friday night lights.
(Sidebar: Over the years, Bissinger provided financial and emotional support for the struggling Miles and published a 34-page afterword titled “After Friday Night Lights” in 2012 that detailed their relationship–but to no avail. Miles has made a mess of his own life and has seriously harmed others; he has been convicted of multiple crimes and is currently serving a 13-year prison sentence.)
The Movie
Rewatching director Peter Berg’s 2004 adaptation of Bissinger’s book (Berg co-wrote the screenplay with David Aaron Cohen), I was struck by the gritty authenticity of the football sequences, whether it was preseason practices, weight room sessions, or the climactic championship game at the Astrodome. (Berg wisely kept the story planted in the past, capturing the atmosphere of the Odessa of the late 1980s.) In subsequent films like “Battleship” and “Lone Survivor,” Berg and the talented cinematographer Tobias A. Schliessler would sometimes overdo it with the whip-around, herky-jerky camera moves. Still, on their first collaboration with “FNL,” the style is just slick yet raw enough to create a docudrama effect without being too showy.
Although Berg had to jettison background historical passages, streamline storylines and nudge facts around to winnow a 357-page tome down to a 118-minute movie, the fictionalized portrayals of Coach Gary Gaines (Billy Bob Thornton), Mike Winchell (Lucas Black) and Boobie Miles (Derek Luke), among others, feel true to the spirit of the book. Derek Luke is electric as Boobie, who talks about himself in the third person and is more concerned with personal glory than team success, until he suffers that horrific injury. When Boobie insists to his coach that he’s ready to return for an October game against Midland, he immediately goes down again, this time for good. (Gaines takes one look at the hurting Boobie on the sidelines, walks away, and bluntly states, “He’s done.”)
Another compelling storyline involves the fumble-prone running back Donny Billingsley (Garret Hedlund, terrific) and his alcoholic and abusive father, Charlie (a menacingly good Tim McGraw), who wears and displays his state championship ring as if it represents the most important accomplishment in his life—which, sadly, is true.
At halftime of the climactic game against the heavily favored, physically dominant Dallas Carter team, Thornton’s Coach, Gaines, sums up a reality about high-stakes high school football that rings true to this day: “You got two more quarters, and that’s it… Most of you have been playing this game for 10 years. You’ve got two more quarters, and after that, most of you will never play this game again for as long as you live.” (I remember hearing my coach at Thornridge High School giving a version of that same speech before the final game of my senior season.) Little wonder that even though these kids are playing a game they truly love, they often seem to forget to inhale the joy of it all.
The TV Show
As we all know, Ben Affleck starred in the NBC drama series that was inspired by Bissinger’s book. Wait, what?
“Against the Grain” (1993), featuring John Terry as high school coach Ed Clemons, and Affleck as his son, the hunky young football player Joe Willie Clemons, was loosely based on Friday Night Lights. It lasted just eight weeks before it was permanently sacked, and quickly forgotten.
Onto the main event. When Peter Berg and showrunner Jason Katims brought “Friday Night Lights” to NBC in 2006, it marked the relatively rare occurrence of a book becoming a movie and then a TV show, with “M*A*S*H” arguably the most famous example. (Other notable titles: “The Ghost and Mrs. Muir,” Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan stories, “The Dead Zone,” and “Snowpiercer.”)
With W.G. Snuffy Walden creating the iconic, slow-build, chills-inducing opening anthem—it’s a Top 10 TV theme for me—that sets the tone for the blending of sports and family drama, “Friday Night Lights” was almost entirely fictionalized, and it softened some of the harsher themes explored in the book and the film. We spent at least as much time following the domestic arcs of the various nuclear families as we did on the football scenes–but that’s why it appealed to some non-sports fans as well as us football nerds. Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton created one of the most believable and empathetic couples television has ever seen in Eric and Tami Taylor, with an underappreciated Aimee Teagarden doing emotionally charged work as their teenage daughter Julie. (Britton had little to do as Coach Gaines’ wife Sharon in “Friday Night Lights” the movie, but she was a formidable co-lead on the TV show.)
The football scenes were well-choreographed, even if there were far too many games decided on the final play, and we were emotionally invested from the get-go, due to the stellar performances by Scott Porter as the star quarterback Jason Street, who suffers a paralyzing injury in the pilot episode; Zach Gilford as the aw-shucks backup QB Matt Saracen, Gaius Charles as Brian “Smash” Williams; Taylor Kitsch as the troubled anti-hero Tim Riggins, and, later on, Michael B. Jordan as Vince Howard. (The insanely talented cast also included Jesse Plemons and Adrienne Palicki, and would expand to include blazing talents such as Aldis Hodge and Jurnee Smollett. Even though most of the actors playing high schoolers were too old for the part, at least the storylines would have some students graduating while others rotated in.)
The TV version of “FNL” would sometimes venture into lurid territory (e.g. Plemons’ Landry killing the stalker of Palicki’s Tyra, and the two of them conspiring to cover up the crime). But on balance, the series did a stellar job of tackling issues of race, economic class, crime, domestic strife, healthcare, school board politics, and, yes, the overemphasis on high school football in small-town America. Over five seasons, first on NBC and then on DirecTV’s 101 Network, “Friday Night Lights” struggled to find a large audience, but it was critically acclaimed—and dearly embraced by those of us who loved it. In the film version of “FNL,” Coach Gaines says to his team, “Can you live in [the] moment, as best you can, with clear eyes and love in your heart? With joy in your heart… Boys, my heart is full. My heart’s full.”
On TV, Coach Taylor’s mantra was, “Clear Eyes, Full Heart, Can’t Lose.” Sentimental as it might sound, the story of “Friday Night Lights,” warts and all, has cleared many an eye and filled many a heart. It is a football story, an American story, a story that holds up a mirror to society, and it rings as true and insightful in 2025 as it did in 1998 and again in the 2000s.
- First Teaser for '100 Nights of Hero' with Maika Monroe & Emma Corrin (August 25, 2025)
"Whatever the lady wants..." IFC Films has debuted a tantalizing first look teaser trailer for 100 Nights of Hero, a fantasy romance thriller from the filmmaker Julia Jackman as her second feature film (following Bonus Track). This will be premiering at the 2025 Venice Film Festival which begins this week - playing in the Critics Week sidebar section known as "SIC". IFC has also confirmed a release date for December 2025 - the film plays in select theaters later this year. When her neglectful husband departs after placing a secret wager to test her fidelity, Cherry and her sharp-witted maid must fend off a dangerously seductive visitor: Manfred. The film is adapted from the hit graphic novel of the same name. Here's a better intro from that book to setup the stakes: "In the tradition of The Arabian Nights, a beautifully illustrated tapestry of folk tales and myths about the secret legacy of female storytellers in an imagined medieval world. In the Empire of Migdal Bavel, Cherry is married to Jerome, a wicked man who makes a diabolical wager with his friend Manfred: if Manfred can seduce Cherry in one hundred nights, he can have his castle – and Cherry." Oyy! Starring Emma Corrin as Hero, Nicholas Galitzine as Manfred, Maika Monroe as Cherry, Amir El-Masry, Charli XCX (yes for real!), Richard E. Grant, and Felicity Jones. So far, so good – I'm curious. // Continue Reading ›
- Sex-Infused Dark Comedy Horror-Thriller 'Bone Lake' Official Trailer (August 25, 2025)
"It seems like someone wanted all of us here..." Bleecker Street has debuted their full official trailer for a horror thriller dark comedy called Bone Lake, set to open in theaters starting in early October for anyone to enjoy. This film first premiered at Fantastic Fest last year, but didn't show up at many other fests since then. When two young couples are mistakenly double-booked into the same vacation rental, their romantic weekend becomes a twisted maze of sex, lies, and survival. Directed by Mercedes Bryce Morgan as her latest horror feature following Spoonful of Sugar and Fixation. Starring Maddie Hasson, Marco Pigossi, Alex Roe, Andra Nechita, Eliane Reis, and Clayton Spencer. This isn't the first film about a double booked vacation rental, but it does look like it has a few other unique twists up its sleeves. What is this game they're playing? The first teaser a few months ago is better than this trailer - which is more confusing than exciting. // Continue Reading ›
- Full Trailer for Amalfi Fixer Series 'Hotel Costiera' with Jesse Williams (August 25, 2025)
"Thrills don't pay the bills, boys!" Prime Video has debuted the main official trailer for Hotel Costiera, a part comedy, part thriller crime series starring Jesse Williams set on the fanciest Mediterranean coast in Italy. Ready for release starting in September this fall streaming on Prime Video (you can also enjoy the first teaser from a few months ago). Daniel De Luca, a former Marine, returns to Italy to work as a fixer at a luxury hotel in Positano on the Amalfi Coast. Shortly thereafter, the owner's daughter disappears and De Luca is tasked with finding her. Daniel must do everything he can to bring her home, but facing those who kidnapped the girl will be more challenging than any problem Daniel has ever faced. The series stars Jesse Williams as Daniel De Luca, Maria Chiara Giannetta, Jordan Alexandra, Antonio Gerardi, Sam Haygarth, Tommaso Ragno, Amanda Campana, Pierpaolo Spollon, Alejandra Onieva, & Jean-Hugues Anglade. This series yet again looks like one giant Italy tourism ad, but at least it looks fun with this group doing some hustling and punching to get things done. Worth a look - especially if you adore Italy. // Continue Reading ›
- New Official Korean Trailer for Park Chan-wook's 'No Other Choice' (August 25, 2025)
"Unemployment is not my fault!" Ha ha. CJ Entertainment has debuted the main official Korean trailer for the new dark comedy titled No Other Choice from masterful Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook, his latest macabre feature film since making Decision to Leave back in 2022. No Other Choice is the title of his new one, which is based on the 1997 novel called "The Ax" written by Donald Westlake. There's even a scene in this trailer where a character utters "there's no other choice." A fresh new murderous tale from one of the great Korean masters of dark & depraved thrills! Here's the quick intro to this sneaky setup: After being laid off and unemployed for several years, a man devises a unique plan to finally secure a new job: eliminate his competition. Starring Lee Byung-hun as Man-soo, along with Son Ye-jin, Yeom Hye-ran, Park Hee-soon, Yoo Yeon-seok, and Cha Seung-won. It's premiering at the 2025 Venice Film Festival later this week - hence why this full Korean trailer just debuted. This looks mad brilliant and sneaky fun! As expected from Park Chan-wook, of course. I cannot wait to watch & enjoy it. English subtitles in the first video below. // Continue Reading ›
- Classic Trailer Rewatch: Comedy 'Surf Ninjas' 35mm Trailer from 1993 (August 24, 2025)
"We're not being kidnapped, we're starting a revolution! Everything is 'cool.'" Time for another blast from the past! A brand new 4K scan of a 35mm trailer print for the original 90s comedy Surf Ninjas recently appeared on YouTube. This ridiculously cheesy comedy adventure for kids was made and released in 1993, right after the massive success of 3 Ninjas in 1992, so Hollywood went totally crazy on ninja movies for kids. Surf Ninjas is a 1993 comedic family film involving martial arts, that follows two teenage surfers from Los Angeles who discover that they are crown princes of the Asian kingdom Patusan and reluctantly follow their destinies to dethrone an evil colonel that rules over the kingdom. It is directed by Neal Israel and written by Dan Gordon. The movie stars Ernie Reyes Jr. (who was also in The Last Dragon and Rush Hour 2), Rob Schneider, Nicolas Cowan, and Leslie Nielsen as the bad guy Colonel Chi. Surf Ninjas was filmed in Los Angeles, Hawaii, and Thailand. A video game was also developed and released in conjunction with the film. This is one of the most zaniest and funny 90s trailers, with a voiceover explaining everything going on. // Continue Reading ›
