The Reel World

“You should be so proud of her.”

Shelby Oaks is something special when you look at it objectively; it’s a film that was crowd funded by the YouTuber Chris Stuckmann, who wanted to take a shot at making a movie of his very own. The original goal was to raise $600,000, but by the time his Kickstarter was closed, he was able to raise over 1.4 million to make his film. Before he’d even begun filming, this is already an impressive achievement considering how many established filmmakers struggle to get funds together to make their own films. For Shelby Oaks, over 14,000 people contributed to funding the dream for this directorial debut, so again, in my book Chris Stuckmann already won for being able to pull this off. Now the film has a producing credit from Mike Flanagam attached as an executive producer and Neon in charge of the films distribution … so needless to say, there is a great deal of hype around this film. Two films immediately come to mind when I think about this kind of hype before a film even reaches audiences, The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity … both films that innovated the found-footage genre but also had some clever marketing once acquired for distribution.  Does Shelby Oaks live up to the hype? Well, from my experience, this is a pretty divisive film.

“Because they need someone to be wicked -- so you can be good.”

I’d say this is one of those times when dividing the project into two parts did more harm than good. No one can discount the impact of the first film, where Cynthia Ervio and Ariana Grande gave us phenomenal and complimentary duets, as well as excellent acting performances. Also, no one can discount the impact of the musical that has dominated the theater for more than twenty years. However, I’d say the good thing about the theater version is that you get all of that at once. In the case of this film and its predecessor, the films are divided into acts, and in my humble opinion, Act 1 is the stronger of the acts, which is also the case with the two films. Wicked set a very high bar by empowering Ervio’s character to stand up for injustice and against Jeff Goldblum as the fraudulent Wizard of Oz. Also, there is certainly a difference in songs. Specifically, in Wicked For Good, there isn’t a song to match the dominance of Defying Gravity.

“Stop filming me!”

Interestingly enough, this 2025 remake/adaptation is a more faithful reproduction of its source material than the 1987 version. The 1987 adaptation, while popular, took liberties when it came to the main character’s backstory and motivations, such as him being a wrongfully accused and convicted policeman getting his shot at freedom by participating in a TV game show where convicts called Runners must battle killers for their freedom. In the 2025 remake, Ben Richards, now played by Glen Powell, is a blacklisted blue-collar worker living in dystopian anarchistic police state with his wife and infant Cathy. Unable to afford medicine for Cathy's influenza, Ben attends tryouts for the network's game shows, where his anger, misanthropy, and physical fitness see him selected for "The Running Man", their most popular and dangerous show. That backstory is much more in line with the 1982 Stephen King novel. Rounding out the cast are Josh Brolin, William H Macy, Lee Pace, Michael Cera, and Colman Domingo. Arnold Schwarzeneggar even makes a surprise appearance. It’s quick, though. Blink and you could miss it.

“The Yautja are prey to none, friend to none, predator to all.”

This has certainly been a resurgent year for the Predator and Alien franchises. In the case of the Predator franchise, Badlands builds on the momentum and resurgence established by prequel film Prey. In the case of this iteration, we are treated with a film from the perspective of a Yautja warrior as he embarks on the rite of passage needed to be inducted into the Yautja clan. This was the unique perspective needed to take the franchise to new heights. For the first five films, we have watched the Yautja be the antagonists, and now we get to see what drives them as they come to the forefront for the first time. I expected that there would be a great deal of action, which was the lure that got me to the theater. What I didn’t expect was the healthy amount of humor that was also infused into the story. This of course is primarily courtesy of Elle Fanning’s character. Or least one of her characters; for this film, the actress pulled double duty as a pair of identical Weyland-Yutani Corporation synthetic androids; one that partners with our Yautja protagonist, while the other opposes him.

It’s hard to believe it has been nearly a decade since we last had a film directed by Kathryn Bigelow. I’ve been a fan of hers from her early years when she was doing films like Near Dark, Point Break, and Strange Days. I’ve always felt she’s never been given the credit she deserves, but when she finally got recognition for films like The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty, it just felt long overdue. Now that she has A House Full of Dynamite releasing on Netflix, I’ll be honest; I immediately expected this to be one of my top films of the year, and considering when it was being released, it seemed like a sure frontrunner as an awards contender. Sadly this film might be my first major disappointment of the year, and what’s frustrating is that it still might have one of the most riveting opening acts of the year. So where did it go so wrong? The film takes us on a journey in a “what if” scenario where the US has a nuclear weapon fired at it from an unknown origin, though the best possible guess is North Korea. The film is broken up into three parts, each part focusing on different figures as they are faced with the same problem. It starts in the Situation Room with Captain Olivia Walker (Rebecca Ferguson) leading the effort to track the missile, and along the way we meet several key figures involved with trying to shoot the missile down to the President (Idris Elba), who is the key focus of the third act. This first act is phenomenal, and if it was simply a short film, it would deserve so much praise …The problem is that as each act is replayed, even though we are seeing new characters added to the mix to heighten the drama, it loses its impact because we’ve already seen the moment play out, and the story doesn’t move forward, but simply sidesteps and avoids answering questions or giving us any sort of payoff by the end.

Sure, this is a very real scenario that is depicted here, and the questions presented here are terrifying. Knowing how easily an impulsive decision could create a global nuclear war is unsettling, and seeing how quickly things can spiral and how there just wouldn’t be enough time to evacuate a large city that was targeted … these are things that hit really hard in this film and will likely keep some viewers up at night to ponder what they would do if a strike ever did occur. I’m not saying that the film doesn’t have drama. It’s jam-packed with drama and tension, but there’s no release, no resolution. I don’t need to see a grand-scale fallout from the impact or even an all-out war, but the film is just left so wide open that it feels incomplete. The best way I could describe this is that it is like watching an episode of 24 but never getting to know anything else that happens after. They give us so many characters experiencing the same thing, but no resolution, and that just annoys me.

Ever since I first heard about Good Boy earlier this year as it was making the rounds at film festivals, it instantly became one of my most anticipated films of the year. I was sold just on the idea of this being a supernatural film told through a dog’s perspective. Sure, it sounds like a gimmick, but I really liked the sound of this gimmick. I’ve always been a sucker for the paranormal, and I was always intrigued by the idea that animals could see things that we could not. So after months of waiting, I finally got the opportunity to watch Good Boy. Did it live up to my expectations, or did it turn out to be a dud? The film follows Indy, a Nova Scotia duck tolling retriever. He is extremely loyal to his owner, Todd (Shane Jensen), who we see from the opening scene is extremely ill. Todd knows his health is in decline, and he decides to get away from his doctors and his overbearing sister and moves out to his grandfather’s rural home. Just about immediately upon arriving Indy senses that there is something not right about the home but still continues to stick to his owner’s side. We watch through Indy’s concerned perspective as Todd lumbers through the home, wheezing and coughing. At night Todd combs through his grandfather’s VHS collection of old horror movies, but also some strange home videos of Grandpa (Larry Fessenden) talking about taxidermy. It also doesn’t take long before Indy starts to see that there are things lurking in the home.

The film has several moments that I loved. One that stands out the most is when Indy is left alone in the house for the first time and we see him patiently waiting by the window for Todd to return home … but then something gets Indy’s attention. It’s another dog that is in the home  and it wants to show Indy “something”  and Indy follows the dog upstairs, and the reveal is a tad bit unsettling. What’s so impressive is that obviously not a word is spoken in this sequence. It is all told through visuals and of course Indy’s reactions. I’d imagine most dog owners are going to watch this film and afterwards wonder just how the director was able to wrangle this kind of a performance out of his pet. I’m not exaggerating that this dog shows more emotional range than several A-listers who have been in big-budget films this year.

“The things you do for the ones you love.” In this case, this saying has a bit of double meaning, one for the movie and one for me personally. For the movie, it is about how far a parent will go to protect their child from an ugly truth. And for me, it’s about how far I will go to ensure that my wife is happy and entertained. Regretting You, the second film adaptation of a Colleen Hoover novel after It Ends with Us (2024) and the third adaptation overall, after the television series Confess (2017). In the case of this film, the audience gets two love stories for the price of one. One is centered around young love between a very talented pair in McKenna Grace and Mason Thames, and the other about second chances, between Dave Franco and Allison Williams. In my opinion, the young-love story is the more vibrant and uplifting story arc, hence why it received far more focus than the second-chance one. Scott Eastwood and Willa Fitzgerald also help round out the cast, but their roles are limited to the opening portions of the film, particularly because it is their actions rather than their presence that help drive the story as a whole.

So, I should mention upfront that I am not a reader of Colleen Hoover, but I am aware of her books. In recent years, they’ve been impossible to miss. She has become quite prolific in the literary space, with 24 novels under her belt, 11 of which have been featured on the New York Times Bestsellers List. Her popularity apparently surged in 2022, when she held six of the top ten spots on the paperback fiction bestseller list. Also as of 2022, she has sold more than 20 million books. It makes sense that her novels would find their way to the silver screen. I won’t spend any time on the events that surrounded the previous adaptation, but focus on this one, which I expect will also have a fairly decent outing. I wouldn’t be surprised if the film was this weekend’s box office winner, but it does face stiff competition in a horror film that also stars Mason Thames that was released last week.

It’s been a long time since a movie gave me goosebumps. The last real time I can remember it happened is when I first watched Nightmare on Elm Street, which is pretty ironic, as there are some pretty clear parallels between that film and Black Phone 2. Taking place at a summer camp, the film clearly also draws inspiration from the Jason Voorhies franchise as well. However, despite these parallels. Black Phone 2 is still a very entertaining and engaging horror sequel. The film stars Ethan Hawke, Mason Thames, Madeleine McGraw, and Jeremy Davies reprising their roles, while Demián Bichir joined the cast. Interestingly, Miguel Mora also returns. However, while he played Robin Arellano in the first movie, in the second movie he plays Ernesto, his brother. I was initially skeptical about this sequel because of the demise of Hawke’s character in the first film. I found myself asking, “How are you going to have a sequel when the villain was killed in the first film?” However, it appears that Joe Hill, the author of the short story that the first film was based on, had the answer:

“A phone rings, Finney answers, and it's the Grabber calling from hell.”

It was only a matter of time before we would see those who found success on platforms like TikTok and YouTube try to make the transition to the big screen. Sam and Colby found moderate success with their fans, but really, to the rest of the world it was barely noticed. Now later this month we’ll get the highly anticipated Shelby Oaks from Chris Stuckmann, who got his start with movie reviews and creating content on his YouTube channel. But now we have House on Eden, a small-budget found-footage film from content creators Kris The Girl and Celina Spooky Boo. I’ll admit I’ve actually been following their content for a few years, and I was a little optimistic about what these two would come up with, but I have to admit this was disappointing and frankly just lazy. To be blunt, it is an insult to those out there who are grinding to create the best film they can on a shoestring budget. The film follows a trio of content creators (they are basically playing exaggerated versions of themselves, not even bothering to change their names) led by Kris Collins.

The group likes to film and investigate potential haunted locations, and Kris has found a location that no one has filmed at before, and she convinces her friends to go to the spot and investigate it. Of course things go wrong once they arrive at the location, and to be honest, I’m surprised I made it that far.