written by: Darrick Bachman, Pete Browngardt, Kevin Costello, Andrew Dickman, David Gemmill, Alex Kirwan, Ryan Kramer, Jason Reicher, Michael Ruocco, Johnny Ryan & Eddie Trigueros
produced by: Michael Baum, Peter Browngardt, Alex Kirwan, and Sam Register
directed by: Peter Browngardt
rated: PG for cartoon violence/action and rude/suggestive humor
runtime: 91 min.
U.S. release date: December 13, 2024 (limited) and March 14, 2025
It’s hard to believe it, but “The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie” is the first-ever fully-animated Looney Tunes feature based on entirely original material released in theaters. Ever. That’s wild, considering these characters have been around for over 80 years. There were movies with basketball showdowns and theatrical releases of television cartoon compilations, but nothing original until now. Between 2020 and 2024, Peter Browngardt served as executive producer and creative director of the great Looney Tunes Cartoons series that ran on HBO Max and Max, and all that led to “The Day the Earth Blew Up,” a charming and often invigorating directorial debut starring Daffy Duck and Porky Pig. The nervous and anxious co-stars get to carry their own movie in a goofy, frequently hilarious send-up of B-movie terror from the 1950s. Read more…
MAGAZINE DREAMS (2023) review
written by: Elijah Bynum
produced by: Jennifer Fox, Dan Gilroy, Jeffrey Soros, Simon Horsman & Luke Rogers
directed by: Elijah Bynum
rated: R (for violent content, drug use, sexual material/nudity and language)
runtime: 124 min.
U.S. release date: March 21, 2025
A month before his big-screen debut as the antagonist in “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” Jonathan Majors wowed audiences in 2023 at Sundance with his portrayal of an obsessed bodybuilder in “Magazine Dreams.” That same year, the actor had probably one of the biggest high-and-low months of his career when “Creed III” dropped in early March. Then, the news hit later that month that he was arrested and eventually charged with physically assaulting and harassing his ex-girlfriend. The coverage snowballed, Searchlight walked away from “Magazine Dreams” in 2024, and anything else Majors had lined up was dropped. Briarcliff Entertainment (“The Apprentice”) picked up domestic distribution last fall and is now releasing “Magazine Dreams” this month, hoping two years is enough time for viewers to separate Major’s off-screen legal troubles from his most demanding and unsettling role to date. Read more…
KNEECAP (2024) review
written by: Rich Peppiatt, Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, Naoise Ó Cairealláin
JJ Ó Dochartaigh (story) & Rich Peppiatt (screenplay)
produced by: Jack Tarling and Trevor Birney
directed by: Rich Peppiatt
rated: R (for pervasive drug content and language, sexual content/nudity and some violence)
runtime: 105 min.
U.S. release date: August 2, 2024 & December 2, 2024 (Netflix)
“Kneecap” is the story about a Northern Irish hip-hop trio called Kneecap, starring the members of the actual trio as themselves. It’s a fictional account of their uncanny rise to fame in West Belfast in the late 2010s, written and directed by English-born Irishman Rich Peppiatt; he came up with the idea when he saw the trio perform live in 2019. It’s his feature film debut after making documentaries, shorts, and music videos (many for Kneecap), and it’s more than just a frenetic and irreverent ride. It also provides a glimpse of Irish history while presenting a desire to keep a native Irish language alive at a time when the majority are okay with forgetting about it altogether. Read more…
BLACK BAG (2025) review
written by: David Koepp
produced by: Casey Silver and Gregory Jacobs
directed by: Steven Soderbergh
rated: R (for language including some sexual references, and some violence)
runtime: 94 min.
U.S. release date: March 14, 2025
Two prolific creators reunite for the third time in three years with “Black Bag” a smart and sexy spy thriller that relies more on dialogue than any impressive stunts. Director Steven Soderbergh and screenwriter David Koepp collaborated on 2022’s “Kimi” a Hitchcockian thriller, and “Presence,” a unique take on the haunted house subgenre, that was released just two months ago. The pair focus on different aspects of relationships: marriage, dating, and work, all within the realm of surveillance and subterfuge, with characters often gathered at a dinner table – call it, “My Dinner with Spy Games”. Soderbergh and Koepp deftly handle the storytelling with deliberate measurements, preferring to let all elements gradually simmer rather than quickly come to a boil. Trusting the audience to get pulled in by their own suspicions, the pair guide a game cast that thankfully relies on wits and personality over weaponry and gadgets. Read more…
ON BECOMING A GUINEA FOWL (2025) review
written by: Rungano Nyoni
produced by: Ed Guiney, Andrew Lowe, and Tim Cole
directed by: Rungano Nyoni
rated: PG-13 (for thematic material involving sexual abuse, some drug use and suggestive references)
runtime: 95 min.
U.S. release date: March 7, 2025 (limited) & March 14, 2025 (wide)
Like being drawn to a catchy book title sitting on a bookstore shelf, I came in cold to Rungano Nyoni’s “On Becoming a Guinea Fowl”, drawn purely by the film’s title. The Zambian-born, Welsh writer/director’s follow-up to 2017’s “I Am Not a Witch” is a luminous and fierce look at the trauma and tradition of a modern-day suburban middle-class Zambian family. It is sometimes surreal in its dreamlike approach and unnerving in how the subject of family secrets and suppressed grief feels unfortunately all too universal. Nyoni’s sophomore effort tells an absorbing and fascinating tale of social mores that have inhabited one family’s matriarchal tree for decades. Read more…
NOVOCAINE (2025) review
written by: Lars Jacobson
produced by: Adam Friedlander, Joby Harold, Julian Rosenberg, Drew Simon, Tory Tunnell
directed by: Dan Berk and Robert Olsen
rated: R (for strong bloody violence, grisly images, and language throughout)
runtime: 110 min.
U.S. release date: March 14, 2025
“Oh, you should probably launder that.”
We’re not even a quarter of the way through 2025, and there have now been two Jack Quaid leading man movies released this year. While they’re not wildly different roles, his characters in January’s “Companion” and this month’s “Novocaine” do kind of show the complete picture of Meg Ryan and Dennis Quaid’s offspring. Read more…
FLOW (2024) review
written by: Gints Zilbalodis and Matīss Kaža
produced by: Gints Zilbalodis, Matīss Kaža, Ron Dyens, and Gregory Zalcman
directed by: Gints Zilbalodis
rated: PG (peril and thematic elements)
runtime: 85 min.
U.S. release date: November 22, 2024
If you’ve grown tired of following anthropomorphic characters in animated films, “Flow” is for you. Latvian filmmaker Gints Zilbalodis co-wrote and directed this animal-centric adventure in a world without humans that has experienced a catastrophic flood. It’s an unusual story in that it lacks dialogue and humans, following a dark grey cat covering precarious terrain in a search for survival. Zilbalodis creates an artful endeavor that uses cinematic language to navigate an often intense story where the feline and its animal cohorts travel across mountains and waters with interesting twists and turns. Its story may be straightforward, but “Flow” asks viewers to rely more on their eyes to guide them, allowing visuals to tell an observational albeit harrowing tale of survival. Read more…
THE RULE OF JENNY PEN (2025) review
written by: James Ashcroft and Eli Kent (screenplay), Owen Marshall (short story)
produced by: Catherine Fitzgerald & Orlando Stewart
directed by: James Ashcroft
rated: R (for violent content including sexual assault, and some language)
runtime: 103 min.
U.S. release date: March 7, 2025
“Where there are no lions, hyenas rule.”
There is no dignity in getting old. One loses their faculties, becoming a shell of themselves, particularly following a stroke, and down the long road to the inevitable we go. It’s the terrifying reality facing all of us, and for some, such as myself, even harder to accept than death itself. That makes a nursing home an absolutely inspired choice for the setting of a horror movie, as they can be a literal house of horrors with death around every corner. Read more…
NIGHT OF THE ZOOPOCALYPSE (2025) review
written by: James Kee and Steven Hoban
produced by: Steven Hoban, Mark Smith, Wes Lui, Joe Iacono, Yohann Comte, Pierre Mazars, Carole Baraton, Cloé Garbay & Bastien Sirodot
directed by: Rodrigo Perez-Castro and Ricardo Curtis
rated: PG (PG for action/peril and scary images throughout)
runtime: 91 min.
U.S. release date: March 7, 2025
“Night of the Zoopocalypse” looks like it could be a silly animated feature aimed at a younger demographic, but then there’s the “from the mind of Clive Barker” selling point. Barker’s mind is also responsible for macabre outings such as “Hellraiser” and “Nightbreed,” which aren’t quite bedtime stories for younglings – unless you want them traumatized. It turns out the movie, which is co-directed by storyboard artists Ricardo Curtis and Rodrigo Perez-Castro, is adapting Barker’s short story, ZOOmbies. His original idea was that of a kid trapped in a zoo during a zombie outbreak, but the focus shifted to a spirited exploration of animal panic coupled with life lessons such as togetherness. Read more…
QUEEN OF THE RING (2025) review
written by: Ash Avildsen
produced by: Aimee Schoof, Isen Robbins, B. D. Gunnell & Ash Avildsen
directed by: Ash Avildsen
rated: PG-13 (for violence including domestic violence, strong language, suggestive material and smoking)
runtime: 130 min.
U.S. release date: March 7, 2028
Like a pro-wrestling moniker, “Queen of the Ring,” which follows trailblazing American female wrestler Mildred Burke, has an (ahem) “ring” to it. It’s a melodramatic period piece and a sports biopic written and directed by Ash Avildsen, inspired by Jeff Leen’s 2009 biography The Queen of the Ring: Sex, Muscles, Diamonds, and the Making of an American Legend. The “Legend” part of the book’s title is likely why it was written and why there’s now a movie made since hardly anyone knows who Burke was. The story starts out in the 1930s, when women in the ring were illegal, and follows Burke as she becomes a powerhouse on the mat yet powerless outside of it. Read more…
