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Project Hail Mary gives us a spider-shaped rock creature with no eyes, no face, and a simplified vocabulary who makes a choice so selfless that four grown men on a podcast had to take a beat. That's the kind of movie this is. Andy Weir's third novel has been adapted by Lord and Miller — the filmmakers who made you cry about a Lego — and the result is a two-and-a-half-hour space movie where the most compelling relationship is between Ryan Gosling and a practical puppet made of granite.Pete, Tommy, Steve, and JJ dig into all of it: the parallel storylines that cut between Grace's amnesia-fueled space crisis and his reluctant conscription on Earth, the razor wire on the inside of the fence, Sandra Hüller's karaoke scene that had JJ in a puddle, and why Greig Fraser and Paul Lambert called this the most complex film they've ever worked on — including two Dune movies. The panel splits on whether the earthbound story or the space-bound story lands harder, and Pete makes a case that the movie's real antagonist isn't a villain at all but the weight of impossible choices.Watch & DiscoverWatch Now: Apple TV | LetterboxdOriginal Theatrical Trailer📚 Adapted from Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir Support The Next Reel Family of Film Shows:Become a member for just $5/month or $55/yearJoin our Discord community of movie loversThe Next Reel Family of Film Shows:Cinema Scope: Bridging Genres, Subgenres, and MovementsThe Film BoardMovies We LikeThe Next ReelSitting in the DarkConnect With Us:Main Site: WebMovie Platforms: Letterboxd | FlickchartSocial Media: Facebook | Instagram | Threads | Bluesky | YouTube | PinterestYour Hosts: Pete | JJ | Steve | Tommy | Andy | Ocean Shop & Stream:Merch Store: Apparel, stickers, mugs & moreWatch Page: Buy/rent films we've discussedOriginals: Source material from our episodesSpecial offers: Audible

Ghostface is back. Sidney Prescott is back. Kevin Williamson — the writer who started it all in 1996 — is back, this time in the director's chair. And The Film Board is here to pick through the wreckage. Pete Wright convenes the panel — Tommy Metz III, Steve Sarmento, and Mandy Kaplan — for a full-spoiler autopsy of Scream 7, the franchise's seventh installment and its most complicated origin story yet. The film arrives trailing the collapse of a whole other movie: Melissa Barrera's firing, Jenna Ortega's departure, two directors exiting before a frame was shot, and Neve Campbell finally getting what she was owed to come back. What ended up on screen bears those scars — and the panel doesn't look away from them. There's plenty to argue about. Tommy arrives as the franchise's longest-tenured Film Board voice and delivers his most critical take yet — the kills are flat, the villain reveal is the weakest in franchise history, and the AI deepfake conceit is nostalgia for nostalgia's sake. Steve, against form, finds himself in the film's corner: the Sidney-Tatum mother-daughter dynamic gives him something real to hold onto, and he'll take that over clever-but-hollow any day. Mandy had a genuinely good time, found Anna Camp's casting as transparent as a freshly-cleaned window, and would very much like Tatum's next chapter to be a musical. Pete sits somewhere in the middle — glad to have Kevin Williamson back, troubled by what he had to work with, and still thinking about the better movie that never got made. They get into the production chaos, the Barrera-shaped hole in the script, the question of whether the AI angle says anything worth saying, the correct use of a panic room, the mystery of a certain line reading, and whether Scream 7 has dethroned Scream 3 at the bottom of the franchise pile. 🎬 Watch & Discover 🍿 Watch Now: Apple TV | Amazon | Letterboxd📽️ Original Theatrical TrailerBecome a Member of The Next Reel Family of Film ShowsIf you like this ep... check out some other horror favorites from across the Next Reel Family! Scream (2022) • The Film Board • January 18, 2022 With: Ocean Murff (host), Tommy Metz III Where the Film Board's Scream run begins. Ocean and Tommy dig into Radio Silence's relaunch — Woodsboro, the Carpenters, and a film that earns real affection while already showing the cracks Tommy will spend two more episodes cataloguing. His 1.5 stars for Scream 7 are a long way from where he started here. Scream VI • The Film Board • March 14, 2023 With: Pete Wright (host), Tommy Metz III, Steve Sarmento, Justin Jaeger New York, no Sidney, and the episode where this panel finds its Scream voice. Steve calls the villain motivation the franchise's Achilles heel — a verdict that lands even harder when you hear how Scream 7's killer reveal plays out. The complaints are all road-tested here first. Last Woman Standing • Sitting in the Dark• March 28, 2025 With: Pete Wright, Tommy Metz III, Kyle Olson, Kynan Dias The evolution of the Final Girl from Janet Leigh to the present day, examined through Prey, Sweetheart, and The Invisible Man. Scream 7 hinges on Sidney Prescott as the franchise's ur-Final Girl and closes by anointing Tatum as the next one — this is the essential companion. Mommy Acts This Way Because She Loves You • Sitting in the Dark • May 30, 2025 With: Pete Wright, Tommy Metz III, Kyle Olson, Kynan Dias Horror's obsession with maternal protection, control, and what happens when the drive to shield your child from harm becomes its own kind of damage — through Run, Goodnight Mommy, and mother! Steve's reading of Scream 7 as fundamentally a story about Sidney's fear of visiting her own trauma on Tatum lands squarely in this episode's territory. Rug Pullers: Topsy-Turvy Horror Twists • Sitting in the Dark • August 29, 2025 With: Pete Wright, Tommy Metz III, Kynan Dias, Chelsea Stardust Three films built entirely around the sucker punch — Ghostwatch, Barbarian, Strange Darling. If you want context for why the Film Board found Scream 7's killer reveal so deflating, this is the episode that sets the bar for what a well-earned horror twist actually requires. Tommy's Terror Trope Tutorials: Book of the Vampyre and Final Girls • Sitting in the Dark • April 28, 2023 With: Tommy Metz III, Pete Wright, Ray DeLancey Tommy builds the theoretical groundwork on the Final Girl as a horror archetype — where it comes from, what it asks of its protagonist, and whether it holds up. Essential backstory for understanding why Tommy holds the Scream franchise to the standard he does, and why this movie's handling of Sidney and Tatum hits so differently once you've heard him make that argument.

This month on The Film Board, Pete Wright drags Andy Nelson, Tommy Metz III, and Steve Sarmento into an emergency bonus hearing because Andy texted, essentially, “We can’t skip a month. Also I found a movie.” That movie is Mercy, a slick, noisy, deeply committed screenlife thriller where Chris Pratt wakes up strapped into a futuristic execution-chair-courtroom and has 90 minutes to prove he didn’t kill his wife. The judge is an AI who looks like Rebecca Ferguson. Which is frankly unfair to every other AI.From there, it’s a full-spoilers sprint through a world where justice is software, surveillance is just “normal life,” and every single camera on Earth is apparently pointed at exactly the wrong moment. The panel fights over what Mercy thinks it’s doing (a cautionary tale about AI and institutions) versus what it actually does (a pulpy, coincidence-powered ride that occasionally forgets its own premise and wanders off toward terrorism and explosions).Andy is… not having it. Steve is torn in the way only a lover of scrappy sci-fi concepts can be: “It’s messy, but I’m intrigued.” Tommy—who walked in expecting bargain-bin January nonsense—ends up delighted, especially after an accidental 3D screening turns the whole thing into a theme-park attraction where the chair is the main character. Pete tries to keep the court metaphor alive long enough to pronounce a verdict, but keeps getting distracted by the movie’s most dangerous idea: not the AI, but the assumption that the only way to get “justice” is if the system can see literally everything.Also: yes, we talk about the wind. The screens have wind.Watch & DiscoverWatch Now: Apple TV | Amazon | LetterboxdOriginal Theatrical Trailer Support The Next Reel Family of Film Shows:Become a member for just $5/month or $55/yearJoin our Discord community of movie loversThe Next Reel Family of Film Shows:Cinema Scope: Bridging Genres, Subgenres, and MovementsThe Film BoardMovies We LikeThe Next ReelSitting in the DarkConnect With Us:Main Site: WebMovie Platforms: Letterboxd | FlickchartSocial Media: Facebook | Instagram | Threads | Bluesky | YouTube | PinterestYour Hosts: Pete | JJ | Steve | Tommy | Andy | Ocean Shop & Stream:Merch Store: Apparel, stickers, mugs & moreWatch Page: Buy/rent films we've discussedOriginals: Source material from our episodesSpecial offers: Audible

This month on The Film Board, Pete Wright sits down with Tommy Metz III and Steve Sarmento to wrestle with a question that keeps resurfacing throughout Avatar: Fire and Ash: how can a movie built with such extraordinary care feel so strangely forgettable?James Cameron’s return to Pandora is, once again, a monumental technical achievement. The scale is enormous. The craft is meticulous. The effort behind it is undeniable. And yet, as the conversation unfolds, the panel keeps circling the same uneasy feeling—that the film never quite gives its spectacle anything meaningful to serve.The discussion ranges from Cameron’s latest performance-capture and adaptive frame-rate experiments to the franchise’s growing habit of mistaking motion for momentum. There’s real admiration for the artists who built this world, paired with frustration over a story that repeatedly rushes past its most interesting ideas. Themes of environmentalism, colonialism, faith, and family surface again and again, only to be flattened by familiar beats, unresolved questions, and a narrative that seems unwilling to slow down long enough to let any of them land.By the time the conversation reaches ratings, the outcome feels less like judgment and more like inevitability—the natural endpoint of trying, and failing, to locate the film’s emotional center.🎬 Watch & Discover🍿 Watch Now: Apple TV | Letterboxd📽️ Original Theatrical Trailer Support The Next Reel Family of Film Podcasts:Become a member for just $5/month or $55/yearJoin our Discord community of movie loversThe Next Reel Family of Film Podcasts:Cinema Scope: Bridging Genres, Subgenres, and MovementsThe Film BoardMovies We LikeThe Next Reel Film PodcastSitting in the DarkConnect With Us:Main Site: WebMovie Platforms: Letterboxd | FlickchartSocial Media: Facebook | Instagram | Threads | Bluesky | YouTube | PinterestYour Hosts: Pete | JJ | Steve | Tommy | Andy | Ocean Shop & Stream:Merch Store: Apparel, stickers, mugs & moreWatch Page: Buy/rent films we've discussedOriginals: Source material from our episodesSpecial offers: Letterboxd Pro/Patron discount | Audible

A locked church. A sermon mid-amen. A knife that absolutely should not be where it is. This month, The Film Board turns its attention to Wake Up, Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, the most austere—and maybe most confrontational—entry yet in Rian Johnson’s whodunit canon. From the opening minutes, the film dares the audience to argue with it: what you just saw could not have happened… and yet here we are.Pete Wright is joined by Steve Sarmento, Mandy Kaplan, and Tommy Metz III to wrestle with a mystery that swaps billionaire excess for spiritual rot, replacing champagne flutes with hymnals and certainty with something far more dangerous. The panel digs into Johnson’s tonal gamble—less joy, more gravity—and whether a franchise built on clever fun can survive a movie so willing to sit in moral discomfort.The conversation dives deep into the film’s mechanics: the church as a performance space, the precision of the Lazarus door, the way light itself becomes a narrative instrument, and how the film quietly trains you to look without ever announcing it’s doing so. There’s admiration for the film’s rewatchability, its refusal to hide answers offscreen, and its confidence in letting silence—and doubt—do real work.Benoit Blanc, played once again by Daniel Craig, emerges subtly transformed: less showman, more listener. The panel explores what it means for a great cinematic detective to say “I don’t know” and mean something different every time. Along the way, there’s sharp appreciation for Josh Brolin’s venomous Monsignor Wicks, Glenn Close’s inevitable gravitational pull, and a stacked ensemble that understands exactly when to lean in—and when to get out of the way.🎬 Watch & Discover🍿 Watch Now: Netflix | Letterboxd📽️ Original Theatrical Trailer Support The Next Reel Family of Film Podcasts:Become a member for just $5/month or $55/yearJoin our Discord community of movie loversThe Next Reel Family of Film Podcasts:Cinema Scope: Bridging Genres, Subgenres, and MovementsThe Film BoardMovies We LikeThe Next Reel Film PodcastSitting in the DarkConnect With Us:Main Site: WebMovie Platforms: Letterboxd | FlickchartSocial Media: Facebook | Instagram | Threads | Bluesky | YouTube | PinterestYour Hosts: Pete | JJ | Steve | Tommy | Andy | Ocean Shop & Stream:Merch Store: Apparel, stickers, mugs & moreWatch Page: Buy/rent films we've discussedOriginals: Source material from our episodesSpecial offers: Letterboxd Pro/Patron discount | Audible

“Stop filming me!” The Film Board Gathers! This time, they're racing through Edgar Wright's adaptation of The Running Man, a sharper, more faithful take on Richard Bachman’s/Stephen King's dystopian manhunt. Glenn Powell stars as Ben Richards, sprinting for survival and truth in a world where entertainment is weaponized and every choice is content. Pete Wright leads Tommy Metz III, Steve Sarmento, Matthew Fox, and Mandy Kaplan through a deep dive into this reimagining. The panel tackles everything from Josh Brolin's corporate menace to Coleman Domingo's pitch-perfect propaganda host, debating how Wright balances King's nihilistic source material with Hollywood's need for hope. They explore the film's commentary on surveillance, media manipulation, and AI deep fakes, all while questioning whether Wright's signature style gets lost in the chase. While the group largely praises Powell's charismatic lead performance and the film's updated themes, they clash over the rushed ending and whether dystopian tales can (or should) offer uplift in 2025. The conversation ranges from adaptation choices and censorship quirks to Michael Cera’s panic room and the eerie prescience of King's original vision. Is this a faithful sprint through broken society or just dystopia with a Disney sheen? Grab your tracking beacon, dodge the drones, and find out as the Film Board breaks down every checkpoint of The Running Man. (Just watch out for those AI face swaps.) 🎬 Watch & Discover 🍿 Watch Now: Apple TV | Amazon | Letterboxd📽️ Original Theatrical Trailer📚 Adapted from The Running Man by Stephen King as Richard BachmanSupport The Next Reel Family of Film Podcasts: Become a member for just $5/month or $55/yearJoin our Discord community of movie loversThe Next Reel Family of Film Podcasts: Cinema Scope: Bridging Genres, Subgenres, and MovementsThe Film BoardMovies We LikeThe Next Reel Film PodcastSitting in the DarkConnect With Us: Main Site: WebMovie Platforms: Letterboxd | FlickchartSocial Media: Facebook | Instagram | Threads | Bluesky | YouTube | PinterestYour Hosts: Pete | JJ | Steve | Tommy | Andy | Ocean Shop & Stream: Merch Store: Apparel, stickers, mugs & moreWatch Page: Buy/rent films we've discussedOriginals: Source material from our episodesSpecial offers: Letterboxd Pro/Patron discount | Audible

Greetings, Users! The Film Board Gathers again—this time to boot up TRON: Ares, Disney’s latest attempt to update a franchise that still doesn’t understand what “updating” means. Pete Wright, Tommy Metz III, Steve Sarmento, and Mandy Kaplan log on to debate Jared Leto’s turn as an AI messiah with great hair and no emotional bandwidth, and Greta Lee’s heroic attempt to act her way out of the mainframe.The panel tackles the film’s tangled themes—AI, empathy, and whatever Jared Leto thinks a “character arc” is—before turning to the one thing everyone agrees on: the Nine Inch Nails score absolutely slaps. The music may be futuristic perfection, even if the story feels like it’s still buffering from 2011.So, is TRON: Ares a bold leap into a new digital age or just a flickering screensaver of nostalgia and noise? Plug in, charge your light disc, and find out as the Film Board decodes every pixel of this glowing glitch in the Disney matrix.Film SundriesWatch: Apple TV | LetterboxdOriginal Theatrical Trailer Support The Next Reel Family of Film Podcasts:Become a member for just $5/month or $55/yearJoin our Discord community of movie loversThe Next Reel Family of Film Podcasts:Cinema Scope: Bridging Genres, Subgenres, and MovementsThe Film BoardMovies We LikeThe Next Reel Film PodcastSitting in the DarkConnect With Us:Main Site: WebMovie Platforms: Letterboxd | FlickchartSocial Media: Facebook | Instagram | Threads | Bluesky | YouTube | PinterestYour Hosts: Pete | JJ | Steve | Tommy | Andy | Ocean Shop & Stream:Merch Store: Apparel, stickers, mugs & moreWatch Page: Buy/rent films we've discussedOriginals: Source material from our episodesSpecial offers: Letterboxd Pro/Patron discount | Audible

Paul Thomas Anderson just made an action movie you can take your in-laws to without a 20-minute lecture about American masculinity and bowling metaphors. One Battle After Another is PTA’s $175 million plunge into the now, mixing the absurdity of a stoner dad in a bathrobe with a razor-sharp allegory about fascism, power, and family. Leonardo DiCaprio leads as a washed-up revolutionary trying to rescue his daughter (Chase Infinity) from Sean Penn’s snarling, broken military villain, and the result is both wildly funny and uncomfortably timely.Pete Wright, Tommy Metz III, and Steve Sarmento dig deep into the contradictions and triumphs of the film. They debate Sean Penn’s feral Lockjaw, the Christmas Adventurers Club (absurdist satire or terrifying cabal?), and the grounded humanity of the father-daughter story that anchors the spectacle. From Benicio del Toro’s Zen “Sensei” to Johnny Greenwood’s jagged score to the breathtaking desert chase sequence, the conversation unpacks how PTA manages to hold together chaos, comedy, and heartbreak in a film that already feels like one of the year’s defining works.As always, the panelists disagree (sometimes passionately) on the ending, the satire, and whether it all needs that extra denouement in Office 55. But they unite on one point: this is the kind of audacious, ambitious, theatrical cinema you absolutely need to see on the biggest screen you can find.Links & NotesWatch Now: Apple TV | Amazon | LetterboxdOriginal Theatrical TrailerVery Loosely Adapted from Vineland (Classic, 20th-Century, Penguin) by Thomas Pynchon Support The Next Reel Family of Film Podcasts:Become a member for just $5/month or $55/yearJoin our Discord community of movie loversThe Next Reel Family of Film Podcasts:Cinema Scope: Bridging Genres, Subgenres, and MovementsThe Film BoardMovies We LikeThe Next Reel Film PodcastSitting in the DarkConnect With Us:Main Site: WebMovie Platforms: Letterboxd | FlickchartSocial Media: Facebook | Instagram | Threads | Bluesky | YouTube | PinterestYour Hosts: Pete | JJ | Steve | Tommy | Andy | Ocean Shop & Stream:Merch Store: Apparel, stickers, mugs & moreWatch Page: Buy/rent films we've discussedOriginals: Source material from our episodesSpecial offers: Letterboxd Pro/Patron discount | Audible

Case Notes, August 30th, 2025: A suspiciously cozy murder mystery has been committed. The suspects—Tommy Metz III, Mandy Kaplan, Steve Sarmento, and Justin “JJ” Jaeger—have assembled remotely, each with their own dubious alibis and hot takes. The film: The Thursday Murder Club, Netflix’s big adaptation of Richard Osman’s beloved novel. The crime? A charming cast, a confusing mystery, and a script that may or may not have committed third-degree exposition.This month’s Film Board roundtable dives headfirst into the soft lighting and softer stakes of this senior-led whodunit. JJ comes in as the film’s most vocal defender, praising its character-driven structure and comparing it (gasp!) to Knives Out. Tommy and Steve are less convinced, calling the movie pleasant but forgettable, faulting everything from flat cinematography to emotionally neutered finales. Mandy, the show’s resident Osman superfan, mourns the depth lost in translation from page to screen. Pete, meanwhile, accuses Chris Columbus of directing every scene like it’s the trailer—and not in a good way.From plot structure and adaptation choices to the aesthetics of Cooper’s Chase and the misuses of Sir Ben Kingsley, this episode covers it all. Was it a missed opportunity or just an okay pizza? Can Helen Mirren’s exposition dumps be forgiven? Did we really need the cold case? Should somebody address the case of Jonathan Pryce?If you love spirited disagreement, spoilers aplenty, and occasional emotional whiplash caused by the word “cake,” this is your episode.Watch & DiscoverWatch Now: NetflixOriginal Theatrical TrailerAdapted from The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman Support The Next Reel Family of Film Podcasts:Become a member for just $5/month or $55/yearJoin our Discord community of movie loversThe Next Reel Family of Film Podcasts:Cinema Scope: Bridging Genres, Subgenres, and MovementsThe Film BoardMovies We LikeThe Next Reel Film PodcastSitting in the DarkConnect With Us:Main Site: WebMovie Platforms: Letterboxd | FlickchartSocial Media: Facebook | Instagram | Threads | Bluesky | YouTube | PinterestYour Hosts: Pete | JJ | Steve | Tommy | Andy | Ocean Shop & Stream:Merch Store: Apparel, stickers, mugs & moreWatch Page: Buy/rent films we've discussedOriginals: Source material from our episodesSpecial offers: Letterboxd Pro/Patron discount | Audible

The Film Board assembles to break down Fantastic Four: First Steps, Marvel’s bold leap into retro sci-fi parenthood. With Pedro Pascal stretching into Reed Richards and Vanessa Kirby shining as Sue Storm, the MCU skips the origin story to explore cosmic ethics, vintage flair, and a planet-hungry Galactus. Does skipping the intro pay off? How does a family of adventurers fit into a superhero universe? And is The Incredibles still the best Fantastic Four movie ever made?Pete Wright hosts the panel with Kyle Olson, Rob Kubasko, and Matthew Fox as they debate whether this is a sequel to a film we never got, if Silver Surfer stole the show, and what the MCU’s multiversal reset might mean for this corner of the timeline. Plus: theology, parenting ethics, synagogue scenes, Herbie the robot, unstable molecules, and the Reed Richards car seat challenge.🎬 Watch & Discover🍿 Watch Now: Apple TV | Letterboxd📽️ Original Theatrical Trailer Support The Next Reel Family of Film Podcasts:Become a member for just $5/month or $55/yearJoin our Discord community of movie loversThe Next Reel Family of Film Podcasts:Cinema Scope: Bridging Genres, Subgenres, and MovementsThe Film BoardMovies We LikeThe Next Reel Film PodcastSitting in the DarkConnect With Us:Main Site: WebMovie Platforms: Letterboxd | FlickchartSocial Media: Facebook | Instagram | Threads | Bluesky | YouTube | PinterestYour Hosts: Pete | JJ | Steve | Tommy | Andy | Ocean Shop & Stream:Merch Store: Apparel, stickers, mugs & moreWatch Page: Buy/rent films we've discussedOriginals: Source material from our episodesSpecial offers: Letterboxd Pro/Patron discount | Audible

The Film Board Gathers! And this time… it’s for Superman. Yes, again. James Gunn has rebooted the Big Blue Boy Scout for the 37th time (give or take), and this version comes with a sunnier tone, a superpowered dog, and—brace yourself—feelings. Actual feelings.David Corenswet slips into the tights with impressive sincerity, Rachel Brosnahan delivers the Lois Lane we didn’t know we desperately needed, and Nicholas Hoult’s Lex Luthor is basically what would happen if Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk had a baby, and that baby grew up to weaponize STEM fairs and jealousy. It’s weird. It’s bright. It’s shockingly heartfelt. And yes, there’s a kaiju fight.Pete Wright, Kyle Olson, Rob Kubasko, Ocean Murff, and Tommy Metz III tackle it all—like the ethics of punching countries, the physics of pocket universes, and the sheer audacity of making Jimmy Olsen a ladies’ man. One of them cried, one of them gave it five stars, and one of them may never emotionally recover from the Siberian super-gulag.Also discussed: Silver Age comic book weirdness, the trauma of seeing Superman bleed, why Supergirl is a lush, and whether this movie actually pulled off the impossible—making DC fun again without being a total mess.Links & Notes🍿 Watch Now: Letterboxd📽️ Original Theatrical Trailer Support The Next Reel Family of Film Podcasts:Become a member for just $5/month or $55/yearJoin our Discord community of movie loversThe Next Reel Family of Film Podcasts:Cinema Scope: Bridging Genres, Subgenres, and MovementsThe Film BoardMovies We LikeThe Next Reel Film PodcastSitting in the DarkConnect With Us:Main Site: WebMovie Platforms: Letterboxd | FlickchartSocial Media: Facebook | Instagram | Threads | Bluesky | YouTube | PinterestYour Hosts: Pete | JJ | Steve | Tommy | Andy | Ocean Shop & Stream:Merch Store: Apparel, stickers, mugs & moreWatch Page: Buy/rent films we've discussedOriginals: Source material from our episodesSpecial offers: Letterboxd Pro/Patron discount | Audible

The gang of thugs dons their most practical jungle gear and reluctantly boards the biotech boat for Gareth Edwards’ Jurassic World Rebirth. Scarlett Johansson leads a mission to harvest dinosaur DNA in what Universal hopes is the beginning of a new trilogy—but does this franchise still have life in its genetic code, or has it gone full dino-extinct?In this episode, Pete Wright, Steve Sarmento, Tommy Metz III, Justin “JJ” Jaeger, and Mandy Kaplan unpack everything from ADR overload and missing velociraptors to why this script might have been written by a chatty AI trained exclusively on soft reboots and midday sarcasm. They examine the film’s visual flatness, its confused tone, the tragic misuse of Mahershala Ali, and the shocking absence of smart kids—the emotional compass of the good Jurassic movies.There’s plenty of laughter, frustration, and jalapeño cheddar popcorn as the panel debates whether the soul of this franchise can ever be resurrected. Spoiler alert: if dinosaurs had a peanut allergy, this movie would be their Snickers bar.Film SundriesWatch this on Apple or Amazon, or find other places at JustWatchTheatrical trailerLetterboxd Support The Next Reel Family of Film Podcasts:Become a member for just $5/month or $55/yearJoin our Discord community of movie loversThe Next Reel Family of Film Podcasts:Cinema Scope: Bridging Genres, Subgenres, and MovementsThe Film BoardMovies We LikeThe Next Reel Film PodcastSitting in the DarkConnect With Us:Main Site: WebMovie Platforms: Letterboxd | FlickchartSocial Media: Facebook | Instagram | Threads | Bluesky | YouTube | PinterestYour Hosts: Pete | JJ | Steve | Tommy | Andy | Ocean Shop & Stream:Merch Store: Apparel, stickers, mugs & moreWatch Page: Buy/rent films we've discussedOriginals: Source material from our episodesSpecial offers: Letterboxd Pro/Patron discount | Audible

Wes Anderson’s The Phoenician Scheme crash-lands into theaters with a symmetry—and we’re here to unpack the wreckage. Benicio Del Toro plays Anatole “Zsa-Zsa” Korda, a morally exhausted arms dealer who survives a plane crash and decides, rather abruptly, to become a better man. His daughter, a nun (played with unsettling calm by Mia Threapleton), may be his salvation. Or his reckoning. Or both. Along for the ride: Michael Cera as a soft-spoken entomologist, a council of multinational bureaucrats with murderous intent, and Bill Murray as God (in grayscale, naturally).Pete Wright hosts this morally ambiguous briefing with fellow operatives Tommy Metz III and Steve Sarmento, as they parse Anderson’s most spiritually ambitious and physically violent film to date. There are questions—big ones. Is this Cain and Abel by way of a TWA departure lounge? Why does forgiveness feel like a conference call?We dig into the film’s sumptuous craft, its emotional architecture, and the performances that hold it all together with linen thread and murmured apologies. If you’ve ever wanted to see a man seek redemption through dinner parties, aerial espionage, and awkward family reunions, this one’s for you.Film SundriesWatch this on Apple or find other places at JustWatchTheatrical trailerLetterboxd Support The Next Reel Family of Film Podcasts:Become a member for just $5/month or $55/yearJoin our Discord community of movie loversThe Next Reel Family of Film Podcasts:Cinema Scope: Bridging Genres, Subgenres, and MovementsThe Film BoardMovies We LikeThe Next Reel Film PodcastSitting in the DarkConnect With Us:Main Site: WebMovie Platforms: Letterboxd | FlickchartSocial Media: Facebook | Instagram | Threads | Bluesky | YouTube | PinterestYour Hosts: Pete | JJ | Steve | Tommy | Andy | Ocean Shop & Stream:Merch Store: Apparel, stickers, mugs & moreWatch Page: Buy/rent films we've discussedOriginals: Source material from our episodesSpecial offers: Letterboxd Pro/Patron discount | Audible

Are you tired of superheroes who always do the right thing? Exhausted by teams that save the day and, dare we say it, have a plan? This month, The Film Board dives into Marvel’s Thunderbolts—the super squad you get when you order the Avengers from the bargain bin. Pete Wright is joined by Mandy Kaplan, Justin Jaeger, Tommy Metz III, and Steve Sarmento for a roundtable that spoils everything, celebrates Florence Pugh’s star turn, and debates whether more MCU movies should end with a hug instead of a fistfight.We dig into the surprising emotional depth, the ensemble’s knack for both grounded action and found-family pathos, and a Taskmaster controversy that set the chat ablaze. The conversation covers what works for Marvel die-hards and superhero newbies alike, why Florence Pugh and Lewis Pullman might be the new MVPs of the MCU, and how Jake Schreier’s direction finds the sweet spot between earnest and absurd. Along the way, you’ll hear our takes on trauma, group dynamics, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s master class in playing Marvel’s most maladaptive Nick Fury. This is a rare comic book movie that’s as interested in grief and group therapy as it is in punching things.Film SundriesWatch this on Apple or find other places at JustWatchTheatrical trailerLetterboxd Support The Next Reel Family of Film Podcasts:Become a member for just $5/month or $55/yearJoin our Discord community of movie loversThe Next Reel Family of Film Podcasts:Cinema Scope: Bridging Genres, Subgenres, and MovementsThe Film BoardMovies We LikeThe Next Reel Film PodcastSitting in the DarkConnect With Us:Main Site: WebMovie Platforms: Letterboxd | FlickchartSocial Media: Facebook | Instagram | Threads | Bluesky | YouTube | PinterestYour Hosts: Pete | JJ | Steve | Tommy | Andy | Ocean Shop & Stream:Merch Store: Apparel, stickers, mugs & moreWatch Page: Buy/rent films we've discussedOriginals: Source material from our episodesSpecial offers: Letterboxd Pro/Patron discount | Audible

Some stories we inherit. Some are whispered through family trees. Others are passed down through song—riffs on pain, echoes of joy, blue notes of survival. In Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, we get all three. And this month, The Film Board—Pete, Tommy, and Andy—gathers to talk about a film that bends genres, then drips them in blood and gospel and IMAX-saturated twilight.This is a vampire movie. But not really. It’s a family tragedy. And a juke joint musical. And a war story. And a funeral procession through America’s haunted South. Coogler takes us to 1930s Mississippi, hands us twin bootleggers with hearts full of grief and bravado, and a blues prodigy whose voice can wake the dead—literally. From there, Sinners unfolds like folklore remembered through firelight and whispered across generations.In this conversation, the gang goes deep:The political subtext of assimilation, vampirism, and cultural erasureHow Coogler’s personal history shaped the film’s emotional centerMichael B. Jordan’s twinned performance, and the miracle of not once being pulled out by the techMiles Caton’s debut as Sammie, and the spiritual power of music as both plot device and cultural artifactCinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw’s historic use of IMAX 70mm, and how it reshapes Southern Gothic atmosphereThe final act’s controversial tonal shift—does the Klan shootout and 1990s epilogue work, or muddy the final notes?Join us for a wide-ranging, no-holds-barred love letter to one of the year’s boldest films.Film SundriesAspect Ratios with Sinners Director Ryan CooglerPo' Monkey'sWatch this on Apple or Amazon, or find other places at LetterboxdTheatrical trailer Support The Next Reel Family of Film Podcasts:Become a member for just $5/month or $55/yearJoin our Discord community of movie loversThe Next Reel Family of Film Podcasts:Cinema Scope: Bridging Genres, Subgenres, and MovementsThe Film BoardMovies We LikeThe Next Reel Film PodcastSitting in the DarkConnect With Us:Main Site: WebMovie Platforms: Letterboxd | FlickchartSocial Media: Facebook | Instagram | Threads | Bluesky | YouTube | PinterestYour Hosts: Pete | JJ | Steve | Tommy | Andy | Ocean Shop & Stream:Merch Store: Apparel, stickers, mugs & moreWatch Page: Buy/rent films we've discussedOriginals: Source material from our episodesSpecial offers: Letterboxd Pro/Patron discount | Audible