Popcorn Zombies

Graham Craycraft Annihilation is the story of a mysterious force crashing to Earth and expanding its perimeter continuously. This perimeter is dubbed the Shimmer and only one person sent into the Shimmer has come back, so the government decides to send in a less militaristic and more scientific group of women to see if they can get to the bottom of this ever growing threat. Annihilation is a 2018 Sci-fi Thriller with a healthy dose of drama mixed in. The movie is based on the book of the same name written by Jeff Vandermeer. Director and writer Alex Garland ( Ex Machina ) comes back to deliver another weird, thought provoking, and exhilarating ride. In Ex Machina Garland traps the viewer in the same mental and physical state as the main character. Annihilation brings that same claustrophobic atmosphere, but this time, the viewer is not trapped in a sealed bunker, instead they are trapped in the wide open and ever growing Shimmer. The movie starts with an air of grief tha...

By Michael Momper Let me start by saying this: Black Panther does not need to be pandered. It does not need a patronizing pat on the back. It is, in my opinion, a very good movie- and that is all that matters in the world of art. Fresh off of his tremendous first two directorial features, Fruitvale Station and the immensely popular Rocky sequel Creed , director Ryan Coogler is back, but in a very different setting. Being that it is a Marvel movie, expectations are sky-high as always- but with those expectations comes the free reigns of a massive budget. This is a sizable challenge for a young director, who has to tell a completely new origin story, make us interested in the character, and rise to the demands of the typical Marvel fandom. As such, Coogler certainly delivered in spades. Black Panther features a different sort of protagonist, one who is decidedly more mild-tempered and noble than the likes of Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, etc. For this reason, the human touch a...

Graham Craycraft Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri has hit critics with a bang. Winning four Golden Globe awards along with numerous others, and being nominated for seven Oscars, Martin McDonagh’s film makes a big name for itself with this non-linear story of a mother who won’t stand for the unanswered loss of her daughter. Frances McDormand leads the way with a critic favorite performance and she has an excellent supporting cast in Woody Harrelson, Sam Rockwell, Peter Dinklage, and Caleb Landry Jones among others. McDonagh, writer and director, brings up issues of race, police brutality, love in a dysfunctional family, and the most apt issue faced in this movie: the dissatisfaction of revenge. Points of race, police brutality, and love in a dysfunctional family all get raised, but not answered. There is one issue that permeates the entirety of this film, and that is revenge. An old saying goes “hate only breeds more hate,” and in Three Billboards, this is evident....

Graham Craycraft The Shape of Water is a fantasy drama directed and written by Guillermo del Toro. The main premise is the Soviet U.S struggle for advancement. Taking place in Baltimore in the middle of the Cold War the United States acquires an "asset." This asset is a reptilian humanoid discovered in South America and thought by the natives there to be a god. The film starts out with a strong use of color and excellent transitions and is able to maintain them throughout the movie. This is able to both impose a worrying disconnected feel when in the Cold War era research lab, but brings the viewer back in during the love sequences between that main actress and the “asset.” Viewers may feel a slight discomfort at the thought of sexual relations between a human and this mystery god like creature, but Del Toro is able to execute it well by creating a strong sense of passion and love rather than meaningless sex scenes. The music at times evokes a feeling of peace, but ...

By Michael Momper The modern Western is oftentimes a movie packed with clichés and tired genre tropes, and most people can probably rattle them off even if they are not fans of the genre: long journeys on horseback or in covered wagons, revolvers being fired into the air, a cast of buff alpha males (luckily we have been spared from Westerns featuring scrawny beta males so far), and at least one damsel in distress. The newest well-reviewed Western to hit theaters, writer and director Scott Cooper’s Hostiles , actually contains every one of these hackneyed plot devices… and yet somehow manages to become one of the best films I have seen in this genre in a long time. Scott Cooper has consistently been able to nab some excellent actors for his projects, including Jeff Bridges, Christian Bale, Casey Affleck, Johnny Depp and Benedict Cumberbatch. In Hostiles , Christian Bale returns for his second Cooper feature, alongside fellow talent in Rosamund Pike, Wes Studi, Ben Foster, and Ro...