Happy Death Day Review

Writer: Felicity Veliz

While seeing Happy Death Day promoted all over social media, I was super excited to be one of the first crowds to attend the screening. Seeing the trailer multiple times before the movie was released had me pumped for what I would come across next. And with Happy Death Day’s release date on Friday the 13th, the movie attracted quite the crowd.

The movie revolves around a college teen who’s caught living in a loop until she solves her own murder. Happy Death Day starts with Tree Gelbman (Jessica Rothe) waking up from a party in a strange college dorm room. We later come to find out that the dorm belongs to one of her former classmates named Carter. She basically lives the same major events everyday: stumbling across the quad to her sorority house, running into a boy she went on a date with, having a chat with her sorority president (Rachel Matthews), getting a cupcake from her roommate (Ruby Modine), going to class, and, finally, heading to a surprise party for her birthday.

This sprouts the beginning of her mission to find her murderer.

As Tree tries to change the day, it still ends the same with the unknown murderer killing her. The murder hides under a black hoodie and a mask of their college mascot–a cherubic baby with one tooth. What keeps the film from standing out from other horror movies is how it drastically focuses on solving a crime rather than scaring the crowd.

The movie was worth the watch. The twist towards the end of the movie was something I definitely did not see coming until I put all the pieces together. The director did a nice job hiding who was really the murderer and utilizing suspense to make the crowd want more.

Although the movie carried the cliche storyline of the main character living under an everyday loop, what I liked most about the movie was that it became more of a mystery rather than a horror film. The film’s plot left the crowd a surprise and unexpected murderer twist. Tree grows to be more anxious about who kills her as the movie picks up, and it will have you fully engrossed in the mystery.

I recommend this movie to anyone that is looking for a movie that will keep them on their edge of their seat. Happy Death Day will make you think the murder can be one person or another. It’s something interesting movies don’t base themselves on nowadays.

Rate: 8.5/10

Infinity War

Staff Writer: Orian Johnson

Thanos’ first appearance in the Infinity War trailer

The trailer for Avengers: Infinity War is here, and I am elated. I’m obviously not the only one hyped to see this film either, virtually everyone with internet access is talking about this movie. The trailer starts off with some pretty cool key moments. Vision is making himself look human, Loki somehow reacquired the Tesseract, Dr. Strange seems to have joined the team, the Hulkbuster armor has some upgrades, Spiderman is wearing a less golden version of the special suit Stark made for him in Homecoming, and oh, Cap has a beard now. Hope you got that all, because there’s still more. Thanos appears without his signature helmet, but it doesn’t stop him from choke slamming Spiderman or delivering a swift right hook to Iron Man. In the trailer, we see only two stones in Thanos’ infinity gauntlet, and if they’re the two we’ve seen so far in the MCU, that means he gets the mind and, according to the color, space stones at some point in the film. Oh, and yeah, there’s a short clip in the trailer of somebody (safe to assume Thanos) removing the reality stone from Vision’s head. At the very end of the trailer, we see the Guardians Of The Galaxy talking with Thor, so there’s that to. It seems as though nearly everyone except for the X-Men are in on this whole thing. As a final note, those of you who’ve read the comics like myself, please refrain from spoiling anything for your movie only friends! Everyone is eager to catch this film and you should be too!

Official trailer is below-

Mudbound Review

Writer: Ashley Bow

It’s rare to find a movie that makes me sit at the end and stare at the screen. A perfect ending. Something that fits so well. It’s rare to find a movie that really moves something inside of me and creates feeling of peace.

Mudbound did just that. Released on Netflix on Nov 17, it has left me wondering “how did I not hear about this sooner?” This movie should have claimed headlines and filled my Twitter feed. Though I suppose, normally, historical fiction movies don’t tend to fare that well in a world where our government is a reality show in and of itself.

Now, I don’t usually like war movies. The blood and the violence make me turn my head. Mudbound was set in World War 2, sometimes right in the thick of the fight. I watched a man’s head shot and saw him lay collapsed in a fighter plane. Thankfully, Mudbound is not a war movie.

Mudbound is about hope.

I crave movies like that. In an era focused on pain and suffering, so many movies and books and TV shows close on a dose of reality which can make the ending hard to swallow. And while the Netflix Original (obviously) based itself on reality, it ended on hope and kept a theme of hope throughout its entirety. Church hymns juxtaposed themselves with atrocity, love fought its way past war, and a disrespected hero found a companion who had learned to look past the surface.

I especially admire whoever made the decision not to focus on a character but on a situation. With the switching off of narrators, the viewer can more easily understand the motives and the reasoning behind the film. It took a look at the racial issues of the time through the eyes of everyone involved, a decision I applaud as a means not to polarize or exclude any viewer.

Overall, Mudbound told a story of loss and gain, of happiness and pain, of triumph and defeat, of despair and hope. The way the story ended itself tied in a tidy bow is exactly what I hoped to find when beginning the movie.

10/10

Justice League Review

Writer: Kameron Henry

This past weekend Justice League came out in theaters. When I went into to the movie expecting the movie to be just like Batman vs Superman Dawn of Justice or Suicide Squad. After seeing the film, I was really happy with the movie.

Some of the pros of the movie is the flow of the movie. The run time was only an hour and fifty nine minutes. While Dawn of Justice was a whopping two hours and thirty-one minutes.The movie had some funny dialogue between characters. Unlike Suicide Squad, these jokes don’t seem forced. Another pro of this movie is connections of the other films, DC is taking a page out of Marvel they’re attempting to connect the movies. If a movie has pros, it must has some cons.

One of the cons is the colors of throughout the film. All of the DC films have sticking to the same color palate: monotone colors. Another thing is the soundtrack. As I said previously if a movie has a good soundtrack, it will be memorable. This movie only had one song that stuck in my head. The song is called Come Together by Gary Clark Jr. One of the biggest cons of the movie is the writing. Being a huge comic book enthusiast, moments of the film were really confusing. I can’t really go in- depth on this without spoiling the movie. If you are a comic book fan; you will know what I’m talking about.

With the pros and cons of the movie, I believe that Justice League is the one of the best movie in recent years. It’s a story of how the greatest heroes came together to save the world. If I had to rate the movie I would give it an 8 out of 10. If you love superheroes I recommend this movie.

Summer Movie Review Part 3

Summer Movie Review

Part 3: Baby Driver

Writer: Riley Glenn

          Picture via Letterboxd

SPOILER ALERT

Over the past two months, I have seen a number of movies that have come out. So far, these include; Baby Driver, Spider-Man Homecoming, Wonder Woman, and Dunkirk. These four movies are different in their own ways and my goal is to compare them and review how they did as films and offer my two cents on them. What follows is part three of a weekly movie article, which began with my number four pick, and least favorite, from the summer movies I have seen. If you missed it, I previously reviewed Wonder Woman, my number four pick; Dunkirk, my number three pick and I touched on Spider-Man Homecoming as my number two pick. If I see a movie that ranks lower than this before the end of summer, I will try to adjust my articles accordingly and make it clear how each movie ranks in comparison to the others.

#1: Baby Driver: 8/10

Baby Driver is the latest movie from writer/director Edgar Wright. This original screenplay came into fruition after Wright was dropped from directing Ant-Man in 2015. The story follows a young man, named Baby, with tinnitus who is always listening to music to drown out the constant ringing in his head. However, Baby is a getaway driver and is involved in the dark underbelly of Atlanta. Aside from the fact that Edgar Wright directed my favorite movie of all time, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, he has a very unique style and his visual comedy is always on point. Having directed others including the Cornetto trilogy as well; films include Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and the Worlds End, Wright has easily become one of my top five directors. Going into the theater I was expecting a pretty good movie, and I got an amazing movie.

First of all, let’s talk about the soundtrack. For people who haven’t heard somehow, almost everything in the movie is synced to music in some way, especially things like gunshots, punches, and footsteps. Aside from the fact that Edgar Wright has an amazing musical taste and great visions for what songs would be good in a specific scene; the amount of timing and directing needed to sync everything to the song is unreal. If anyone hasn’t seen it yet, I’m going to put in a link to the first scene, just so you can get a taste of the movie and wonders that you are missing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ARFyrM6gVs . Other than the first scene, the second, when Baby walks through downtown, is one of my single favorite scenes I have seen in a long time. As Baby walks down the streets, the lyrics of the song will sometimes sync up to graffiti, characters, or what Baby does. At first listen and viewing, it may not be very easily perceived, but upon further watches, the audience will begin to notice very small things and exactly how much of the movie is actually in time to music. Wright should be praised for his synchronized timing alone. In interviews about the movie it was said that not only was the entire movie written around the soundtrack, but he sent all the actors in the movie a thumb drive with the script so they could understand exactly how the movie would go with the music. This fact pleases me as an aspiring filmmaker and I think this is exactly the type of director that Hollywood needs. When I watch Baby Driver, I see the same amount of meticulous directing that is prevalent throughout Stanley Kubrick’s career. While Edgar Wright is not one to make heavy, thought provoking, and intense movies such as the Shining, Full Metal Jacket, and 2001: A Space Odyssey; he does bring the same amount of intense directing that makes Kubrick one of my favorite directors as well. Just as Scott Pilgrim used music to it’s advantage to set it apart and give it a more video game feel, Baby Driver does an even better job at this, immersing you directly into the world of Baby and the events around him. One thing I enjoyed about the movie was that all the music in it had a source. None of the songs were being played without a character in the movie playing it purposefully. The directing in the car scenes as well as the action sequences was pretty good. The acting was decent, nothing really stood out to me, except for my main man, Jon Hamm. The comedy was usually right on target and really fell flat. The love story was pretty good, reminded me a lot of Scott & Ramona from Scott Pilgrim, and I am beginning to recognize Wright’s growing skill at writing romantic characters. The cinematography is amazing, as almost every Edgar Wright film is, and his style, while very toned down, is still very prevalent. Finally, one of the biggest things I enjoyed, other than the amazing directing, was the message. To me, this movie, and almost all of Wright’s films could be seen as a giant middle finger to Hollywood and the norms of genre. Every movie made by Wright is an outlier to the movies in whatever genre they fit in, mainly in the fact that they are original and.. Good. The majority of the genres each movie fits into is known for not being very good; Shaun of the Dead being a zombie movie, Hot Fuzz being a detective/cop movie, Scott Pilgrim being a romcom and video game movie, and finally, Baby Driver being a getaway/heist/car movie. Wright has said himself that he does not like franchise movies, something I completely agree with, but that’s another discussion. This is something I find pretty funny seeing as he directed a good car/getaway/heist movie that is not part of a franchise when all that can be found is the opposite, *cough* Fast & Furious *cough*. The ironic cherry on top is that this movie came to him after he was let go from Marvel’s Ant-Man, the epitome of a franchise movie.

Almost everything I have to say about this movie is good, and even the negatives I have with it aren’t very bad and in the long run, barely affect the overall viewing experience. Jamie Foxx’s character began to get annoying as his screen time grew. I am confused why John Bernthal is advertised as one of the heavy hitters in the movie, his name is fourth on the poster; above Jon Hamm and Jamie Foxx, both of which had much larger roles than him. Also, the usual transitions and intense and quick cutaways used in most Wright movies are, to my sadness, almost completely absent. Other than small nitpicking, one of the only major things that bugged me was that (SPOILER) Jon Hamm’s character betrays Baby and tries to kill him and Debra. The whole movie he had been nice to Baby and even bonded with him about music. Finally, the only other thing that I did not like is that (SPOILER) Baby ends up going to jail, even though it’s redeemed by people vouching for him and having him released and leaving with Debra. I have no idea why, but I never like in a movie when the main character dies, goes to jail, or is disfigured by the end. I think it’s because Hollywood has ingrained the idea of an action hero going through the whole mission unscathed in my head that when a realistic movie makes a character responsible for their actions, it catches me off guard.

In conclusion, Baby Driver is a very original film and a breath of fresh air in a time when almost every movie feels like a carbon copy of one that preceded it. It is a very fun and entertaining time and a movie I find myself thinking about a lot. I will be seeing this movie until every frame is burned into my memory, just like Scott Pilgrim, that way I can make sure I get everything out of it. This is a heavy hitter with a lot of small easter egg type things that once you discover how something in the movie relates to a song, will increase your viewing experience. While I would say this movie is a good intro level Edgar Wright movie, I can still see how it is not for everyone, this is just how I felt about it.