James Philbrick

Cooties is a horror comedy film directed by Jonathan Milott and Cary Murnion. The film revolves around Elijah Wood as Clint, a failed writer working as an elementary school teacher to pay the bills. However, on his first day at a new school, the children eat contaminated chicken nuggets and turn into child zombies. Chaos ensues as Clint and his coworkers try to survive against the zombie plague that can only be spread through children.  I had a lot of problems with this movie, so I’ll start with the extremely boring set up. We are introduced to Clint, Lucy, and Wade. Clint has a huge crush on Lucy, but her boyfriend Wade keeps getting in the way. None of the characters are likable except the main character, but he is so bland and uninteresting.  Lucy is the typical love interest and Wade is the typical asshole boyfriend while the rest of the characters are just there.  Clint begins to teach his first class and a sick girl takes a chomp out of another boy’s f...

Gender stereotypes are an ongoing conflict in modern society today and both women and men attempt to escape the generalizations that surround their everyday lives. Unfortunately, media does not help people escape these gender stereotypes. That is why it is so important to recognize when something in the media attempts to break these stereotypes.  A great example of this is the movie Million Dollar Baby that was directed by Clint Eastwood in 2004 and starred Hilary Swank. Million Dollar Baby tells the inspirational story of Maggie Fitzgerald, a hard working, dedicated, and inspired rookie boxer who will do whatever it takes to be the best. Maggie starts training in a gym and is immediately judged by others for being an older woman boxer. The men try to kick her out of the gym and discourage her, but she is determined to prove them wrong. She attempts to recruit the owner to be her trainer, but he quickly declines and states, “I don’t train girls.” After spending long hours i...

A huge part of film and how a film is made is how directors control physical elements of filming to display themes in their movies. This results in a powerful way of expression oneself through a film. This can be done in many ways, including editing. Editing is taking footage and crafting that footage together to make the film and directors can use various techniques to make the best version of a film possible.  In 2014, Damien Chazelle released his Drama film that was nominated for 5 Oscars and won 3, including Best Film Editing, Whiplash . Whiplash is about a young musician who is willing to work as hard as he possibly can to be the very best. Whiplash revolves around a young man named Andrew, who is going to school and wants to be a famous drummer. In his journey to be the best, Andrew must overcome many obstacles and give up many things in order to achieve his goals. The theme of Whiplash is that being the best at what you do comes with a price. To best display that ...

Wow, I don’t even know where to begin with this review. There were so many things about this movie that I loved and I have to start somewhere, so I’ll start with this: nothing will ever top Stan Lee’s cameo in this movie. This was hands down his best cameo yet and I can’t stop thinking about it! Vol. 2 picks up a couple months after the first Guardians of the Galaxy ends. This means the team is still relatively new and getting used to working together efficiently. The opening credits were the most fun I have had in the theater since the airport fight in Civil War . It was action packed and had the audience laughing the entire time. It allowed every character to shine and uniquely display their fighting styles, skills, and characteristics. It also served as a nice reintroduction to each character. Right from the start, you can tell what kind of movie it is and how much more explosive it will be in comparison to the first. This movie felt much more personal and containe...

I absolutely love horror movies. My dad introduced me to horror films around 2010 and since then I’ve been a horror junkie. Some of my earliest viewings of horror included The Crazies (2010), Final Destination , Scream , Paranormal Activity , Fright Night (2011), and Legion . Legion was one of the earliest horror movies I had seen and I remember watching it more than once. I would watch it with each one of my friends and I remember it being amazing. I hadn’t seen it for a couple of years and this weekend I decided to give it a re-watch. However, I really wish that I didn’t.  Legion is a 2010 horror film directed by Scott Steward. It stars Paul Bettany as Michael and Adrianne Palicki as Charlie. The film revolves around the archangel Michael. Michael was sent to Earth to kill a baby who had the potential to save the human race from God’s destruction. God decides to kill the human race because he believes there is no hope left for them. However, Michael cuts off hi...