My Own Little World

Comic book films have begun to vary quite a bit in the past couple of years. Deadpool opened the doors to R-ratings in the genre, Logan showed how emotionally compelling and tonally focused those films can be, and Wonder Woman brought a strong female presence to the genre for the first time. In Black Panther , we have yet another drastic change; this time, though, it is to more than just the superhero genre. Sure, we do finally have a properly fleshed-out black superhero; but the bigger thing here is the subtext. There is so much to this film’s major themes that make it one of the timeliest comic book films ever made. This is rooted in the film’s villain Killmonger, played by Michael B. Jordan. Besides Jordan’s great performance, this is a highly and uniquely motivated villain. His core motivation is to flip the narrative of blacks worldwide and to leverage Wakanda’s (the African nation at play) premier technology to do so. He wants to oppress their oppressors and demand ...

I've taken a little more time in prepping my year-end wrap-up this year, mostly because I was making sure I had seen everything I wanted to in theaters before publishing. Like last year, I've written mini-reviews on all the films that I either saw too far into their theatrical run to do a full review on or after their home video release. Without further ado, I present to you Part 3 of the Rest of 2015... Ant-Man  - Buy it.   What sets Ant-Man apart is its unique tone. From 2014 on Marvel has done a really good job of making each film's tone distinct, and this continues with Ant-Man . It feels less like a superhero film and more like a heist comedy, allowing Paul Rudd to flex his comedic muscles quite a bit. The way Peyton Reed crafts the film's shrunken sequences puts a very unique mark on this Marvel film that will allow it to stand apart from the rest of their body of work.  Grade: 85 The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2  - Watch it.  Mockingjay...

I'm just going to come right out and say it: Creed  is one of my favorite movies to come out this year. It's not because the Rocky franchise is one of my favorites in cinema history, as I feel that a couple movies really tainted the entire series. It's not because I like any of the specific actors or crew members involved, as I'm not very familiar with any of them. No, it's because this is a movie that I would gladly spend my money on time and time again. I left the theater pumped up and wanting another installment in a way that almost no other movie has done. Looking back at my viewing of Creed , the reasons why surprise me. Usually when I like a film this much, there has to be some kind of great story to get me hooked. With Creed , however, this isn't the case. Not to say that the story is bad, but it definitely is not the film's best quality. It loosely follows the storyline of the original Rocky  at times and deviates from it to become a more sta...