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In this 2004 Remake of the classic film, all hell breaks loose in a Milwaukee suburb following an outbreak a Zombie Virus. The film centers around a group of survivors of the Zombie Apocalypse who shore up inside a local shopping mall. After losing a few of the group to various unfortunate circumstances, the decision is made to make a move to get to an island in the great lakes. In order to get to that island the group must endure a gauntlet of flesh eating zombies,as well as human physical frailties. WIll they survive long enough to escape this overrun city?

In this 1996 film, Billy Bob Thornton plays Karl Childers, a intellectually diminished man accused of a horrible crime. In the film, Karl, witnesses his mother having relations with the town’s smooth talker as a young boy. Having heard about the man’s reputation for not taking no for an answer he picks up a “Kaiser Blade”(a scythe) and kills the man on top of his mother, thinking that he was saving her. When his mother ridicules and chastises Karl for ruining her good time, he kills her with the very same blade. Karl then is remanded to a mental ward where he spends the majority of his life. Upon release, Karl returns to his hometown, where he struggles to reintegrate into society. He meets and befriends a young boy, and goes out of his way to protect him from the world that awaits him in this small Mississippi town.

Thirty-Nine years ago, Martin Scorsese released his first major release and most iconic film, 1976’s Taxi Driver. A Movie that would launch quite a few careers, it included the likes of Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Harvey Keitel, and Cybill Shepherd. The film revolves around Travis Bickle, an vietnam veteran, and loner. He dwells in 1970’s New York city in a mire of loneliness and confusion. Like many veterans back from the war, he is floating aimlessly, carried by the current of society’s outlook on the human condition. He finds work as a taxi driver and begins to throw himself into his work, spending his time in pornographic movie theaters. Travis has a dislike for the people that he calls human waste(pushers, pimps. and prostitutes), and longs for the day that someone will stand up and remove them from the streets of New York City. After an unsuccessful attempt to date his ideal woman, he decides to embark on a mission of vigilantism in order to clean the streets of NYC as he thinks that they should be. A solid film, awesome first foray as a major release, and testiment to why so many involved with the Scorsese film are considered to be Hollywood greats

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In Martin Scorsese’s classic film, he tells the ultimate story of New York vigilantism, featuring a young Robert Deniro, and Jodie Foster. Deniro’s character is a taxi driver, and vietnam veteran, who is displeased with the way things are happening in the city. To make matters worse, Deniro’s character, Travis Bickle, is a socially awkward loner who spends his free time in peepshows and adult film theaters. WHen he finally gets the nerve it doesn’t go well when he takes his date to one of the theaters of ill repute. She rejects him, and he starts his downward spiral of exacting revenge on society, for not living up to his standards, even going so far as to attempt to assassinate a presidential candidate.He finds a sense of twisted redemption while rescuing an underaged prostitute from her captors while murdering them all, and becoming a local hero in the process. A strange film, but masterfully executed.

This film chronicles what can be construed as the rise of mexican drug cartels in the southwest, as seen through the eyes and experiences of three men. The movie begins with hunter Josh Brolin stumbling onto a botched drug deal, where he finds 2 million dollars in cartel money, a store of drugs, and a host of dead cartel members. He takes advantage of the find, which starts the entire ball rolling downhill. Tommy Lee Jone’s character, the local sheriff, is thrown for a loop when he is tasked with picking up the investigation of the massacre in his jurisdiction, while simultaneously trying to save Brolin’s life, trying to bring him in from being on the run, while he is being hunted by a cartel assassin. Enter Javier Bardim’s character,the psychopathic cartel hitman. He roams the texas countryside and cities, exacting his brand of cartel justice on those that he deems worthy of it. Often the decision to kill is left up to the result of a coin toss. The level of violence in this movie would be easy to dismiss as gratuitous, if taken outside of the context that the story is giving an example of how things got to be the way they are in the southwest over the last few decades. Not a feelgood movie, but definitely one worth watching.