Minority Mindset

Recent horror films tend to be either overly complex and stylish, or intentionally cheesy and ridiculous. That’s why Primate feels surprisingly refreshing. Its story is incredibly simple – a chimpanzee goes wild and starts killing people – and the movie gets straight to the point. The beginning quickly establishes the main characters and their relationships, making it clear who’s likely to be in danger. Once the chimp attacks, the group traps themselves in a swimming pool, hoping the animal can’t swim. Like the classic film Cujo, Primate is essentially a story about being cornered and trying to survive a terrifying situation.

The first season of A Thousand Blows introduces us to three central characters whose lives become intertwined in 1880s East London. Hezekiah Moscow, a Jamaican immigrant, comes to London expecting a job training lions, but ends up performing as the “Wild Man of Africa.” He quickly gains notoriety through underground boxing, where he meets Mary Carr, the head of the Forty Elephants, a powerful all-female gang. Mary is looked after by Sugar Goodson, a fiercely volatile crime boss and boxing champion who has a complex personality – he’s capable of both great kindness, like caring for abandoned children, and extreme violence towards those who neglect them. Both Sugar and Hezekiah are attracted to Mary, but she clearly prefers Hezekiah, fueling Sugar’s rage. The show is particularly notable for the range of angry expressions actor Graham uses during arguments with Hezekiah, Mary, or his brother, Treacle – a grounded family man who embodies the life Sugar could have had if he weren’t consumed by self-hatred.

Cyclops is gaining popularity with audiences who now understand the weight of his struggles. Marvel is poised to elevate this already compelling character when Scott Summers officially enters the Marvel Cinematic Universe in Avengers: Doomsday. The trailer showcasing Cyclops immediately captured fans’ attention, and now Marvel is hinting at exciting things to come as they prepare to relaunch him for a new generation.

On the run, the family struggles to find safety, battling both the harsh environment and the difficulties caused by others. Though the movie is dark and intense, it ultimately offers a message of hope. By the end, the Garrity family has traveled far and wide, finally discovering a place to call home.

I bring this up because, surprisingly, Greenland was actually a standout film from a difficult year, and it’s easy to see how it could have been even more successful with a better release. Despite being advertised as a classic, action-packed disaster movie with Gerard Butler and a massive comet, the film turned out to be much more thoughtful. It was a compelling look at how people react when facing total destruction – some giving in to their worst impulses, while others found ways to help each other and make sacrifices. Director Ric Roman Waugh and writer Chris Sparling went beyond typical disaster movie tropes, crafting a story that felt genuinely human. As John Garrity (Butler), his wife Allison (Morena Baccarin), and their son Nathan (Roger Dale Floyd) desperately tried to reach safety as a world-ending comet approached, the film showed that even in crisis, people can maintain their humanity. This made the movie particularly impactful, as the characters’ fates felt truly meaningful, especially given that we were all experiencing a global crisis at the time.