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Showing posts from August, 2017

Food for Thought: Was Ed Skrein Right to Leave Hellboy Over Whitewashing Controversy?

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In this editorial series, Food for Thought, we take a popular story making the rounds in the world of film news, and we analyze it. Here, we will break this news story down, talk about it in great depth, and really analyze every portion of it. Now, these stories will be more than a regular casting call or some movie title; something we can easily write a regular article on. These editorials will rather feature more grey topics, that are highly opinionated and highlight strong discussions. Then, you the reader get to go into the comments section and talk about what you agree with, and what you disagree with. So, without further ado, let's get started!

In this installment, we will talk about whether Ed Skrein made the right decision to drop out of the Hellboy reboot over the whitewashing controversy.



Just a few days ago, news came out that actor Ed Skrein, who played Francis in Deadpool, had been cast in the new Hellboy reboot as a character named Ben Daimio. I never read the Hellbo…
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The Movie Paradise Nerd Round-Up: August 26th

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Welcome to this week's The Movie Paradise Nerd Round-Up. Essentially what we do here is we take a look at all things nerdy. We break down everything in the world of nerdom, ranging from superheroes to Star Wars and every other geeky thing in between, and analyse the smaller bits of news that weren't big enough stories to necessarily warrant an entire article, but are still significant and important. Perhaps it's casting news, a contract detail, a set image, or something else that's more on the minor side, but is definitely worth checking out. Then we have a little bit of fun with some movie-related videos and clips. It's a time and place for all of us unabashed nerds to come together and talk about the things that we love so much. So, without further ado, let's get started with this week's Nerd Round-Up. 
The News

It has been confirmed that a Joker and Harley Quinn film is in the works at Warner Bros. from Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, the directors of Focu…
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Joker Origin Movie Coming From Todd Phillips and Martin Scorsese; Separate From DCEU

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The Joker is arguably the greatest comic book villain ever created. He began as a one-off villain in the early Batman comics, but creator Bob Kane realized the antagonist's full potential. Ever since, he's been the Yang to Batman's Yin; instrumental to the telling of Batman's story. He's had many on screen incarnations over the years, from Jack Nicholson in Batman, to Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight, with the latest outing being Jared Leto in Suicide Squad. The latter was met with mixed reactions. I didn't hate Leto as the Joker. I just thought we didn't see enough of him in the film to truly get a sense of what his character was like. He was far different from the Heath Ledger Joker that many fans had become accustomed to, and was also entirely contrary to the comics. I think there was a lot you could do with that kind of Joker, and I was willing to give Leto the benefit of the doubt. However, Suicide Squad turned out to be a complete sh*tshow of a movie,…
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Ingrid Goes West- An Interview with Writer/Director Matt Spicer

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A film that has really caught my eye over the past few months has been Ingrid Goes West. I have heard plenty of positive buzz surrounding this movie coming out of different film festivals, which immediately put it on my radar. Starring Aubrey Plaza, Elizabeth Olsen, and O'Shea Jackson Jr., the movie follows Ingrid (Plaza), an unhinged social media stalker who travels to Los Angeles in order to manipulate herself into the life of Taylor Sloane (Olsen), a social media star. It sounded as if the film could lend itself to being a profound look at the current use of social media and how it impacts our relationships and communication skills, but done in a more eccentric way. The trailer is incredibly striking, and certainly takes you by surprise. Aubrey Plaza looks phenomenal in this, and has been slowly building a repertoire of powerful performances in smaller films, and Ingrid Goes West looks to be yet another addition into her building impressive body of work. So I was very happy to…
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Detroit SPOILER-FREE Review

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Detroit is a film that has been on my radar for a while, but hasn't necessarily been a movie that I've been super excited for. On the surface, it looked really good. The trailers were intriguing. It has some fantastic actors, including John Boyega, Anthony Mackie, Will Poulter, and John Krasinski. It also has an incredibly talented director in Kathryn Bigelow. The source material also has not really been explored much on film, and thus is very ripe for a cinematic telling, especially in today's political climate. So there were a lot of pieces in the right place, and in retrospect I don't know why I wasn't more excited for this film than I actually was. I guess I just wasn't expecting it to be as great as it is. Detroit is a devastatingly phenomenal film that packs a hell of a punch, and is incredibly effective in ripping your heart straight out of your chest. 
During the events of the 1967 Detroit Riots, we follow a group of African American teenagers being bru…
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Logan Lucky SPOILER-FREE Review

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Going into Logan Lucky, there was a ton of hype built for it. Director Steven Soderbergh is returning to filmmaking after retiring in 2013! It has an all-star cast of Channing Tatum, Adam Driver, Seth MacFarlane, Riley Keough, and Daniel Craig! This is going to be phenomenal! I wasn't exactly of that mindset. I thought the trailers were pretty good. It certainly had caught my interest, but I wasn't losing my mind over it like some other people were. It just didn't have that innate appeal to me. But I still went to see it Thursday night, excited for the movie. Especially after the outstanding reviews it got. The project on its own didn't exactly hype me up, but I changed my tune once I began reading all the reviews, saying that it was one of the best movies of the year. So I went in with an open-mind and pretty optimistic. While Logan Lucky is definitely enjoyable, I didn't personally find it to be nearly as hysterical nor as fun as some other people who have seen …
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The Movie Paradise Nerd Round-Up: August 20th

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Welcome to this week's The Movie Paradise Nerd Round-Up. Essentially what we do here is we take a look at all things nerdy. We break down everything in the world of nerdom, ranging from superheroes to Star Wars and every other geeky thing in between, and analyse the smaller bits of news that weren't big enough stories to necessarily warrant an entire article, but are still significant and important. Perhaps it's casting news, a contract detail, a set image, or something else that's more on the minor side, but is definitely worth checking out. Then we have a little bit of fun with some movie-related videos and clips. It's a time and place for all of us unabashed nerds to come together and talk about the things that we love so much. So, without further ado, let's get started with this week's Nerd Round-Up. 
The News

While promoting his new film The Hitman's Bodyguard, Samuel L. Jackson said that he has not recieved calls about appearing as Nick Fury in Av…
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The Glass Castle SPOILER-FREE Review

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I have been interested in The Glass Castle for a while, even if I wasn't jumping up and down with excitement for it. The cast is fantastic. Woody Harrelson is one of these actors who never reached the same A-level status of say a Brad Pitt or a Leonardo DiCaprio, but he can absolutely match their performances. He's always fantastic in anything he's in. Brie Larson is quickly becoming one of my favorite actresses working today. She was absolutely breathtaking in Room, and undoubtedly deserved her Oscar win. Naomi Watts is also a great actress. So the talent was clearly there. While this is based upon a true story, it looked very similar to Captain Fantastic, a movie that came out last year that I really liked. While it may be unfair to compare the two, since The Glass Castle is a true story and Captain Fantastic is fictitious, the comparison immediately came to mind. Walking into the film, I wasn't sure what I was going to come out thinking. But, luckily, I was very pl…
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Star Wars- Obi Wan Spin-Off Film in Early Development

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Ever since Disney first bought LucasFilm and announced they would be developing anthology films, one of the most universally called for spin-offs has been an Obi Wan movie. And the rationale is quite concrete. Ewan McGregor as Obi Wan Kenobi was probably the best part of the prequels, and many see him as wasted in such poorly executed movies. There is also a ton of story to tell, ranging from the very end of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith to Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. Not only does the character age dramatically, but his character goes through a complete personal transformation as well. So with an actor as capable of McGregor already established as Obi Wan, and a period of time in Star Wars history as rich as his time on Tatooine, an Obi Wan spin-off film sounds like common sense. However, the only spin-off films ever announced has been Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, and the untitled Han Solo movie that is still in production. Outside of those two films, we have hea…
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Annabelle: Creation SPOILER-FREE Review

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I have been very excited to see Annabelle: Creation, the next chapter in the accidental The Conjuring Cinematic Universe. The first Annabelle film was not a big hit with the fans, though it was a monster success at the box office. I never saw the movie myself, but I did not hear good things about it. To improve with the sequel, Annabelle took the Ouija root, where they made the sequel a prequel and a period piece. It worked for Ouija: Origin of Evil, as there we got a really great movie. And it seemed like they were going for a similar thing with Annabelle: Creation. They got David F. Sandberg to direct, who did Lights Out last year. I thought that was a good film, and showed that Sandberg is an incredibly talented and adept director. So I was very excited to see what he would do in The Conjuring Universe. The film first screened for critics a couple of months ago, and I heard nothing but rave reviews coming out of it. So all of this combined had me really excited for the film, but i…
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