The Movie Paradise

This weekend, We Are Your Friends, No Escape and War Room opened in theaters. Let's take a look at this past weekend's box office.
#1 Straight Outta Compton- $13,240,000

In its third week, Straight Outta Compton came in first place. This is the third consecutive week Compton has been number one at the box office. No one expected this film to be as big as it's been. It has so far made over $140 million dollars, which is fantastic for its smaller budget. This movie has a great social message about police brutality, freedom of speech and racism, and it's a film that should be seen. It may even get some Oscar buzz later in the year. I am thrilled for Compton's success, and I hope it goes on to make even more money. You can read our review here. 
#2 War Room- $11,000,000

In its opening weekend, War Room came in second place. This movie came out of nowhere, and was the highest grossing film for Friday. It had a $3 million dollar budget, and is doing better than even the s…

I never really bought into the trailers for American Ultra. I'm not a big fan of Kristen Stewart. While he was good in The Social Network, I don't really like Jesse Eisenberg. The plot seemed dumb. I just never bought into it. Then the movie came out and, even though the Rotten Tomatoes ratings were low, a lot of film reviewers I trust said they had a fun time with the movie. So I decided to check it out. I thought that it might be a dumb action comedy that was just some good entertainment for a couple hours. And in a way, it is. But in other ways it really fails.
Eisenberg plays Mike Howell, an unassuming stoner living with his girlfriend, Phoebe (Stewart). One day, he is attacked by a hit squad sent by Topher Grace's Adrian Yates, and he suddenly becomes a badass, showing skills he never knew he had. That is when he learns that he is part of a government experiment to create essentially super soldiers. And now he's on the run from this same organization, who think h…

In this editorial series, I will be doing a weekly collection of all things nerdy. Some of the article will be a wrap-up of some movie news, perhaps casting rumors or images; stuff that doesn't necessarily warrant an entire article but are still important. Then the rest will be different geek culture items, such as memes or videos. I will try my best to post these every Saturday. So let's get our hands nerdy (okay, that was terrible) and check out the geek picks of this week.
The News

A short, 30 second clip for the upcoming Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens, was released online the other day. You can view the clip later in the article. It's comprised of mostly new footage, with the money shot being the movie's lead, Finn (John Boyega), wielding a blue lightstaber in the same snowy forest that we've seen Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) in before. A D23 Expo poster had revealed already that Finn would be getting a lightsaber (read about that here), but this clip tease…

In this new editorial, Food for Thought, we will be taking a popular story in the world of movie news and really analyze it. We'll talk in depth about the pros and cons of the story and really get our hands dirty. Now, these topics will be more than a casting choice or something we can easily write an article about otherwise; these will feature more grey topics and highly opinionated discussions. So, without further adieu, let's get started!
In this installment, we will talk about whether blockbusters need more experienced directors. 

This month, Fantastic Four opened in theaters. It failed miserably with critics and fans, and even at the box office. After its release, I posted an article explaining the continuously developing story of what happened behind the scenes, which you can read here. The story sounded like one we have heard a lot as of late-- the studio had an inexperienced director at the helm and they were able to bully him, resulting in a mess of a movie. We have …

Marvel had yet another successful year this year with the releases of Avengers: Age of Ultron and Ant-Man. Though they both weren't Marvel's finest work, there were good additions to the overall Marvel Cinematic Universe. Next year will be even bigger, with the release of the highly anticipated Captain America: Civil War and the new flick Doctor Strange. But Civil War is the one in the forefront of the news right now. The movie just wrapped filming (which you can read about here), and also debuted footage for the audience at the D23 Expo (which you can also read about here). So with the film's May 2016 release date getting closer and closer, it seems only natural that little tibits would be dropped here and there. And today we may have gotten one of those.
New concept art for the film was put online, revealing the sides of the Civil War. The first is led by Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), and has War Machine (Don Cheadle), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Black Panther (Cha…