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Showing posts from January, 2016

The Problem With Diversity at the Oscars

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As we approach this year's Academy Awards, a fair amount of controversy has come about. For the second year in a row, all twenty acting nominees were white, featuring not one person of ethnicity. Last year, the Best Picture nominees at least had Selma and The Grand Budapest Hotel, which were led by minority actors. But this year, not one of the Best Picture nominees has a lead that isn't white. The most upheld black film of the year, Straight Outta Compton, only got nominated for Best Screenplay, and its screenwriters are white. That is truly something else. But with this controversy, a lot of talk about racism and discrimination has come about. Usually, with this site, I don't get into politics. But this is an issue that deeply affects the film industry, and I feel it is something I need to touch upon.
In this editorial, I will be addressing the problem with diversity with the Academy Awards. And I think it is important that, as you read this editorial, you know that I m…
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In Preparation For: The X-Files: I Want to Believe

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With the new X-Files series being brought to television, I thought I would review the two movies that made it to theaters. I watched seasons 1-5 before seeing The X-Files and I finished the series before The X-Files: I Want to Believe. So while many other viewers will have a different perspective of these films, I am coming at it from the point of view of a fan of the series, and knowing the background and history of these characters. I acknowledge this, and will bring it up several times in my review, as I probably liked these films better than a person who had never seen a single episode of the TV show.

This will be a spoiler-filled review for The X-Files: I Want to Believe, so if you haven’t seen the movie yet, don’t read this article. You can read our review for the first film, The X-Files, here. 

After being off the air for six years, Chris Carter brought back everyone's favorite paranormal show, directing this new feature himself. The film reunited David Duchovny and Gillian A…
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In Preparation For: The X-Files

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With the new X-Files series being brought to television, I thought I would review the two movies that made it to theaters. I watched seasons 1-5 before seeing The X-Files and I finished the series before The X-Files: I Want to Believe. So while many other viewers will have a different perspective of these films, I am coming at it from the point of view of a fan of the series, and knowing the background and history of these characters. I acknowledge this, and will bring it up several times in my review, as I probably liked these films better than a person who had never seen a single episode of the TV show.

This will be a spoiler-filled review for The X-Files, so if you haven’t seen the movie yet, don’t read this article. 

The X-Files takes place between seasons five and six of the TV series and it’s pretty obvious from the very beginning moments of this film.  The movie introduces us to a flashback to the cavemen, who discover extraterrestrial life in a cave. This entire sequence was hig…
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Top 5 Biggest Oscar Snubs of the Year, with a Special Guest Writer

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The following exchange was recorded previously. Here is the transcript of writers Nate and Rob talking about the top five biggest Oscar snubs of the year. You can see the full list of Academy Award nominees here. 
Nate: This is Nate, and I'm here with our other writer, Rob.
Rob: Hi.
Nate: So right now we're going to be talking about what we think are the biggest snubs of the Oscar nominations. I was pretty happy with a lot of the nominations, I don't know about you.
Rob: Eh...
Nate: But, I felt there were a couple key things missing. So we sat down and made a top five list of things we thought were missing from the Oscar nominations that should have been in there. What we're going to try to do is, instead of just saying "Oh, this should have been in there!", we'll talk about what should have been taken out based on the movies we have seen, and what should have been in there instead.


Nate: So we have an honorable mention before we get into our top five, and it&…
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The Movie Paradise Nerd Round-Up: January 23rd

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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

After the monumental success of Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (read our review here), fans have been eagerly awaiting to see the next episode, which is due in May of 2017. Until now. The sequel has officially been pushed back to December of 2017. Many could see this as a reason to worry, but I think it is purely financial. The Force Awakens made the astounding numbers it did mainly because it came out in December. It didn't have a lot of competition, and it was able to carry into t…
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Deadpool Creator Rob Liefeld Praises the Film

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A lot of praise for Deadpool has been coming out of a surprise screening for fans, which was held not too long ago. The fans went to Twitter, raving about the film's humor and violence. With this film already being my most anticipated film of the year, this only increases that excitement. But fans can nerdgasm all they want, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the movie is going to be great. But in a recent interview, the creator of Deadpool, Rob Liefeld, stated that he had seen the film, and he really likes it. I mean, really likes it. You can read his comments here.  "This is my second time seeing it and it was even better than the first time. That sounds like something Deadpool would say. But, here's the deal: twenty-five years worth of Deadpool. This movie comes out twenty-five years to the day we published him at Marvel and you couldn't get a better gift if you're a Deadpool fan and I have seen twenty-five years of stories come and go-- and Rhett (Rees…
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Suicide Squad- Trailer 2

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With all the comic book movies coming out in 2016, Suicide Squad has kind of flown under my radar. I liked the Comic Con trailer a lot, but the film was never one of my most anticipated of the year. After all, we have so many comic book movies to look forward to. You can read my whole editorial on that here. But I was excited when I saw there was a new trailer for Suicide Squad. It really is DC's answer to Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy, and it has a fantastic cast. Director David Ayer did a great job with Fury, but he also did Sabotage the same year, and that was less than desirable to say the least. So I've had high hopes for the film, but it has kind of slipped past me. But now with a second trailer, my interest in the film has been rekindled. 
This was an awesome trailer! Stylistically, it's brilliant. The editing matched with the song overlapped with the brutal and violent action was just excellent. It worked in really creating an atmosphere and tone that will …
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The Hateful Eight SPOILER-FREE Review

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The Hateful Eight is the latest film from director Quentin Tarantino, and is one that I have been moderately interested in. I have to be honest here: I haven't seen any of Tarantino's films. I know that it's blasphemy, and I know that I really need to see his movies. I'm working on it. So The Hateful Eight is really my first true exposure to Tarantino. I was familiar with his style: wild, over-the-top, brutal violence and a lot of n-words. Now, after seeing this film, I am definitely wanting to check out more of Tarantino's films. Here, he crafts a well-written, who-dun-it type film that pits different character types from different backgrounds against each other in a very engaging social commentary.
The film focuses on John Ruth (Kurt Russell), a bounty hunter who is headed for Red Rock in order to collect a bounty on the mysterious Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh). After running into Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson) and Sheriff(?) Chris Mannix (Walto…
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The Big Short SPOILER-FREE Review

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I haven't really been interested in The Big Short until recently. Sure, it has a stellar cast and I was very interested to see Anchorman and Step Brothers director Adam McKay take a different approach with film, however the project never caught my interest. Even when everyone was raving about it I was still unconvinced. It wasn't until I saw an interview with Steve Carell, and I saw how passionate he was about this project, that I finally became interested. So I went and bought a ticket to go see The Big Short, and I'm glad I did, because it is a marvelous film.
The film follows several people who all separately saw the signs and predicted the economic crash of 2008, and began betting against the housing market in order to make a profit. But as they uncover more and more about the banks greed and corporate misdoings, the more they realize just how rotten and corrupt the system is.

When you're watching this movie, you can clearly tell that McKay was the right choice to…
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Alan Rickman Passes Away at Age 69

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This is a sad one. In the same week that music icon David Bowie passed away, Harry Potter and Die Hard actor Alan Rickman has passed as well. 
He was born on February 21st, 1946 in London. Rickman started out doing stage theater, even starring on Broadway. He then branched out into film, where his first film role was playing the villianous Hans Gruber in the 1980's famous action movie Die Hard. Many will argue this to be one of the best villain performances of all time. For me personally, Rickman will always be Hans Gruber, a cunning and slimy terrorist who is intelligent enough to talk his way out of any situation. He was a fantastic antagonist. He went on to star in other films such as Galaxy Quest, Alice in Wonderland and the Harry Potter franchise. 
Rickman will be remembered for his deep voice and powerful presence. He controlled the screen whenever he popped up. He was very talented, and unfortunately was never truly recognized for it. He won a Golden Globe in 1997 for star…
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First Trailer for 10 Cloverfield Lane

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This really came as a surprise. Without anyone knowing, producer J.J. Abrams and the whole team at Bad Robot were hard at work on a sequel to the found footage film Cloverfield. No one even knew that a sequel was in the works. Alongside the release of Michael Bay's latest film, 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi, the trailer for this mystery film dropped. The movie is directed by first-time director Dan Trachtenberg, and stars John Goodman. A description reads:
"The majority of the movie takes place in an underground cellar, and revolves around a young woman who wakes up in the cellar after a severe car accident and fears she has been abducted. Her captor, a doomsday prepper, tells her he saved her lifer and that there has been a terrible chemical attack that has left the outside world uninhabitable. She does not know what to believe and as tensions rise, she decides she must escape, regardless of the terrors that await outside." That was the description for the f…
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The Movie Paradise Nerd Round-Up: January 16th

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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



The production behind Gambit has been a mystery for a long time. The film has been slated to come out in October of this year for a while, but so much has changed with the production. Directors have come in and out, and at one point Channing Tatum reportedly left, only to return shortly after. Now with Doug Liman set to direct, it has been revealed that the film will begin shooting in March. This means that it most likely will not make its October release date, and will be pushed into 2017. I exp…
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