The Movie Paradise

More so than world peace or a cure for cancer, people have been waiting for the first trailer for Avengers: Infinity War. It is the biggest comic book movie since the original Avengers film, bringing together practically every single hero put to screen in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I have been patiently waiting for this movie to come out for years now, and I trust the Russo Brothers will give us an absolutely incredible film. They did a magnificent job with Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and somehow topped themselves with Captain America: Civil War. A lot rides on Infinity War to be the greatest movie Marvel has ever made, and if anyone can pull it off, it's the Russo Brothers. The trailer for Infinity War first screened during San Diego Comic Con this year, to which it received fantastic praise. And since then, us regular fans have been waiting for it be released to the public. We thought it would come with Thor: Ragnarok, but it didn't. A few Vanity Fair covers we…

For seemingly endless months, fans have been anxiously and (sometimes) patiently awaiting the release of the first trailer for the highly anticipated Avengers: Infinity War. Hitting theaters next May, the film will be the culmination of ten years of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, finally seeing the realization of Thanos (Josh Brolin), who was first teased during the ending credits of The Avengers back in 2012. Many thought the trailer for Infinity War would drop in early November, in order to coincide with the release of Thor: Ragnarok (read our review here). However, that never came to be. The next logical place to drop the trailer would be with Disney's other giant blockbuster coming out next month, Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi. And as more time goes by, it seems like that is what they will be doing. However, our first look at the highly secretive movie is not actually the trailer, but rather a photoshoot.

Vanity Fair has released four variant covers of their upcoming i…

I had no prior knowledge of this film before I saw it. I had not heard of it before, nor had I ever seen a trailer. A friend suggested we go see it, and I subsequently looked it up. For a film with a cast such as this, I'm surprised that I had never heard of it. You have Deadpool's Brianna Hildebrand and X-Men: Apocalypse's Alexandra Shipp in the leading roles, with Craig Robinson, Kevin Durand, Jack Quaid, and Josh Hutcherson rounding out the supporting cast. For a film that's getting zero buzz, that's a pretty impressive line-up. So I went in rather curious. As I had heard no mention of it before, I knew I wasn't going to suddenly walk out and say it was on my top ten list of my favorite movies of the year. But with a 79% on Rotten Tomatoes, I figured I wouldn't be saying it's one of the worst movies I had ever seen either. So I went in not really knowing what to expect, and I was pleasantly surprised. Tragedy Girls isn't a great movie, but it de…

Over the past several weeks, we have been witnessing an industry-wide purge of assholes; that is the best way to put it. It all began with Harvey Weinstein, when he went down for decades of sexual harassment, assault, and even rape. Since then, more and more men in the film industry have fallen, with Kevin Spacey, Brett Ratner, Louis C.K. to name a few. When it was just Weinstein, I did a podcast on whether we should separate the person from the art. You can listen to it here. However, in the weeks since, my opinion has changed. Less and less I'm able to separate the person from the art. Kevin Spacey was one of my all-time favorite actors, and now I can't stand to see his face. I haven't really reported on these allegations against men within the film industry before because I don't believe I'm qualified to comment on the matter. I discuss movie news, and while people like Spacey and Weinstein are involved in the industry, it's not really something I want to t…

Justice League has been a hot topic for the past couple of weeks. Before it came out this weekend, fans were buzzing about whether it would be good or not. However, it has since come out, and proven to be just as divisive as Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice. I didn't think the movie sucked, but I didn't think it was all that great either. You can read my full, spoiler free review here. However, on Sunday, we learned that Justice League would being debuting under $100 million dollars, which is a shocking number for not just a comic book movie, but for a huge tentpole one such as Justice League. To compare, The Avengers made over $200 million dollars domestically in its opening weekend, and Justice League made under $94 million. On Sunday, I broke down the news and discussed whether the DC Cinematic Universe as a whole was in jeopardy because of this defeat. You can read that editorial here. However, some fans didn't see the issue with the opening weekend numbers. But it …

If you were to ask any film fan three months ago what Justice League's opening weekend numbers would be, I'm sure everyone would have said between $150-200 million dollars. I mean, it's Justice League for Christ's sake! This is the big event movie that DC has been building towards for years now. This is their Avengers. Even if the jury was still out on how good the film would turn out, it was pretty certain that it would be a giant box office success. Well, Justice League came out and it was about as divisive as Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice was. It currently has a 40% critic rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but an 85% fan rating, so we have that divide between the critics and the fans once again. I thought the movie was okay at best. I didn't think it was terrible, but it wasn't good either. You can read my full, spoiler-free review here. But the one thing we were all sure of, its box office success, has now been brought into question. Reports are estimating …

For the past few weeks, I have been of the unpopular opinion that Justice League would suck. With Zack Snyder stepping aside due to a personal tragedy, and Joss Whedon coming in to finish the job, I didn't know how two directors with very distinct styles could blend together for one movie. It just didn't make sense to me. It faced an uphill battle, due to the poor reception of the previous movies. The DC Cinematic Universe hasn't had a great track record so far. You can see how I rank the movies here. So add on top of that the extensive (and expensive) reshoots the fix the movie, and it didn't seem like there was any way Justice League could be great. After I made that prediction, reviews came out for the film that proved the film doesn't suck in the way that I thought it would, but it's not as great as fans were hoping it would be. This gave me some encouragement, but it didn't necessarily excite me. I always hope that a movie will be awesome, but whether…

I haven't been on board with all of A24's films. They have certain movies that I love, such as Locke and Room. But then there are others that I detest, such as their other films earlier this year, It Comes at Night (read our review here) and A Ghost Story (our review here). When A24 gives us movies that tell a more conventional, wide-appealing story, I can get behind it. Locke and Room tell intimate tales, brought to life beautifully by rich performances. But when A24 gives us movies that go for a radical art house feel, that go for artistry to the point where it compromises the story and its characters, that's when I begin to resent the studio. They've already done it a couple of times this year, but I thought it would be different here with The Killing of a Sacred Deer. Yes, the trailers were reminiscent of A24's past artistic failures, but it's written and directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, the Oscar-nominated talent behind The Lobster. I believed that this one …

I've been excited for Rampage ever since I first heard about it. I enjoyed playing the games when I was younger, and I thought there was a lot of potential in turning it into a movie. I mean, you have giant apes, alligators, and wolves running around destroying shit; that sounds like a pretty entertaining blockbuster to me. Plus, with the additions of Dwayne Johnson, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and Joe Manganiello, it looked like they had assembled the perfect cast to bring this fun monster flick to life. Now, it is being directed by Brad Peyton, who did San Andreas, which does worry me. San Andreas didn't exactly work for me, and it was far too cheesy for my liking. So I was afraid that maybe Rampage would fall into the same trap. But with a great concept and a really solid cast, I was still hopeful that Rampage would end up being something really fun. And now we have our first trailer for the film.

This looks absolutely insane! I really like the angle they're taking it with th…

With Justice League opening in theaters this weekend, I thought it would be a good opportunity to put out another installment my new editorial series, "How I Rank". Here, I take something in the film world. It could be a director, an actor, a franchise, or anything really along those lines, and I rank the films within it based upon my personal preferences. Some of these rankings you may agree with, and some of them you may view differently. Please feel free to jump into the comments section to voice how you think these movies should be ranked. These aren't necessarily based on how objectively good the film is; it's all based on my own personal preferences, and how I would rank these movies based on my individual enjoyment of them. So take a look at the lists I've crafted, starting with how I currently would rank the DC Cinematic Universe. Careful, there may be spoilers for each of the films. 
#4 Suicide Squad


Hopefully this is the last time I have to talk about t…

My anticipation for this film has been rather mixed. I was immediately struck by the all-star cast that director and star Kenneth Branagh had gathered. You have Johnny Depp, Penélope Cruz, Daisy Ridley, Josh Gad, Willem Dafoe, Judi Dench, and Michelle Pfeiffer. That is a winning team right there. Plus the idea of a murder mystery on a train, with those talents involved, sounded like it could make for something really cool. But the marketing hadn't sold me on it. I had seen a couple of trailers, and while they looked interesting, it hadn't shown me any reason why I should rush out to the theaters immediately to go see it. It felt like a rainy Sunday afternoon flick more so than a Fall-time blockbuster. In all honesty, I could have gone without seeing this movie. But I was invited to go, so I went along. And I ended up liking it a great deal more than I thought I would, though it definitely has its problems as a film. 
While all aboard a train, a murder has taken place, leaving…