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Box Office Sabermetrics: A Rock and a Hard Place

  Earlier this year, the much anticipated box office juggernaut Furious 7 was released, and proceeded to break box office records on it’s way to a whopping $1.5 billion worldwide gross. This was great news for two of the film’s stars, The Rock (Never Dwayne Johnson, just The Rock) and Vin Diesel. They had just …

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‘Straight Outta Compton’ director set for ‘Furious 8’ next

From the streets of Compton to the cars of the Dubai….and London….and Rio….and Los Angeles. Following the recent success of Straight Outta Compton, director F. Gary Gray is moving to one of the biggest franchises in Hollywood as The Hollywood Reporter reports that he is set to direct Furious 8 next. This comes a week …

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‘Fast 8’ is not revving up just yet says producer

It seems like the cast and crew of the Fast & Furious franchise isn’t gearing up for their latest follow-up just yet. Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter on Wednesday, producer Neal Moritz said that they hadn’t even started planning the eighth film yet. “Honestly, we’re just bathing in the success of this,” Moritz said. “We’ll …

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Ride or Die: A Complete History on the Evolution of ‘The Fast and the Furious’ Franchise

“Ride or die.” Those words only appear a few times in the franchise – most famously out of Vin Diesel’s gravelly baritone in Fast & Furious 6 – but they have become the personal motto for how this franchise has continued, grown, succeeded and become greater with each film. Today, Furious 7, the latest in the …

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‘Furious 7’ delivers your over-the-top action fix

Big action, gravity-defying car shenanigans, and unstoppable macho energy make for a ridiculously fun ride. Yes, some sloppy editing bogs down director James Wan’s more-is-more finale, but that’s only in comparison to the other set pieces, which are damn near flawless. Fans of the action genre will want to catch this one early and often.

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Week in Review: Vin Diesel assures ‘Furious 7’ will win Best Picture

Don’t you hate that each year Awards Season seems to creep ever earlier in the calendar year? GOD! Can’t you just go one film festival without speculating whether it will be an Oscar contender, or whether it has the legs to survive such an increasingly long awards season? Geez, I can’t imagine why so many …

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‘The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay’ handily bests its film counterpart

2004 was supposed to be the year of Riddick, at least as far as Universal Studios was concerned. In response to the adamant fan demands for a sequel to the 2000 cult-classic Pitch Black, Universal was attempting to seize an opportunity by building a multi-million dollar franchise out of one the sci-fi slashers surviving characters: Richard B. Riddick, better known as simply “Riddick”.

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Fast & Furious To Stay Furious For ‘At Least Three’ More Films

Has anyone else noticed that in just about every Fast and Furious movie, the main characters always call this “their last ride?” Well from now on, we know that this phrase is a boldfaced lie. The Hollywood Reporter revealed that the Fast and Furious franchise is looking to keep going with at least three more …

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‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ is good, freaky fun

Of course, Guardians isn’t perfect, as it struggles to find a consistent tone. Sometimes it wants to be more adult, with bawdier language and sexual innuendo. For instance, Quill’s rumination that “If I had a black light, this place would look like a Jackson Pollock painting!” is pretty sophisticated for mainstream PG-13 fare. Other times, it feels as though the filmmakers are pandering to a much younger audience. You can almost visualize a ‘Dancing Groot’ doll gyrating in your kid’s Happy Meal.

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‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ is solid entertainment, despite some wonky action and character work

For every good sequence, there’s one that’s muddled with bad camerawork and editing. Like a lot of blockbuster action, it’s barely legible; you have to work to keep up with it, and that work interferes with the enjoyment. The story also sags in the middle, as it seems to exist mainly to fill out the run-time. The protagonists take the MacGuffin to a dude they wish to sell it to, but the only real function of the section is to exposit what it is. It turns a big chunk of the plot into a shrug.

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‘Riddick’ is somewhat pulpy fun only when Vin Diesel’s on screen

For a movie about a fearsome convict on the loose, one that’s the third entry in a series about said convict, and one that’s produced by the actor playing said convict, Riddick is awfully shy about letting its title character show up on screen as much as might be desired.

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‘Riddick’ retreads familiar ground in lieu of innovation

It will probably be one of those unsolved mysteries of the ages, like the Voynich Manuscript or the secret ingredient to Spam, how a third Riddick movie got made. The first installment in the now 13-year old franchise, 2000’s Pitch Black, is largely looked back on as being not bad, and its follow-up, 2004’s The Chronicles of Riddick is remembered mostly for being terrible, and featuring Judi Dench in a rare career misstep.

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Hey Canada: Win Tickets to the Advanced Screening of ‘Riddick’

Seven years is a long wait between movies in a franchise, but we have good news for those of you excited to see Riddick. Thanks to Eone Entertainment and Alliance Films, Sound On Sight is giving away doubles passes to the advanced premiere in Toronto, Ottawa, Halifax, Winnipeg, Calgary and Edmonton. In oder to enter, …

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‘Fast & Furious 6’ is ridiculous enough to be fun despite being overlong

The cars are fast, as they always are, and the people are equally furious. In fact, they’re faster and furious-er now than they were before, but then, you already knew that. Be honest: if you’re reading this review, you do not need to be convinced or cajoled to hoof it to the theater to see Fast & Furious 6. You also don’t need encouragement to feel as if you, too, are like Dominic Toretto, Brian O’Conner, or their brothers- and sisters-in-wheels on the way home, pretending your Hyundai Sonata or beat-up pickup truck is a tricked-out muscle car.

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