This Weekend, Watch This
A comparison for the new releases for October 17-19, 2014
By Curt David
October 18, 2014
BoxOfficeProphets.com

When fun actors get stuck in terrible movies.
New movies are released into theaters every weekend. How do you decide which movie to watch? Some movies sound awesome (Leave it to Beaver), but then do not do too well commercially. Other movies star your celebrity crush (Jennifer Aniston in The Switch), but then do not get much love critically. Still other movies are recommended by friends (but friends can be idiots). And if you are like 52%* of people, you are not even aware of which movies are being released, yet alone which movies you should pay your hard earned money on.

I’ll save you the hassle of researching every movie by comparing the new releases for each weekend in this column. Then I’ll tell you which movie you should watch in the theaters.

For the weekend of October 17th, the new movies in wide release are Fury, The Book of Life, and The Best of Me.


Fury The Book of LifeThe Best of MeWINNER
(1 point per category)
Clearest TitleGood adjective. Sounds inspirational. Sounds inspirational. Based on title alone, I would probably go see Fury. Point.
Best Genre
and Rating		War
Rated R for strong sequences of war violence, some grisly images, and language throughout		Animation
Rated PG for mild action, rude humor, some thematic elements and brief scary images		Romance
Rated PG-13 for sexuality, violence, some drug content and brief strong language		Nice mix of genres- 1/3 point each.
Best Plot
(in haiku form)		Group of five soldiers
Have to stop all the Nazis
Or the Allies lose		Two princes love girl
One travels to magic town
Other things happen? 		Twenty years ago
Sweethearts. Moved Away. Came back.
Fall in love again 		Plots are okay this week. 1/3 point each.
Best TrailerPROS: Action packed, high stakes, rooting for good guys against huge odds.
CONS: Seems like this plot had to have been done before .		PROS: Interesting animation, cute story.
CONS: But I have no clue what’s going on. Something with time traveling or something? I don’t know. 		PROS: It’s a Nicholas Sparks movie, if you like those movies.
CONS: It’s a Nicholas Sparks movie, if you don’t like those movies.		It might be that time of month, but the trailer that didn’t put me to sleep was The Best of Me.
Coolest Lead ActorBrad Pitt from Fight Club and Ocean’s Eleven. The voice of Diego Luna from Y Tu Mama Tambien.James Marsden from X-Men and Enchanted.Brad Pitt wins this one.
Best CastShia LaBeouf (Transformers), Logan Lerman (Percy Jackson), and Michael Peña (End of Watch)The voices of Zoe Saldana, Channing Tatum, Ron Perlman, Christina Applegate, and Ice Cube. Michelle Monaghan (Gone Baby Gone)And Fury wins this one.
Best Street Cred
For the Production		Writer and director David Ayer also wrote Training Day and directed End of Watch. Writer and director Jorge R. Gutierrez also was on the animation department in several films. Director Michael Hoffman also directed One Fine Day and The Last Station. This is a tough one. I’ll give the point to Hoffman.


So out of a maximum of 7 points per movie, Fury scores 3 and 2/3 points (and a gold star), The Best of Me scores 2 and 2/3 points, and The Book of Life scores 2/3 points.

You may interpret this column for your own movie preferences. For example, if you want to watch an animated movie with Mexican flair, feel free to watch The Book of Life. However, if you are still on the fence, please read the following conclusions from the scientific data gathered in this column.

Conclusion 1: On paper, Fury is the best movie to watch this weekend.
Conclusion 2: Each week I give a gold star to the movie with the best tagline. Fury’s “War never ends quietly,” beats The Best of Me’s “You never forget your first love.” I couldn’t find a tagline for The Book of Life.
Conclusion 3: 5 weeks until the next Hunger Games movie!

*Statistic is completely made up.