Ad and A.D. Add Up to a Big Easter on TV
About 3.7 million people tuned in to watch Bill O’Reilly’s Killing Jesus on the National Geographic Channel last Sunday—the most ever to watch a show on the network, and a 300% improvement on NatGeo’s typical Sunday-night ratings. It was a success. But it wasn’t a surprise. Jesus—or, rather, shows predicated on Him—is big business these […]
Interstellar Stares at the Stars. And So Can We.
There is something in the stars that stirs us. We see the infinite space crease and fold and stretch and twist, the sky both so empty and so full. We see its inky depth set with legions of lights, and it turns our minds to higher thoughts—who we are and why we’re here and what’s […]
Home’ is Where the Money Is
All right now, click your heels together and repeat after me: There’s no movie like Home. There’s no movie like Home. There’s no movie like … Home, DreamWorks’ newest animated alien lark, parked its bubble-like spaceship right at the top of the box office. Sure, maybe the flick didn’t earn enough to buy a big […]
A Tweet Birthday Message
Twitter can be mean. It can be nasty. But sometimes it can be the little ray of sunshine that I imagine its creators always hoped it would be. It’s easy to forget, given what we sometimes see and hear and read. A couple of weeks ago, Jake Roberson chronicled the Twitter trolls who creeped out […]
Insurgent Conquers Box Office
In the Divergent franchise, people typically fill one of five primary factions: Abnegation, Amity, Candor, Dauntless and Erudite. But this weekend, another faction was in play—one that changed everything: Opulent. OK, so technically Tris, Four et al are members of the Divergent faction (which makes sense, given the name of the series and all). But […]
Stepping Into the Cool, Creepy World of Health Tech
I recently upgraded my phone to a snazzy iPhone 6. It works just as well as my old iPhone did, only with a bigger screen. I still have the same apps. I still use it in much the same way. For me, phones are fairly utilitarian devices: I don’t want or need my new phone to […]
Cinderella Belle of the Ball
Forget the crown. Shelve the trophy or title belt. This weekend’s box office championship came with a dainty glass slipper. Not even a growling, gun-toting Liam Neeson could keep Cinderella locked in her attic this weekend. Disney’s fair maid waltzed to an estimated $70.1 million and sashayed to the tippy-tip-top of the box office, and […]
The Sun’ll Come Out … in Tomorrowland?
Disney just released a new trailer for Tomorrowland, a movie slated to hit theaters May 22. Starring George Clooney, Hugh Laurie (House), Britt Robertson and a whole bunch of CGI, this thing looks like it could be a big deal. And for me, Tomorrowland can’t come soon enough. Tomorrowland is my second home—or it would […]
Chappie Chugs to Championship, Chump Change
Chappie, Neill Blomkamp’s emotional robot, learned another particularly human lesson this weekend: What it feels like to win for losing. While Chappie took the weekend’s box office crown, it did so in the most dispiriting way possible, collecting a tiny $13.3 million (estimated, of course) in a super-slow weekend at the Megaplex. Why, that’s barely […]
How a Movie Birthed an Art Form (And Tarnished a Nation)
A century ago this week, New Yorkers began lining up to watch The Birth of a Nation. Though the country was still more than a decade removed from the first talking picture, this black-and-white silent epic was apparently like Gone With the Wind, Star Wars and Avatar all rolled into one. Some theaters charged patrons […]