Movie Monday: Dead Heat
Dead Heat? You may be asking yourself right now. I never saw any trailers for any movie called Dead Heat. What, did Hollywood remake a little-seen, R-rated 1988 cop/zombie comedy starring Treat Williams and Joe Piscopo? No, no. Hollywood isn’t quite that bereft of new ideas yet. We don’t expect to see a remake of […]
Seeing Saw
I’d imagine that Halloween used to be Lionsgate’s favorite holiday. Instead of handing out free candy, the movie studio would give revelers the gift of Saw—a new movie every year—at, naturally, a steep price. And while none of the Saw movies were ever blockbusters (Saw II was the highest, ahem, grossing installment, earning $87 million), […]
It’s the End of the World As We Know It … On Television
Lots of television shows these days seem to carry with them a whiff of Armageddon. I reviewed two such shows this week: There’s Constantine, NBC’s story of a cynical exorcist who’s been warned that hell’s up to something big. Over on ABC, Sleepy Hollow features a modern-day cop teaming up with an 18th-Century Ichabod Crane […]
Movie Monday: Ouija
‘Tis the season for horror movies, what with Halloween coming up and all. So not too surprising we saw such a spirited display for Ouija this weekend. The horror movie predicated on a supernatural board game earned an estimated $20 million this week to haunt the tip-top of the box office. Fellow newcomer John Wick […]
It’s The Simpsons World. We Just Live In It
For 25 seasons and counting, the exact location of Springfield—the town in which The Simpsons takes place—has never been revealed. It could be Ohio. Or Illinois. Probably not Hawaii, given Homer’s one-time snow plow business, but you never know. But as of today, we know exactly where to find Springfield: on the Internet. Simpsons World launched […]
Movie Monday: Fury
Like a tank manned by a handful of war-weary Americans, Fury plowed to the top of the box office this week, pounding its way to an estimated $23.5 million weekend and causing all other challengers to flee before its fearsome caterpillar tracks. It’s not star Brad Pitt’s best financial showing (his most lucrative movie, World […]
HBO Go Makes It Harder to Stop Problematic Content
On Oct. 15, HBO officially announced that it was uncoupling its programming from cable television. Sure, viewers can still buy a cable or satellite package with HBO, of course. But starting in 2015, folks will also be able to watch HBO via its HBO Go app—without a cable package at all. Experts thought that something […]
Movie Monday: Gone Girl Here Again
What happened to Amy Dunne? I don’t know, since I haven’t seen Gone Girl. But wherever she is, this cinematic girl keeps collecting fistfuls of cash. A goodish vampire and a very bad day couldn’t slow the roll of Gone Girl. The R-rated mystery thriller earned another estimated $26.8 million to repeat as the box […]
Movie Monday: Gone Girl
Forget Gone Girl. For execs over at Fox, their R-rated mystery thriller might’ve been called Here Cash. Gone Girl, starring Ben Affleck as his wife’s possible killer/victim, buzzed its way to an estimated $38 million weekend—a pretty big figure for the normally dowdy month of October. It’s also the biggest opening for a David Fincher-directed […]
No Moviegoer Left Behind
It’s been quite the year for Christian movies. We’ve seen the story of a 4-year-old boy who says he went to heaven make $91.4 million (Heaven Is for Real), a class in Apologetics 101 haul in $60.8 million (God’s Not Dead) and a repackaging of a History Channel special collect $59.7 mil (Son of God). […]
