Eating Like Hercules
I’d like to think of myself as a healthy person. I run regularly. I lift weights sometimes. I’m eating a bit better than I used to. I drink a lot of water, despite its alarming lack of sugar and carbonation. In some ways, I’m healthier at 45 than I was at 18 or 22. Which […]
Movie Monday: Still Going Ape for … Well, You Know
We’re sinners. That’s what most of us Christians are taught from before we really know what sin is. We’re prone to lie and steal and will even destroy ourselves if given a chance. We’re so screwed up that, without God, there’s no hope for us. Those views are reflected, rather quirkily, in the box office […]
One Last Picture
Sophia Steffel died this month. She was only 6 weeks old. She spent her entire life in a hospital, tethered to hoses and tubes. She had what’s called a hepatic hemangioma in her liver—a tumor—and her parents were aware that her prognosis was not good. But Sophia’s father, Nathen Steffel, told ABC News it was […]
A Curiously Charming Cat
Nickelodeon has announced the cancellation of its hit show Sam & Cat after just one season. The reason wasn’t given, but everyone knew the show had some issues. Earlier this year, star Jennette McCurdy—who played the tough-talking semi-bad girl Sam—posted some revealing selfies to the Internet. Shortly thereafter, she skipped Nick’s Kids’ Choice Awards (even though […]
Movie Monday: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Who would’ve thought box office success would be so … hairy. Well actually, pretty much everyone. Most assumed that Dawn of the Planet of the Apes would run away with this week’s box office title. The film’s predecessor, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, was a simian smash in 2011, and critics declared Dawn […]
When Spies Go Social
Don’t let the cute birdie logo fool you: Twitter is a strange, unpredictable beast. It’s less like an innocuous little finch and more like a testy, bipolar Pteranodon, liable to carry you to the social media stratosphere one day, then try to claw your eyes out the next. So many users—especially celebrities—have torched their own […]
Apes: Will Dawn Be the Death of Us?
Come tomorrow, there’ll be an 800-pound gorilla in movie theaters. No, really. I haven’t yet seen Bob Hoose’s review (which is due to publish later today), but even without reading it, I’d imagine that The Dawn of the Planet of the Apes will feature several of them. Hundreds, maybe. Millions. The coming ape army will […]
Movie Monday: Age of Transformers?
Sorry, Melissa McCarthy. Moviegoers just weren’t into Tammy. They didn’t want to be delivered from Evil, either. Apparently, audiences still just wanted to play with their Transformers. Sure, Transformers: Age of Extinction may have lost nearly two-thirds of its audience from the previous weekend. But it still held onto enough paying customers to collect an […]
Movies—As Red, White and Blue as You Can Get
When you look at how we United States citizens typically spend our Fourth of Julys, not much of what we often do is, technically, American. Fireworks? An ancient Chinese invention. Baseball? English cricket, greatly modified. Hot dogs? German bratwurst without the kick. All these things are still, paradoxically, quite American. After all, most of us […]
Movie Monday: Transformers Age of Extinction
Don’t let the name or the reviews or the robotic dinosaur fool you. The Transformers series is nowhere near extinct. Given the movie’s success this weekend, I think we can expect Transformers sequels until the end of the world. And who knows? Some critics think such sequels might, in fact, hurry it along. Despite a […]
