Movie Monday: Smaug Smokes Anchorman 2
Anchorman Ron Burgundy, despite making roughly 3 million personal appearances and boasting salon-quality hair, couldn’t find a way to pull a certain dragon off of his heap of box office gold. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug singed Burgundy’s hair and lit up the weekend for an estimated $31.5 million. Sure, that’s about a 57% […]
Is Phil Robertson Just Keepin’ It Real?
Phil Robertson, patriarch of the Robertson family and one of the stars of A&E’s hit show Duck Dynasty, has been suspended by the network for comments he made regarding homosexuality. Specifically, he told GQ magazine that the lifestyle is a sin, paraphrasing 1 Corinthians 6 while doing so. In announcing the suspension, A&E said: We […]
Television Tops 2013: Paul Asay’s Year-End Picks
I love lists. Odd, since I’m not a very organized person. But when it comes to organizing my Top 10 cherry-flavored candies or the Top 5 most painful moments in Denver Broncos history or the Top 20 best uses for duct tape, I’m all over it. One of my favorite articles ever was titled “The […]
Movie Monday: The Desolation of Smaug
Lots of people were draggin’ themselves into theaters this week—and most were on fire to see a certain hobbit, his bearded companions and one very large, intimidating flying lizard. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug torched the box office for an estimated $73.7 million—more than three times what its nearest competitor earned. It was the […]
Disney Short Pulls Back the Curtain on the Good Old Days
Frozen, Disney’s new animated musical, has thawed the crusty hearts of many a critic. It has an 88% “freshness” rating on Rotten Tomatoes and has been called, by some, the best Disney flick since The Lion King. I don’t know if I’d go that far, but I appreciated Frozen quite a bit. It’s fun and […]
Movie Monday: Frozen
Sorry, Katniss. You may shoot a mean arrow, but sometimes there’s just no beating a talking snowman. OK, so Olaf the snowman is really a secondary character in Disney’s Frozen. A pair of princesses anchor this frosty film. But really, all we really need to know is that Frozen rolled and patted its way to […]
The Kindness of (Cyber) Strangers
You’ve heard of Black Friday and Cyber Monday of course—both signs and symptoms of our very modern consumerist Christmas. But yesterday was a day celebrating a different aspect of Christmas. And what Giving Tuesday lacks in a snappy name, it perhaps makes up for in heart. Google connected interested surfers to worthy charities on Google+, and […]
Movie Monday: Frozen Can’t Chill Catching Fire (But Does Just Fine Anyway)
Every once in a while, pundits will complain there aren’t enough strong women in the movies. The box office (these critics say) is dominated by an old boys’ club of manly superheroes and hairy hobbits, with nary a Wonder Woman or female elf in sight. Call this weekend, then, the exception to the rule. On […]
The Chairs Are Alive With the Sound of Thanksgiving
I was in my early teens when Julie Andrews became inexplicably linked with cranberry sauce for me. My family—mom, dad, sister and I—were paying a Turkey Day visit to my grandparents in Sun City, Ariz. They’d moved out there not too long before, and I was still young enough that seeing them was a special […]
Movie Monday: Catching Fire
A word to the wise: Never, ever, ever bet against Katniss Everdeen in anything. Not in the Hunger Games, not in an archery competition, not even in a friendly game of Clue. And certainly never question her dominance at the box office. Are you listening, President Snow? The arrow-slinging diva and her Hunger Games: Catching […]
