Movie Monday: Taken 2
We’re all about lessons here at Plugged In, especially if those lessons have something to do with spirituality or morality or how to make your family, um, more familial. But not every lesson we learn has a spiritual or ethical component. Sometimes our lessons take a more pragmatic hue: never watch Here Comes Honey Boo […]
Movie Monday: Hotel Transylvania
Halloween may be a month away, but some animated movie monsters managed to sneak out early, ring the box office doorbell and collect an estimated $43 million worth of treats. Hotel Transylvania’s weekend take wasn’t just enough to buy about 200 million fun-size Butterfinger bars (give or take); it gave Dracula et al a box-office […]
Bam! Life Lessons From Costumed Crimefighters
If you’ve been reading Plugged In for a while, you might’ve noticed that I write a lot about superheroes. I don’t know why, really. Adam Holz and Bob Smithouser had (and probably have, knowing their hoarding instincts) scads of superhero comics, whereas the only superheroish thing I owned as a kid was a towel and […]
Movie Monday: It’s a Toss-Up
So, who won the weekend box office crown? Was it End of Watch, Jake Gyllenhaal’s gritty, profane action movie? Could it be fright-flick du jour House at the End of the Street? What about Trouble With the Curve, Clint Eastwood’s touching (but language-filled) tale of baseball and family? Yes! Or no. Truth is, all of […]
Did Lincoln Really Sound Whiny?
I’m a bit of a history geek. For much of this year, when I’ve not been watching movies or reviewing television shows, I’ve been reading history books—presidential biographies, to be specific. And of all the movies that I’m looking forward to seeing come Oscar season, Lincoln, directed by Stephen Spielberg and starring Daniel Day-Lewis as […]
Movie Monday: the Retribution of Resident Evil
There are some things that just won’t die—things that seem finished time and time again, only to dig themselves from their graves and grotesquely shamble around, masquerading as something full of life while not being very “lively” at all. I am speaking not of zombies, but of sequels. Take, for instance, Resident Evil: Retribution, a […]
Sorry for Strangers
The other day, as I was typing up a blog or movie review or some such, my Plugged In compatriot Adam Holz stumbles into my cubicle, eyes all red. He’d been listening to Taylor Swift’s new song “Ronan,” and he told me exactly what he told all of you in his review. “This may be […]
Days to Remember
It’s interesting how we sometimes forget. I had almost forgotten about today’s significance until I drove in this morning and heard about the ceremonies at the World Trade Center Memorial, Washington D.C., and elsewhere. “Oh, that’s right,” I thought to myself. “It’s 9/11.” Just three months ago, a fire tore through much of my hometown. […]
Movie Monday: Possessive Possession
Did you go to a movie this weekend? I thought not. Not very many people did. The top 12 movies earned a grand total of $51.9 million this weekend: Given rising ticket prices, that equates to just 276 attendees nationwide (according to a rather disheveled box office expert I found loitering outside my cubicle). And […]
Movie Monday: The Possession
If we’ve learned anything about cinematic evil spirits over the years, it’s that they’re all kinda grabby. Like petulant toddlers, they like to take things from their harried mortal prey—be it their happiness or well-being or, very often, their very souls. You might say they’re rather (ahem) possessive. So perhaps it shouldn’t surprise us that […]