Movie Monday: Kick Something
We just knew a certain unmentionable film was going to rule the box office come Monday. We just assumed that Kick-A– and its band of R-rated superheroes was going to charge into theaters and win the weekend. I mean, really: Who wants to tangle with a profane, purple-wigged, 11-year-old death jockey? Turns out, though, Hit-Girl […]
Psst. Wanna Know a Secret?
Tonight, the Peacock Network will air Secrets of the Mountain—maybe the safest and riskiest show we’ve seen in a while. Television programming doesn’t get much safer. Secrets (which will be released on DVD in Walmart stores on Saturday) is a G-rated affair—like what I would’ve watched on The Wonderful World of Disney way back in […]
Masked Maroons
I wanted to be a superhero. No, really. When I was about 7, it was my career ambition. While other kids were playing baseball or other such nonsense, I would wear a cape, fling webs (my mother’s hair net) at evildoers (stuffed animals) and come up with clever catchphrases. If I had been looking for […]
Movie Monday: Date Night
A couple of comedians trounced an army of gods and monsters to triumph at the box office this weekend. Date Night, starring Steve Carell and Tina Fey, made $27.1 million to nudge past rapidly falling Clash of the Titans ($26.9 million). How to Train Your Dragon—the film I took my own family to this weekend—finished […]
Whippersnappers Today
Kids. When I’m not yellin’ at ’em to get off my lawn (waving my cane in their general direction), I’m tellin’ ’em to not slouch so much, or to get those plumb earbuds out of their ears or put on a belt so their pants don’t fall to their knees. Why can’t kids be more […]
Movie Monday: Clash of the Titans
Forget the dragon. The monster this weekend was the Kraken and Clash of the Titans, which hacked its way to $61.4 million—much of it coming from extra-pricey 3-D tickets. The mythology-soaked CGI spectacle pocketed twice as much as its nearest competitor, Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married Too? How to Train Your Dragon, last […]
Getting Lost
I think most Americans think of television as intellectual comfort food. Generally, we don’t seem to gravitate toward programs because they’re wildly creative and different. We tend to like shows that are reliably the same each and every week. Which makes Lost‘s success so counterintuitive. If CSI is comfort food to much of America, Lost […]
Movie Monday: How to Train Your Dragon
American commandos couldn’t take it down. Bounty hunters failed to haul it off. Even wimpy kids fell short. No, Tim Burton’s mighty Alice in Wonderland, after dominating the box office for the last three weeks, was finally taken down by a horde of Vikings and a dragoon of dragons. DreamWorks’ How to Train Your Dragon […]
Button Pushers
We humans are strange, mixed-up things. We are God’s creations, carrying God’s likeness and love—yet we are fallen creatures, torn by sin and selfishness and decay. We seem both animal and angel, and often we’re unable to truly grasp the division within ourselves. I thought of this paradox when reading a story from Time about […]
Movie Monday: Diary of a Wimpy Kid
The box-office showdown figured to be a tag-team clash of celebrity heavyweights: In one corner sat Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler, tabloid faves and stars of the adventure rom-com The Bounty Hunter. In the other crouched Jude Law and past Oscar champ Forest Whitaker, titans of Universal Studios’ Repo Men. Who wins? Some wimpy kid […]
