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 […]
Movie Monday: Green Zone
The Cheshire Cat isn’t the only one grinning in Wonderland these days. Alice in Wonderland, Tim Burton’s curiously entertaining 3-D romp, was the weekend’s box-office champion again, collecting another $62 million to bring its two-week total to slightly mad $208.6 mil. Three newcomers—Green Zone, She’s Out of My League and Remember Me—made $32.4 million collectively, […]
Attack of the Giant 3-D TVs!
Wouldn’t you know it. Just when I break down and buy a new, HD, flat-screen, fancy-schmancy television (it even comes with a remote!), I find that it’s already behind the times. HD? That’s sooooo 2009. The Joneses are buying 3-D TVs now. Well, maybe they’re not buying them quite yet. Panasonic and Sanyo just unveiled […]
Movie Monday: Alice in Wonderland
In the curious country of Underland, there’s a certain cake that, if you eat it, will make you grow. I wonder if the folks at Disney have been force-feeding that magical cake to the studio’s ambitious 3-D project, Alice in Wonderland. The movie’s ticket sales ballooned to an outrageous $116.3 million take over the weekend […]
Live Oscar Blog
It’s time to begin Plugged In’s official live blog of the Oscars. Our red-carpet invites must have gotten lost in the mail this year, so we’ll be watching it on television, just like you are, and writing about whatever seems news- or noteworthy to us. Please feel free to add your comments as we go […]