Culture Clips: Waiting a Little Longer for the Oscars
We’ve all gotten used to waves of cancellations and delays due to the coronavirus. Now, on the cusp of Father’s Day, it’s impacted the daddy of all awards extravaganzas. The board of governors for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced that it’ll delay the Oscars by two months, pushing the ceremony from […]
And the Cinematic Shuffling Continues
The coronavirus is still out there, of course. But for many of us, life is returning to some semblance of normalcy. Restaurants are opening again. Businesses are welcoming back workers. Even movie theaters are thinking about how they’re going to serve their returning movie-hungry patrons. But will those patrons have anything to watch? That remains […]
Culture Clips: Gone With the Wind Is Gone … for Now
George Floyd’s death continues to reverberate in every aspect of culture, it seems, and some of the biggest tremors have been felt in the world of entertainment. The latest to feel the shake: Gone With the Wind. HBO Max pulled this classic bit of American cinema from its platform, announcing that it’ll reappear once some […]
Wretched Aside, Family Films Rule Theater-Free Season
If you look at official box-office results, The Wretched is the uncontested coronavirus-season champion. The indie horror flick just passed the $1 million mark, theatrically speaking—an impressive achievement, given the lack of theaters actually open. Indeed, Box Office Mojo says it’s been the No. 1 movie in the land since the first week in May. […]
What Did People Watch This Weekend? It’s Complicated.
I’m feeling a little nostalgic for the good old days, otherwise known as this past February. It was so easy to see what movies were the most popular around: Studios would release their box-office estimates and, voila! We knew which movies were soaring, which were sinking and which were just treading water. Now, it’s not […]
In 1961, the FCC Chairman Called TV a ‘Vast Wasteland.’ Has It Gotten Better?
We all know who wound up on Gilligan’s Island: Gilligan (of course); the Skipper too; the millionaire and his wife; the movie star; the professor and Mary Anne. But did you know that the chairman for the Federal Communications Commission made an appearance in every episode, too? I didn’t either, until I read a fascinating […]
Moms on TV May Change, But One Thing Stays the Same: Their Love
With Mother’s Day this weekend and nary a brunch to be found, we at Plugged In thought it might be an opportune time to look at great TV mothers. But how to choose? The website Ranker—which, true to its name, ranks everything and anything that its readers care to rank—was no help at all. Kitty […]
Movies Creeping Back to Normalcy? It’ll Be a Long Creep
Long, long ago—back in March, I think it was—every Monday we would typically recap the biggest, most lucrative movies playing in theaters over the weekend. The biggest of the big might clear $100 million or more in a weekend. But sometimes the theater turnstiles would turn a little slower. Back on Feb. 24, we reported […]
Self-Isolation Fosters a Different Kind of Video Gaming
I loved board games as a kid. The competition, the feel of the dice in your hands, the angry siblings turning over the Risk board after their attack on Kamchatka utterly failed … ah, good times. Truth be told, I still love me some good old-fashioned gameplay. My family and I are gamers—board gamers, that […]
What Parks and Recreation Says about Culture, the Coronavirus and Us
Coronavirus, Meet Ron Swanson. Five years after NBC’s Parks and Recreation went off the air, Ron, Leslie Knope and the rest of the show’s gang are reuniting tonight (virtually speaking) to raise money for Feeding America’s COVID-19 Response Fund. It’ll air on, y’know, old-fashioned, traditional TV (NBC, of course) at 8:30 ET/PT. To me, this […]