Summer in the Forest: A Quiet Respite in a World of Noise
Sometimes people ask us how Plugged In chooses what movies it reviews. The short, simple answer is this: We watch the movies that make the most noise. I don’t mean we just restrict ourselves to loud movies. It’s more of a cultural noise we’re talking about: What movies are going to play in thousands of […]
Culture Clips: Open the Culture Bay Doors, Hal.
About this time in 1968, Stanley Kubrick released a little ol’ movie called 2001: A Space Odyssey, making it one of the few movies older than I am. But despite being made in an ancient era when Apples were fruits, not phones, the film got a lot right about the future. And, well, quite a […]
Ready Player One Nabs High Score
The movie’s all about the quest for an elusive, and extraordinarily important, video game Easter egg. It was released on Easter weekend. So maybe it’s only fitting that Ready Player One rolled to victory in the box office’s own Easter-egg hunt. Steven Spielberg’s return to flat-out popcorn fare proved to be all sunny-side up this […]
Culture Clips: Putting the Spring in Our Cultural Step
Yes, spring is upon us—a time of … well, snow where I live in Colorado. But everywhere else, it’s a time of budding trees and growing grass, It’s a time of regeneration, when the dismal, dead grayness of winter is replaced by new life and new expectations. Why, even dead television shows can, like crass […]
Three Years With Jesus, Filmed in Five
We’re in the midst of Holy Week now, and moviegoers who want to see a Christian flick have plenty of options. The financial performance of I Can Only Imagine is wowing secular prognosticators. Paul, Apostle of Christ is a competent, moving depiction of one of Christendom’s most important figures. And God’s Not Dead 3 hits […]
Pacific Rim Leads Box Office Uprising
Black Panther is incredibly strong, ludicrously fast and wears an outfit of pure vibranium. (That’s, like, a big deal for the three of you who haven’t seen the movie.) But even Marvel’s talented superhero was no match for a handful of 300-foot-high robots. Pacific Rim Uprising stomped all the way to the top of the […]
What’s in a Word? Plenty.
We’re in the throes of the NCAA Basketball Tournament now, aka March Madness. And you don’t have to be a superfan to know who’s been the biggest star of the show right now: Sister Jean. Sister Jean Dolores-Schmidt is the team chaplain/unofficial scout/beloved mascot for the Loyola-Chicago Ramblers, an 11th seed that’s made an improbable […]
Can You Imagine? Black Panther Takes Fifth Straight
Five wins. Most basketball teams that play during March Madness “only” need to rack up five straight wins to be crowned national champs. If the box-office tourney followed suit … well, hail to the king. Disney’s Black Panther has proven all but unstoppable this year, collecting an estimated $27 million en route to its fifth […]
Disney Tripped on A Wrinkle in Time Because it Didn’t Understand the Story
What makes a great story? What makes it worth the telling? I’ve been thinking a lot about those sorts of questions this week in the wake of A Wrinkle in Time, the movie, and where and why it went wrong. Wrinkle’s lack of creative and commercial success may seem, on the surface, a bit mystifying. […]
Culture Clips: She Kissed a Boy … and He Didn’t Like It
OK, a quick show of hands: Who would like to get a kiss from Katy Perry? Well, perhaps Plugged In readers are not a representative sample of America as a whole. Certainly, plenty of folks would gladly accept a smooch from the singing superstar. And maybe that’s what Perry was thinking when she planted a […]