Culture Clips: Clowns Taking It On the Red, Squeaky Nose
It’s not even October yet, but already our Culture Clips blog is taking on a rather frightening hue. First up: clowns. The World Clown Association is bracing for the release of IT, a horror flick featuring a diabolical clown. The association, still reeling from last year’s spate of scary clown sightings, has put together a […]
Hitman’s Bodyguard Threepeats During Drowsy Labor Day Weekend
It’s a bit fitting that the weekend’s only major “new” release was the 40-year-old Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Given the woefully slim box-office receipts, this was a distinctly retro weekend. The top 12 movies collectively cashed a paltry $51.5 million, making it the worst extended Labor Day weekend in 17 years. That’s right: […]
A Lesson From the Game of Thrones. (No, Really.)
HBO’s Game of Thrones wrapped up its seventh season last Sunday, gearing up for a frenetic, likely salacious sprint to the finish next year. But for all its many weaknesses, the show sometimes offers—albeit unintentionally—a kernel of truth. And I found one this week. Despite all the criticism for its penchant for titillation and its […]
Culture Clips: The Dragon and the Swift edition
On Sunday night, two television titans squared off against each other in a clash of old and new, awards-show glitz against prestige-TV glam. It wasn’t even close. Despite going head-to-head against MTV’s once-vaunted Video Music Awards show, HBO’s salacious sensation Game of Thrones set yet another high-water ratings mark, drawing 12.1 million viewers for its […]
Hitman’s Bodyguard … Wins?
In 2015, Alabama Bibb County and Brookwood high schools decided to treat their fans to arguably the most boring basketball game of the 21st century. The final score was 2-0. Seven shots were taken during the whole match. One team held the ball for the entire first quarter, taking one unsuccessful shot at the buzzer. Who […]
Culture Clips: Total Eclipse of the Charts
Where were you during the eclipse? We all know where singer Bonnie Tyler was: aboard Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas, singing her 1983 hit “Total Eclipse of the Heart” in that raspy way of hers. Let me guess what she’s doing today, too: Counting all the new moola she’s earned from this relatively ancient […]
Hitman’s Bodyguard Becomes a Hit, Guards No. 1
Forget the typical gold medal for a first-place finish. This week, the prize was full of lead. The Hitman’s Bodyguard, the Ryan Reynolds/Samuel L. Jackson frienemy flick, went to No. 1 with a bullet, banking an estimated $21.6 million—or about 50 cents for every profanity used. Does that make Hitman a hit? Well, a win’s […]
The Power of Yesterday
My 30th high school class reunion is this weekend. That’s right, I graduated before a single president had the last name of “Bush.” When mullets were cool. When the world’s very first laptops weighed nearly 20 pounds. For a lot of you, the world of 1987 would seem as unfamiliar as a foreign planet, as […]
Annabelle: Creation Scares Up a Win
In Annabelle: Creation, the titular doll’s first owner loved to play hide and seek: “Find Me,” she’d write on a note for her father. Eventually, the doll seemed to pick up the game, as well … much to the chagrin of its parade of owners. But you don’t have to look too hard to find […]
Robot Love
The Curiosity rover recently celebrated its fifth birthday on Mars, and it did so without so much as a cupcake. No presents, no candles, no nothing. Perhaps that does not surprise you: Curiosity, after all, is a machine, and machines are notoriously low-key about celebrations. Wish Siri, the digital assistant on the iPhone, a happy […]