Guardians Flies, Arthur Sinks Like a Stone
Well, that didn’t take long. Summer starts early in Hollywood—the first week of May, generally. That’s when movie studios start pushing what they hope to be their biggest, best, most lucrative productions, when theaters are saturated with superheroes, Transformers and pirates. But not every summertime flick succeeds. The season is just two weeks old, but […]
Ginormous Win for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
It wasn’t even close. OK, so it wasn’t exactly a surprise that Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 found a wormhole to the top of the box office. Everyone knew that Chris Pratt’s newest flick was going to be big. But the fact that they made every other movie look like a space-cruising Yugo operating […]
“… In Sickness and In Health, Even When the Batteries Expire in the Clicker …”
Want to find a faithful soulmate? Check and see if they watch HGTV. Hey, I’m not the one saying that. As a Plugged In reviewer, I’m more likely to tell you to throw holy water at your television than, y’know, counsel you to actually watch the thing. But Cassie Murdoch at Mashable insists that there’s […]
Fate Flies To Third First-place Finish
The box office collectively throttled back a bit this weekend, with no film earning more than $20 million. But even so, the movie industry is still clearly running on diesel. Vin Diesel, that is. The Fate of the Furious collected its third straight weekend win, scraping $19.4 million off the asphalt along the way. The […]
Culture Clips: The Most Dangerous TV Show?
Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why is nearly a month old, but you wouldn’t know it from the buzz. The teen drama triggered more than 11 million tweets during its first three weeks of release, making it 2017’s most tweeted-about show. But while 13 Reasons has been pretty popular with the 18-and-under set, don’t count everyone as […]
Fate Furiously Foisted to First
A herd of cinematic newcomers stampeded into theaters this weekend, hoping to rumble their way into moviegoers hearts. Alas for them, said moviegoers were conspicuously unmoved by all this new cinematic sound and fury and decided to watch The Fate of the Furious again. For the second straight week, Furious punched the gas and roared […]
Culture Clips: The Fate of the Free World (and Vin Diesel) Edition
We have so much serious stuff to get to in our latest edition of Culture Clips. But before we get too grim, let me share with you my reaction to The Fate of the Furious’ mammoth $532.5 million worldwide take on Monday. “Wha??!” Turns out, though, I’m just an old curmudgeon. The Washington Post suggests […]
The Fate of the Furious Roars to Big Win
A race? Hardly. The box office derby was more like a coronation. The Fate of the Furious, the eighth film in the preposterously durable Fast and the Furious franchise, roared to victory this weekend, while every other movie just jumped to the curb. All lights were green for Fate—treasury green, that is. The high-octane flick […]
Despite Downsizing, Boss Baby Wins Again
Hey, we all know it’s tough to make a buck these days. Competition is tougher than it’s ever been, and many of the rules of business have been upended by the digital, information economy. But if you’ve got a strong leader, you can still succeed in the cut-throat marketplace … even if that leader still […]
Boss Baby Takes Charge
In a bodacious opening bow, The Boss Baby bypassed the behemouth Beauty and the Beast in a burly battle and banked a big box office blue ribbon. Booyah! It wasn’t supposed to be like this, according to the prognosticators. Beauty and the Beast had dominated the box office like no other 2017 movie had, and […]