What Does it Mean to Be Christian … and an Actor?
The Magnificent Seven lands in theaters today, starring Oscar-winning actor Denzel Washington and burgeoning superstar Chris Pratt. Next week, another box-office megastar, Mark Wahlberg, will unveil his latest action flick, Deepwater Horizon. All three actors, incidentally, are Christians. “Put God first in everything you do,” Washington recently told the graduating class of Dillard University, a […]
Sully Soars Again
Neither birds nor Blair Witch nor Bridget Jones’s Baby could sink Sully. The mustachioed captain and his movie stayed aloft above the box office for the second straight weekend. Not too shabby, considering Sully’s real Miracle on the Hudson flight—from bird strike to touchdown—just lasted 208 seconds. And the crown was never in question. Banking […]
Sinners in the Hands of an Angry Audience
Moviegoers gave The Birth of a Nation a standing ovation when it was shown at the Toronto International Film Festival Sept. 9, even as its director, Nate Parker, continues to weather controversy over whether he raped a young woman 17 years ago when he was in college. He was acquitted in the case, but questions […]
Sully Lands at No. 1
Are you a movie producer? Want to make a hit movie? Hire Tom Hanks and force him to take a really terrible trip. In Castaway, Hanks’ FedEx plane crashes and leaves him stranded on a deserted island. It earned $233.6 million. Apollo 13 had Hanks almost die during a trip to the moon: $173.8 million. […]
We Want to Help People Think Critically.’ PI’s Adam Holz Talks With MTV
At Plugged In, we talk about culture a lot. We review entertainment. We write these little blogs. We blather on in the occasional vodcast. But it’s a little more rare that we get an opportunity to speak directly to that culture. To chat with some folks who are most directly influenced by the very entertainment […]
Don’t Breathe Yawns to Second Victory
Summertime is movie time. Air-conditioned theaters beckon bored kids into their cozy, popcorn-encrusted confines with the year’s biggest superhero tentpoles, edge-of-your-seat actioners and family-friendly cartoons. But there’s only so much artificially flavored popcorn and Milk Duds we can eat. And given that this year’s summer movie season started in, oh, about March (with Batman v […]
Tapping the Christian Movie Marketplace
What do Christians want from Christian movies? It’s a question that Hollywood just doesn’t quite know how to answer just yet. When The Passion of the Christ made gazillions of dollars (well, at least $370.8 million domestically), folks in the entertainment industry fell all over themselves trying to duplicate that success. Scads of explicitly Christian filmmakers […]
Don’t Breathe Does Win
Not even Deadshot can hit the box office bullseye forever. After three straight weeks at No. 1, Suicide Squad and its bevy of bodacious baddies tumbled to the silver medal slot, losing to the suspense horror flick Don’t Breathe. Sure, the thriller’s take wasn’t exactly breathtaking: It earned just an estimated $26.1 million, which would’ve […]
The “Best of the Best” Are Pretty Bleak
The BBC recently polled 177 film critics from around the world and asked them what the “best” films of the 21st century are. They came up with a list of 100, naturally, and the results were pretty dispiriting. I mean that quite literally, by the way. The films I’m familiar with that made the list […]
Trio of Newcomers Can’t Topple Suicide Squad
You’d assume a so-called suicide squad wouldn’t last very long. I mean, an expiration date is sort of suggested by the name, right? People who take part in suicide missions understand that they’re probably not coming back. But Warner Brothers’ Suicide Squad is the exception. It keeps coming back … to No. 1. For the […]