Movie Monday: Super Bummer Weekend
It was a middling weekend at the box office—both in terms of the offerings moviegoers might hope to find there and the returns those films generated. Steven Spielberg and J.J. Abrams’ much-hyped sci-fi thriller Super 8 generated a modest $37 million in its weekend debut, a number that Hollywood pundits are labeling neither super nor […]
World of Divorcecraft
Can video games instigate a divorce? According to a study by the website Divorce Online, the answer—in a small but growing number of marriages—is apparently yes. The study found that 15% of women filing for divorce cite their husband’s compulsive video game habits as a reason for dissolving their union, a number that’s up from […]
Scary News, Scared Kids?
We all know about the power of media to influence our perspective on reality. Even so, sometimes I see that lesson illustrated in ways that catch me off guard and remind me just how important our vigilance really is—especially when it comes to the youngest among us. A couple of nights ago, I was praying […]
Please Step Away From the Pink Pony
Last week, Selena Gomez shot a video for her latest single, “Love You Like a Love Song”—a video that included a couple of ponies with a decidedly pink hue to them. Ordinarily, this is not the stuff of blog posts. But here’s where things take a strange turn. Pop singer P!nk was none too happy […]
Whose Rapture Is It Anyway?
An 89-year-old retired civil engineer from Oakland, Calif., believes today will be Christians’ last Friday on Earth. That prediction has been circulating widely in the news media and on the Internet—and generating all kinds of responses. According to calculations by Harold Camping, Jesus is set to return on Saturday to rapture the faithful. Those left […]
Super Summer
If—somehow—you haven’t noticed, there are a lot of superhero movies this summer … and even more in the pipeline for next year. Thor has already started hammering the box office. But the Norse god of thunder will soon face stiffer competition than his crafty brother Loki from the likes of X-Men: First Class, Green Lantern […]
Lethal … Beaver?
I wasn’t sure what to expect when I walked in to screen Mel Gibson’s latest film, The Beaver (which opens in limited release today). After all, here’s a man who shot to stardom inhabiting iconic characters practically doused in testosterone: Mad Max, Lethal Weapon’s Martin Riggs, Braveheart’s William Wallace. Then came his critically acclaimed—and just […]
Does Pop Music Make Us Happy or Sad? Yes.
In the R-rated romantic comedy High Fidelity, record store owner Rob Gordon (played by John Cusack) ponders this chicken-and-egg conundrum: What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening […]
A Prayer for Howard and Chelsea
Occasionally here at Plugged In, we’ll take some heat for being too hard on entertainers and pop culture. And I think I understand why: It’s because we spend a lot of time looking at and thinking about the influential folks in our society whose ideas, words and worldview contradict the values and convictions we hold […]
Tragedy and Culture, Godzilla and God
Amid the wall-to-wall coverage of the tragic events in Japan this week, I stumbled across an intriguing article and photo essay on the website for Foreign Policy magazine. And that article, it turns out, prompted a whole series of reflections for me about the clashing realities of suffering and God’s character. To begin, writer Britt […]