Contributor: Adam R. Holz

After serving as an associate editor at NavPress’ Discipleship Journal and consulting editor for Current Thoughts and Trends, Adam now oversees the editing and publishing of Plugged In’s reviews as the site’s director. He and his wife, Jennifer, have three children. In their free time, the Holzes enjoy playing games, a variety of musical instruments, swimming and … watching movies.

Shrek Forever After

Mike Myers’ Scottish-brogued ogre is back for a fourth adventure. Is it as forgettable as the third one? Is it as coarse as the second?

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Adventureland

‘Adventureland’ isn’t ‘Superbad.’ But that doesn’t mean it’s super good. Sex, drugs and an oddball cast of misfits see to that.

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Woman Thou Art Loosed

It’s a story about freedom and forgiveness inspired by Bishop T.D. Jakes’ bestselling self-help book. So why’s it rated R?

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The Wolf of Wall Street

Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street is among the most bludgeoning—if not the most bludgeoning—films ever to be granted an R rating.

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Sparkle

Sparkle was supposed to serve as singer/actress Whitney Houston’s triumphant comeback vehicle. Instead, by way of her tragic and untimely death from a drug overdose, she has become part of the film’s cautionary message.

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“Journals”

Justin Bieber has been releasing a new track every Monday for the last couple of months. Journals collects those melancholy (and racy) reflections on love, sex and romance.

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Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story

Families will get walloped with much more than red rubber balls if they decide to play along with this one.

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Syriana

A mosaic-like imagining of the titanic yet mostly unseen struggle to control the most precious resource on our planet—oil.

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“Happy”

The one-word title of this upbeat song from the Despicable Me 2 soundtrack tells us almost everything we need to know about it.

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American Hustle

This farcically dark dramedy is a fictionalized (and sensationalized) imagining of what might have gone on behind the scenes in the real-life Abscam scandal that resulted in seven U.S. congressmen being convicted of bribery in 1981.

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The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

Having just read The Hobbit again, this time with my young son, I can with fresh perspective say that Jackson doesn’t just embellish a bit here.

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Beyoncé

Queen Bey shocked everyone with the surprise release of her fifth album. Will she shock us, too, with what she sings about?

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Inside Llewyn Davis

Despite its angsty pretensions, Inside Llewyn Davis remains merely a story without a destination, a bleak portrait of a bleak man’s bleak life on a self-absorbed road to nowhere.

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Britney Jean

Britney says her eighth album is her most personal. So just how personally do you want to get to know her?

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Meet the Fockers

Ben Stiller is back with part two of a story that could’ve been sweet (and genuinely funny) but is instead sunk by the hyper-sexualized Focker family.

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