Contributor: Paul Asay

Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.

Tommy’s Honour

Tommy’s Honour is a heartfelt, sometimes difficult dramatization of two of golf’s founding fathers.

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Slamma Jamma

While this basketball film sometimes stumbles a bit narratively and content-wise, on the court its slam dunk maestros literally soar.

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The Belko Experiment

Belko’s real experiment may be on moviegoers: Just how much meaningless death can we stomach? Just how much gore can we endure?

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Personal Shopper

Less a horror film than a moody, sensual thriller, the film delves into realms of the bizarre and forbidden.

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The Last Word

The Last Word could use an addendum: This R-rated movie wants to say something, but it seems confused about what that message should be.

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Tim Timmerman, Hope of America

Tim Timmerman, Hope of America mostly offers families a nice, watchable alternative to more salacious comedic fare.

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Logan

Logan is, in short, frustrating. It’s painfully bloody and oddly beautiful, insanely profane and strangely spiritual.

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Get Out

But whatever important ideas about racial alienation this movie may be trying to illustrate, we also can’t lose sight of how it chooses to express itself—in bloody, profane ways.

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Collide

Collide is really a mess of a movie—as jarring and nonsensical as any of the many, many crashes we see in it.

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Fist Fight

Fist Fight tries to tell us that what we say and do, and how we live our lives, matters. But it undercuts its own message by not caring much about its own story or content or, frankly, its audience.

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The Comedian

This movie is as funny as a puppy with cancer.

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Gold

If this film wanted to make a salient point about the value of hard work or the perils of greed, that’d give us at least something to work with. But Gold’s core reveals little of value.

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xXx: Return of Xander Cage

This is the sort of movie that makes your standard shoot-em-up videogame look subtle, the Fast and Furious franchise (star Vin Diesel’s other claim to fame) look like a Jane Austen novel.

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The Founder

The Founder tells Ray Kroc’s story, a tale of oversized success built on beef and buns. And in its cautionary subtext, it asks us, the folks in the audience, what we value.

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Hidden Figures

Hidden Figures inspires as it entertains. It acknowledges racial divisions while insisting that there’s more than one way to fix them. And while it can be crass, its heart is good.

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