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.

Flash of Genius

After painstakingly engineering intermittent windshield wipers in his basement—with a little soldering help from his children—Bob Kearns gets cheated out of his invention by the big automakers. He WILL NOT stand for that.

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Begin Again

It’s a movie I’d like to recommend to friends. But when I start developing a bad case of writer’s cramp from checking off so many profanities, I know I’ll never be able to do so.

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Jersey Boys

While Eastwood’s hard work shows, the choices he made also come with a cost: Yes, a moral cost for those who see his work, but also the outright loss of those discerning moviegoers who never will.

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The Rover

Robert Pattinson sheds his twinkling skin and then shreds it in this bitter, brutal, dystopian drama.

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Saw IV

The fact that he’s dead doesn’t stop Jigsaw from wreaking more blood-soaked, torture-filled havoc in this fourth franchise installment which hopes to prove once again that people will pay to see pain.

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The Fault in Our Stars

Should we find fault with a story devoted to the tragedies and triumphs of teens struggling with cancer? To their courage? To their journey toward joy?

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The Ruins

Talk about your anti-green flick. Based on the best-selling book by Scott Smith, this ruthless gorefest about carnivorous plants will have people sending donations to deforestation projects all over the globe.

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Maleficent

Disney’s most memorable villain returns, bent on all manner of wickedness. What can possibly stop this “mistress of all evil”? Could it be … love?

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Madea Goes to Jail

Tyler Perry’s famously abrasive alter ego does hard time. But that doesn’t mean she’s scared straight.

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Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam

It’s time for camp again, and these Disney rockers hope to make your stay a pleasant one. But it turns out that they have something more to share than just the best way to melt a s’more.

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Camp Rock

Saccharine was invented so we’d have an adjective to describe ‘Camp Rock.’ But Demi Lovato and the Jonas Brothers do manage to deliver a bit of nutrition along with the, uh, camp.

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The Brothers Solomon

Will Arnett and Will Forte want a baby so that they can make their dad proud. What they get is a 90-minute Saturday Night Live skit gone very, very wrong.

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Quantum of Solace

James Bond swills six martinis, beds one flustered agent and kills roughly 1,000,007 people during his latest—and darkest—onscreen romp.

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Old Dogs

Who are the dogs in this scenario? Robin Williams and John Travolta, who go all old-school slapstick on each other as the classic notion of a “family film” meets the messier modern world.

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Beastly

Belle wouldn’t have known whether to scream or laugh or faint if her beast had had so many tattoos. And even for Vanessa Hudgens it’s love at 8th sight.

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