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.

Whiteout

Is this bottom-of-the-world thriller a vicious blizzard? Indeed. Is it a perfect storm? Hardly.

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Captain America: The Winter Soldier

After the rollicking (if explosion-filled) fun of The Avengers and the extraterrestrial humor of Thor: The Dark World, The Winter Soldier thunders into a bleaker, murkier place.

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Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer

Mr. Fantastic, the Invisible Girl, the Thing and the Human Torch return to confront a new threat: the enigmatic galactic interloper known as the Silver Surfer.

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Noah

Director Darren Aronofsky offers a spectacular and often moving story, but it’s obviously not the story of Noah.

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21 Jump Street

The ’80s TV show made Johnny Depp a star. This reboot adds so much foul content audiences may be left seeing stars.

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Doomsday

What do you get when you combine a killer virus, a country full of cannibals and wheelbarrows full of gore? … Oh, were you waiting for an answer?

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Paper Heart

Comedian Charlyne Yi is looking for love anywhere the camera can follow in this off-kilter docu-comedy. Instead, she finds Michael Cera, lots of happily married folks and a whole closetful of … paper puppets.

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The Single Moms Club

When their kids get in trouble at school, five mothers come together to throw a school dance—and form surprisingly touching (if occasionally crass) friendships along the way.

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Veronica Mars

So Veronica Mars, as satisfying as it might be for fans, feels more like a tragedy to me.

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Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star

Ignore the title. Bucky Larson was born to be a mess. Better yet, ignore the film entirely.

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The Grand Budapest Hotel

The Grand Budapest Hotel is being called Wes Anderson’s best movie yet. But is this dollhouse dramedy merely good at being quite bad?

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Louder

This Glee star’s debut solo album comes less than a year after boyfriend Cory Monteith’s tragic drug overdose.

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Son of God

The story of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection has been told a thousand—no, a million times before. (And in this particular case, in miniseries form not so very long ago.) What makes this film special?

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Hotel for Dogs

Dogs give their hotel a five milk bone rating. We wish we could be so generous with the movie in which they romp.

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3 Days to Kill

No one’s saying 3 Days to Kill will alone inspire someone to be an assassin or thug, of course. Just that there are far better ways to kill a little time.

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