Contributor: Paul Asay

Last weekend, seven films earned $10 million or more at the box office. This weekend, one did. Yep, summer must be almost over. The Expendables 2—a bombastic tub of bullets, explosions and really bad dialogue—claimed its second straight weekend win. Bu …

This warmed-over ‘Lord of the Rings’-style fantasy pseudo-epic starring Jason Statham and Leelee Sobieski aspires to far more than it delivers.

My youngest daughter started college this week. We got a call from her last night, and she gave us the full rundown of her classes: the ones that look fun (Latin American History), the ones that look boring (French). She was excited to sneak into a nee …

Subtlety? Art? These are not the things a summer movie is typically made of. In the dog days of August, sometimes folks just want to see a big, dumb hound of a flick. And let’s face it: The Expendables 2 is as big and as dumb as they come. Featuring Sl …

I hated mirrors as a kid. Really hated them. When I was about 5, I heard an old-timey radio episode of The Shadow in which the faces of the dead would appear in a spooky ol’ mirror, and from that moment, for 15 years I refused to ever—ever—sleep alone …

Norman sees dead people—and talks with them, too. And now we know, as he does, that dead people really do like their crass jokes.

Chuck, Bruce, Sly, Ah-nold, Van Damme and Dolph. Fans of the franchise insist there’s nothing more than that to say. We are not fans.

Timothy Green hides a secret under his socks. And the movie has a secret too. Promise not to tell? The Odd Life of Timothy Green is made for kids, but it’s meant for parents.

“The bad news is that the Olympics are over,” fellow Plugged In critic Adam Holz proclaimed yesterday. “On the up side, Shark Week is here!” And really, the two television spectacles (the Olympics a sporting staple for NBC, Shark Week an annual obsessi …

After three weeks at the top of the box office, Batman finally met his match: A chemically enhanced killer with a distaste for authority. No, no. We’re not talking about Bane, the big meanie from The Dark Knight Rises. We’re talking about Bourne. Or, a …

Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis want your support and your vote. To get them they’re promising a sex joke in every pot, a demeaning curse in every garage.

Daniel Day-Lewis, as Daniel Plainview, will do anything for oil—that dark, murky, powerful substance that perhaps even courses through his own blighted veins.

It’s said that the rich get richer. And while that may not always be true—the rich could hypothetically blow their richness during an ill-advised weekend trip to Vegas—it seems to be the case with Gotham’s richest billionaire playboy. The Dark Knight R …

My family’s been in the throes of Olympics fever the last few nights. We saw that weird baby rise up during the opening ceremonies, watched poor Jordyn Wieber break down after failing to qualify for the women’s gymnastics all-around, cheered my home st …

It’s been more than a week since the tragedy in Aurora, Colo., turned the movie industry upside-down. But while we’ll be likely discussing the horror and its aftermath for months or  years to come, that didn’t keep folks away from the movies this weeke …