Contributor: Paul Asay

How does one explain the strange, disturbing weekend success of The Devil Inside? How does one rationalize how a dumb, throwaway film like this can earn an estimated $34.5 million—$20 million more than what most prognosticators had predicted—to win the …

With sequels and retreads dominating the box office in 2011, it’s somehow fitting that a squadron of holdovers would ring in the new year. Granted, Hollywood seemed disinclined to release anything new for the New Year holiday: The only new release anyw …

To paraphrase Steve Martin circa the 1970s, it’s been a wild and crazy year. We’ve been through the Arab Spring and the Occupy Wall Street movement. We’ve watched politicians bicker and our 401(k)’s sag. We marked the passing of a notorious North Korea …

My iPad cracked the other day. My wife and I had just gotten back from my parents’ house, and we were laden with food and packages and old magazines and newspaper clippings … and somewhere in the midst of all that stuff, the iPad was watching, waiting. …

An uneducated nobody winds up on India’s ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire’ and is a question away from a fortune. Is he brilliant? Did he cheat? Or is he … in love?

What did Santa Claus (or whatever treasured, commercialist holiday figure Scientologists eagerly await this time of year) bring Tom Cruise this Christmas? A box-office win for Mission Impossible – Ghost Protocol. Granted, the payoff wasn’t massive: an …

A couple of weeks ago, part of the Plugged In staff gathered around the microphone and talked about our favorite television Christmas specials for the Official Plugged In Podcast (it’s episode #127, if you’re interested). My personal fave: A Charlie Br …

Kim Jong Il, hereditary dictator of global wallflower North Korea, is gone now, allegedly after suffering a heart attack from overwork. While the world at large may not miss him, Hollywood will probably shed a tear or two at his passing—not because any …

Consider: The original Sherlock Holmes earned more than $62 million its opening weekend two years ago when it debuted on approximately 3,600 screens. The sequel, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, earned an estimated $40 million this weekend on 3,700 …

Is the fourth time the charm for the long-in-the-tooth Mission: Impossible movies? With Pixar vet Brad Bird at the helm, it has a shot at least.

File this under the dangers of reality television: A homemade cannonball careened out of control during a taping of the popular Discovery show MythBusters a few days ago, wreaking havoc in a San Francisco-area neighborhood. No one was hurt, but from wh …

Don’t let the headline fool you: In an ugly, ugly weekend at the box office, New Year’s Eve didn’t so much win the week as it was just less revolting (monetarily speaking) than the rest. The star-studded rom-com took the box office crown with all the e …

Gary Oldman hunts for a crafty spy—a mole—in this convoluted thriller. Is the hunted innocent, though? Is the hunter? Are we?

Dropping a cherry bomb in your toilet may not kill you. But it’s guaranteed to make a massive mess.

If you have a television set and turn it on occasionally, you probably know that singer/actress/American Idol judge Jennifer Lopez is the new spokeswoman for Fiat. She’s been part of several commercials for the Italian car company, but the one I’ve see …