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.

To Save a Christian Film

This January, it looks like the film industry has found religion. (Or, if you’re more cynical, you might say it’s found that religion can be a nice selling point.) The Book of Eli has made about $43 million in its first week of release. Avatar and The …

Read more

To Save a Life

To Save a Life begins with one that wasn’t. And sex, drugs, divorce and cutting make things worse … before they get better—by the grace of God and the choices of a few determined teens.

Read more

Get Rich Tweet Scheme

Clearly, I’m doing this writing thing all wrong. I write roughly 6 gazillion words a day, most of which are immediately cut (and sometimes burned) by my editor. Those which remain could still lay siege to a mid-sized fortress (if they somehow attained …

Read more

Movie Monday: The Book of Eli

Avatar. No. 1. Again. ‘Nuff said about that. But this weekend, James Cameron’s titanic blue-hued blockbuster had a bit (just a bit) of competition from Denzel Washington’s  The Book of Eli, which slid into the No. 2 slot with $31.6 million (compar …

Read more

Balls of Fury

Here’s a movie that puts the proverbial ball right through the net. Too bad it’s about Ping-Pong, where that’s not a good thing.

Read more

The Book of Eli

For 31 years in a post-apocalyptic nightmare, Eli has treasured and protected the world’s most precious set of words. Now someone wants to take the Book away from him.

Read more

Television Kills You. Sorta.

Here at Plugged In, we’re always telling y’all that too much TV is bad for you. Yes, we know that some of you roll your eyes and say, “Yeah, yeah, whatever,” and then flip on Gossip Girl just to spite us. So it’s for you that I’ll reiterate: Too much t …

Read more

Movie Monday: Daybreakers

Daybreakers, a curious little vampire tale, was the only new film to break into the Top 5 at the box office over the weekend, with $15 million changing hands between mostly mindless moviegoers and mostly bored teenage ticket takers. I doubt very many o …

Read more

Daybreakers

Edward is back! Oops. Wrong Edward. It’s 2019, and almost everyone’s a vampire now, so there’s bound to be lots of undead Edwards. Problem is, if everyone’s a bloodsucker, whose blood are they sucking?

Read more

Sex Sells? Maybe Not.

We all know the theory: If you wanna make a big blockbuster film these days, you need to throw in some sex, even if the film doesn’t necessarily require it—a little nudity, perhaps, or a salacious scene, or at the (ahem) bare minimum, a cleavage-reveal …

Read more

Animal

With her aptly named debut album, Animal, Ke$ha’s on top of the music world. What put her there? Her primal party-’til-you-pass-out pulpit pounding.

Read more

Avatar: $1 Billion … and Counting

It’s 2010, folks, and lots of us are thrilled to have another blank slate on which to draw. But despite the year being so shiny new and all, the box office looks suspiciously similar. James Cameron’s sci-fi extravaganza Avatar made another $68.3 millio …

Read more

Gone Baby Gone

Ben Affleck’s tumultuous tale of abduction, treachery and murder explores humanity’s best and worst intentions—and questions the line that separates them.

Read more

Movie Monday: Sherlock Holmes

Avatar ruled the box office for the second straight weekend, losing just 3 percent of its opening weekend tally to score $75 million. The film’s 10-day North American total now stands at around $212 mil. With a few more weekends like that, James Camero …

Read more

Sherlock Holmes

Hmmm. I see from this review that we have an occult-drenched villain, a scantily dressed heroine and enough violent content to fill the Thames. What does that add up to? The answer is elementary, my dear Watson!

Read more