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.

Faith and a Bag of Popcorn

I’ve always loved finding God in unexpected places. I believe signs of His work are all around us, if we take time to look—from the top of a hill to the edge of the ocean to the fabric of our cubicle walls. It’s one of the things I enjoy so much about …

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Movie Monday: Avatar

James Cameron’s Avatar cruised to a strong start over the weekend, topping the box office with $73 million. Granted, the take was on the low end of the studio’s expectations, but considering much of the East Coast was hammered by a massive snowstorm, C …

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Movie Monday: The Princess and the Frog

The Princess and the Frog, an old-school animated offering from the folks at Disney, smooched the No. 1 slot at the box office this weekend, pushing The Blind Side to second place. Princess’ $25 million take was fit for—well, a princess. And there was …

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The headline above was brought to you courtesy Fraser Brown, son of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Seems the younger Brown proffered those vowel-impoverished thoughts on his mother’s Twitter account when she left the room for a moment, sending th …

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Movies ‘R’ Us

It’s about 78 degrees below zero where I live, which means it’s too cold to think, much less type. So I’m going to ask you to do the blog’s heavy lifting today while I drink a cup of hot chocolate. In the latest installment of my Not Just a Movie serie …

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Oh, Brothers

It was the same ol’, same ol’ at the box office this weekend, with The Blind Side trading places with The Twilight Saga: New Moon for slots No. 1 and 2, respectively. Brothers, the week’s biggest new release, slid into the No. 3 position with $9.7 mill …

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A Knuckle Sandwich to Chew On

Plugged In has passed the halfway point in my 584-part series on film and faith (well, it seemed that long while I wrote it), and this week’s installment is all about on-screen violence: what it is, what it does to us when we watch it and whether it’s …

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Power to the People

We tried. We really tried to keep this blog an Adam Lambert-free zone in the wake of his American Music Awards appearance Nov. 22. But recently he said something perhaps as provocative as his awards performance. For those who missed the fracas, Lambert …

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The Princess and the Frog

Tiana wants a restaurant. Prince Naveen wants to get married. But when they get mixed up in New Orleans-style Voodoo, both of their dreams seem to, um, croak in Disney’s return to classic-style animation.

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Blinded by the ‘Twilight’

Leave it to a vampire to drain us of our discretionary income. Recession? Pish. The Twilight Saga: New Moon powered to a staggering $140.7 million take at the box office this weekend, breaking all sorts of records and proving, yet again, that tween gir …

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“Highway 20 Ride”

The Grammy-winning Zac Brown Band’s latest country hit delivers tear-jerking reflections from a father who laments the distance that separates him from his son.

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The Blind Side

Baltimore Ravens offensive lineman Michael Oher was a high school legend, college star and a 2009 No. 1 draft pick. But his life would never have played out that way had not one special family taken him under their wing.

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An Unfriend-ly Trend

The New Oxford American Dictionary, North America’s last word on words, recently named unfriend as its word of the year. It means, in dictionary parlance, “to remove someone from a social networking site.” But you already knew this. This annual announc …

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Until the Whole World Hears

With its new album certified gold in just four weeks, Casting Crowns isn’t just one of the most popular Christian bands around, it’s one of the most popular bands—period.

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To Meep or Not To Meep

Just call them the Meep Generation. A bunch of kids from Danvers (Mass.) High School nearly hopped into (ahem) a beaker full of hot water when they used the word meep as a method of social disruption. Meep, to my ear, seems an odd sort of rallying cry …

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