Plugged In

No, no. They weren't using profanity. Host Bob Smithouser and guest Alex McFarland were discussing profanity, and how using it has become so normative in today's society—even among Christians.

I won't divulge the whole conversation, but one thing that particularly struck me—something I had not thought of before—was that swearing is, essentially, a sign of disrespect: Not just to the people we're talking to, but to God.

According to McFarland, folks who lived back in the Victorian era really took to heart the fact that we were all created in the image of God. To use bad language in front of one another, and even with each other, was thought to demean our sacred model, and thus our sacred Maker. The very word profanity comes from, of course, the word profane, which means unholy. Pretty interesting.

Now, I've never been much of a curser: Even back in my college days, swearing just felt, to me, like linguistic laziness. We've been blessed with a language of hundreds of thousands of words: Why overuse the handful that offend? It just never made sense to me.

Defenders of profanity would say that words are just words—collections of consonants and vowels that, in themselves, have no real power. "There are no bad words," said George Carlin, creator of the classic "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" comedy sketch. "Bad thoughts, bad intentions."

And, on a certain level, he's right. Words are bad because we make them bad—infuse them with weight and meaning that go far beyond how it forms in your mouth. But the fact is, we have invested certain words with power—and, in the case of bad language, it's the power to offend. The irony of Carlin's assault on bad words is that, if his words were as powerless as he said they were, Carlin might've never found national notoriety. He might've quietly faded from the spotlight and become an actuary or something.

Folks use bad language because it does have power—and the irony of our coarsening culture is that the more we use such words, the reason we use them—the power we've given them—diminishes bit by bit. And that may make for an interesting linguistic landscape in the future.

When our current crop of bad words completely lose their ability to shock, what words will earthy playwrights, screenwriters and sixth-graders everywhere use when they want to say something shocking? It seems as though culture will have to find a new lexicon of forbidden words. And perhaps the process is already beginning. While the f-word won't necessarily even earn a fine from the FCC these days, there are still words that'll shock, offend and even get you fired.

I, for one, am all about using language judiciously and, as McFarland says, respectfully. There's no compelling reason to use bad language, as far as I can figure: I've never read a book, watched a movie or been involved in a conversation that was made markedly better through the use of profanity.

Curse words are like fussy toddlers: They holler and cry and demand that you pay attention to them. But language, at its best, humbly deflects attention away from itself and instead makes us ponder the deeper meaning behind the words.

Sounds a little like what we're supposed to do as Christians, doesn't it?

Why do you guys cover some movies—particularly in the horror genre—and not others?

That was essentially the question Ethan had for us recently. He wrote into Plugged In and asked:

Ethan, that's a very good question, and the simple answer is this:

Horror movies scare me. And my editor gets sick of me asking for combat pay.

I'd rather avoid horror movies if at all possible, and I'm not alone. Most of my fellow Plugged In-erites would rather sit through a whole season of The Smurfs than review Saw XXXIII. We really believe that watching too much of this stuff isn't great for anyone—even us. And so we're always more tempted to drop a middlin' horror flick from our review roster than, say, a family comedy.

Why review them at all, you ask? Well, because people watch them, of course—even our very discerning readers. Informally, we've found that 80% of our readers go to R-rated films on occasion, and we can't assume that Saw will never be among them.

So it's actually kind of rare for us to skip one. And if we do, we usually have a good reason. Sometimes it's because the horror film in question didn't have a very wide release. House of 1000 Corpses, which started its theatrical run quite small and never got above 1,000 screens, likely fell into this category. Sometimes it's because we're short-staffed or in the midst of a packed movie-review week: The Devil's Rejects, which did have a pretty wide release, was probably a casualty of this.

And, to tell the truth, those films came out years ago, and we're simply watching more movies these days—we set a record for films reviewed last year—which makes it all the more likely that even lower profile horror flicks will get covered. We want to give you, the reader, as much information about any film that might be coming to your local multiplex. And, personal preferences aside, we'll do whatever we can to make that happen.

Thanks, Ethan, for the note. Sorry we don't have a review of House of 1000 Corpses for you. But Saw VII? You can count on seeing something from us on that one. Unfortunately.

It was a week where movie studios reached into their bin of leftovers, grabbed a handful, and threw 'em at the wall to see if anything stuck. It didn't. Three new releases—the horrid 3-D pic Piranha, the cute Nanny McPhee Returns and the semi-sweet The Switch—all finished outside the Top 5 and made just $26.5 million combined, about $8 million less than The Expendables collected all by its lonesome last weekend.

All of which just proves … well, what, exactly? That old-school action heroes can beat down a pack of snide vamps and CGI fish? That fortysomething men looking for a nostalgic, blood-soaked trip back to 1980s-era cinema still rule the box office? That Sly was right, and that action films don't get the respect they deserve?

"There has always been an elitist attitude toward action films," Stallone told time.com. "Good action films—not crap, but good action films—are really morality plays."

Stallone has a point. "Good" action films, for all their violence,  try to teach us certain lessons—that crime doesn't pay, good trumps evil and it's wise to stay in peak physical condition in case you're attacked by terrorists or ninjas.

But a handful of dubious lessons does not a good movie make. And for proof, one need only look at The Expendables.

She'd be a fitting icon for today's celebrity-obsessed culture—if her celebrity heyday hadn't been in the 1960s and '70s, that is.

Zsa Zsa Gabor is dying, we're told: The Hungarian-born actress checked out of a Los Angeles-area hospital yesterday to spend, according to Reuters, her "final days at her Bel Air home." If true, that means that we might be watching the last Gabor media blitz ever—a tradition that's been ensconced in Americana since the time of Eisenhower. So it seems fitting that we pay tribute to the woman who, with her thick Hungarian accent and fine fur coats, showed the world how celebrity is done. Jon Gosselin and Levi Johnston, take notes.

We tend to think that folks like Paris Hilton and Jersey Shore's Snooki are products of our celebrity-soaked culture—stars made possible through the strange alchemy of reality TV, the Internet and their own outrageous personalities. But really, the template for such fame was set decades ago by Gabor.

She was an actress, appearing in several movies and on television in the 1950s and '60s (and her sister, Eva, appeared in the much-beloved 1965-71 sitcom Green Acres).  But it didn't make her famous: Rather, Zsa Zsa parlayed her exotic accent, knack for glamour and penchant for getting divorced into a Hollywood career.

"I never hated a man enough to give his diamonds back," she told The Observer in 1957, when she was between husbands No.'s 3 and 4. She married eight times, all told (nine, if you count the time she got married while she was technically still wed to someone else)—all rich, all colorful, all wonderfully suited to helping keep Gabor in the public spotlight. (Her current husband, Prince Frederic von Anhalt, has been married six times himself and once suggested he might be the father of Anna Nicole Smith's daughter, Dannielynn, born in 2006.)

Her notoriety cemented and her quotability assured, Gabor became a favorite fixture on game and talk shows and landed a shower of guest parts on everything from Bonanza to Batman, from Gilligan's Island to The Love Boat. She rarely played anything but a version of herself—but when you're Zsa Zsa Gabor, it's enough.

Because, of course, the person who we knew as Zsa Zsa was likely as much fabricated as any fictional character written for the screen. Gabor fulfilled the public's expectations of her, just as everyone from Dolly Parton to Lady Gaga have done since. And she played her part well, weaving a dash of humor and self-depreciation into her long lashes and white fur coats. When she was tossed in jail for three days for slapping a police officer in 1990, "Other actresses might have crawled away from Hollywood, tail between their tanned toned legs," wrote ABC News' Sheila Marikar. "Not Zsa Zsa. She made good of the incident by mocking it in a variety of movie and TV cameos, including The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear, The Beverly Hillbillies and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

Gabor showed us all that you didn't need extraordinary talent to become a celebrity. All you need is a shtick, a sense of humor and a stage on which to play.

Our culture, for better or worse—perhaps both—is covered in Zsa Zsa's glove-covered fingerprints. She's a celebrity's celebrity, dahling, and should she leave us, celebrity tabloids can rest easy knowing she's helped create many, many more to fill her high-heeled shoes.

Salt

The Other Guys, a Will Ferrell-helmed send-up of those action-packed buddy-cop flicks that have flourished on the big screen since, oh, In the Heat of the Night, gunned its way to the top of the box office with $35.6 million. The comedy nearly doubled the $18.6 million take of second-place Inception—a rude wake-up call indeed. Step Up 3D, the week's other major newcomer, spun its way to a respectable third with $15.5 mil. Salt and Schmucks rounded out the top five with $11.1 million and $10.5 million, respectively.

I never quite know what to expect when I see a Will Ferrell movie anymore. The stuff of his I've reviewed for Plugged In—Semi-Pro and Step Brothers—both finished near the top of my "least favorite movies" list. But I thought Stranger Than Fiction was a pretty fascinating flick, and Elf was strangely charming. Granted, these films had their problems (most films do), but were a cut above what I usually see from Ferrell.

So for me, The Other Guys was both a pleasant surprise and a profound disappointment. I really liked the movie's underlying message—that living one's life within some reasonable boundaries can be, frankly, kinda cool. And it was pretty funny at times. Plus, being a Honda Fit owner and Simon & Garfunkel aficionado, I can't help but have a soft spot for a lead character who drives a Toyota Prius and listens to Little River Band. But the content got really burdensome. There was just too much gunk here to excuse. I'd like to like The Other Guys more … but I can't.

Inception

Plugged In didn't much like Dinner. Reviewer Bob Hoose said that "raw gags and sleazy sexual imagery are scattered around this pic like an overabundance of mouse droppings—leaving the whole film reeking with that dirty cage funk." But the freshman film still outperformed two other more family-oriented newcomers—Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore and Charlie St. Cloud. So does this mean that 2010, which thus far had been dominated by family-friendly flicks, taking a turn for the "adult?"

Well, perhaps. But Despicable Me, now in its fourth week, outperformed Cats & Dogs and Charlie St. Cloud by about $3 million. Cloud, starring Zac Efron, felt like a film that had a limited draw and modest expectations. And though Cats & Dogs was released on more than 3,700 screens, perhaps the public's desire to see CGI-enhanced talking animals has finally been sated (as if we didn't learn our lesson from Marmaduke).

Acuff's book, also called Stuff Christians Like, is a funny, irreverent look at the Christian subculture—one of my favorite reads this summer. And it contains a particularly priceless riff: "Using the Desire to be 'Culturally Relevant' as an Excuse to Watch Family Guy". It talks about what happens when Christianity runs headlong into secular entertainment.

Acuff touches, I think, on one of Christianity's biggest rubbing points: Are we using the culture to further the Kingdom? Or is culture using us?

Now, y'all know where Plugged In comes down on shows like Family Guy: We think this stuff affects us on myriad levels—often in ways we don't fully realize or understand. The Fox cartoon makes for poor sermon illustrations.

But I get the desire to use culture to further the Kingdom, too. I mean, that's been a hallmark of Christianity from the very beginning—its ability to take pieces of the secular and to mold them to reflect something better.

Which means there's gotta be a line somewhere, regarding what we can (or should) use, and what we can't (or shouldn't). Or is there? And more to Acuff's point, how often do we draw that line where we want, just 'cause we don't want to give up something we enjoy?

Holdover Despicable Me scratched to second place with $32.7 million, while another newcomer, Disney's The Sorcerer's Apprentice, conjured up a disappointing $17.3 million for third. The Twilight Saga: Eclipse and Toy Story 3 rounded out the top five.

But while Eclipse and TS3 pushed their collective 2010 takes to $265 mil and $363 mil, respectively (TS3 is the year's highest-grossing film), the story this weekend was Inception: A live-action, high-concept, original film released in (gasp) the summer. Isn't summertime supposed to be the days of sequels and reboots and movies featuring1980s playthings? Could Inception be the start of a trend?

Color me skeptical. The high-wattage presence of DiCaprio and the pedigree of Nolan (the guy behind the camera of The Dark Knight) made Inception a reasonably safe bet for Warner Brothers. Still, I think the premise of the film (and the eye-catching trailers) drew lots of folks to the theaters, and the fact that it was pretty well crafted (well, I thought so, at any rate) may keep them coming back.

Or maybe Inception owes its success to teams of dream-agents scouring the country, invading our dreams and planting ideas like, "I've just got to see Inception! I don't care if it'll cost twelve bucks, not counting popcorn!"

Come to think of it, my sleep has been a bit restless …