Change—real change—is hard. Some people say it’s pretty much impossible. Any changes we make are only superficial ones. We forever revert back to the people we were born or were trained up to be. You are who you are, they insist. A leopard can’t change its spots or a zebra its stripes or (they might continue) a skinhead his tattoos. But maybe he can. Skin, a new movie from A24 (and out in theaters and video on demand July 26)... Read more
Spider-Man: Far from Home is like the “Scouring of the Shire” for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Yep, the Ring’s been destroyed and Sauron is gone. But residual evil’s still afoot, and someone’s gotta take care of it. Spider-Man is that someone in Far from Home, and pretty much by default. The rest of the Avengers are dead, in outer space or otherwise engaged when the Elementals start showing up. They’re sentient monsters bent on destruction, according to a super-soldier nicknamed... Read more
Back in my day, dolls rarely tried to kill you. I didn’t own any dolls, exactly, but I trusted my stuffed animals completely. In fact, I used them as little plush shields from the real evil that lurked in my house—a disembodied statue of a head that, in my dreams, would hop after me, laughing, in an effort to catch and eat me. I couldn’t stay up all night watching, so sometimes I’d take every single stuffed animal in... Read more
Toy Story 4 is an odd duck. I’m not speaking of the literal odd duck in the movie that (with an equally odd blue rabbit) hangs out at a local carnival. No, the movie itself—in addition to being funny and bittersweet and thoughtful and everything we’ve come to expect from Pixar’s Toy Story franchise—is just … odd. While it’s not the strongest film in the Toy Story canon, that oddness makes it the most daring. That’s because the film hones... Read more
“Forgive them, for they know not what they do.” That’s what Jesus said, hanging on the cross, asking His Father to show mercy to His killers. But what if they do know? Emanuel, a new documentary in theaters June 17 and 19, tells us. When Dylann Roof walked into Charleston’s Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church on June 17, 2015, he knew exactly what he intended to do. The white supremacist was determined to kill black people in the hopes, it... Read more
In the closing moments of HBO’s Game of Thrones, a haggard Tyrion Lannister suggests that neither gold nor armies nor patriotic pride rule the world. It’s story. “There’s nothing in the world more powerful than a good story,” he says. “Nothing can stop it. No enemy can defeat it.” For eight seasons, Game of Thrones has been one of the most popular and compelling stories in culture. And then last night—according to some fans—the whole thing crumbled like King’s Landing.... Read more
I was driving to Denver when I heard about another local school shooting–the fourth in Colorado in the last 20 years. Two students of the STEM School in Highlands Ranch walked into school and started firing. One student was killed, eight more were injured. We’re told that heroic action by a few fellow students and a quick response by local police saved many lives. We’re becoming numb to such tragedies. It seems like every month, every week, we hear about... Read more
The dust is settling, the ash has blown away. And, inescapably, the internet is roaring with people praising and picking apart Avengers: Endgame. I thought Endgame was eminently satisfying. It closed the book on a marvelous (Marvel-ous?) 22-movie story arc (even as it set the table for others). And while it was about Thanos and Captain America and the Infinity Gauntlet and the Snap and what might’ve been the end of the world, Endgame’s really about second chances. It’s about... Read more
Avengers: Endgame is here. Finally. The Marvel Cinematic Universe has been building toward this moment for 11 years and 22 movies. And after the crushing cliffhanger of Avengers: Infinity War, I’ve been waiting for this movie like a 7-year-old kid waits for Christmas morning. Avengers: Endgame was just what I wanted to find underneath the tree. I’ve got lots to say about Endgame, but I’m not going to do it now—not with so many of you still looking forward to... Read more
I’ve never read Pilgrim’s Progress. As a college English major, you think I would’ve. And I should’ve. At one point, pretty much everyone who could read was reading John Bunyan’s Christian allegory. The book has never been out of print since Bunyan first dropped it into the world in 1678. And while some consider it the English language’s first real novel, it didn’t stay strictly “English” for long. Bunyan’s seminal work (officially titled The Pilgrim’s Progress from This World, to... Read more
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