My Top Ten 2019: David Atwell
My 2019 Top Ten list is going to look pretty ridiculous to almost everyone who reads it. I didn’t get a chance to see a lot of the end-of-year Oscar contenders, as a result of a new baby right at…
"Maps and Legends" – Star Trek: Picard S1E02
Dr. Moritz Benayoun: You really want to go back out into the cold…knowing… Jean-Luc Picard: More than ever, knowing. —“Maps and Legends” In stories, there are two types of rest: a state of rest or calm, usually temporary, where a…
Wow Signal: Finding Hope in the Stars
The old joke around the search for alien life goes, “‘is there intelligent life out there?’ I don’t even know if there’s intelligent life down here on Earth!” Nyuck nyuck, rimshot, slide whistle, tip your waitresses, try the veal. It…
The Force is Strong In My Family: A Look Back at the Star Wars Saga
The saga that created the modern blockbuster is “over.” And while The Mandalorian, a plethora of upcoming Disney+ shows, and a still-rumored Rian Johnson trilogy will keep the Far, Far Away galaxy on our screens until the heat death of…
The Mandalorian Chapters 7 and 8: Failure's Favor
It was almost impossible to review and comment on “The Reckoning” without seeing “The Redemption.” Chapters 7 and 8 are the show’s first true two-part episode; they’re truly and completely entwined and inextricable from one another, and with Deborah Chow…
Starting 2020 Right: 21 Midnight Moments
A new year is coming. Maybe a new decade too, but at least a new year. We can all agree on that, right? If you use a different calendar consider this extreme pre-planning, or bookmark this article and read it…
Truth, Names, and The Rise of Skywalker
It’s hard to believe everything to which we’ve dedicated our lives is gone. —Padme Amidala-Skywalker For over a thousand generations, the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the old Republic. Before the dark times. Before the…
The Problem with Scrooge
Merry Christmas from Reel World Theology! We hope you’re enjoying today’s poor excuse for picking a man’s pocket every 25th of December, without a single “bah” or “humbug.” Perhaps by watching a film adaptation of a classic Christmas tale. Much…
The Mandalorian Chapter 6: Old Prison, New Accusations
The Mandalorian has done a lot of work toward making a lot of things frightening that have frankly been jokes in the past. In a previous article, we talked about how “Sanctuary” did that with the AT-ST; but the Sandcrawler…
Knives Out: A Colliding Kindness
Whodunits require a lot from both creator and viewer. This is because they’re actually carved from two stories, woven together as a “double narrative”— one is the secret, behind-the-scenes, cloak-and-dagger story of what really happened to cause the death of…
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