I hate gatekeeping. I mean, I get it. I’m a straight white quiet nerdy guy born in the late 70s. I devoured Star Wars extended universe stuff, I played all the cool NES games when they were new, and I knew about Groot since before all he could say was “I am Groot.” The culture…
Category: Film
Living Lutheran:The Gifts of Discipleship inAvengers: Endgame
I’ve loved superheroes since before I could read, but I really got into comics in the early 90s, when I learned that the heroes have aged and some have passed on their identities. Former Kid Flash Wally West became the Flash, and the first Robin Dick Grayson became Nightwing and Tim Drake was now the…
Booksmart Breathes Warmth and Life into a Tired Genre
Awkward white people strutting to a hip hop song is not funny. It’s a lazy joke, worn thin by ad execs and youth group leaders across the country. And it’s a joke that Booksmart goes to again and again. In fact, a lot of Booksmart has already been done to death, from its plot structure…
The Hole in the Ground Mines Rich Horror Terrain
Although they don’t get as much attention as tales about zombies or ghosts, body snatcher stories are among the most powerful in horror fiction. And a lot of their strength comes from the way body snatcher stories draw from other genres: the emotional terror of zombies (“That monster looks like someone I know!”), the epistemological…
