– By Marielle Cuccinelli – Contains spoilers for all three seasons of Avatar: The Last Airbender I was skeptical the first time I started watching Avatar: the Last Airbender. There was only one girl in the main cast, after all, which is one of the top tropes out there – the Token Female Character, who not only is fated to …
Filling the God-Shaped Hole in ‘Ramy: Season 2’
–By Sam Hendrian– “I feel like I have this hole inside me that’s always been there. Like this emptiness. I’m always trying to fill it with something… I’ve tried to fill it with God. I have. But I… I just don’t know how.” These words spoken by a deeply lost young Muslim man named Ramy (comedian Ramy Youssef) to a …
Why ‘Dark’ Is the Show That 2020 Needs
By James Powers I remember reading The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe as a kid and having my mind blown when, at the end, the four Pevensie siblings return to 1940’s England and find themselves children again after having already grown to adulthood in Narnia. What a weird experience that must be, I thought, to go back to childhood …
Cool, Christian, Korean: How ‘Kim’s Convenience’ Celebrates Family and Culture in the Everyday
By Matthew Sawczyn There’s a conversation in the pilot of Kim’s Convenience between Mrs. Kim (affectionately called ‘Umma’) and her daughter Janet, a back and forth about why Janet is not married yet. It’s a familiar family scenario, made even more hilarious when Umma pulls the church directory out to show Janet all the available boys Umma’s found for her. …
You have no choice but to read this analysis of FX’s ‘Devs’… right?
By James Powers “The universe is deterministic. It’s godless and neutral, and defined only by physical laws. The life we lead, with all its apparent chaos, is actually a life on tramlines.” In the first episode of FX’s new miniseries Devs, an enigmatic tech CEO gives this matter-of-fact explanation to one of his terrified employees who has just been caught …
Growing ‘Til We Die: Lessons in Virtue from ‘Star Trek: Picard’
By Sam Hendrian Editor’s Note: Some spoilers below for Season 1 of Picard DAHJ: “Have you ever been a stranger to yourself?” PICARD: “Many times.” This dialogue exchange from the first episode of Star Trek: Picard, a new sci-fi series on CBS All-Access that serves as a follow-up to the hit ‘80s/’90s TV show Star Trek: The Next Generation, profoundly …
‘The Chosen’: A Fresh Take on the Life of Christ
By Matthew Sawczyn If you’ve ever been blessed to visit the Holy Land, or have spoken with someone who has, a common description is that the Gospels suddenly felt real. Seeing the dirt, the water, the sky under which Jesus walked… there is an indescribable tangibility to the Faith that hits the pilgrim. Jesus really existed (I mean, really existed); …
Netflix’s ‘Messiah’ Offers a Surprisingly Thoughtful – and Tense – Exploration of Faith
By James Powers One of the more persistent (and annoying) labels given to Jesus is that of political revolutionary. Especially lately, it’s trendy to claim that his primary purpose was to knock down tyrants and give power to the disenfranchised masses; that he was a member of the same club that includes Gandhi and Che and the barricade boys from …
Uniting the World Through Entertainment: The Imagineering Story
– By Sam Hendrian – “What we are selling is not escapism, but reassurance.” This quote from legendary Disney imagineer John Hench captures Disney’s core mission perfectly, even if the multibillion-dollar company does not always live up to it. Escapism is predominantly commerical and maybe a little psychological; reassurance is profoundly spiritual. In The Imagineering Story, a six-part documentary …
What Seinfeld Taught Us About Embracing the Humor of Everyday Life (and Transcending Selfishness)
– By Sam Hendrian – Too tired to watch a whole movie at the end of a long day, the father and son sit down to enjoy a couple half-hour reruns of Seinfeld, sharing many a hearty laugh before it is time to hit the sack. The next morning, their laughter may continue as they gleefully reference the antics of …