Geeky Catholic Dad

WARNING: This review will be full of spoilers, so do not continue until you have seen Avengers: Endgame . So first, go see the movie. I'll wait. Did you see it? Okay, great!

Last weekend, I braved a winter storm to go see Captain Marvel . I absolutely loved it, and I have a bunch of things I want to say about it. If you haven't seen the movie yet, don't worry. I start off with a spoiler-free review. After that, there's a spoiler warning and a poster of Goose the Cat you'll have to scroll past before I get into any spoilers.

The Star Wars universe is vast. The official continuity includes 10 films (and counting), 4 television series that have either aired or are in development, and a host of books and comic books. There are all kinds of topics of discussion, whether it be the nature of the Force, the political machinations of the various factions, the motivations of characters, and all the different monsters, aliens, weapons, and ships in that galaxy far, far away. From time to time I'd like to take a look at just one aspect of the Star Wars universe, and offer my take. Welcome to Random Star Wars Thoughts. The Prophecy of the Chosen One The Phantom Menace introduced us to a new way of looking at the Force. The Jedi Council referred to a prophecy of a Chosen One who would bring balance to the Force. Up until that point, we knew that there was a Dark Side and a Light Side of the Force, but we had never heard anything about a balance. There are all kinds of questions about this prophecy. What is th...

Back in December of 2017, The Greatest Showman was released in theaters. At the time, I paid very little attention to it (because I was busy watching, rewatching, and digesting Star Wars: The Last Jedi ). Fast forward six months to June of 2018, when I finally had the chance to see it. And it blew me away. I’ve been thinking about it ever since, and listening to the soundtrack over and over again. It got me wondering - what was it about this movie that grabbed me? How was it able to deliver such a sense of joy?

This post will contain full spoilers for Avengers: Infinity War . Go see it, then check back here. I have a crazy theory you'll want to read after you've seen it. (I'll post this again on my Facebook page in a few weeks, so you can always follow me there.) You have been warned...

As a lifelong Catholic and an almost-lifelong Star Wars fan, it's no surprise (to me at least) that I see a lot of Christian themes in Star Wars. By no means is Star Wars an overtly Christian work; on the contrary, it draws its spirituality from many religions, both Eastern and Western. But George Lucas did intend his story to have themes of good and evil. "I wanted it to be a traditional moral study, to have some sort of palpable precepts in it that children could understand." So while I wouldn't recommend taking Star Wars as your sole source of morality and spirituality, there is some truth to be found in that galaxy far, far away.

Rian Johnson's Star Wars: The Last Jedi has been out for a few weeks now, and fans are divided. There are those (like myself) who loved the film. (See my review here. ) But a lot of fans have issues with the film, ranging from minor nitpicks to huge disagreements about the tone, the direction the story took, or the motivations of characters. As a result, a multitude of discussions are taking place across social media. The trolls of the internet resort to hyperbole and ad hominem attacks. Fortunately, most of what I've seen has been civil, even when fans have fundamental problems with what they saw on the screen. I will be addressing one of the many topics of discussion I've seen come up: Why was Luke on Ahch-To, the site of the original Jedi Temple, if he didn't even want to be a Jedi anymore?

WARNING: Do not read this post until after you have seen Star Wars: The Last Jedi . If you haven't seen it, go away and come back later. Okay, have you seen it yet? Good. I know when you walked out of the theater you had one burning question: "What did Matt think?" Well, I'm glad you asked.

No real relationship or marriage looks like Buttercup's and Westley's, right? Do fairy tale love stories give us unrealistic expectations? Or can we take a different sort of lesson from these depictions of love? I wrote a post last week - Have Fun Storming the Castle - about how the storytelling in The Princess Bride as a whole can shed some light on life and the afterlife. This week, I'd like to focus more specifically on Buttercup and Westley. Marriage "Mawwiage is what bwings us togevah today." Throughout the Bible, the relationship between a husband and wife is often used as a symbol - or "type" - of God's relationship with His people, and Christ's relationship with His Church. (Engraved on the inside of my wedding ring is the abbreviation "EPH 5:25," to remind me of the Bible verse from Paul's letter to the Ephesians: "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.") Ever s...

Stories with happy endings aren't realistic. The real world doesn't work that way. So what value can a fairy tale like The Princess Bride possibly offer? A lot, actually. Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up:

There comes a time in a man's life where he starts seriously thinking about the future. He ceases to think only about his own wants and needs, and begins to consider more important things. Instead of worrying about trivial matters, like which Star Wars movie he's going to watch that night, he shifts his focus to other people. I remember this happening to me when I was in college. I asked myself a very important question: "How am I going to introduce Star Wars to my kids?" You laugh, but there are a myriad of issues to consider there. At what age is your youngling old enough to watch the films? Which film do you start with? Do you go in order of release, starting with the original? Or in chronological order, starting with The Phantom Menace ? (When I was in college, there were only two trilogies to think about, but now there is a new - and incomplete - trilogy being made, and stand-alone films coming out in between the saga films.) What if you're too forceful (n...

Let me just start out by answering some questions you might be asking yourself. No, you're not the only one who read the title of this post and tried to fit it into the meter of the song "Mr. Blue Sky." And no, it doesn't quite fit; there are a few too many syllables. Okay, with that out of the way, this review carries a huge spoiler warning, so you won't want to read past this paragraph. In fact, I'm not sure if "review" is the most accurate term. The purpose of this post isn't to inform the reader so they can decide whether or not to go see the movie, but rather to discuss what we already saw. If you're looking for my recommendation, it's this: you should go see this movie. You don't need to have seen any of the other Marvel movies to watch this one, but it helps if you've seen the first Guardians of the Galaxy (obviously). The humor is a bit crude for the younglings, so you might want to leave them at home. (Although I don...

Like many Star Wars fans, I tuned into the live stream of the Star Wars: The Last Jedi panel at Star Wars Celebration. I mostly just listened while I worked, so I'm sure I missed a lot of details about what they were talking about. But when the Rian Johnson, the film's director, said he had something to show everyone, my ears perked up. "We have a teaser-" ( There it is! I though. They're going to show the trailer! ) "-poster," he said, and then revealed the image above. But after a few minutes of pretending they weren't going to show a trailer, they relented to the audience's demands. "Of course we have a trailer!" Johnson exclaimed, as the whole place went wild.

Back at the end of February, I published a post about the TV show Firefly - a space western that was tragically canceled before its time. As I mentioned in the post, the strength and loyalty of the show's fandom was such that Universal Studios green-lit a movie to continue the story, and that movie was called Serenity . In today's post, I'll take a look at that movie.

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about my introduction to the Rocky series, and I discussed Rocky and Rocky II . Today I'd like to continue the story with Rocky III .

I recently watched all of the Rocky movies - and 2015's  Creed - on Amazon Prime. It was only my second time seeing Rocky , and my first time seeing the rest of them. So admittedly, I am late to the party here. These movies are fantastic, and after seeing them I just had to write about them. I was originally going to write about all seven films, but once I got started, I ended up writing a lot more on each movie than I'd planned. So we'll just keep it to Rocky  and Rocky II . This post will have spoilers, but I figure that's not a huge deal, because these movies are over 30 years old.

You might recall from my Lord of the Rings post last month that I really like a literary device Tolkien uses, which he calls "eucatastrophe." I'd like to use this post to explore that concept a bit more, and tie it together with the meaning of Christmas.

To a lot of Star Wars fans, any detail about a new movie constitutes a spoiler, so I'm not even going to try to make this review spoiler free. If you have not seen Rogue One yet, stop reading and go see it. Then come back and read this. Last warning. Okay, here we go...

Jess and I went to see Doctor Strange on Friday, and I absolutely loved it. Sitting in the theater while the credits were rolling, I felt like I had to write about it. Since it just came out this weekend (in the States, at least), I don't want to spoil the movie for anyone. So I'll keep things spoiler free in my main review, and put anything spoiler-ific at the end (with a warning).