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⭐9/10 It's been a long time since I've read a theology book, but I decided to visit one from my good friend Greg Boyd. Nobody has had a bigger influence on the way I think about the Bible than Greg, and I will admit that I am so familiar with his theology that very little in this book jumped out to me. I've heard pretty much every argument he makes here in some lecture or sermon or podcast at some point, but still it was good to catch up on these points.  This book is an attempt to make sense of the horrifying violence of the Old Testament. Greg's main argument is that the God that appears in the Old Testament often seems completely inconsistent with his character revealed in the person of Jesus, so how do we reckon with it? He goes through some of the options that scholars have put forth, ranging from disregarding the OT to attempting to justify the violence as a form of righteous love, but has trouble accept theories similar to the former because Jesus him...

⭐10/10 For a decade I've tried to search out games that Jess and I can play together, and I've had a little success! She's reluctantly agreed to play things like DC Online, we had a ton of fun playing Overcooked and Mario, and I created a monster when I introduced her to Stardew. But this game is the first I feel like we've been truly obsessed with, putting all else aside to get a few sessions in. Surely my devoted followers have noticed my lack of movie reviews this month - it's because we can't get enough of Sunderfolk! This is a tactical RPG released by Secret Door and published by Dreamhaven which are all teams filled with ex-Blizzard personnel, the team that brought us pretty much every classic from the mid-90s to the mid-2010s. They have always been innovators, and Sunderfolk is kinda the first game of its kind. It is a multiplayer game that you get on console or PC, and then each player uses their phone as a controller, but all look at the sha...

⭐7.5/10 This is a collection of Japanese manga short horror stories. So ya know, a bit different than my usuals! I should also mention that I got this free at a little library in Toronto which is super cool, and I read it pretty quickly.  It's super hard for me to know how to rate this. I have zero context with which to place it. I had heard the name Junji Ito before, but this is actually the first manga of any type that I've ever read. On the one hand, I really enjoyed it and was always happy to go through them, flying through each story in fifteen minutes. On the other, I can't say I felt anything too strongly throughout, and certainly never felt, like, scared. And yet I found these stories quite compelling, some of them super creepy and twisted and like they could be the backdrop for an awesome novel or movie. But my more prevailing thought was that rather than being great short stories, that these were beginnings of ideas that needed to better fleshed out. J...

⭐10/10 You know I had to go back and watch after reading the book. I know I'm not breaking any news by saying this movie is a masterpiece, but this movie is a masterpiece. I can't say I have any specific attachment to the movie, but it's one that I think is truly flawless. The classic lines, the timeless scenes, all delivered by the best actors in perfect roles.  I watched this one for the first time as a teenager and I think it was something of a gateway for me, introducing me to these stronger thematic elements in movies, starting to understand that a story can be told in the subtext, that a movie can say something without saying it. In retrospect the themes aren't exactly subtle, but I think this movie was so popular for a reason as anyone can understand what it's trying to say, but everyone can also acknowledge that it's said with some deftness. I remember getting to that final, striking scene and things all clicking and having one of those silen...

⭐8/10 I think like a lot of people, I didn't realize this was a book before it was a movie, but I'd become interested after Tim's glowing review. I recently came across it at a thrift store and flipped through a few pages while I waited for someone, and then I couldn't put it down! I think that's a pretty rare feeling, but I simply couldn't leave the store without it -- and I feel like that's something a Don would say.  I mostly had that same feeling all through reading it. I think Puzo is a super talented writer and has a bunch of timeless lines here. As Tim mentioned, the movie is a super faithful adaptation and most of the best lines there were here first. The story is of course super compelling and then there are those great literary elements, the classic tale of the fall of man. I mean yeah, it's well-written, it's got plenty of sex and violence, has some literary strength and an examination of the human condition. This is the quinte...

⭐7/10 This title is misleading because this is actually a book that goes through the entire medieval calendar (which I suppose is in the subtitle). I thought it would be more about habits and survival tactics of medieval people, but it's really more about holidays and festivals throughout the year.  No real strong opinion here. It's a good book that's super well researched. It uses a ton of first-hand accounts and so there's lots of quotes with beautiful Anglo-Saxon passages, but this book was too niche even for me.  It was sorta one of those books where I knew most of the more interesting points, and probably won't remember the more obscure ones.  Still, it was short and I never really minded going back to it. Not my favorite book on medieval history and definitely not one I would recommend as an introduction to the subject, but a good one nonetheless. 

⭐10/10 Two Chosen reviews on this blog back to back? What good little church boys this website must host - except no! This show took me years to watch! In fact, I was the one to originally recommend the show to Tim, and here he is reviewing season 4 while I only finished 1. His reward awaits him in heaven.  There are a few reasons I took forever to watch this show, and none of them are the show's fault. We watched it as a devotional of sorts, oftentimes when we missed church (is this me saying I only missed church 8 times in 2 years..?). I found this show super edifying, often giving me a better appreciation of the gospels and the characters in them.  But the bigger reason was that I always felt super emotionally invested every time we watched, and I shed tears pretty much every episode. It wasn't something we just tuned into on a Tuesday evening. It's hard for me to separate the craft of this show from its source material, but I think the way it sets up conflic...

⭐ 9/10 All the positives of my last 3 season reviews are still here, this show continues to be great. I like how this season slows down a bit, at least in the second half, as we get to Lazarus and the lead in to Holy week (timely). The thought of this show really slowing down in season 5, covering only a couple days, is very exciting. As Gandalf says, the board is set, the pieces are moving. They have set up so so many characters, and finally seeing dominoes fall is very satisfying. This show did have an arc in the middle, actually dead center of the entire series, where there is a moment that does not happen in the Bible but has massive implications. This led to good conversations with our Bible study, I don't want to spoil what happens but I can't say I was a fan. However, as the show has moved on from that point I understand the choice, and its playing a direct role in getting one of the disciples to his key moment. I've probably said it before, but I love how this show...

⭐ 6/10 Ezra loved Cars, but didn't seem to care at all about Cars 2, so why not Planes? I read a couple quick reviews and was shocked to find that this movie is completely reviled! People were really angry about it, and while I didn't love it at all I didn't think it was terrible. Cars is excellent, and has a great premise, basically Emporer's New Groove for the arc of the main character. In this movie we have a crop duster who dreams of being a racer - cool! Also, he's afraid of heights! Great! I liked this as a setup, but the rest of the movie is pretty cookie cutter. Hits all the same beats as cars, all the same jokes (including lots of read-end humour, including vehicles ogling the tail ends of the female vehicles, which is kind of weird), even has a basically identical supporting cast. That might be where the hate came from, this is a lazy retread. Even the voice actor playing Dusty (Dane Cook!? Remember him!?) sounds a whole lot like Owen Wilson. But over a d...

     This is a very recent release that I was interested in primarily because of the great title and cover, and obviously I have a particular interest in China. The premise of a book that combines Chinese history and magical realism also intrigued me, and I thought this was a good book to challenge myself a bit with.      This book is made up primarily of 3 points of view in 3 different time periods.  We start in 2017, when Qianze receives word that her father, who left the family when she was 14, is looking for her. He's confused and haunted, and she gives in and houses him. Every day he rambles about his past and a family curse, but can't quite remember what he needs to tell her. Then we get sections from her father Weihong's pov of growing up in China during the Cultural Revolution, during which he discovers the violence he's capable of. Finally, we get the story of Weihong's mother Ming during the Japanese invasion, growing up as an unwanted daught...