“Nearly everyone in this film is obsessed with the Rome that was, where the emperor was a scholar instead of a syphilitic club kid in a toga,” writes Meg Elison in her review of Ridley Scott’s new film. “It is much easier to complain about a bad government than to build one that works. See Virgil for more on this. See Hannah Arendt. See Marija Gimbutas. See all of human history. See the news.”
Arts & Culture
Classics of Pagan Cinema: The Secret of Kells
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Meg Elison reviews 2009’s animated film The Secret of Kells, which draws inspiration from the recently-digitized Book of Kells, a fabulously illuminated edition of the gospels. But while the film is set at a Christian monastery, it is full of encounters with Paganism, and these encounters are what will draw viewers back to the film again and again.
Arts & Culture
Television from a Pagan World: Reviewing KAOS and Twilight of the Gods
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“When I was a teenage zealot, I used to imagine what television might be like in a world that was primarily Pagan,” writes Meg Elison. “I’ll never see that world, but this year a small window opened on it. Over the last week, I got acquainted with two Netflix shows about the Pagan world as it might have been: KAOS and Twilight of the Gods.”
Arts & Culture
Embracing the KAOS: A Lightly Spoilery Review of the Hit Nexflix Show
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“Well-written, superbly acted, and satisfyingly paced,” writes Storm Faerywolf, “Kaos is a funny, intelligent, witty, and thought-provoking tale of conflict, love, death, and what it means to be a human in a world full of gods. Definitely binge-worthy.”
Arts & Culture
“Starve Acre” hides its folk horror heart beneath a shroud of domestic tragedy
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Starve Acre is domestic horror only in the sense that Britain itself is the domicile. Dig just a few inches into the soil and a riot of irrational myth and impossible happenings is always just below this family’s feet.
Arts & Culture
Occult Symbolism in He-Man and the Masters of the Universe
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Much like ceremonial magic, where ritual tools such as swords embody the practitioner’s control over the mind and spirit, He-Man’s sword does more than grant him physical power — it bestows wisdom and responsibility.