May 2026: Grogu, Grace, and Jean Valjean

[[Spoiler note: This month’s list includes spoilers for Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord and Les Misérables.]]

It’s been seven years since Star Wars was last on the big screen, and I’m happy to report that Star Wars is so back. The entire Mandalorian series has been Jon Favreau’s love letter to Star Wars and its fans, and this movie carried on that tradition in the best way possible. As a lifelong Star Wars fan, it was everything I wanted it to be.

At its heart, The Mandalorian is a story of family: not just blood, but the people we adopt, befriend, or find common cause with. That is why I’ve always thought of it alongside another of my favorite stories, The Dark Tower by Stephen King. In each, the action is great and the plot is compelling, but it’s the characters you come back for. To borrow a phrase from King, as these characters are forming their own Ka-Tet, you begin to form one with them too. Over the course of each series, you laugh with them, you cry with them, and you mourn when you lose one of your own. And when the story ends, as stories must do, you feel like you’re saying goodbye to very good friends. You can’t write much better than that.

As The Mandalorian opens with an absolute firecracker. We’re dropped into an assassination of a remnant imperial warlord after the events of Return of the Jedi. As we watch a shadowy figure quickly and stealthily dispatch a contingent of stormtroopers, I couldn’t help thinking of Leon: The Professional, and its titular character’s calm, methodical expertise in the same profession. Now that I think about it, The Mandalorian and Leon: The Professional are actually pretty similar stories: deadly assassin adopts and trains cute child sidekick. What could be more wholesome?

As Mando fights his way to his target, the scene becomes a John Woo-level action movie, complete with gunfights, flamethrowers, and AT-ATs. Side note: I love that the AT-ATs looked old and stained, which is how I imagine they would look in an Empire on its heels after the back-to-back destruction of the Death Stars. Throughout this non-stop action, however, we’re treated to Grogu’s own form of combat: using the force to destroy a mouse droid and then perching atop Mando’s shoulder as he furiously tap-tap-taps on Mando’s helmet, urging him to hurry up before they’re blown to smithereens by the explosive trap left by their quarry.

That opening scene is the perfect setup for this movie. It gives longtime viewers a few things to cheer about while telling newcomers everything they need to know about this unlikely duo. Plus, we get to see dear sweet Zeb (where are my Rebels fans?) as he extracts Mando and Grogu from the chaos.

The rest of the movie was full of charm and heart. Grogu is wonderful and is tested in ways that he never was in the show. As my wife remarked, it was nice that Act One was about Mando, Act Two was about Grogu, and Act Three was about both of them.

Also, we as a society should just give all of the awards to the puppetry and stop-motion teams for this movie. Between Grogu, the Anzellans, and the stop-motion droids, it felt so much like the Henson Workshop puppetry of the original trilogy. It’s wonderful that movies (ahem, Project Hail Mary) are returning to practical effects. CGI is an amazing tool and it has its place, but the past decade of moviemaking often leaned too hard into the Marvel approach of “everything is green screen.”

What an ending to an all-around strong show. The art may be the thing I will remember most. The way the show has captured the textured, brushstroke-style artwork takes it from the earlier 3D animation of The Clone Wars to an entirely new art form. It reminds me of the way that animation progressed from Looney Tunes-type shows to the darker, grittier animation of Batman: The Animated Series.

The storytelling was just as strong. I can’t believe they used the first season to kill off so many characters (RIP Spybot). It’s also been such a genuinely unique take on Maul as a character, as he wrestles with so many parts of his past while unexpectedly crossing paths with Devon, a disillusioned young Jedi Padawan caught up in his campaign of vengeance against the Emperor.

One of my favorite details came from a fan pointing out an apparent inconsistency between one of Maul’s flashbacks and a plot line in The Clone Wars. Sam Witwer (the Maul voice actor) replied that it was a good catch, and that, on closer inspection, nothing in the flashback quite matched what happened before. This sort of unreliable narration is really planting some seeds that I think will germinate into later stories, and it’s a testament to the detail and effort put into this season.

Aside from the animation and the story, the lightsaber battles were some of the best in the franchise. The voice acting was great, especially Sam Witwer and Gideon Adlon as Devon.

And the cherry on top was Darth Vader appearing in the last episode for a showdown between the Emperor’s apprentice and former apprentice. It will be interesting to see how that story develops as each presumably begins to learn who the other one is. All around, this was a great show and I can’t wait for Season 2.

Stephen King just has this uncanny ability to write characters who feel like actual, real people. Every one of them reminds you, in some meaningful way, of your best friend, the schoolyard bully, a family friend, the clerk at your local convenience store, or a dozen other figures of everyday life.

Nowhere does King write them better than in his childhood stories: namely, It and The Body. No matter where or when you grew up, it’s highly likely that either of those stories will take you right back to your childhood. The stupid decisions, the childhood crushes, the rebellion against authority… they’re all there. It brought back those summer days spent on adventures through the woods, building forts, inventing games that lasted only an afternoon. How did those days seem to feel so short yet last so long in our memories?

I mean, King says it best himself: “I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was 12 - Jesus, did you?”

A new entry in my top five books of all time. I almost can’t begin to describe the depth and heart and beauty of this book. At its core, it is a book about grace. Unexpected grace. Unwarranted grace. Which is exactly the point of grace.

What a cast of characters, and what a story that is both beautiful and heartbreaking. The steady Jean Valjean wrestling with his past, his character, and a future for those he loves. The tragic Fantine: it is hard to imagine a sadder story. The loving Cosette, carrying on the light of her mother. The romantic Marius, fighting for love and belief. The comically evil and bumbling, conniving Thénardiers. The star-crossed Eponine, who delivers one of the most heartbreaking lines of the entire work.

And then there is the complicated Javert. I kept thinking about a scene in A Gentleman in Moscow (the TV show), in which Count Rostov explains Javert’s end to his KGB “warden”, Osip Glebnikov. Javert believes that a criminal cannot change. When Valjean saves him, and proves that such goodness is possible, Javert’s whole worldview collapses. It’s what makes him such a tragic character: he cannot imagine a world spacious enough to contain justice and mercy at the same time.

Few authors are able to create such an epic story across generations and so many lives, leaving the reader with tears of both joy and sadness. As I think back on my five favorite books, Master and Commander, The Lord of the Rings, The Count of Monte Cristo, Lonesome Dove, and now Les Misérables, I’m not surprised to find such similar craftsmanship in each of those works. Perhaps that’s why the book landed so deeply with me: it takes love, hope, mercy, and justice seriously without making any of them easy.

Hugo spends so much time on backstories that at times, you find yourself wondering: how could this possibly be related to the story? And yet, when each of those backstories pays off, you’re left absolutely speechless. I kept coming back to Dumas’s ability to spin such a complicated web in The Count of Monte Cristo, where each thread is perfectly tied off in its singularly masterful ending. With Les Misérables, Hugo gives an equally masterful treatment to elaborate and complex backstories that pay off so beautifully. By the end of the book, I was relishing the backstories, knowing what beautifully heartbreaking events were waiting somewhere ahead.

A masterclass in book adaptations alongside The Lord of the Rings. For an adaptation of a 1,300-page book, it captures its essential moments remarkably well. What was most amazing was how the film brought the feeling and emotion of the book to life. Hugo spends so much time with these enormous backstories that pay off tremendously. So I was pleasantly blown away by how the movie, and specifically the actors, manage to capture every ounce of character, sometimes with only a few minutes of screen time.

I can recall few instances in which I have been moved to tears as I was during Anne Hathaway’s “I Dreamed a Dream” performance, or in the scenes between Jean Valjean and Cosette.

And the cinematography….. The sustained close-ups allow the film to capture every bit of that emotion. You don’t feel like you’re watching a movie. You feel as if you’re seated across from each character, intimately sharing their story. For such a monumental work of fiction, I can’t imagine capturing it better visually.

The attention to detail was also flawless. I remember pointing out to my wife the importance of the candlesticks during the first appearance, and I remember her saying “Awww” when we saw them again on the convent altar at the end of the movie.

I also appreciated how Jean Valjean has such a ragged, uneven haircut when he has reached his lowest point and is given grace by the bishop. The same visual attention follows Fantine, whose brief experience of grace comes too late for her to know how far it will reach.

I read that Russell Crowe received criticism for his Javert, allegedly playing it a bit too “gruff,” and yet I thought he was perfect. He captured exactly the ethos of a man whose rigid understanding of the world comes apart. Crowe perfectly captures that disbelief when Jean Valjean shows him grace of a kind he thought impossible.

My only complaint was Eponine. Her scenes did not quite carry the same emotional weight as the rest of the film. That contrast is never more apparent than Hathaway’s “I Dreamed a Dream.” My only prior exposure to that song was hearing it sung via Susan Boyle’s phenomenal viral performance on Britain’s Got Talent. I had always assumed it was a happy (or at least not sad) song. But now with the benefit of Fantine’s backstory, it’s just a punch straight to the gut… the lyrics, the acting, the cinematography. Very few moments in cinema can capture something so beautifully and perfectly. I think words just fail. As they should.

I’m so glad that I never saw the play or even listened to the soundtrack before this movie and the book. I don’t think I ever will. I don’t think anything can compare. I do hope, however, that it returns to theaters one day. Such an epic story can only truly be enjoyed in an environment that matches the gravity of the production.

A good, dumb (in a good way) comedy that isn’t trying to be anything more than it is. Sandra Bullock, Channing Tatum, and Daniel Radcliffe show off some surprisingly good comedic chops in a story that’s perfect for the night after watching something as heavy as Les Misérables. We needed something with jungle peril, a ridiculous romance novelist, and Daniel Radcliffe in a white linen suit.

Image Copyright (Disney/Lucasfilm)