Time for the Star Wars universe to come to an end for me?

So I’ve now seen all nine ... count em, nine ... Star Wars films, and also the two loose-end ones, Rogue One and Solo.

The new ones certainly can’t compare to the wonder of the original three, but the final chapter, The Rise of Skywalker, does justice to the franchise. It wraps up most of the loose ends and offers a good share of unexpected moments.

These kind of action flicks usually bore me to sleep, so why is Star Wars different? It must be the focus on character. People my age (in our forties) have known these people and creatures our whole lives.

I’m not that into superhero movies and part of that reason may be that I really haven’t known most of the characters my whole life. Many people have, which possibly explains their popularity, but not me. I was more into Archie comics than Batman and Superman ones when I was a kid. The core characters of Star Wars feel more like Archie characters to me than Superheroes.

Archie as Luke Skywalker. Reggie as Han Solo. Betty and Veronica as princesses Leia and Rey. Jughead as C-3Po?

The Star Wars universe will no doubt continue on somehow, quite possibly without me. But it was great while it lasted.

The Rise of Skywalker: 4 out of 5 stars

Pop Week: Parquet Courts leads off a rock 'n' roll week

The definite highlight of my week was seeing Parquet Courts at the 9:30 Club in Washington D.C. It was such a rocking show that I think it actually made me sick for much of the latter half of the week.

That's the power of rock 'n' roll, and also presents the sad facts that I must be getting older and it's been way too long since I've been to a concert.

Regardless of how long it's been since I've seen a show, there was no denying how awesome this one was. Also, despite the fact that the Courts didn't play my very favorite song, "Stoned and Starving," it was far from any kind of let down. Here's their set list, and definite highlights were "Human Performance," "Dear Ramona," "Berlin Got Blurry," and "One Man No City," to somehow name a few.

Parquet Courts is my favorite contemporary rock band these days, alongside long-time titleholder Wilco and Foxygen, which I'm seeing next month. Stay tuned on that one. 4.5 out of 5 stars.

And if rock 'n' roll was the theme of the week, then this Archie Andrews thing is fitting right in. I can't get enough of Riverdale on the CW. So I took to the new era of Archie graphic novels as well, reading the final issue of Life with Archie, where he dies in highly dramatic fashion. The first half of the double commemorative issue leads up to Archie being shot at Jughead's restaurant during a fundraiser for political upstart and acclaimed gay Senator Kevin Keller. the storyline also makes us wonder who Archie has been married to for the past several years. Is it Betty or Veronica?. The second half, which I'm still reading, takes place a year later. Also stay tuned. Five out of five star

Despite all his problems in recent years, I still consider Woody Allen pretty rock 'n' roll. Although not among my favorite of his prime-era classics, 1982's A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy, received a rewatch this week, and it holds up relatively well as a Shakespearean take-off. It didn't make my top 21 Woody Allen films, and it's a little slow by today's movie standards, but it's somehow still 3.5 out of 5 stars.

Another classic I rewatched this week, since my son is now old enough to start watching some key film milestones, was Raiders of the Lost Ark. Little needs to be said about this 5-star flick that came in 17th on my list of all-time favorite movies.

The Age of Innocence, lastly, offered some rock 'n' roll via the classic novel. I still love the 1993 film version with Daniel Day-Lewis and Winona Ryder, but really, how could those actors mess up with a script this juicy? Newland Archer battles his whole life over cousins May and Ellen, in true Betty and Veronica love-triangle fashion. However, the "innocence" of the era's social structure makes it impossible for him to ever end up with his true love. This may sounds rom-com, but oh no, everyone should read this page turner before they die. 5 out of 5 stars.

Pop Week: How a big event like the Super Bowl is so rare these days

This is a new column I've promised myself each week, to tie all the random TV, movies, magazine articles, books, and more that I've ingested each week into a loosely-tied-together glimpse on what the world might mean at that very moment. Call it an experiment. Here goes ...

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The Super Bowl set up a pretty phenomenal pop-culture week, with its satisfying ending for anyone who loves high drama but its very unsatisfying ending for those who still retained a glimpse of hope that the Steelers would remain the greatest football franchise of all time instead of the Patriots.

It was the rare event that brings the nation together in a common conversation, like All in the Family and, to a lesser extent, Seinfeld, used to do.

My favorite magazine read of the week was "The Social Medium is the Message" in WIRED's special section of the 49 trends that will shape the very near future. It looked at how we need to seriously re-examine our Facebook and Twitter use. In a country still tragically lacking in media literacy (how we use and can understand media), Marshall McLuhan would have recognized Donald Trump's Twitter propaganda as eerily similar to how fascist leaders of the 1940s spoke to their citizens. Further, he would have recognized how our avalanche of information and misinformation (heavy thanks to social media) could foster fear and anger about the world.

Another example of how our society has gone from major to meta is Archie Andrews. Long ago, every kids read the comic-book in the newspaper or watched him on TV, but nowadays, he's just another of the many dozens of shows that premier each week. But man is Riverdale a good one, and it is my favorite TV show of the week. It takes Archie, Betty, Veronica, Jughead, and all the other players to deep, dark places in ways the comic books never did. It's like a new remake of 90210, but only much better than that recent semi-fiasco and much more suspenseful.

Ryan Reynolds continues to underwhelm me, after a promising early career. I know he's sort of like the Tom Brady of actors to many people and Deadpool is like the Superhero Super Bowl to some, and I appreciated it's yearning to be a different, more adult version of a superhero movie. But it's just too winking-nudge-nudge-hipster for my tastes. There are some fun scenes, but Deadpool is the most boring movie of the week. Cool-looking Spider Man-looking knock off though. 2.5 out of 5 stars.

For what very well may be the most boring (but important) article I wrote for the week, see
"New services are moving fast, and cities are looking to update procurement processes to keep up." It could definitely make the ears of government groupies pop up.

And finally, now that football is over, the world of college basketball is starting to seriously heat up. It continued to be a rough year using my season tickets to Georgetown games. In what often seems like a talented team with Coach John Thompson III not necessarily all there, the Hoyas at least had a little fight in losing at home in overtime to Seton Hall and then on the road to #2 Villanova. My teams completed the win-challenged week with North Carolina barely losing at Duke.

Top 10 List: The Best Monkees Songs

Although I would strongly and vulnerably offer that the Monkees music is nowhere near as strong across the board as the Archies, but these two are definitely kings of the bubblegum genre. And they harken back to a time that set the pop-culture template for much of what would follow.

By recently exploring more deeply into their library than I did when I was kid, I found that the Monkees have tons of mediocre-at-best tunes, but they definitely have enough great songs to make up a 5-star collection. My top 10:

10. Hard to Believe
9. Look Out (Here Comes Tomorrow)
8. A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You
7. She
6. I Wanna Be Free
5. Last Train to Clarksville
4. Pleasant Valley Sunday
3. Daydream Believer
2. I'm a Believer (see the perfect video above)
1. (Theme From) The Monkees

What do you think about the Monkees? Do you agree with me that they were very influential and have a handful of pure-pop-perfection gems? Are you going to catch them on their reunion tour this summer?