2017 – Page 13 – PopCult Reviews

Comic Book Review – Red Hood & The Outlaws Vol.1

If you haven’t checked out the Hoopla app, I encourage you to do so. Hoopla is a service library systems can subscribe to as a way to offer digital content to their patrons. Hoopla happens to have a magnificent library of DC Comics titles, and I plan to use to explore some of the DC Rebirth titles I may have overlooked when the relaunch occurred. This will be the first of a series of post, length undetermined.

Red Hood & The Outlaws Vol. 1: Dark Trinity
Written by Scott Lobdell
Art by Dexter Moy and Veronica Gandini

Red Hood aka Jason Todd aka the Robin who got killed by The Joker is back in Gotham going undercover as a criminal to infiltrate the criminal empire of Black Mask. He’s given a warning from Batman about making sure he keeps things non-lethal, a warning Jason begrudgingly follows but is tempted to break after he sees the sadistic evil Black Mask is capable of. During a mission where Jason is to prove himself to Mask, he runs afoul of Artemis, an Amazon from an offshoot of Wonder Woman’s people. They form a tenuous alliance to stop Black Mask, but all that changes when they discover what weapon he is after: Bizarro!

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The Revisit – Supergirl

The Revisit is a place for me to rewatch films I love but haven’t seen in years or films that didn’t click with me the first time. Through The Revisit, I reevaluate these movies and compare my original thoughts on them to how they feel in this more recent viewing.

Supergirl (1984)
Written by David Odell
Directed by Jeannot Szwarc

Helen-Slator_Supergirl

Kara Zor-El (Helen Slater) lives in Argo City, a hidden haven for Kryptonians…under water…in another dimension? Um, okay. Well, she has a friend in the elderly artist Zoltar (Peter O’Toole) who has…stolen the city’s energy source? It’s called the Omegahedron, and he’s using it to make…art? Kara is playing around with, screws up and it goes hurtling out across space and time. As everyone panics at their impending doom with the Omegahedron missing, Kara launches herself out across a 2001-style psychedelic space tableau. Arriving on Earth, she mimics her famous cousin’s fashion style to become Supergirl and seek out the MacGuffin that can save her people.

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Twin Peaks: The Return – Episode 5 Breakdown, Thoughts, and Analysis

Part 5
Written by Mark Frost and David Lynch
Directed by David Lynch

twin peaks part 5

Part 5 kicks off with the two men hired to take out Dougie Jones. They make a fall call to their employer, a very harried and anxious woman on the verge of tears. They explain they’ve been staking out Dougie’s car with no luck. She hangs up and sends a message via a pager/burner phone. The recipient is marked “Argent” on her phone, and the message is just a series of numbers. We cut to a dingy basement and a small black box electronic device, the implication being that this is where her message went. It just happens to be the same type of device Bob was using to get in contact with Phillip Jeffries back in Part 2.

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Movie Review – Buster’s Mal Heart

Buster’s Mal Heart (2017)
Written and Directed by Sarah Adina Smith

busters

Jonah (Rami Malek) is adrift in the sea in a rickety boat. He’s also been given the nickname Buster and is pillage the mountain home retreats of millionaires in Montana. Yet in another life, he was the concierge at a dead end hotel on the outskirts of those Montana mountains. He had a wife and a young daughter, with plans to save up and buy a piece of land where they could be “free.” Into Jonah’s life comes a strange, nameless drifter (DJ Qualls) who claims to be the Prophet of the Second Inversion and starts talking up Y2K conspiracies theories. Something is happening to Jonah that will lead him down a strange path and result in even the very notion of identity coming into question.

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Movie Review – Prevenge

Prevenge (2017)
Written and Directed by Alice Lowe

prevenge_01

Ruth (Alice Lowe) suffered a terrible tragedy and is now a single pregnant mother to be. Something strange has happened though. She’s begun hearing the squeaky whispered voice of her unborn child. This gestating being compels Ruth to go on a series of murders that seem random at first but slowly reveal a methodology. The reason behind the killings and the tragedy that happens before the film starts to lead to a tragic and disturbing finale.

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Movie Review – Wonder Woman

Wonder Woman (2017)
Written by Allan Heinberg
Directed by Patty Jenkins

wonder woman

Diana has spent her entire life on the hidden island of Themyscira. She has been raised and trained by the Amazons of myth, yet her mother, Queen Hippolyta fears for the day her daughter will desire to leave the safety of the island. That day finally comes when American pilot and spy Steve Trevor crashes off the shores. From him, Diana learns of “the war that will end all wars” and feel compelled to get involved. She believes that Ares, the Greek god of war is behind this and if she can defeat him humanity will be spared. Gathering her trademark armor and weapons, Diana heads off into Man’s World.

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Movie Review – A Cure for Wellness

A Cure For Wellness (2017)
Written by Justin Haythe & Gore Verbinski
Directed by Gore Verbinski

a cure for wellness

Lockhart (Dane DeHaan) is a young up-and-comer at a prestigious New York investment firm. He’s tasked with taking a journey to the Swiss Alps to recover the company’s CEO, Roland Pembroke. Pembroke left for a wellness center high up in the mountains and has just sent a letter implying he is never coming back. When Lockhart arrives, he meets Dr. Volmer (Jason Isaacs), a mysterious young woman (Mia Goth), and is pulled into a mind-bending conspiracy that dates back a hundred years.

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Movie Review – Free Fire

a24 visions

Free Fire (2017)
Written by Amy Jump and Ben Wheatley
Directed by Ben Wheatley

free fire larson

It was Boston in 1978, two members of the Irish Republican Army, Chris, and Frank (Cillian Murphy and Michael Smiley, respectively) are making a rendezvous with a South African arms dealer, Vern (Sharlto Copley) in an abandoned factory to purchase weapons for the civil war back home. Their intermediary, Justine (Brie Larson) assures them the deal is right and this is backed up by Vern’s representative, Ord (Armie Hammer). However, as the moment of truth nears closer, money exchanges hands, irregularities about the weapons are addressed, and the various members of each side interact it becomes apparent that something is about to blow.

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The Revisit – Frailty

Frailty (2000)
Written by Brent Hanley
Directed by Bill Paxton

frailty

It’s a rainy night in Dallas, Texas when FBI Agent Wesley Doyle (Powers Boothe) is called into the office to speak with Fenton Meiks (Matthew McConaughey), a strange man who claims to know secrets behind what authorities have dubbed “The God’s Hand Killer.” Mainly, he tells Doyle that his brother, Adam is the killer. The film becomes a series of flashbacks to Fenton and Adam’s childhood wherein their father (Bill Paxton) claims to have been visited by an angel that tells him which people are truly demons in disguise. He brings the two boys along with him as he hunts down and murders these false humans, but Adam grows increasingly fearful of his father’s actions. Their father begins to see Adam as a threat and takes drastic measures.

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PopCult Book Club – June 2017 Announcement

This June, Pop Cult’s book club choice will be Universal Harvester by John Darnielle (Mountain Goats).

universal harvester

The official blurb for the novel reads: “Life in a small town takes a dark turn when mysterious footage begins appearing on VHS cassettes at the local Video Hut. So begins Universal Harvester, the haunting and masterfully unsettling new novel from John Darnielle, author of the New York Times Bestseller and National Book Award Nominee Wolf in White Van”

Hopefully a nice companion piece to the small town horror of Twin Peaks. Join me, won’t you?