Year: 2017

Movie Review – Justice League

Justice League (2017)
Written by Chris Terrio and Joss Whedon
Directed by Zack Snyder (with reshoots by Joss Whedon)

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Superman is dead, and the world is awful. A bad guy who looks lifted from a video game shows up looking for three MacGuffins, so Batman goes around to some people and asks them for help. They get together and punch stuff really hard, fight hordes of enemies that look suspiciously just like the enemies in The Avengers, and win. All the while other movies are set up without actually making sure this one is good.

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Movie Review – Paint It Black

Paint It Black (2016)
Written by Ed Dougherty and Amber Tamblyn
Directed by Amber Tamblyn

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Set in the late 1980s, Paint It Black follows the story of Josie (Alia Shawkat) in the wake of her boyfriend’s unexpected suicide. These traumatic events put her at odds with his mother, Meredith, who believes Josie is responsible for what happened. The two women clash in an increasingly dark and strange series of encounters. Josie becomes more dependent on self-medication to cope which makes her increasingly vulnerable to Meredith’s manipulations.

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Small Screen Scares: American Horror Story, Tim and Eric’s Bedtime Stories, and Channel Zero

Small Screen Scares: Horror on Television – American Horror Story, Tim and Eric’s Bedtime Stories, and Channel Zero

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In the last few years, horror on the small screen has seen a boost in popularity. There have always been some representations of the genre on television (Tales from the Crypt, Night Gallery, Masters of Horror) but I have personally found the real sense of horror in these productions to be rare. Tales of the Crypt was often a blend of horror and comedy, and Masters of Horror was a very mixed bag when it came to writing. The horror currently gracing our screens is not always top notch either, but there have been some programs or episodes that have surprised me with how dark and existential they are in their exploration of the genre. We’ll be taking a look at American Horror Story, Tim and Eric’s Bedtime Stories, and Channel Zero: No-End House.

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Movie Review – Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017)
Written and Directed by Luc Besson

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Major Valerian and his partner, Sergeant Laureline are sent on a mission to recover an essential piece of technology and return it to the former International Space Station, now Alpha (the titular City of a Thousand Planets). Valerian has a sense he is connected to this artifact and that the police force onboard Alpha is being less than honest about the nature of this thing. He and Laureline become embroiled in an increasingly complex and byzantine plot aboard the melting pot called Alpha.

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Comic Book Review – New Super-Man: Rebirth Volume 1

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New Super-Man Volume 1: Made in China
Written by Gene Yang
Art by Viktor Bogdanovic

newsupermanKong Kenan is a high school bully in Shanghai, China when through a chance encounter he accidentally drives off notorious super-villain Blue Condor. This draws the attention of spunky young reporter Laney Lan and Dr. Omen, the director of the Ministry of Self-Reliance. Kenan is imbued with part of the life essence of the New 52 Superman and becomes China’s answer to the Man of Steel. He’s paired up with the Bat-Man and Wonder Woman of China who find Kenan to be an incredibly immature brat with very unreliable powers. Kenan’s father, Kong Zhongdan is an aging political activist who comes at odds with his son’s new direction in life.

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Movie Review – Thor: Ragnarok

Thor: Ragnarok (2017)
Written by Eric Pearson, Craig Kyle & Christopher Yost
Directed by Taika Waititi

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Since the events of Avengers: Age of Ultron, Thor the God of Thunder has been traveling across the Nine Worlds and the universe in search of the Infinity Stones with no luck. Meanwhile, his brother Loki has been posing as Odin since Thor: The Dark World. The two siblings are confronted with a significant change to the status quo in Asgard. The results of this shake-up send them hurtling across the universe to Sakaar, a junk planet run by The Grandmaster, the host of the Contest of Champions. Thor finds himself reconnecting with an old friend and discovering that another lost Asgardian has made their way to this strange corner of the galaxy. It will be up to Thor to gather a ragtag group of heroes to reclaim his home. Or, will the prophecy of Ragnarok, the death of the gods, come to pass?

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PopCult Book Club November ’17 Announcement

J-RThe book up for this month is one I started last month because I knew I would need extra time to finish it. The book is JR by William Gaddis, written in almost entirely dialogue with no scene breaks or chapters, and coming in at 726 pages. Published in 1975, JR tells the story of Edward Bast, a composer working as a school music teacher. He befriends 11-year-old JR Vansant. JR appears to be an economic savant, and without Bast realizing it he is pulled into the young man’s capitalist machinations. A novel that feels like the cacophonous and biting satirical work of filmmaker Robert Altman.

Movie Review – The Killing of a Sacred Deer

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The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)
Written by Yorgos Lanthimos and Efthymis Filippou
Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos

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Dr. Stephen Murphy (Colin Farrell) is a successful heart surgeon in Cincinnati, Ohio. He has a beautiful and talented wife (Nicole Kidman) and two children, Kim and Bob. But Stephen has a secret, a secret named Martin. No one in Stephen’s family or at his hospital know about his secret meetings with Martin at a diner and their walks by the riverfront. Martin seems to have some sort of hold over Stephen. The doctor meets with him out of an obligation and endures a myriad of strange remarks and behavior from the young man. This is all connected to a sin from Stephen’s past and when he finally does get up the nerve to shrub Martin off his entire family begins to surface.

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Movie Review – Brigsby Bear

Brigsby Bear (2017)
Written by Kevin Costello and Kyle Mooney
Directed by Dave McCary

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James (Kyle Mooney) spends the majority of his days absorbed in his favorite television series since childhood, Brigsby Bear. New episodes are delivered in supply drops to his family’s bunker in the desert, and each chapter imparts essential life lessons, particularly in academics. However, James spends almost too much time absorbed in the world of Brigsby, while his parents wish he would spend more of his effort on developing his mind. James has spent his entire life inside this bunker and only communicates with the outside world through his decades-old computer on the Brigsby forums. He even has a crush on the young lady companion of the title bear hero. Then a revelation occurs the upsets James’ entire understanding of his life and throws him into a world he doesn’t know how to fit into. Brigsby seems to the be the one thing that can keep him afloat and help him come to terms with what his life really means.

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TV Review – Stranger Things 2

Stranger Things 2 (Netflix)
Written by Matt Duffer, Ross Duffer, Justin Doble, Jessie Nickson-Lopez, Paul Dichter, Jessica Mecklenburg, Alison Tatlock, and Kate Trefry
Directed by Matt Duffer, Ross Duffer, Shawn Levy, Andrew Stanton, and Rebecca Thomas

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It’s almost been a year since the events of Season One that took place in Hawkins, Indiana. Will Byers is settling back into routine everyday kid life with one caveat, he routinely visits with a doctor working at the Hawkins Laboratory. This is part of the agreement Sheriff Hopper made with the lab offscreen at the end of the last season. Hopper also has a significant secret he’s keeping from everyone else. For the last few months, he has been the caretaker of Eleven. After she destroyed the Demogorgon, Eleven found herself in the Upside Down but managed to quickly breach one of the membranes between worlds and return. Hopper eventually finds her, and she becomes a surrogate daughter for the one he lost years ago. In the background of all of this looms a potent threat the dwells in the Upside Down. This many-tentacled shadow entity is moving closer and closer to opening the gate and doing to Hawkins what he has done to the other world.

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