January 2022 – PopCult Reviews

Movie Review – Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)
Written by Peter Weir and John Collee
Directed by Peter Weir

It had been five years since Peter Weir directed a movie. The Truman Show was a culmination of all his major themes across his work that it seemed like an ending in many ways. Of course, there was always more that could be said about human existence and the power we have over our own lives, but it was addressed so beautifully in that picture. Master and Commander would be Weir’s only film released in the 2000s. The film would be very well received by critics, but at the time, audiences were so focused on more escapist fare, in particular the Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. That film would sweep the Oscars, and Master and Commander would be pretty much forgotten by most people.

Comic Book Review – The Flash by Geoff Johns Omnibus Volume 3

The Flash by Geoff Johns Omnibus Volume 3 (2022)
Reprints Final Crisis: Rogues’ Revenge #1-3, Blackest Night: The Flash #1-3, Blackest Night: Black Lantern Corps #1, The Flash: Rebirth #1-6, The Flash Secret Files and Origins 2010, The Flash v3 #1-12, Flashpoint #1-5
Written by Geoff Johns
Art by Scott Kolins, Ethan Van Sciver, Francis Manapul, Andy Kubert

I’m not sure what has happened to Geoff Johns in the last few years. It’s been a disheartening turn of events between some weighty accusations lobbed at him by Justice League star Ray Fisher and some egregious delays on books like Shazam. Recently, artist Bryan Hitch shared that plans for a Justice Society revival book with Johns had been scrapped even after promotional art was shown off in 2021. Johns has become a writer whose work I prefer to wait to be collected than deal with the chronic delays. This definitive collection of his Flash work marks the point where things really went off the rails for the writer and DC Comics for about a decade. Looking at these stories, we can see how the previous consistently high-quality stories being told by Johns about the Flash lost some luster.

Movie Review – The Truman Show

The Truman Show (1998)
Written by Andrew Niccol
Directed by Peter Weir

In 1991, screenwriter Andrew Niccol began shopping around a spec script for The Malcolm Show. It was a science-fiction thriller set in New York City that focused on a man discovering his life was a television show, and he tried to escape the control of his handlers. Many directors were considered: Brian DePalma, Tim Burton, Sam Raimi, Steven Spielberg. Eventually, the studio chose to go with Peter Weir, who saw the script as too dark. Instead, he wanted to emphasize the satire of the situation, still holding onto the core existential dread of the concept, but presenting it with a lightness to counter that thematic weight.

Movie Review – Fearless (1993)

Fearless (1993)
Written by Rafael Yglesias
Directed by Peter Weir

You wouldn’t be blamed for never having heard of this film. While Green Card was a quiet hit and Weir’s next picture, The Truman Show would prove a massive hit, Fearless is mostly forgotten. It wasn’t lost in a sea of better films. In October 1993, some box office hits were Demolition Man, Cool Runnings, or The Good Son. I would attribute the film’s lack of audience to the fact that Weir dives headfirst into some of the most significant themes of his career, mainly life, death, and human existence. It’s heavy stuff, and Weir handles it so well. You can honestly see him being drawn to more existential material between this and The Truman Show.

Movie Review – Green Card

Green Card (1991)
Written & Directed by Peter Weir

“Romantic comedy” is not a film genre necessarily associated with Peter Weir. He certainly has romance in his pictures (see The Year of Living Dangerously, Witness), but this particular style of movie just isn’t what you would expect from him. This is one of the few films that Weir both wrote and directed on his own, and it appears to have been inspired by French actor Gerard Depardieu. Weir wanted to bring Depardieu to an English-speaking audience after the actor was already renowned in popular French cinema. The leading male role in Green Card was explicitly written for the performer, but it didn’t propel him to immense fame in the States. It would be received with a mixed reception by the critics, seen mainly as light fare.

TV Review – The White Lotus Season 1

The White Lotus Season 1 (HBO)
Written & Directed by Mike White

In British popular media, there is a regular focus on class as a means of societal division. You see this in programs like Upstairs Downstairs or Downton Abbey. In America, we often substitute race or gender for the same purpose. The White Lotus is an interesting anomaly as it takes that framework and combines it with a somewhat outdated American television series format, the procedural vacation show (Love Boat, Fantasy Island). The result is a series that doesn’t feel like anything else on television at the moment, and that’s quite refreshing. It’s no surprise this comes from Mike White, the showrunner behind another magnificent HBO series, Enlightened. Once again, he presents a story that doesn’t follow the structures and narrative we might expect from such a show.

Movie Review – Pleasure

Pleasure (2021)
Written & Directed by Ninja Thyberg

The adult film industry and sex work, in general, have become propelled into the mainstream in the United States in a way that hasn’t been witnessed since the early-mid 1970s. With platforms like PornHub, these videos are easily accessible at home on a myriad of devices. OnlyFans has empowered many young people to take back their labor by profiting from sex work instead of other forms of physical labor. They are enriched as a result of both a Puritanical culture that seems to only experience sex in extremes of complete sin or hedonism rather than just a part of life & a stratified class structure that leaves some with enough disposable income to pay others for videos or perceived personalized performances. Nothing about this is entirely new; it’s more the delivery of sex that has changed. Decades ago, you might have gone to a peep show to watch a person undress, and now you just go to a website. Swedish director Ninja Thyberg has set her debut feature film in the American adult film industry and explores how this business operates.

Comic Book Review – Superman: The Man of Steel Volume 4

Superman: The Man of Steel Volume 4 (2022)
Reprints Superman #16-22, Adventures of Superman #439-444, Action Comics #598-600, Superman Annual #2
Written by John Byrne, Paul Kupperberg, Jerry Ordway, Roger Stern
Art by John Byrne, Ty Templeton, Karl Kesel, Jerry Ordway, Ross Andru, Curt Swan, Mike Mignola, John Statema, Ron Frenz

So it seems this will be the last volume in The Man of Steel collections which makes sense. These issues mark John Byrne’s final contributions to the Post-Crisis Superman, and the series title comes from his mini-series that rebooted the origins and supporting cast of the character. Volume Four manages to reintroduce some more elements from Superman’s mythos, updated for the 1980s. On reflection, this does not seem like a radical reimagining as it may have when the issues were first published. It’s very evident that Byrne is a fan of the Silver Age Superman but also wants to modernize the icon per his directive from DC Comics. This is also the first volume of reprints where Marv Wolfman was gone from Adventures of Superman, and thus Byrne was writing all three Superman titles monthly, plus penciling two of them.

Movie Brain – January 21st, 2022

In December, I got an email notification related to my old Livejournal. If you are too young to know what that is, Livejournal was a blogging platform that was super popular in the 2000s and saw a decline in the 2010s. It was bought out by a Russian company, and if you were to visit it now, that is highly apparent. From around 2003 to 2008, I had three different accounts. Through this email notification, I was reminded of one of them and was able to get access to them again. It was quite a trip down memory lane back to college and post-grad days, an insight into what was going on in my head at the time.

Patron Pick – Red Rocket

This is a special reward available to Patreon patrons who pledge at the $10 or $20 a month levels. Each month those patrons will pick a film for me to review. They also get to include some of their own thoughts about the movie, if they choose. This Pick comes from Matt Harris.

Red Rocket (2021)
Written by Chris Bergoch and Sean Baker
Directed by Sean Baker

Sean Baker’s filmmaking career has been centered on people working on the margins of society. Tangerine followed two transgender sex workers through a day in their life while The Florida Project, while told from young Moonie’s perspective, featured the challenges her mother, a sex worker, faced in Orlando. Red Rocket continues this trend but with a male sex worker. While Baker has always presented characters who challenge us to like them in certain moments, none of them have been as challenging to wrestle with as Mikey. Filmed during COVID, the director pulls this picture off without a hitch, delivering a searing image of America in the last few years of decline.