January 2024 – PopCult Reviews

Solo Tabletop RPG Review & Actual Play – Into the Odd Part Two

Into the Odd Remastered (Mophidius)
Written and designed by Chris McDowell
Graphic design by Johan Nohr

You can purchase this game here.
Read Part One here.

The treasure hunters feel along The Coral’s spongey-smooth exterior, careful not to slice a hand open on the jagged bits and edges of the cracked shell. Edmund holds out his hand and helps Poddin step onto the outcropping of sand between the Coral and a gray morning tide sloshing in and out. She points out a large opening they could use to enter the structure and step closer. It’s a sandy slope that likely fills up at high tide. It’s dark down there. Poddin goes first, sliding down on her bottom, reaching the Pit, and turning her lantern on. Edmund comes down shortly after that.

Movie Review – Gaza Fights For Freedom

Gaza Fights For Freedom (2019)
Written by Abby Martin and Mike Prysner
Directed by Abby Martin

You can watch this documentary in its entirety here. It is age-restricted so I cannot embed it, sadly.

One of the talking points of the pro-occupation crowd is to talk incessantly about 7 October 2023. If you respond by bringing up other relevant dates and incidents that establish a slow-rolling genocide, the counterargument is that they are talking about “right now,” not the “ancient past.” When asked for their justifications of why the occupying force should have any claim in Palestine, they will respond with “evidence” from a dubious religious text by practitioners of the religion this occupying force has appropriated that this is their homeland circa two millennia earlier.

PopCult Podcast – All That Jazz/Mikey and Nicky

The new movies we want to see just aren’t available to us yet. So we dipped into the ol’ Letterboxd watchlist and pulled out two classics from the 1970s we’ve needed to watch.

Solo Tabletop RPG Review & Actual Play – Into the Odd Part One

Into the Odd Remastered (Mophidius)
Written and designed by Chris McDowell
Graphic design by Johan Nohr

You can purchase this game here.
You can read Part Two here.

Into the Odd is another in the OSR subgenre of tabletop roleplaying games. See my first post about Mork Borg for a more detailed definition of what OSR is, but the short one is it is a throwback to the original way of playing Dungeons & Dragons mixed with more contemporary elements. The result is gaming experiences with the nostalgic familiarity longtime players enjoy, with fresh takes that can help bring in new players. Into the Odd is a game I have heard a lot about since it began development in the mid-2010s. Chris McDowell hasn’t sat on his laurels and continues to refine the system with additions like Electric Bastionland and the recently funded Mythic Bastionland. Into the Odd has also inspired further hacks like Cairn and Knave, which have inspired more games. These come up fairly often as solo-friendly systems, so I decided to start at the source and, over time, try out the others to see which one I mesh best with.

Patron Pick – Wonka

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

Wonka (2023)
Written by Simon Farnaby and Paul King
Directed by Paul King

Why? Why was this movie? Yes, I know it was made because a series of corporations made legal acquisitions of the film rights to Roald Dahl’s writings, and so they made the movie to recoup the costs spent on purchasing the rights with the idea of also turning a profit. What I am asking is why, from a creative perspective, does this film exist? What does this add to one’s appreciation of Dahl’s original novel or the character of Willy Wonka? Nothing about this film feels like it has anything to do with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory besides Wonka and Oompa-Loompas. I would go so far as to argue that not one of the three live-action appearances of Wonka on film does the book character justice, as much as I love Gene Wilder.

Comic Book Review – The Uncanny X-Men Omnibus Volume Four

The Uncanny X-Men Omnibus Volume Four (2021)
Reprints Uncanny X-Men #176-193, X-Men Annual #8, Kitty Pryde and Wolverine #1-6, X-Men and Alpha Flight #1-2, and Marvel Fanfare #40
Written by Chris Claremont (w/Barry Windsor-Smith)
Art by John Romita, Jr, Al Milgrom, Paul Smith, Barry Windsor-Smith, Steve Leialoha, and Craig Hamilton

The Uncanny X-Men was approaching a period of massive changes. This collection ends with Claremont’s 100th issue on the title, and you can feel him searching for new threads to connect old ideas with fresh ones. Issue 176 sees two prologues, one to a story that just feels like treading water, and the other is something that will develop over the next few months.

Movie Review – It Must Be Heaven

It Must Be Heaven (2019)
Written and directed by Elia Suleiman

Like most artists, Elia Suleiman has specific elements he wants to continually examine, looking at them from different angles and revisiting images from his past to see if time has changed their meaning. After watching four films from Suleiman, I see how some critics would say he keeps making the same movie to an extent. These movies will always have Suleiman playing some version of himself. The persona he presents will be a nearly silent, deadpan one. The story will be told in vignettes that work in isolation but can also be viewed collectively to make something more significant. Suleiman is playing the Holy Fool and, through that lens, can observe the world in ways the rest of us cannot.

Patron Pick – All Good Things

All Good Things (2010)
Written by Marcus Hinchey and Marc Smerling
Directed by Andrew Jarecki

Just because a recipe looks good on paper does not mean the final dish will be a masterpiece. Let us peruse the ingredients list for All Good Things. The cast is stacked: Ryan Gosling, Kirstin Dunst, Frank Langella, Philip Baker Hall, Nick Offerman, Kristen Wiig, Lily Rabe. Not a bad line-up at all. The cinematographer worked on Alfonso Cuaron’s Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, among many other films. The director, Andrew Jarecki, had wowed audiences with his documentary Capturing the Friedmans seven years earlier. But it is in this last ingredient we have identified the problem. Jarecki made a fantastic documentary, but that is different from a narrative feature, and this film stands as a great example of how success in one does not translate into the other.

Movie Review – Omar

Omar (2013)
Written and directed by Hany Abu-Assad

I won’t say any more on this, but the ending of Omar is one of the most satisfying conclusions I have ever seen in a film, yet it still leaves a bittersweet taste in your mouth. This is filmmaker Hany Abu-Assad’s first writer/director gig. He’d previously directed but co-written with one or more people. While not having seen that much of his work, the breakout film Paradise Now has always resonated with me. I was curious to see what story he had to tell after such an intense character-focused narrative. Once again, we get another narrative about a young Palestinian man caught in difficult circumstances, his friendships being challenged, and a moment hurtling toward him where he must make a decision that will shape the rest of his life going forward.

TV Review – The Venture Brothers Season Six

The Venture Brothers Season Six (Adult Swim)
Written by Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer
Directed by Jackson Publick & Juno Lee

If you weren’t around or paying attention when these seasons were aired initially, you wouldn’t understand the vast chasms of time fans had to wait for the next installment. The time between the end of season one and the start of season five encompasses eleven years. A lot happened in the world and in popular media during that time, and often, it took a little while for the show to reflect those changes. One thing I wondered when I sat down to finally watch the entire Venture Brothers series was if, at any point, the emergence of the Marvel Cinematic Universe would play a role. With season six, we finally got to that point. It is, in my opinion, the superhero season.