February 2024 – PopCult Reviews

Book Update – January/February 2024

Hyperion by Dan Simmons

As a teenager, I came across this book in the now-defunct Wizard Magazine. I am trying to remember the context in which it was brought up, but I do remember the striking cover. Years later, when I took Chaucer & Medieval Literature in college, someone told me Hyperion was a retelling of The Canterbury Tales. Only at the end of 2023, at 42, I picked up Dan Simmons’ acclaimed science fiction epic to read. Wow. What an incredible treat to enjoy.

Movie Review – The Venture Brothers: Radiant Is the Blood of the Baboon Heart

The Venture Brothers: Radiant Is the Blood of the Baboon Heart (2023)
Written by Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer
Directed by Jackson Publick

In 2020, series creator Jackson Publick announced on Twitter that Adult Swim had canceled The Venture Brothers. He and co-creator Doc Hammer had been in the middle of writing season eight when they were informed. After eighteen years, Adult Swim decided they no longer wanted more of this show. Publick & Hammer took what they had for season eight and reworked it into a script for an eighty-four-minute feature that would serve as the series finale. This film was released in 2003, marking the 20th anniversary of The Venture Brothers.

Patron Pick – Ferngully: The Last Rainforest

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 Bekah Lindstrom.

Ferngully: The Last Rainforest (1992)
Written by Jim Cox
Directed by Bill Kroyer

The 1990s was a strange time for the environmentalist movement. My perspective was shaped at the time by hyper-conservative Christian fundie parents who, fed by their own propaganda sewer, insisted that anything about protecting nature from corporate greed was “new age, pagan filth.” We didn’t watch Captain Planet in my house for that very reason. Not that I was really missing anything. Upon visiting that show for the first time as an adult, I was very unimpressed, but I can now see also the stuff I did like at the time as very pandering, shallow commercialism. My parents didn’t have a problem with the mass marketing to children part of things; they loved capitalism. All this to say, I never watched Ferngully until this Patron request. Without the rose-colored nostalgia of my childhood to lean on for this one, it is pretty bad as far as kids’ movies go.

Movie Review – A Decade Under the Influence

A Decade Under the Influence (2003)
Directed by Ted Demme and Richard LaGravenese

Across the globe, there have been numerous cinematic movements. Two of the most influential were the French & Italian New Waves. Through revolutionary experimentation with style & content, the artists behind these movements were able to show how film could tell stories far beyond what people had once imagined. These films often touched on political topics, particularly social injustice and hypocrisy among the ruling classes. The United States saw a similar but much smaller film movement in the 1960s, but something different from the upheaval brought about by their European counterparts. John Cassavettes helped birth American independent cinema, but it was not widely recognized at the time. It would be the 1970s when the States would see their own transformation of movies.

TV Review – The Venture Brothers Season Seven

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

The core theme rippling throughout The Venture Brothers has been fathers & sons. This is seen in multiple relationships in the series. There is Rusty Venture and his deceased dad, Dr. Jonas Venture. There’s Hank and Dean in relation to their father. There were more on the edges of the show: Brock’s paternal relationship with Hunter Gathers, Sergeant Hatred’s desperation to be seen as a father figure, and Billy Quizboy having to accept Action Man as his potential stepfather. But that first dynamic, the one between former child adventurer Rusty and his deeply toxic father, was the fuel for this show. With Venture Brothers Season Seven, we open on a three-parter that finally brings closure to that arc.

Movie Review – This Film Is Not Yet Rated

This Film Is Not Yet Rated (2006)
Written by Kirby Dick, Eddie Schmidt, and Matt Patterson
Directed by Kirby Dick

The United States is currently experiencing one of its most consistent features: moral panic. Every generation has gone through multiple cycles of this nonsense, yet we seem to learn nothing from them. Social media is the root of all evil in society. Or it’s LGBTQ people existing. Or it’s an accurate survey of American history. Or it’s rap music, dancing, comic books, video games, television, comprehensive sex education, the list goes on and on and on. Shortly after its creation, the novel was said to be aiding in the decay of society. All these young people spending hours in books thinking about people and places that don’t exist. Oh, the humanity!

PopCult Podcast – All of Us Strangers/The Iron Claw

We finally get to talk about two films from 2023 we have been so excited for. The first is a dreamlike queer fantasy about reckoning with the past so you can start living. The second is the tragic real life story of a professional wrestling dynasty.

Solo Tabletop RPG Review & Actual Play – Wanderhome Part Two

Wanderhome (Possum Creek Games)
Designed and written by Jay Dragon
Book design by Ruby Lavin
Art by Sylvia Bi (cover) and Letty Wilson (interior)

Purchase this book here.

Read Part One here.

On a breezy morning, as the early morning sun cast was shaded by the growing thunderclouds over the swamp’s murky waters, Bernard and Poppy made their next steps in their journey home. With some resourcefulness, they acquired a quaint dinghy from an old possum who’d been successful enough in his fishing business to buy a new one for himself. As the small vessel glided through the winding waterways, Bernard thought back on the kind people he met at Bogmarket and hoped that wherever he and his ward ended up would be as warm & friendly. He rowed day and night, sleeping for a few hours in the early morning sun.

Solo Tabletop RPG Actual Play – Little Town: Bright Hills Episode Six

Little Town
Designed & Written by Gustavo Coelho

You can purchase this game here.

Read the previous episode here.
Start at the beginning of this series here.

April 20
Scene 1 – Time Limit 11
Location: Bright Hills PD, early morning, rainy

Dr. Jasmine Bradley sits in the waiting room of the Bright Hills Police Department. The man whose life she saved last night is in an interrogation room being questioned for the murder of a local teenager. Despite not knowing him for that long, she doesn’t believe he did it. Something beyond the norm is obviously happening in this small Tennessee town. It’s early morning, the sun peeking over the hills, giving the sky a purple-pink shade. The smell of coffee brewing in a pot nearby floats through the station. Deputy Brooks clacks away on a typewriter, writing up a report. Local handyman Red, Brooks’s cousin, emerges from the restroom with his toolbox.

Comic Book Review – The Flintstones Deluxe Edition

The Flintstones Deluxe Edition (2022)
Reprints The Flintstones #1-12 and Booster Gold/Flintstones Special
Written by Mark Russell
Art by Steve Pugh and Rick Leonardi

You might see a Flintstones comic book and think it’s some kiddie fare not worth your time. I thought that too in 2016 when I saw DC Comics was publishing it as part of a line of Hanna Barbera books. I was utterly wrong. In my opinion, this is one of the best comic book runs DC has published in over a decade. Writer Steve Pugh delivers a stunning satirical analysis of life in the United States using the Flintstone family and the world of Bedrock. This book left me wondering why The Flintstones has yet to be rebooted as an animated series in this style. That would be stunning.