June 2024 – Page 3 – PopCult Reviews

Solo Tabletop RPG Review & Actual Play – Mothership 1e Part Two

You can purchase the Mothership 1e Core Set here.

You can read the rules for solo and wardenless play in Mothership 1e here.

In our first part, I went over the basics of the system and chose Android as my class while also fleshing out the world’s backstory.

Each class in Mothership has different modifications in the character creation process. As an Android, I got to add an additional 20 to my Intellect, making it a total of 52. My Strength, Speed, and Combat scores are all in the low to mid-30s, so it may sound like Intellect will dominate. Remember, this is a d100 system, so while 52 is much larger, it doesn’t astronomically improve my chances of success. I also had to subtract 10 from another Stat of my choice, which I chose Combat for. Mothership is a game where Combat is typically deadly anyway, especially against the entities you’ll face, and I don’t see Jerome as someone programmed with combat in mind, more compliance to corporate policy.

Movie Review – Steel Magnolias

Steel Magnolias (1989)
Written by Robert Harling
Directed by Herbert Ross

The stage play-to-screen adaptation is fascinating to me. Works produced initially in the theater are restricted by money & the physical space. The original stage production of Steel Magnolias took place entirely in Truvy’s beauty salon, but we expect more movement and locations for a film. I’ve never seen a production of the play, but I felt I could still see the seams where new things were sewn on, and that wasn’t bad. It highlights how much more narratively developed the women are in this story than the male characters who don’t appear in the play. The film is much stronger when the story focuses on the relationships between the women. It falters a lot when it shifts focus to their interactions with the men.

July Film Series Poll

I have a poll on our Patreon that is one of the rare ones open to the public. I’ll include voting You can choose which film series will make up the last two weeks of July. Your choices are:

Fantasy Worlds on Film – 1980s sword & sorcery style tales
The Last Unicorn, Dragonslayer, Conan the Barbarian, The Neverending Story, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen

Contemporary Filmmaking Women – movies made by female filmmakers working today
The Chambermaid, Happy as Lazzaro, Pariah, The Second Mother, Capernaum

French Film Noir – The French take on the very American genre of Noir
Bob le flambeur, Rififi, Shoot the Piano Player, Le Samourai, Le Cercle Rouge

Movie Review – Mystery Train

Mystery Train (1989)
Written and directed by Jim Jarmusch

Like Soderbergh, van Sant, and Linklater, Jim Jarmusch is a director who rose to prominence during this period, and I’m not sure how I feel about him. There are Jarmusch films I love (Paterson, Broken Flowers, Ghost Dog), while others I’m a bit more confounded by. I still need to watch his first two films as I hear tremendous things. Like several of his other pictures, Mystery Train is actually a series of short films with wraparound scenes that connect them. It seems to be a structure he’s very comfortable working in, using vignettes about different characters in the same place or moments from the same character’s life. His movies have such a relaxed feeling about them, a mishmash of Laurel & Hardy and David Lynch at times, and are old-fashioned but feel incredibly fresh.

Movie Review – Drugstore Cowboy

Drugstore Cowboy (1989)
Written by Daniel Yost and Gus van Sant
Directed by Gus van Sant

Gus van Sant joins a growing list of directors who came to the forefront in the late 80s/early 90s, and I’m not sure how I feel about them. Previously, I’d discussed this about Steven Soderbergh and sex, lies, and videotape. On the most recent episode of the podcast, we reviewed Richard Linklater’s Hit Man, and I remarked how I’m very up and down with his body of work. For Van Sant, My Own Private Idaho will forever be an impossible film to beat. It is a full-fledged American cinematic masterpiece, so I was very interested in stepping back into the film just before and seeing what he had made. A considerable section of his fanbase declares this as their favorite of his movies.

TV Review – Outer Range Season Two

Outer Range Season Two (2024)
Written by Cameron Litvack, Glenise Mullins, Dagny Atencio Looper, Jenna Westover, Doug Petrie, Marilyn Thomas, Aïda Mashaka Croal, and Randy Redroad
Directed by Gwyneth Horder-Payton, Deborah Kampmeier, Blackhorse Lowe, Josh Brolin, and Catriona McKenzie

Outer Range was one of my most pleasant streaming TV surprises in 2022. This Amazon series was different from what I expected after seeing the promotional images of Josh Brolin in a cowboy hat standing in a field. My assumption was that this was some Yellowstone copycat. I could not have been more wrong. Instead, I found a complex and bizarre show about a man displaced in time & space and the odd ripples that seemed to have in his personal life and community. The end of season one dropped a significant twist (which I may have to talk about in this review, so beware if spoilers are a thing for you) that excited me to see where the show went next. Then news of strife behind the scenes came out, and I wondered if we would ever see season two. We have now, but not without dramatic changes, which have altered the original tone.

PopCult Podcast – Hit Man/Riddle of Fire

Richard Linklater’s latest places Glen Powell in the shoes of a pretend hired killer. Then, we visit a 16mm dreamworld where three kids are on a quest to make a blueberry pie.

Solo Tabletop Review & Actual Play – Sundered Isles Part Two

You can purchase Sundered Isles here.
You can purchase Starforged here.
You can purchase Sea of Sands here.

Read Part One here to see what we rolled up to begin our worldbuilding

Now that I have roughly sketched out my character through some rolls and the settlement I’ll be visiting first, it is time to fill in the details. Before I do, here are the islands I rolled to generate The Crimson Gulf, this opening region to the game.

Solo Tabletop RPG Review & Actual Play – Mothership 1e Part One

You can purchase the Mothership 1e Core Set here.

You can purchase Dead Planet here.

You can read the rules for solo and wardenless play in Mothership 1e here.

With the release of the trailer for Alien: Romulus, a game like Mothership 1e will likely get a new wave of attention. Like the film that originated that franchise, Mothership is a science fiction horror system where players are a starship’s crew in a dystopic future. They encounter horrific supernatural phenomena that they cannot defeat, so escape and survival are the only options on the table. There are many warnings in the game materials that this is the type of game where extreme horror can happen, but that is fine-tuned based on the table you are playing at. This isn’t a game where you get attached to your character and get precious about them.

Movie Review – The Abyss

The Abyss (1989)
Written and directed by James Cameron

I think James Cameron is neurodivergent, and his prominent special interest is the ocean. This is apparent when you examine his work’s direction from The Abyss to the present. Water and the life that teems within it are fascinating to the man. We can see that coming to the forefront with this film as he spends more time showing off some early digital effects, but more so the gorgeous underwater photography. When you realize this was 1989, it really does sound like a film you would expect to see in the mid-1990s or later. In that way, Cameron is ahead of the curve. It’s a shame the story and the characters are given short shrift here.