Seth Harris

Movie Review – A Fistful of Dollars

A Fistful of Dollars (1964)
Written by Sergio Leone, Adriano Bolzoni, Víctor Andrés Catena, Mark Lowell, Víctor Andrés Catena, Jaime Comas Gil, Fernando Di Leo, Duccio Tessari, and Tonino Valerii
Directed by Sergio Leone

The Western is an American storytelling genre predicated on the myths of Western Expansion and Manifest Destiny. Starting with dime story paperbacks and evolving into radio plays, comic books, films, and television, Westerns were even more prominent than Marvel movies at their peak. Their influence was so considerable that Westerns and gangster pictures became the exclusive representation of American cinema abroad. Italian director Sergio Leone grew up as the child of a film director and silent movie actress, so he was constantly exposed to moviemaking. Historical epics, nicknamed “swords and sandals,” were the popular genre films of the 1950s in Italy, but they fell out of favor as the decade closed out. So Leone decided to combine his love of samurai movies (particularly Akira Kurosawa’s work) and Westerns and make his own in the wilds of Spain. Nicknamed “Spaghetti Westerns” due to their Italian origins, this subgenre managed to reignite new interest. They challenged American directors’ rose-colored depictions of the West and presented the audience with a much darker, violent, and sexually threatening frontier.

November 2022 Posting Schedule

PopCult Reviews has seen its highest view count for the third month in a row. In July, there were over 2,900 views. In August, that number passed 3,300. It topped in September with over 3,400 views. And now October has blown away that number with nearly 3,900 views. This year is well on its way to being the most-viewed period in the blog’s history, moving towards 10,000 more views than 2021. The podcast is, of course, not as listened to as much as the blog is viewed, but we pulled in 41 listens for October, which is much larger than October 2021.

Fall 2022 Digest

Features
Patron Pick – Funny Pages [Matt]
Patron Pick – The Spy Who Came in From the Cold [Bekah]
Patron Pick – House of Games [Matt]
Patron Pick – The War of the Roses [Bekah]
Book Update – Sept/Oct 2022

Book Update – September/October 2022

White Noise
by Don DeLillo

Jack Gladney is a Professor of Hitler Studies at his Midwestern college. He’s married to Babette, his fourth wife, and they live with four children to make up their contemporary, for 1985, family. Consumerism dominates the family discourse; everything is analyzed through this critical lens. The pressures of modernity manifest in the form of a toxic airborne event that threatens to kill anyone exposed to it within 30-40 years. Death is a constant theme in this family’s life despite never really coming close to it. Their fears are based more on the concepts of mortality and the idea of being the last one left and watching the others pass away. To remedy this, Babette begins taking an experimental medication behind Jack’s back that makes her immune to these morbid thoughts but also distances her from the family as a side effect.

PopCult Podcast – Pearl/Top 5 Horror Films/Barbarian

The horror is upon us with this Halloween special. Learn the terrifying truth about the girl on the farm. Marvel at the best horror has to offer. And journey into the depths of an AirBnB gone wrong.

Patron Pick – The War of the Roses

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.

The War of the Roses (1989)
Written by Michael J. Leeson
Directed by Danny DeVito

In the 1980s, a rather unconventional trio of actors paired together on three projects. These were Kathleen Turner, Michael Douglas, and Danny DeVito, starting with Robert Zemeckis’ Romancing the Stone in 1984 and continuing into its sequel, The Jewel of the Nile, in 1985. DeVito brought them all back together for this, his third directorial outing. Why did audiences seem to love these three together? They certainly have good chemistry together, and the conflict between them is very satisfying to watch. Turner & Douglas as a screen couple seems more traditional, but the addition of DeVito as a semi-antagonistic role in these pictures pushes it into a much more satisfying space. What does he bring to the table that makes it all feel complete?

Movie Review – Don’t Worry Darling

Don’t Worry Darling (2022)
Written by Carey Van Dyke, Shane Van Dyke, and Katie Silberman
Directed by Olivia Wilde

On May 16, 2021, it was reported that AT&T had been offered to divest interest in WarnerMedia and merge it with Discovery Inc to form a new publicly traded company. The following month it was revealed that the new name of this company would be Warner Bros. Discovery. On March 11, 2022, the merger was approved by Discovery’s shareholders, and the processor of compliance with regulators from around the world began. By the summer of 2022, the deal was done. David Zaslav was named CEO of this newly merged company, and throughout August and September 2022, he oversaw the reorganization of HBOMax. This garnered significant media attention as dozens of programs and films were shelved. Some had been complete for a while, while others were in the midst of production or post-production. The reasoning behind pulling this content was cited as to balance the significant debt handed over to Discovery from their acquisition. The removal of these pieces of entertainment would allow Warner Bros. Discovery to write the losses off on taxes. In September, the company announced they only had the finances to release two films for the remainder of 2022: Black Adam and Don’t Worry Darling.

Comic Book Review – X-Men Epic Collection: It’s Always Darkest Before the Dawn

X-Men Epic Collection: It’s Always Darkest Before the Dawn (2019)
Reprints Amazing Adventures #11-17, Amazing Spider-Man #92, Incredible Hulk #150, 161, 172 & 180-182, Marvel Team-Up #4 & 23, Avengers #110-111, Captain America #172-175, Defenders #15-16, and Giant-Size Fantastic Four #4
Written by Steve Englehart, Len Wein, Gerry Conway, Stan Lee, Roy Thomas, Archie Goodwin, Mike Friedrich, Tony Isabella, & Chris Claremont
Art by Sal Buscema, Tom Sutton, Herb Trimpe, Gil Kane, Don Heck, John Buscema, Bob Brown & Jim Starlin

This is the easiest to pass up of all the original X-Men Epic Collections. It takes place in the gap between the initial run and Chris Claremont’s takeover in 1974, so we have a lot of short arcs with the X-Men guest-starring in other books. That was my mindset at first, but the more I’ve thought about it, the more I see this as a flame carried by people who loved these characters. It would have been easy to let the X-Men slide into obscurity like many other characters whose books got canceled. They could have fallen into comic book limbo, but because writer/editor Len Wein believed in the concept, he and other creators kept finding places for these mutant heroes to pop up.

Movie Review – Scream (2022)

Scream (2022)
Written by James Vanderbilt & Guy Busick
Directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillett

Eleven years after Scream 4, yet another sequel was released. However, unlike the previous films, this was the first entry that Wes Craven did not direct, as he passed away in 2015. This would cause an attempt to jumpstart a new trilogy to be helmed by new creators. As Scream is a continuous meta-commentary not just on horror but the nature of sequels and franchises now, this puts it in the same place as Star Wars, whose sequel trilogy was helmed by an entirely new creative team. As you would expect, this is a fact hinted at in the film. There’s even a pivot from a focus on the franchise’s original heroes to a younger generation and the death of one of our longtime players that serve as motivation for the hero to stop Ghostface. But does it live up to the original movie while expanding it into new places and ideas?

Movie Review – Scream 4

Scream 4 (2011)
Written by Kevin Williamson
Directed by Wes Craven

Scream 3 seemed to put the lid on this horror franchise, and that was the case for eleven years. In 2008, The Weinstein Company announced Scream 4 was in pre-production. Wes Craven would be returning at age 71 to direct. This would be his final film. In 2010, Kevin Williamson confirmed he would return to the series after having too much on his plate for 2000’s Scream 3. As part of the backstory to the world, Craven shared that Ghostface murders had gone completely extinct in the eleven years between these movies. The Stab film franchise in-universe kept making movies, but Sidney Prescott was able to move on with her life. It seemed like a new chapter was beginning for all the familiar characters as new ones were introduced to take their places.