Seth Harris

Movie Review – Romeo + Juliet

William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet (1996)
Written by William Shakespeare & Craig Pearce and Baz Luhrmann
Directed by Baz Luhrmann

Romeo + Juliet exists as the confluence of two things. The first was the Shakespeare boom of the 1990s when films based on or inspired by his work had a moment in popular culture. At the same time, Australian director Baz Luhrmann received heaps of praise for his directorial debut, Strictly Ballroom. Luhrman’s approach to the text was that he saw Shakespeare as a writer for the masses, and thus, if the Bard made a contemporary feature film, it would be bold & loud. Luhrmann reasoned the popular entertainment of the day were things like bear-baiting and prostitution; Shakespeare would have played things in a way that kept the crowds happy.

Movie Review – Richard III

Richard III (1995)
Written by William Shakespeare & Ian McKellan and Richard Loncraine
Directed by Richard Loncraine

Shakespeare was no stranger to putting despicable people at the center of his narratives. The point was often to explore them in more complexity than a one-dimensional story might provide. He didn’t excuse evil but wanted to understand how these minds operated. How else can we prevent future evil if we don’t understand the roots of the present one? Richard III is a profoundly evil figure who revels in the suffering he causes others, yet he doesn’t exist in a vacuum. He is the byproduct of a cruel system that inevitably makes people like him.

Comic Book Review – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The IDW Collection Volume One

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The IDW Collection Volume One (2015)
Reprints Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2011) #1-12, Raphael, Michelangelo, Donatello, Leonardo, and Splinter Micro-Series one-shots
Written by Kevin Eastman & Tom Waltz (with Bobby Curnow, Brian Lynch, Erik Burnham
Art by Kevin Eastman, Dan Duncan, Mateus Santoluco, Franco Urru, Andy Kuhn, Valerio Schiti, Sophie Campbell, Charles Paul Wilson III

Since their debut in 1985, there haven’t been many instances where there wasn’t a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles being published. Since 2011, the Turtles’ adventures have been published by IDW. They are the 5th largest comics publisher in the States, having made their way with many licensed books, and currently publish a handful of Star Wars comics outside the Marvel banner. The Turtles have been one of their biggest successes, with a major reboot happening over the last year that has expanded them into a whole line of ongoing books. We’re returning to where it all started with this volume of the first year’s worth of issues.

Weekly Links – 21 Feb 2025

It’s another Weekly Links with things related to media, but also just important things to share. One of those is that all of us need to be getting off the Google teet if at all possible. That’s hard for me because I’ve been on Gmail since 2005. Here is an article sharing some AI-free, encrypted alternatives to Google Docs which I will be trying out to see if they work for me.

Solo Tabletop RPG Actual Play – Everspark Part Six

Read the previous part here.

(I realized I had forgotten about the overarching Spark of Qazid Icebreath’s journey across the sea. So, I went back and made Spark checks for each failure in the previous session. I closed the Spark, meaning Qazid emerges from the waters and decimates Cypress’s hometown of Slumbering Bay.)

The waters beyond Slumbering Bay churned, turning from sapphire to an ice-rimed gray. Then, with a sound like glaciers colliding, Qazid Icebreath rose from the depths. The beast’s massive form, a mountain of jagged frost and barnacle-crusted scales, shed seawater in torrents as it emerged. Its icy mist breath rolled over the docks, freezing fishing boats in place and coating the wooden piers in ice sheets.

Movie Review – Henry V (1989)

Henry V (1989)
Written by William Shakespeare & Kenneth Branagh
Directed by Kenneth Branagh

Many millennials’ earliest film experience with Shakespeare was probably Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet, which we will review soon. However, that was not the start of the Shakespearean renaissance in film. While the Bard’s plays have always been popular in one form or another, Kenneth Branagh’s work produced several of the most complete film adaptations of the stage plays. Henry V was Branagh’s directorial debut, followed by four more pictures (Much Ado About Nothing, Hamlet, Love’s Labour’s Lost, and As You Like It).

Patron Pick – Soundtrack to a Coup D’état

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.

Soundtrack to a Coup D’état (2024)
Written and directed by John Grimonprez

Being a media-obsessed person for my whole life, I have come to a new understanding since my university days about the United States and the way it uses media as a weapon. Depending on how far along your understanding of the mass media’s purpose and how power becomes gained & is wielded, you might not see the reality just beneath the surface. As Michael Parenti said in his book Inventing Reality: The Politics of News Media, “Power is always more secure when cooptive, covert, and manipulative than when nakedly brutish. The support elicited through the control of minds is more durable than the support extracted at the point of a bayonet. The essentially undemocratic nature of the mainstream media, like the other business-dominated institutions of society, must be hidden behind a neutralistic, voluntaristic, pluralistic facade.”

PopCult Podcast – Green Border/Hard Truths

The plight of refugees at the Polish/Belarusian border is spotlighted. Then we spend time with a British woman stuck in her anxiety.

Comic Book Review – Top 10 Compendium

Top 10 Compendium (2022)
Reprints Top 10 #1-12, Smax #1-5, Top 10: The Forty-Niners, Top 10: Beyond the Farthest Precinct #1-5, Top 10: Season Two #1-4, Top Ten: Season Two Special #1
Written by Alan Moore, Phillip De Fillippo, Xander Cannon, and Kevin Cannon
Art by Gene Ha, Xander Cannon, and Jerry Ordway

In 1999, Wildstorm Comics announced a new imprint, America’s Best Comics (ABC). This initiative would be centered around the work of Alan Moore, best known for comics like Watchmen, From Hell, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and more. Titles published under this banner included Promethea (a personal treatise from Moore on his magic beliefs), Tom Strong (an homage to pulp heroes), and the book Top 10 (a police procedural). Moore worked with artist Gene Ha on the first Top 10 mini-series and the follow-up graphic novel The Forty-Niners, with other creatives handling later series. The idea behind Top 10 is an intriguing hook: what would the police be like in a city full of superheroes and other fantastical beings?

Weekly Links – 14 Feb 2025

Happy Valentine’s Day and welcome to my Weekly Links. This is a new type of post I’m trying out to share links to articles I come across that are related to pop culture & examine it from interesting perspectives. Hoping you find a good read here.