Seth Harris

PopCult Podcast – Fallen Leaves/All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt

We’re back with our first two films of the year. One is a Finnish working class romcom inspired by old fashioned movies. The second is a dreamlike expressionistic exploration of a Black woman’s life in Mississippi.

TV Review – The Curse

The Curse (Showtime)
Written by Nathan Fielder, Benny Safdie, and Carrie Kemper
Directed by Nathan Fielder, Nathan Zellner, and David Zellner

I will not sit here and pretend to tell you I know exactly what The Curse was about. Having watched the series only once, that would be an absurd claim to make. Not since Twin Peaks: The Return have I felt I was in the presence of a piece of art that seemed like an impossible thing made reality. The fact that Showtime greenlit this is a monumental achievement. Nathan Fielder enters a new era, taking the themes and threads of his pseudo-documentary programs like Nathan For You and The Rehearsal and developing a narrative experience that is so incredibly rich & dense. He’s also a damn good actor, which reminds us that the Nathan we think we know has always been a performance and not the actual person.

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

The Uncanny X-Men Omnibus Volume Three (2021)
Reprints Uncanny X-Men #154-175, X-Men Annual #6-7, Special Edition X-Men #1, Marvel Graphic Novel #5, Wolverine #1-4, and Magik #1-4
Written by Chris Claremont
Art by Dave Cockrum, Paul Smith, Bill Sienkiewicz, Brent Anderson, Frank Miller, Walter Simonson, John Romita Jr., Michael Golden, Bret Blevins, John Buscema, Ron Frenz, and Sal Buscema

Chris Claremont’s X-Men run began as an engine running on sagas. The Phoenix saga started almost as soon as he began writing the book and dominated for three years. Following that, you had the Kitty Pryde era, where her joining the team and going through growing pains were crucial features. It wasn’t as saga-ish, but it gave us stories like Days of Future Past, which still ripple through X-Men media to this day. In reading these stories, I get the sense Claremont was trying to find the next big arc, but so much of what came out of the writing was circling around the same ideas or characters and fleshing them out a bit more. This is a time when the writer is trying to figure out how X-Men stays relevant and moves from the trappings of Silver Age storytelling into a more modern, mature era.

Movie Review – The Time That Remains

The Time That Remains (2009)
Written and directed by Elia Suleiman

Filmmaker Elia Suleiman tells all his stories through an autobiographical lens. I imagine it can feel overwhelming to tell the story of the Palestinians when you are one of them, especially when multiple experiences are happening at once within the occupied territory. You have the Palestinians of Gaza, the Palestinians of the West Bank, and those who live outside these two yet are still not free. Suleiman presents himself and many of his characters in his work as cold & distant from what is happening. To be in the torment your people have endured for decades just isn’t something that a person can be expected to walk away from with their sanity intact. The camera is another distancing tool and film tropes, too. They allow a person to examine something painful without needing to be directly inside of that pain.

Movie Review – Salt of This Sea

Salt of This Sea (2008)
Written and directed by Annemarie Jacir

One aspect of the Palestinian struggle that I realize I can only intellectually connect with is the connection even those in the diaspora have to the land of Palestine. I can’t say I’ve ever felt a meaningful connection to any place I’ve lived that I couldn’t sever when leaving. I also don’t feel much of a connection to my murky ancestry going back to Ireland, as being a white person in the States means any semblance of cultural roots I have were forfeit for the glorious privilege of strip malls and fast food. So, my understanding of the themes in this film was less emotional than I might have liked, but I get why. This is an experience I just cannot have, but that doesn’t mean I cannot learn something from listening.

Movie Review – Paradise Now

Paradise Now (2005)
Written by Hany Abu-Assad, Bero Beyer, and Pierre Hodgson
Directed by Hany Abu-Assad

It was once said that the suicide bomber was the “poor man’s atomic bomb.” There’s an immediate revulsion many of us in the West have when we see stories or hear about suicide bombings. I think it’s the intimacy of the act. Rarely do you see talking heads on the news react so strongly to stories of drone bombings or Western airstrikes. The suicide bomb seems to be an outgrowth of the act of self-immolation, the act of setting oneself on fire as a form of protest. The argument against suicide bombings has been that they kill many innocent bystanders. I would refer again to the formalized attacks on civilian populations by the West that are not held to this same standard. Paradise Now is the story of a suicide bomber and seeks to understand why a person would feel as if they have no other options to be heard.

PopCult Podcast – 2023 Favorites

After an unexpected series of delays due to illness, we are back to talk about our favorite things and films of 2023.

Solo Tabletop RPG Review & Actual Play – Blades in the Dark Solo Part Two

Read Part One Here.

Inspector Benjamin de Winter stands in the middle of his basement, looking up at the perfect hole cut into the ceiling, a path directly into what had been, until this evening, his secure vault. He crouches down and lifts the gate on the box at his feet. Matte black objects, each a handful, dart out and skitter across the basement floor.

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

The Uncanny X-Men Omnibus Volume Two (2020)
Reprints X-Men #132-141, X-Men Annual #4-5, Uncanny X-Men #142-153, Avengers Annual #10, Marvel Fanfare #1-4, Marvel Treasury Edition #26-27, Marvel Team-Up #100, Bizarre Adventures #27, Phoenix: The Untold Story
Written by Chris Claremont and John Byrne
Art by John Byrne & Dave Cockrum

In my last review, I held back on discussing two characters introduced in the previous couple of issues collected in that omnibus. I’ll talk about them now, as one proves to be a core element to the next phase of Claremont’s run. Emma Frost debuted as part of the Hellfire Club’s first volley to capture Jean Grey and bring her into the fold. I had read these issues years ago and didn’t remember that Emma gets taken off the board fairly quickly. This means when the X-Men finally meet the entire Hellfire Club, Emma is catatonic and not part of the action.

Movie Review – Divine Intervention

Divine Intervention (2002)
Written and directed by Elia Suleiman

Santa Claus runs across a hill near Nazareth in a panic. He’s pursued by a gang of knife-wielding youths. He runs out of steam. They catch up with him. Everything moves so quickly. Santa looks down. The hilt of the knife extends from his chest. He stumbles back. Collapses. That is how Elia Suleiman begins Divine Intervention, another of his vignette comedies. Is this a heavy metaphor about Western culture being driven out by the Palestinian youth, a shocking, dark comedic scene to grab the audience’s attention, or both? My answer is yes.