Seth Harris

Comic Book Review – Amazing Spider-Man Epic Collection: Spider-Man No More

Amazing Spider-Man Epic Collection: Spider-Man No More (2018)
Reprints Amazing Spider-Man #39-52, Amazing Spider-Man Annual #3-4, and Not Brand Echh #2
Written by Stan Lee
Art by John Romita, Larry Lieber, Don Heck, and Marie Severin

Steve Ditko was gone and with him ended the first era of Spider-Man. This second era wasn’t going to be a downturn in quality, though. Stan Lee brought in artist John Romita whose style would become the standard for how Spider-Man was presented even outside the comics for decades to come. Romita’s art is different from Ditko’s. Where the former artist portrayed Spider-Man/Peter Parker as a spindly, almost spidery lanky fellow, Romita bulked the character up a bit. His muscle mass increased, but not too much, and the glasses disappeared. This wasn’t a Spider-Man who was a 90-pound weakling anymore. However, he was still an outcast to a degree. His dual identity was even more of a problem going forward as Peter tried to engage in serious adult relationships. The power and the responsibility that followed plagued every chance Peter had at happiness.

Movie Review – Grey Gardens

Grey Gardens (1975)
Directed by David Maysles, Albert Maysles, Ellen Hovde, and Muffie Meyer

In Harlan County, USA, we were reminded of the recent history of the ongoing war between Labor and Capitalism. It’s easy to forget how close we are to profound historical movements and that these conflicts never ended; they merely changed shape. The Gilded Age, one of the most horrific periods for Labor, was not as far back as we like to think, and in The Maysles’ Grey Gardens, a woman born during that period is prominently featured. History doesn’t have a stopping point; one moment flows into the next and carries humanity forward, and with it comes many of the unacknowledged problems of those eras, mixing with the issues of contemporary periods. Cultural detritus lodges itself into the culture’s psyche and leads to horrors. The story of the Beales is a horror story like that, neglect and the decay of beautiful things.

Movie Review – Harlan County USA

Harlan County USA (1976)
Directed by Barbara Kopple

Like sand, our memory of history in the United States slips so easily between our fingers that we have forgotten far more than we remember. In this way, film is an act of preservation, the attempt to secure moments in our past in a manner that words cannot. The story of the American worker is one that was ground down almost to nothing in the hands of the Reagan Administration and on into the Clinton Administration, Bush Jr, Obama, Trump, and now today. Many promising new unions are being formed, and it is clear younger people want to embrace that collective strength that is far more potent than the individualism that only leads to ruin & alienation. Barbara Kopple understands the importance of unions and who leads them, which brought her to Harlan County, Kentucky, in 1973.

Movie Review – Salesman

Salesman (1969)
Directed by Albert Maysles, David Maysles, and Charlotte Zwerin

Cinéma vérité is a style of documentary filmmaking. It was developed by French philosopher Edgar Morin and his equally French collaborator Jean Rouch who made movies as an anthropologist. In turn, these two gentlemen derived the idea from Kino-Pravda, a series of 23 newsreels produced in the 1920s. Kino-Pravda translated from Russian into English as “film-truth,” with the intent to capture life unstaged & unperformed, simply as it happens.

Cinéma vérité is often referred to as the “observational style” of documentary filmmaking. There are rarely staged interviews; instead, the director and/or camera operator might have a conversation with the subject, and often their portions are pared down as much as possible so that the subject is the focus of all action. The goal is that the truth of the subject is revealed through what they say, akin to talk therapy in many ways, having them go through the actions of their life, resulting in their commentary on their own actions and then the realization of the meaning of their life. Or the reverse, the subject comes to no realization, but the audience expands their understanding of the human experience through observing a person in their natural environment.

January 2023 Posting Schedule

December 2022 saw another 6,000+ views/month. For the year, PopCult clocked over 39,000 total views, showing 117% growth in views from 2021. For more on that and other changes coming to PopCult, check out The State of the Blog 2023. Onto the schedule for January.

New Movie Reviews

TBD

Film Series Schedule

Jan 2 thru 16 – The Great American Documentaries, Volume I

Salesman, Harlan County USA, Grey Gardens, Streetwise, Roger & Me, Hoop Dreams, American Movie

Jan 18 thru 27 – Overlooked Films of the 1990s Part 1

Living in Oblivion, What About Bob?, The Fisher King, Arlington Road, A Simple Plan

State of the Blog 2023

Introduction

Every year around this time, you hear some people saying some form of, “I’m so glad to have X year in the rearview mirror; Y year is going to be so much better,” only for the same shit that plagued the previous year to just follow on into the next. I have noticed less of that this year. The Western world is at the start of a wake-up call, with Europe & North America being forced into situations where inflation & energy costs are driving their populations into deeper poverty than previously experienced.

November/December 2022 Digest

Features
Most Anticipated Movies of 2022 Review
Seth’s Favorite Books Read in 2022
Ariana’s Favorite Books Read in 2022
Ariana’s Favorite Comics Read in 2022
Seth’s Favorite Comics Read in 2022
Seth’s Favorite Television of 2022
Ariana’s Favorite Television of 2022
Seth’s Favorite Film Discoveries of 2022
Seth’s Favorite Films of 2022
Ariana’s Favorite Films of 2022
Patron Pick – Sweet Smell of Success [Matt]
Patron Pick – One True Thing [Bekah]
Patron Pick – Before Sunrise [Matt]
Patron Pick – Slumberland [Bekah]

Movie Review – White Noise

White Noise (2022)
Written & Directed by Noah Baumbach

Yeah, so American cinema is a corpse. To end my year on this movie is a sign that I need to slowly withdraw my time & energy from the majority of mainstream films coming out of the United States. Noah Baumbach was never one of my favorite directors, but I have enjoyed some of his recent work, especially his films on Netflix (The Meyerowitz Stories, Marriage Story). And I didn’t balk at the idea of him writing & directing an adaptation of Don DeLillo’s White Noise, a book I’ve read twice and enjoy quite a bit. Baumbach seemed an excellent fit to bring a very unfilmable novel to the big screen. Then the first trailer dropped, and I started to question the tone. And then I watched the movie.

PopCult Podcast – Top 5 Favorite Films of 2022/Favorite Video Games Comics, Books, and TV of 2022

2022 is over, so let us look back at the things we loved from it.

Seth’s Favorite Films of 2022

Yes, that movie you think should be on the list is not here. I did see it. I just didn’t feel a connection to it like you did. I’m glad you liked it though. That’s the thing with these lists and why I specifically label them as my “favorites” and not “the best.” I don’t quite know how to really qualify what makes something “the best” but I can talk about why I personally love a film or a book or anything. And this is a time of year I love because I think back on what I saw and in particular what stuck with me.

This year I noticed some themes. One of them was women in difficult situations fighting their way out somehow. I also saw movies about children without guidance, having to grow up way too fast. There are a lot of films here that are angry, the creators have been thinking about something in the world that isn’t right and they are expressing that rage in their work. 2022 was not an easy year and it certainly has shown that things are likely going to get worse for the planet if they ever get better at all. You and I can do what we can in our own small ways. One of those ways is the expression of ourselves through art, like these fine filmmakers have done. It’s a powerful thing to say how you feel and allow others to know they aren’t alone in this cold, harsh world. On to the movies!