1990s – Page 5 – PopCult Reviews

Comic Book Review – Palestine

Palestine (Fantagraphics)
Written and illustrated by Joe Sacco

Journalist/cartoonist Joe Sacco visited the Palestinian territory during the First Intifada (1987-1993). You may have seen the word, Intifada lately, and, depending on how you had explained it to you, you very possibly got the wrong definition. The Intifada was a period of sustained protest and civil disobedience by Palestinians against the Israeli occupation. 1987 was the twentieth anniversary of the Arab-Israeli War, which saw the occupation seizing even more territory, pushing the indigenous Palestinians into smaller & smaller walled-off spaces. Sacco spent a lot of time visiting the West Bank and Gaza Strip, having conversations with Palestinians of all ages who had all experienced brutality at the hands of the Western occupying force. He recreates these moments in this incredibly moving graphic novel.

TV Review – Northern Exposure Season One

Northern Exposure Season One (CBS)
Written by Joshua Brand, John Falsey, Stuart Stevens, Karen Hall, Jerry Stahl, Sean Clark, David Assael, Steve Wasserman, Jessica Klein, and Charles Rosin
Directed by Joshua Brand, Peter O’Fallon, Steve Cragg, Dan Lerner, David Carson, Sandy Smolan, Max Tash

I was a weird kid, if you haven’t picked up on it. I read TV Guide every week when I had access to it. It was through reading that magazine that I came to learn about the show Northern Exposure and the comparisons to Twin Peaks. I watched that program as a kid, and on rare occasions, I caught an episode of Northern Exposure. What I liked about Twin Peaks was the horror of it, and this show about a small town in Alaska didn’t have any of it. Many decades later, I still hear very positive things about Northern Exposure and decided I should sit down and watch it with more mature eyes.

Movie Review – Jackie Brown

Jackie Brown (1997)
Written and directed by Quentin Tarantino

Saying a lot has been written about Quentin Tarantino’s films would be an understatement. I think it would be safe to say that Jackie Brown is the film the least written about or regarded with the least awe. It was the filmmaker’s follow-up to Pulp Fiction, and such “next movies” can fail to live up to eager fans’ expectations. Brown is a far more muted picture than we have come to expect from Tarantino. There are a few loud stylistic flourishes, but for the most part, the picture is entirely character-driven. The result is something that still feels very fresh despite being made twenty-five years ago. Other movies will age poorly, but Tarantino’s work always feels like it could have been made today.

Movie Review – Chungking Express

Chungking Express (1994)
Written and directed by Wong Kar-wai

The Chungking Mansions is a building located in Kowloon, Hong Kong. It was intended as a residential building but ended up being partitioned into many independent low-budget hotels, shops, and other services. There’s a mix of selling directly to the public and wholesalers from these businesses. Because it has become so unlike its original intent, the Chungking Mansions are often compared to the now-demolished Kowloon Walled City. Wong Kar-wai grew up in the Mansions, and their densely packed environment shaped his sensibilities as a filmmaker. So many people in such a small space meant many stories, relationships, and conflicts.

Comic Book Review – Starman Omnibus Volume Two

Starman Omnibus Volume Two (2022)
Reprints All-Star Comics 80-Page Giant #1, Batman/Hellboy/Starman #1-2, JSA: All-Stars #4, Starman #44-81, Starman #1,000,000, Starman: The Mist #1, Starman/Congorilla #1, Stars and STRIPE #0, and The Shade #1-12
Written by James Robinson with David Goyer & Geoff Johns
Art by Tony Harris, Peter Snejbjerg, Mike Mayhew, Dave Ross, Mike Mignola, Mike Mckone, John Lucas, Brett Booth, Lee Moder, Cully Hamner

The second half of James Robinson’s Starman is mainly comprised of two storylines: Stars My Destination and Grand Guignol. Intermixed within are Times Past stories, filling in gaps in the backstories of the Golden Age Starman and Scalphunter. There’s a brief interlude for the DC One Million crossover that Robinson still uses to build on the legacy themes so prominent in this work. It should also be noted how popular Starman was at this point. It was enough to warrant a crossover with Batman and Hellboy. That’s amazing for a character who took his bow in the last issue of his series and hasn’t been seen since. Very few comic book superheroes get this sort of finality to their story. Yet, DC has never brought Jack Knight back.

Comic Book Review – Starman: The Cosmic Omnibus Volume One

Starman: The Cosmic Omnibus (2020)
Reprints Starman #0-42, Starman Annual #1, The Shade #1-4, Starman Secret Files #1, and The Power of Shazam #35-36
Written by James Robinson (with Jerry Ordway)
Art by Tony Harris, Teddy Kristiansen, Kim Hagen, Bjarne Hansen, Christian Højgaard, Guy Davis, J.H. Williams III, Gary Erskine, Steve Yeowell, Craig Hamilton, Dusty Abell, Jerry Ordway, Ray Snyder, Matthew Smith

James Robinson walked so Geoff Johns could run. In 1995, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Crisis on Infinite Earths, DC Comics rolled out Zero Hour: A Crisis in Time. By the end of the mini-series, things were more or less the same with a few tweaks. Part of the changes was the rollout of a handful of new titles: Extreme Justice and REBELS continued storylines started in the pages of Justice League America and LEGION, respectively. Manhunter and Fate introduced new characters using legacy names. Primal Force was a magic title, while Xenobrood was about human-alien hybrids, seeming like a play on some of Image’s popular books. None of these last very long. There would only be one book post-Zero Hour that would go the distance and run for 81 issues, Starman.

Movie Review – Topsy-Turvy

Topsy-Turvy (1999)
Written and directed by Mike Leigh

Following the success of Secrets & Lies, Mike Leigh got more financial backing for his next project. It would be his first foray into making a historical film, and of course, it would focus on something closely associated with the British. In this case it was the comic operas of Gilbert & Sullivan. While critics loved the picture & it won two Oscars for design, audiences did not show up like they did for the last one. Topsy-Turvy failed to make back its budget, but this would not be the end of Leigh’s exploration of England’s past. In the meantime, he gave us a very different style of historical film that doesn’t try to hide some of the uglier aspects of the time.

Movie Review – Secrets & Lies

Secrets & Lies (1996)
Written and directed by Mike Leigh

Mike Leigh has presented us with some of the best British female film performances of the latter half of the 20th century. He has a troupe of performers, many of whom are fantastic actresses – Alison Steadman, Ruth Sheen, Katrin Cartildge, and Sally Hawkins. The crown jewel among them is Lesley Manville, but more on her in a later review. It doesn’t surprise me that a filmmaker can bring out such strong performances with actresses he’s been collaborating with for decades. The rapport they share must be as smooth as butter by this point. The even more impressive feat is when he can get that same level of performance out of an actress he’s working with for the first time. Secrets & Lies provides two of these performances and is one of Leigh’s finest achievements.

Movie Review – Naked

Naked (1993)
Written and directed by Mike Leigh

For those not alive in the 1990s, a specific element is difficult to recapture. Due to a simplistic view of numbers, many people felt doom & gloom over the fact that the calendar would one day soon start with “20” rather than “19.” It sounds quaint compared to today’s world, where nothing seemed entirely significant about “2020” until there was. I do think the Cold War fueled many of the anxieties of the 1980s and preceding decades, but with “communism defeated,” you’d think the children of the West would be enjoying an endless capitalist bacchanal. It wasn’t the case because capitalism was spiraling; it was a long journey from the edge of the sink to the bottom. Mike Leigh was feeling that gloom; the conservative Thatcher era in the UK had left so many people barely holding on by a thread, and with that economic crush, they were becoming nastier to each other.

Movie Review – Life is Sweet

Life Is Sweet (1990)
Written and directed by Mike Leigh

Mike Leigh could be seen as a director who makes funny little movies about British working-class people’s lives. That is true to an extent. However, there’s so much more happening under the surface of these films, which is Leigh pointing out to us how complex & nuanced lives we see as surface-level can be. Our lives are more complicated than someone like Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg. We experience life more fully than them, as we are still in contact with what makes us part of the natural world: the struggle for survival. Being working-class in the West is very complex, as you’ve been afforded some distractions & escapes that people in the developing world can only dream of. Yet, you still experience regular anxiety over housing/bills/food/etc. Life is often complicated by our perspective and class position.