2008 – PopCult Reviews

Movie Review – Happy-Go-Lucky

Happy-Go-Lucky (2008)
Written and directed by Mike Leigh

I remember when this film came out, and a significant part of the discourse was how annoying the main character was. In revisiting it, I didn’t find that to be true. Oh yes, Poppy is very positive, but she reminded me of the Kindergarten teachers I worked alongside as an elementary teacher. Her seemingly endless cheeriness serves a purpose in Leigh’s story. It’s a protection against the nihilism of the world around her, which I think we all can admit is easy to sink into. I know that in real life, I probably would feel overwhelmed and overstimulated being in Poppy’s presence for long periods. The mistake many characters make, and I suspect it is the same with the audience, is that because Poppy is so cheerful, she must be a fool. And that is not true in the slightest.

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 – The Beaches of Agnes

The Beaches of Agnes (2008)
Written and directed by Agnes Varda

In her 2000 documentary The Gleaners and I, Agnes Varda shared how she had difficulty remembering even recent journeys she had been on. What helped her recall those rich details were the objects & souvenirs she returned with. In The Beaches of Agnes, the director surveys the entirety of her life up to this point, which is quite daunting to remember. To aid in that, she composes a bricolage of items. These trinkets are scattered on various beaches whose locations played a significant role in Varda’s life. The film was made to celebrate the artist’s 80th birthday, and she wonders aloud if this would be her final picture. It would not be, but at this point in her life, each subsequent movie surely felt like the last piece of art she would make.

Comic Book Review – Justice Society of America: Black Adam and Isis

Black Adam: The Dark Age (2008)
Black Adam: The Dark Age #1-6
Written by Peter J. Tomasi
Art by Doug Mahnke

Justice Society of America: Black Adam and Isis (2009)
Reprints Justice Society of America #23-28
Written by Geoff Johns, Jerry Ordway, and Matthew Sturges
Art by Jerry Ordway, Dale Eagelsham, and Fernando Pasarin

Before Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson desperately tried to carve out a niche in the superhero franchise landscape, Black Adam was just one of the villains in Captain Marvel, aka Shazam’s rogues gallery. Like many villains, he served as the shadow to the hero, a dark version of that main character. When the Shazam franchise was revived in 1995 via Jerry Ordway’s one-shot graphic novel The Power of Shazam (followed by an ongoing series), Black Adam was brought back with more nuance than you would expect with modern comics. He would eventually become a member and then enemy of the Justice Society during Geoff Johns’ first round with the book, a character arc that has permanently redefined how readers view Black Adam. In Johns’s final (at the time) arc on JSA, he brings some closure to Adam and the corner of the world he occupies in the DC Universe.

Comic Book Review – Justice Society of America: Thy Kingdom Come

Justice Society of America: Thy Kingdom Come Part One (2008)
Reprints Justice Society of America #7-12
Written by Geoff Johns & Alex Ross
Art by Dale Eaglesham, Fernando Pasarin, and Alex Ross

Justice Society of America: Thy Kingdom Come Part Two (2008)
Reprints Justice Society of America #13-18, Annual #1
Written by Geoff Johns & Alex Ross
Art by Dale Eaglesham, Fernando Pasarin, and Jerry Ordway

Justice Society of America: Thy Kingdom Come Part Three (2009)
Reprints Justice Society of America #19-22, Justice Society of America Kingdom Come Special: Superman, Justice Society of America Kingdom Come Special: Magog, Justice Society of America Kingdom Come Special: The Kingdom
Written by Geoff Johns, Alex Ross, and Peter Tomasi
Art by Dale Eaglesham, Nathan Massengill, Jerry Ordway, Bob Wiacek, Alex Ross, Fernando Pasarin, and Mick Gray

Geoff Johns has always reached deep into continuity for his work at DC Comics. It’s why he was such an excellent fit for the JSA, able to draw on decades of stories & characters and build upon them. When the Justice Society had a revival post-Infinite Crisis, I was among many people hyped to see the writer continue with these characters. However, the longer this new book went on, the more it felt like Johns was stretching out a small number of storylines for two years. The most egregious example of this is Thy Kingdom Come. It’s one of a few sequels written to the prestige 1996 mini-series Kingdom Come.

Movie Review – Meet the Browns

Meet the Browns (2008)
Written by Tyler Perry and Reuben Cannon
Directed by Tyler Perry

By 2008, Tyler Perry had directed four films following the financial success of Diary of Mad Black Woman. That film was number 1 at the box office on its opening weekend and would make $50.7 million worldwide. This propelled the money machine that has been going ever since, though it has slowed a bit in recent years. I chose Meet the Browns as my next film for a couple reasons. The first was that it introduces Mr. Brown and his daughter Cora who are important to the next movie in the series. The second is that Madea’s role is a cameo but communicates some wild new ideas about her that weren’t present in Diary. The plot is also very much in line with the critique from The Boondocks of colorism in Perry’s work.

Movie Review – Doubt

Doubt (2008)
Written & Directed by John Patrick Shanley

Meryl Streep dominates this movie, and her entrance is such a fantastic one. In the middle of Father Flynn’s (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) sermon about doubt, the camera follows a black shrouded figure walking along the pews. This is Sister Aloysius (Streep) looming over the children in attendance, intent on bringing down her hammer on any one of them who shows slight disdain for being in church. I wouldn’t say Aloysius is a villain, but she is most certainly the antagonist in the picture, on her fervent crusade to flush out what she sees as wrong-doing in a place she believes is her church.

Movie Review – The Love Guru

The Love Guru (2008)
Written by Mike Myers and Graham Gordy
Directed by Marco Schnabel

Sometimes I ask myself why I am doing this marathon, why I am making myself sit through such revolting movies. This is probably the worst one I’ve watched so far, and that’s after last week’s Dragonball: Evolution debacle. I would say that Mike Myers was an actor I enjoyed once. I love the Wayne’s World movies and think So I Married An Axe Murderer is his best picture. Shrek always left me lukewarm but was forgivable. Austin Powers was silly and inoffensive, and I definitely laughed quite a bit at the first two. Riding high off the successes of all of these pictures led us to The Love Guru, a movie that just hits the same handful of jokes over and over without ever being funny.

Movie Review – W.

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W. (2008)
Written by Stanley Weiser
Directed by Oliver Stone

w 2008

In 2002, President George W. Bush and his administration were seeking strong reasons to invade Iraq. Surrounded by people like Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, and Condoleeza Rice, the President wants to avenge his father in a certain way, seeing the conclusion of Desert Storm as an anti-climax against Sadaam Hussein. Through flashbacks, we follow Bush from his fraternity days at Yale through his constant disappointments to his father, the development of his relationship with Laura, and finally his aspirations to seek higher office in Texas. All of this leads to the beginning of the Iraq War and realization of the military action’s failure and subsequent fallout.

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Book Review – The Shadow Year

The Shadow Year (2008)
By Jeffrey Ford

It’s the mid-1960s on Long Island, New York, and an unnamed preteen narrator is beginning a year of his life he will never forget. This is his last year in elementary school and he, his brother Jim, and little sister Mary become embroiled in a mystery that no one else in their neighborhood seems to take note of it. It starts with the disappearance of a local boy and then rumors of a peeping tom carousing the backyards at night. The narrator spies a strange white car driven by a man dressed all in white whose presence seems to correlate with the prowler. Then his sister Mary, an odd one who allows her imaginary friends to speak through her, begins to show the possibility of clairvoyance, knowing where neighbors are at precise moments when she should not be able to. This shadow year will linger for our protagonist and what he learns will haunt him decades later.

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