2019 – Page 14 – PopCult Reviews

PopCult July 2019 Digest

Features
Spider-Man Movies Ranked
What To Watch After Stranger Things
Most Underrated Disney Films
Nintendo Switch Review
Best of the 2010s: My Favorite Films of 2014

State of the Blog – 2nd Half of 2019

Here are the things I have planned for the second half of the year on my blog.

I’ll start doing a bi-weekly short film review roundup on August 17th. I plan to feature quality short films that are available online so that readers can view them. I have the first eight posts planned with three short films on each post. The first post will feature reviews for the short films He Took His Skin Off For Me, Janciza Bravo’s Eat, and Ari Aster’s The Strange Thing About the Johnsons. I’ll be looking at films that come from all corners of media from classic French shorts (Le Jetee) to Adult Swim middle of the night surreality (the works of Alan Resnick).

Movie Review – Once Upon a Time…In Hollywood

Once Upon a Time…In Hollywood (2019)
Written & Directed by Quentin Tarantino

Fifty years ago on August 9th actress Sharon Tate and three of her friends were brutally murdered by three people sent to her home by Charles Manson. At the time, Tate was eight months pregnant with her first child by husband Roman Polanski. Polanksi was in London scouting locations for The Day of the Dolphin, a film he would have to abandon when word reached him of the massacre that occurred at his home on Cielo Drive in Benedict Canyon. This has become a horror story retold countless times when the dark side of Hollywood is discussed, an allegory for the nightmare that can bubble up to the surface in a town so closely associated with dreams. But, what if…?

Summertime Streaming 2019

I was browsing over the offerings on Amazon Prime and Netflix and was impressed at the films currently available to watch. As my summer break comes to an end I thought I’d share what I found and link my reviews if I have one written for the film. Hope you find something you enjoy.

Amazon Prime

Netflix

TV Review – Big Little Lies Season 2

Big Little Lies Season 2 (HBO)
Written by David E. Kelley & Liane Moriarty
Directed by Andrea Arnold

The stakes at the end of season one of Big Little Lies were cranked up so high it was hard to imagine how this second round would play out. When the season opens, everyone is in recovery mode from the death of Perry with Celeste naturally going through the toughest time. Perry rewired her way of thinking from years of abuse that she simultaneously misses him but is glad he’s gone. None of this is helped by the presence of Mary Louise, Perry’s mother, who has come to town to help Celeste with the boys. Mary Louise notices that Celeste is using sleep aids and making poor decisions around the house, but the breaking point comes when Celeste explains the extent of Perry’s abuse and that he raped Jane. Mary Louise cannot handle these facts about her son, and she quickly becomes the antagonist for this season.

TV Review – Los Espookys Season 1

Los Espookys Season 1 (HBO)
Written by Fred Armisen, Ana Fabrega, & Julio Torres
Directed by Fernando Frias

There is nothing else like Los Espookys on television. From the opening of the first episode, a fast-paced series of scenes that introduces us to Renaldo at his sister’s quinceanera which he decorated in an all horror/goth theme to moment we see Andres’ shock of tightly cropped blue hair appear on screen we know that our protagonists will be odd, to say the least. The most normal of the Los Espookys crew is Ursula who is technically genius, yet she’s saddled with her little sister Tati, who is competing with Andres to become the most esoteric character to appear on television since Agent Cooper. This is a fully realized and specific world, like ours but slightly askew.

Movie Review – The Last Black Man in San Francisco

The Last Black Man in San Francisco (2019)
Written by Jimmie Falls, Joe Talbot, and Rob Richert
Directed by Joe Talbot

San Francisco has existed since 1846, formerly the Spanish town of Yerba Buena renamed in the wake of the Mexican-American War. The city boomed with the Gold Rush and despite destructive earthquakes hasn’t seemed to stop growing ever since. These days, San Francisco is at the center of the tech boom, neighborhoods gobbled up by startups and associated service industries that cater to these companies. The long-time residents of San Fran, whose family lineages go back to the first boom of the Gold Rush and the subsequent migrations, are being pushed to the fringes. The gentrification is even crossing the Bay into Oakland. Like every city center in our nation afflicted by “urban revitalization,” the result is always the local is pushed out for the transplant or the tourist.

Movie Review – Alita: Battle Angel

Alita: Battle Angel (2019)
Written by James Cameron and Laeta Kalogridis
Directed by Robert Rodriguez

Alita is a movie almost 20 years in the making. In 2000, James Cameron registered website domain names that involved this property as a film. In 2003, he confirmed he was going to direct a movie based on the early 90s manga. And then delays began, and Avatar went into production, and other projects came about. Eventually, Cameron stepped aside, taking credit as screenwriter and producer. Robert Rodriguez came onboard in 2016 with the film set to be released in July of 2018. That didn’t happen, and the movie was delayed to a primo January release in 2019. All this is to say that this film has had so much time to be worked on tweaked and improved so it should be great. But there is a common theme in Hollywood where a film has a window between enough pre-production and too much that it overbakes. Alita was burnt to a crisp.

TV Review – Stranger Things Season 3

Stranger Things Season 3 (Netflix)
Written by Matt Duffer, Ross Duffer, William Bridges, Kate Trefry, Paul Dichter, and Curtis Gwinn
Directed by Matt Duffer, Ross Duffer, Shawn Levy, and Uta Briesewitz

When the 1980s is referenced in modern popular media it is typically with bright neon colors and pop music, nods to Ghostbusters, Goonies, and Gremlins, the sound of Mario snatching a coin backed by synthesizers. When did the 1980s as an aesthetic and unique cultural touchpoint begin? The early 1980s are naturally a carryover of the late 1970s but when did this decade come into its own? 1985 is a reasonable touchpoint; when the color got turned up, and the consumption of the Reagan era went into full swing. If you noticed a marked difference in the look and feel of Stranger Things, you wouldn’t be wrong. This third season is unashamedly dripping in its time, arguably more so than the previous seasons. This is also the most cohesive season if we look at the plot structure with very clear throughlines that bring us to a conclusion. There’s not a lot of character downtime, for better or worse.

Movie Review – Spider-Man: Far From Home

Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019)
Written by Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers
Directed by Jon Watts

Spider-Man is a character who has many phases in his life, unlike Batman and Superman, who are static in their development for the most part. Right now Superman is married with a son in the comic books, yet I anticipate the time will come where the reset button is hit, and that is erased. While many a Robin has come and gone and developed in their unique ways, Batman is never changing, always returning to his starting position. When looking over Peter Parker’s life, there are the high school years, the college years, the married years; the shivers clone saga and eventual reset, the successful businessman phase. Parker is dynamic and grows yet for the movie-going public nothing quite beats high school Spider-Man. He is reflective of our foibles and awkwardness, forced to choose between a normal life and one as a hero.