2021 – Page 7 – PopCult Reviews

Movie Review – The French Dispatch

The French Dispatch (2021)
Written by Wes Anderson, Roman Coppola, Hugo Guinness, and Jason Schwartzman
Directed by Wes Anderson

In recent years, director Wes Anderson’s particular aesthetic has been a point of critique and parody. As someone who has enjoyed his work since first seeing Rushmore, I have to admit that his style can be very overbearing at times, and his more recent films haven’t been my favorites. However, I get the sense Anderson has been listening but isn’t going to simply give up the stylization he enjoys. Instead, he made this anthology film that embraces his personal tastes and stretches & explodes them with slight variations. As a result, I found myself starting the film with low expectations and becoming wholly charmed by its wild non-linear storytelling.

September/October 2021 Digest

Features
Patron’s Pick – Let There Be Light (Matt)
Patron’s Pick – Treehouse of Horror I – III
Seth’s Favorite Films of 1971
Book Update September/October 2021

Movie Review – Titane

Titane (2021)
Written & Directed by Julia Ducournau

I am going to try to spoil as little of this movie as possible because I went into it having only seen the trailers. Said trailers do an excellent job of conveying the film’s mood without giving away one iota of plot or characters. Inevitably I will give some plot details, though I plan on being as vague as I can, and I will talk about the characters to a certain extent. My goal is to entice those of you who haven’t seen it yet to take the bait and sit down and give Titane a watch (it’s currently up for rent in the iTunes store). If you enjoyed Julia Ducournau’s Raw, then you are going to love this movie.

Movie Review – Dune (2021)

Dune (2021)
Written by Jon Spaihts, Denis Villeneuve, and Eric Roth
Directed by Denis Villeneuve

In the early 2000s, SciFi Channel aired the first attempt since David Lynch’s adaptation of the Dune novel. They were reasonably successful in creating a mini-series that encompassed the first three books in Frank Herbert’s series. Once again, though, critics voiced concerns over the drawn exposition of the world as the filmmakers had to lay out a distant future for humanity with a limited amount of time. It would be twenty years later that this newest attempt would happen. With a larger budget to do justice to the strange new world eight thousand years in the future, will this version finally be the satisfying film fans and general audiences will click with?

Movie Review – Halloween Kills

Halloween Kills (2021)
Written by Scott Teems, Danny McBride, and David Gordon Green
Directed by David Gordon Green

Trilogies are tricky things. Often a first film is made and, if it does well financially, then a sequel will be greenlit. There are rare occasions like Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings where the movies are shot back to back, but most trilogies happen because the first movie did well. David Gordon Green and his collaborators wanted to do a series of Halloween films but waited to see how their first entry was received before locking everything in for follow-ups. I am a fan of their take of the Halloween universe. As I said in my review of the 2018 picture, there’s some atmosphere lacking, but thematically I am right on board with the sort of story being told here. In some ways, it reminds me of my favorite comic books, where new creators build on old ideas to make new points. I prefer that much more than rebooting things and feeling as if you’re in stasis.

PopCult Podcast – The Move, Malignant, and Many Saints

Something big happened and Ariana & Seth talk about it here. Plus a double feature of reviews.

Weekly Wonderings – September 28th, 2021

It’s been four days since we arrived in the Netherlands, and it still doesn’t quite feel real. We’re staying near the city center of Leiden in one place for the first month. Our bedroom window has a view of the canals and street below, the Dutch architecture. There are moments of disassociation where I get caught up in reading a book or watching a movie, and my brain is back in Tennessee. Then I look up and out the window and am reminded of where I am. It leaves me thinking, “When will this all feel normal?”

Weekly Wonderings – September 23rd, 2021

So, I’m writing this from the airport. I’m sitting in the Delta Sky Lounge exceptionally early for our 5:30 connecting flight. I can honestly say that I sat in our hotel room the last 24 hours with anxiety in my gut that we had forgotten something, and they would tell us we could not board. I realized I have so much insecurity still to overcome in my life, and when we are settled, I do need to see a therapist. This morning, as my stomach roiled with worry, I thought about people who just live life without this kind of worry. I think it is a combination of stuff from when I was growing up and the anxiety induced by our extremely class-stratified society.

Comic Book Review – Immortal Hulk Book Three

Immortal Hulk Book Three (2021)
Reprints Immortal Hulk #21-30
Written by Al Ewing
Art by Ryan Bodenheim, Joe Bennett, German Garcia, Tom Reilly, and Matías Bergara

Al Ewing’s Immortal Hulk run has been an excellent survey of every supporting character, villain, and central plot point of the Hulk. With Book Three, Ewing wraps up the General Fortean plotline while laying the threads for the eventual return of Hulk’s arch-nemesis, The Leader. As with everything that has come before, Ewing puts characters first to evolve the plots and conflicts naturally out of those revelations and details. We get glimpses into Fortean’s past, we get more character bits with Gamma Flight, especially the Absorbing Man & Titania. The book is just as much an ensemble piece as it spotlights Bruce Banner and his struggle with the Hulk.

PopCult Podcast Mini – Talking Sopranos

Seth & Ariana watched the entire six season of The Sopranos in a month. Now they sit down and talk about the show and what they think that infamous ending means.