2023 – Page 5 – PopCult Reviews

December 2023 Posting Schedule

November 2023 was the busiest PopCult Reviews has ever been. We came in just six views shy of a total of 15,000. The next closest month was October 2023, with just under 13,000. The year will see astronomical growth for the blog, but I will talk more about that when we get to 2024’s State of the Blog in January. December will be a mix of what it always is: trying to cram in as many of the year’s best films to see where they end up on my list and sharing all my favorite pieces of media I’ve had the pleasure to enjoy in 2023. I suspect there will be many movies not listed here that I will be watching in the second half of December, should they become available.

Patron Pick – Maid

This special reward is available to Patreon patrons who pledge at the $10 or $20 monthly levels. Each month, those patrons will pick a film for me to review. If they choose, they also get to include some of their thoughts about the movie. This Pick comes from Bekah Lindstrom.

Maid (Netflix)
Written by Molly Smith Metzler, Marcus Gardley, Rebecca Brunstetter, Colin McKenna, and Michelle Denise Jackson
Directed by John Wells, Nzingha Stewart, Lila Neugebauer, Helen Shaver, and Quyen Tran

Maid is an American drama mini-series created for Netflix and inspired by Stephanie Land’s memoir Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will to Survive. It focuses on Alex (Margaret Qualley) leaving her emotionally abusive boyfriend and struggling to provide for her daughter by getting a job cleaning houses.

I am going to start with the harsh bits. Although it has a lot of good qualities, there is a layer of cringe to Maid that resembles the storyline structures from the US version of Shameless. Their link to this is Molly Smith Metzler, a writer for both, and John Wells, executive producer and director for Maid, who developed, wrote, and directed for Shameless.

Solo Tabletop RPG Review & Actual Play – Dungeon World Solo Part Four

Begin with Part One here

In my last session, I managed to develop the mysterious purple orc that randomly came up. My thinking behind this character is that I dislike the Tolkien orcs as actual characters. They work as mindless hordes to throw at the heroes, but orcs, as characters in fantasy stories, have a lot of potential. I’ve always liked Warcraft’s handling of them much better, giving them a richer & more complex culture, showing they are not mindless savages but have a whole society of their own. I also liked the idea of Ukrom being an ancient mage (I rolled prehistoric on an Age table) and a reminder of what orcs used to be. While they will pop up near the end of this session, I do have ideas for the species when I continue this Dungeon World solo campaign in the future.

TV Review – Silo Season One

Silo Season One (Apple TV+)
Written by Graham Yost, Jessica Blaire, Cassie Pappas, Ingrid Escajeda, Remi Aubuchon, Aric Avelino, Jeffery Wang, Lekethia Dalcoe, and Fred Golan
Directed by Morten Tyldum, David Semel, Bert & Bertie, and Adam Bernstein

J.J. Abrams changed television as a producer of Lost along with Damon Lindelof & Carlton Cuse. Abrams’ “mystery box” philosophy inspired dozens of subsequent shows that sought to tell serialized stories on television that slowly spun out mysteries. While I enjoyed Lost for what it was, I don’t feel a strong urge to revisit it anytime soon; the heirs have never come close to capturing the excitement of that series. Lost’s strength was not relying entirely on its mysterious aspects and delivering character-focused solid stories. The flashbacks and what we learned about each person made Lost all the better. Silo is a new show from Apple TV+ and wants to be something like Lost. However, it was a slog for me to get through.

Movie Review – The Creator

The Creator (2023)
Written by Gareth Edwards and Chris Weitz
Directed by Gareth Edwards

I can’t say I’ve ever been greatly impressed by Gareth Edwards’ films. I’ve seen all four of his directorial efforts at this point (this film, Star Wars: Rogue One, Godzilla, and Monsters), and what lingers with me is what a fantastic production designer Edwards is. Writing characters? Eh, not so much. However, the man knows how to convey a sense of scope & scale and, even more importantly, establish the vibe of a movie. The Creator is a film that continues this trend with the director. His characters are flat and one-dimensional, but damn if the world he creates isn’t one I want to explore. He establishes excellent video game settings in many ways but then tries to make movies in them.

PopCult Podcast – The Beasts/Anatomy of a Fall

Two new European films make up our double feature this week. In one a French transplant to northern Spain comes into conflict with the locals. In the second, a German woman living in France is accused of murdering her husband and must go through a harrowing courtroom trial, the only witness her blind son.

Solo Tabletop RPG Review & Actual Play – Dungeon World Solo Part Three

Read parts one and two first

During the last session of Dungeon World solo, two random elements came up that I immediately flagged as important parts of the story going forward. The first was the band of pirates along the Mondeo coast. It made sense to connect them to the Larcenists Society danger. They are the naval branch, and their leader, Captain Molly Rhys, feels like a decent bad-guy boss to face off with at the end of this series. The second was the magically infected orc living within The Sunken Tower. I had no idea he would be in there when I used the Perilous Wilds tables. One descriptor from my rolls stood out the most to me, and that was “primitive,” which made me think not of “unsophisticated” but “prehistoric.” What would a prehistoric orc be doing in this Tower? I had some ideas.

PopCult Podcast – The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar/The Killer

Two new releases are the focus of the latest episode. In one, Wes Anderson adapts four short stories by the legendary author Roald Dahl. The second is the latest from the meticulous director David Fincher.

PopCult Podcast – Bottoms/Killers of the Flower Moon

These films couldn’t be more different. One is a comedy based on a series of Comedy Central shorts about two horny lesbian losers. The second is the true story of a series of killings at an Osage reservation in the early 20th century.

Solo Tabletop RPG Review & Actual Play – Dungeon World Part One

Read Part Two here and Part Three here

Of all the games under the banner of “Powered by the Apocalypse,” Dungeon World is probably the most well-known and played. It’s a variation of the classic dungeon-crawling tabletop rpg games that dominate the hobby. While games like Dungeons & Dragons rely on skill checks and rigid combat systems, Dungeon World takes a fiction-first approach, with all rolls being player-facing. Everything in the game happens as an extension of the player’s actions. There are no modules with structured adventures; instead, Dungeon World encourages improvisation and, at most, a simple dungeon starter outline. As with all the PBtA games, the focus is on playing to discover what happens without having all the steps written down beforehand.