[Begin a Session: Important character is put in danger or suffers a misadventure]
Dreng Wraithus wakes with a gasp for air. He is lying on a cold metallic floor. A hand reaches down and lifts him up by the scruff of the collar of his black robe. Wraithus’s legs still flop about like cold noodles as he’s drug through the halls of this strangely humid vessel.
Continue reading “Solo Tabletop RPG Actual Play – Starforged: Messiahs Part Two”
Read the previous chapter here
One Year Ago
Stella Shaw lays on her back, combat boots up on top of one of several monitors she’d spent months scavenging for. With a little help from Lester, a local tinkerer, the teenage girl constructed a makeshift antenna she installed one of the watchtowers in the compound for the best possible reception. It was just her luck that she picked up a broadcast of the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air coming from somewhere to the west. Down in what Stella’s aunt nicknamed her “hidey-hole” she was quite cozy. These series of reinforced tunnels might have triggered claustrophobia in the adults, but they were the perfect fit for Stella.
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 Matt Harris.
Anora (2024)
Written and directed by Sean Baker
Of Sean Baker’s films that I have seen (Tangerine, The Florida Project, Red Rocket, and this one), it is pretty clear he has an interest in sex workers. More specifically, Baker is fascinated with the class politics of being a sex worker. It is a job where the class divide is screamingly evident every second of the transaction. In this way, sex work is one field of labor that highlights the contradictions in the United States, where lies are fed to us from birth about the “American Dream” and meritocracy. It is also very important to Baker that these characters be presented as human beings so that the audience sees the desperation of our protagonists to escape their economic lot in life. He also doesn’t fear these characters being deeply flawed and often unlikable.
Continue reading “Patron Pick – Anora”
Disclaimer (2024)
Written and directed by Alfonso Cuaron
Alfonso Cuaron is a filmmaker who has delivered some art that wowed me over the years. Children of Men is one of the best post-9/11 films to have come out. Watching it now feels prophetic as a study of social collapse in Western societies that cannot handle the refugees they created. His Harry Potter film is the only one with merit outside of being part of the franchise. I was slightly less impressed with Gravity, but Roma is a fairly good movie told from a privileged point of view. I don’t always love his work, and Disclaimer falls into that ambivalent category.
Continue reading “TV Review – Disclaimer”
A family gathers at the matriarch’s home for the holidays in the early 2000s. A cat finds itself caught in massive flood and relying on a group of other animals to survive.
Continue reading “PopCult Podcast – Christmas Eve at Miller’s Point/Flow”
My Brilliant Friend Season Four (2024)
Written by Elena Ferrante, Francesco Piccolo, Laura Paolucci and Saverio Costanzo
Directed by Laura Bispuri
I was skeptical going in. The cast of the show was going to be changed. It made sense. These were meant to be people living through their 30s and into middle age. Keeping on actors who were mainly in their early to mid-20s would make that hard to pull off. Metaphorically, it makes sense. For a long time, it is difficult to see ourselves as adults, so our self-perception is still that of a child. Then, one day, we suddenly realize we are adults due to a single event or a series of them. That child hasn’t really been around for a long time. Season four manages to pull this off, but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t missing Gaia Girace and Margherita Mazzucco.
Continue reading “TV Review – My Brilliant Friend Season Four”
A contemporary urban horror continues its path of destruction in a new life. A man serving on a jury realizes his connection to the crime being discussed and that he may have the means to save someone’s life.
Continue reading “PopCult Podcast – Smile 2/Juror #2”
Film Series/End of the Year Series
[My Gift To Myself – Random Movies I’ve Been Wanting to Watch – 3 Dec thru 19 Dec]
Luz, The Chambermaid, The Battle of Algiers, Cure, Celine and Julie Go Boating, Happy as Lazzaro, Johnny Guitar, The Spirit of the Beehive, The Double Life of Veronique
[My Favorites of 2024 – 23 Dec thru 30 Dec]
My Favorite Solo Tabletop RPGs, My Favorite Books Read, My Favorite Television, My Favorite Film Discoveries, My Favorite Films
TV Reviews
8 Dec – My Brilliant Friend Season Four
15 Dec – Disclaimer
16 Dec – The Prisoner
22 Dec – The Penguin
Comic Book Reviews
7 Dec – X-Men Forever Volume One & Two
14 Dec – X-Men Forever Volume Three & Four
21 Dec – X-Men Forever Volume Five
Solo Tabletop RPG Reviews & Actual Plays
7 Dec, 14 Dec, 21, Dec – The Electric State Solo
8 Dec, 15 Dec, 22 Dec, 28 Dec – Starforged: Messiahs
Podcast Episodes
8 Dec – Smile 2/Rumors
15 Dec – Christmas Eve at Miller’s Point/Juror #2
22 Dec – Xmas Special (Scrooged/Edward Scissorhands/Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence)
26 Dec – Favorites of 2024 Special
Scene One
Six months ago
Crystal went out the night she got the eviction notice. She needed to drink until she couldn’t remember anything. Losing her apartment. Catching her boyfriend cheating on her. It needed to drown and die. And that’s how she met Randy James. At first, Crystal saw him like any other shitkicker who wandered into Victorville on a Saturday night. But that wasn’t Randy James at all. He said he was a professional philosopher. She rolled her eyes. But damn, if he wasn’t charming as hell. RJ had many thoughts on neuronics; he said he worked in R&D for Sentre, developing new interfacing for the neurocasters. That’s what led to them having sex in his truck with their neurocasters on. It was unlike anything Crystal had ever experienced. She was enamored.
Two months ago.
Wyatt Butler sat hunched over in his desk chair, listening to his ex-wife Christine rightfully chide him for failing to pick up their son for Wyatt’s weekend. A case had fallen on the private investigator’s desk, a wealthy woman suspecting her husband of cheating, and she offered cash that Wyatt couldn’t pass up.
Continue reading “Solo Tabletop RPG Actual Play – The Electric State Part Three”
PopCult Reviews 