2024 – Page 3 – PopCult Reviews

December 2024 Posting Schedule

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

Solo Tabletop RPG Actual Play – The Electric State Part Four

Read the previous part here

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.

Solo Tabletop RPG Actual Play – The Electric State Part Three

Read Part Two here

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.

PopCult Podcast – Megalopolis/A Different Man

An example of directorial excess gone awry. An examination of dark irony and masculine confidence.

PopCult Podcast – The Apprentice/Last Summer

Well, that was a…week. One of our films purports to tell the story of a contemporary despot and the mid-century ghoul that helped to shape him. The second film is a French picture about a woman who takes a risk that could destroy her life.

PopCult Podcast – The Substance/Good One

A aging star goes to extreme lengths to become young again. A teenage girl goes on a camping trap with her dad & his friend only to discover the disappointing realities of growing up.

Solo Tabletop RPG Review & Actual Play – The Electric State Part One

The Electric State by Free League Press

Purchase this game here.

Swedish painter Simon Stålenhag has become prominent in the last decade because of his evocative retro-science fiction artwork. Tales from the Loop was turned into an Amazon series set in an alternate reality where humanity made significant technological advances. Things From the Flood was an artbook about a world where the water rose and brought strange creatures into the lives of ordinary people. The Labyrinth focuses on an ash-covered world of ruins where the apocalypse ravaged Earth. Like Tales and Things, the Electric State has been turned into a tabletop roleplaying game by Free League Publishing. Included in the core book are solo rules. I haven’t dipped my toes into Free League’s Year Zero system yet, so I thought this one would be a good start.

November 2024 Posting Schedule

Film Series
[The Films of Pier Paolo Pasolini – Nov 5 through Nov 21]
Salo or 120 Days of Sodom, Accattone, Mamma Roma, The Gospel According to St. Matthew, Oedipus Rex, Theorem, Medea, The Decameron, The Canterbury Tales, and The Arabian Nights

TV Reviews
Nov 10 – Northern Exposure Season Five

Comic Book Reviews
Nov 2 – Cat-Eyed Boy
Nov 9 – Sideways
Nov 16 – Squadron Supreme

Solo Tabletop RPG Reviews & Actual Plays
Nov 3, 10, 17, 24 – The Electric State Solo

Podcast Episodes
Nov 3 -The Substance/Good One
Nov 10 – Last Summer/Green Border
Nov 17 – The Apprentice/Megalopolis

Fall 2024 Digest

Features
[Patron Pick] Quigley – Matt
[Patron Pick] Inside Out– Bekah
[Patron Pick] Saw 3– Matt
[Patron Pick] Babes – Bekah
Book Update – September/October

Patron Pick – Babes

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.

Babes (2024)
Written by Ilana Glazer and Josh Rabinowitz
Directed by Pamela Adlon

I went into this film with not the highest of expectations. I wanted to enjoy it, though. Ilana Glazer was hilarious on Comedy Central’s Broad City, though I haven’t been incredibly impressed with her work outside of that series. Pamela Adlon is an actress I’ve enjoyed the performances of, from voicing Bobby Hill to her more recent live-action turns. Better Things, her now-concluded FX show, is on my TV list to watch from beginning to end. All this to say, I wanted to give Babes a fair show, but my god, this is one of the worst films I have seen in a very long time. It has me reeling about how infantile media made for adults is becoming in the States, but maybe it’s always been like this, and I’m just perceiving it now.