2025 – Page 3 – PopCult Reviews

Weekly Links – 14 March 2025

There’s continuous talk about “the United States sliding into fascism.” We are there. We’ve been there for a long time. Instead, you must realize you are becoming aware that America is a fascist construct to its roots. This has been made nakedly apparent with the rendition of Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University student who engaged in protest against the Palestinian genocide. If you think putting your head down and “getting through this” is an option, I hope you have the life you deserve.

PopCult Podcast – The Seed of the Sacred Fig/The Room Next Door

This week we look at an Iranian film that depicts life for one family during the recent hijab protests in The Seed of the Sacred Fig. That’s followed by our review of Pedro Almodovar’s English language debut The Room Next Door.

Weekly Links – 7 March 2025

A new month and some more links to share with you all.

Techdirt is not known as an overtly political tech news site. That has changed since Elon Musk came into the US government with Trump’s new administration. This post talks about how part of their job now is to chronicle the collapse of the United States as techbros are a major part of dismantling things.

Solo Tabletop RPG Actual Play – Everspark Part Eight

Read the previous chapter here.

(For our journey to meet up with Korrin’s army, I will create a Spark that represents the journey. It uses a Spark like a countdown clock; with each ray, it will be a stretch of the journey. I will roll for each leg on the Yes/No oracle, asking, “Is there a significant encounter on this stretch?” If the answer is “Yes,” I will roll on a random encounters chart and create a NACHOS for that.

I will also roll on this simple terrain table to determine what the land is like generally around me:

Winter 2025 Digest

[Features]
Patron Pick/Matt – Carry On
Patron Pick/Matt – Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat
Book Update – Jan/Feb 2025
Farewell, David

March 2025 Posting Schedule

Film Series
[13 Countries, 13 Films – 3 Mar thru 21 Mar]
For Sama, The Message, This Is Not a Burial It Is a Resurrection, Cave of the Yellow Dog, Neptune Frost, Osama, You Will Die at Twenty, The Heiresses, Capernaum, Apples, The Harder They Come, Cairo Station

Book Update – January/February 2025

The Best Horror of the Year, Volume Sixteen, edited by Ellen Datlow
Another year means another Ellen Datlow Best Horror of the Year. As with all of these, it’s a mixed bag. I loved some stories; others were fine, and even some I forgot as soon as I was done reading them. Here are the stories that were highlights for me.

The Importance of a Tidy Home by Christopher Golden

Set in the winter holiday season, this story follows two homeless men in Germany who encounter the Schnabelpercten. These diminutive creatives are said to go home to home during the Epiphany and inspect homes to ensure they are clean. In this story, if they are unhappy with the house’s tidiness, they murder the inhabitants inside. This is a genuinely creepy and very wintery tale.

Weekly Links – 28 Feb 2025

It’s the end of another week, which means I’m sharing more links.

The week concluded on a sad note with the passing of Gene Hackman. I hold this actor very close to my heart as one of my earliest film memories is watching Richard Donner’s Superman. I don’t think anyone has played a better Luthor. He’s necessarily comics accurate, but he was a balance of funny and genuinely evil. IndieWire pays tribute to the late actor, and I have plans for a mini-series of some of Hackman’s best work planned for this summer.

Solo Tabletop RPG Actual Play – Everspark Part Seven

Read the previous part here

Quick Fate Check: Does Cypress hear about the destruction of Slumbering Bay before departing Kingshold? Result: 20, Cypress receives a report from Lugal Apogee that explains the destruction of his homeland in great detail.

The Capybarian shuts himself up in his room at the Ash Tree Inn. Hulde and Demis keep vigil in the tavern, letting their ally have a day to shut himself off from the world. Even Apogee gives Cypress space, sending a messenger to hand orders over to Hulde.

PopCult Podcast – Vox Lux/The Brutalist

It’s a Brady Corbet double feature starting with a young girl who makes a deal with the Devil after a school shooting. She becomes a pop star whose life never seems to settle. Then, a Holocaust survivor comes to America where his architectural skills clash with the local tastes.