a24 – PopCult Reviews

PopCult Podcast – Babygirl/All We Imagine As Light

A female CEO becomes entangled with a dominant young man risking her career. Two Indian women struggle to make a life in Mumbai.

PopCult Podcast – Megalopolis/A Different Man

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

PopCult Podcast – Problemista/Civil War

This is a wildly divergent A24 double feature. One film is a comedy about the immigrant experience in NYC. The second follow journalists through a war on American soil.

PopCult Podcast – Love Lies Bleeding/Drive-Away Dolls

As Billy Eichner once said, “Let’s go, lesbians!” On this week’s sapphic episode we look at a two lesbian neo-noirs with two very different takes on the genre.

PopCult Podcast – Fallen Leaves/All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt

We’re back with our first two films of the year. One is a Finnish working class romcom inspired by old fashioned movies. The second is a dreamlike expressionistic exploration of a Black woman’s life in Mississippi.

PopCult Podcast – RMN/Past Lives

Two more new releases take the spotlight this week. In one we journey to Transylvania, but there’s no vampires here. Instead, it’s a tense & moody exploration of various ethnic groups at each other’s throat. In our second film, we span 24 years as a Korean woman retains thoughts of her childhood crush while moving on with her life and changing in so many ways.

PopCult Podcast – Cobweb/Talk To Me

It’s a horror double feature this week on the podcast. In one film, a little boy tries to figure out what secret hiding the walls has his parents acting so strangely. Then, it’s down to Australia where a group of teenagers play around with contacting the dead only to have something horrible find its way to the land of the living.

Patron Pick – Funny Pages

Make sure to reply to our poll for the podcast: Which is the best Alexander Payne movie?

This is a special reward available to Patreon patrons who pledge at the $10 or $20 a month 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.

Funny Pages (2022)
Written & Directed by Owen Kline

The United States is a grimy, skeevy place. It’s often easy for people who live in dense urban environs to mock those in “red states” when climate collapse strikes and causes devastation. They dunk on people who are ruled over by neo-fascist political figures yet fail to realize the whole damn thing is coming down on top of everybody. You wouldn’t think such an insight would be found in a New York/Hollywood nepotism baby but America is full of surprises. Owen Kline, the son of actors Kevin Kline & Phoebe Cates, makes his feature film debut as writer-director of this picture. Much like the dirtbag Left (see Chapo Trap House, Cumtown, etc.) I feel conflicted as to how much I trust these privileged motherfuckers but for now we’ll give them a pass, just keep your eyes on them. Kline appears to be forging the love child of Terry Zwigoff & The Safdie Brothers and it sort of works.

Movie Review – X (2022)

X (2022)
Written & Directed by Ti West

Slasher movies are so ubiquitous that it takes a lot for me to even pay attention to them. The main thing that drew me to this film was that Ti West was helming it. For those unfamiliar, West has become a modern horror icon thanks to his nostalgic yet never pandering films, The House of the Devil and The Innkeepers, to name a few. His strength is in delivering the core elements of horror films from childhood but putting a strange, compelling spin on them. If you saw the trailer for X and thought you knew what it was, then get ready for a surprise. I went into that film with a similar mindset and was pleasantly shocked at how unexpected everything was. West has made a wonderfully self-indulgent slasher in the style of Texas Chainsaw Massacre that has so many twists & turns.

Movie Review – Climax

Climax (2019)
Written & Directed by Gaspar Noe

The bliss of Heaven is matched by the torment of Hell. This is the central theme of Gaspar Noe’s latest film, a psychedelic odyssey into madness, performed by mostly non-acting professional dancers. They have holed up in an abandoned boarding school during a snowstorm where they are celebrating their planned trip to the United States for a competition. The night’s revelry begins with spontaneous dancing and the consumption of some delicious sangria. After everyone has drunk of the celebratory punch, they realize it’s been spiked with LSD, and the nightmare begins. As is Noe’s style, the film is structured in surprising ways with often overly showy cinematography.