adaptation – Page 2 – PopCult Reviews

TV Review – Ripley

Ripley (2024)
Written and directed by Steven Zaillian

There are few protagonists in modern literature as challenging as Tom Ripley. He’s a captivating figure because he’s pretty pathetic yet so cunning. In many ways, Ripley is the shadow underdog, a guy who, by all evidence, should lose, yet he manages to commit multiple murders and steal millions while evading capture. Despite coming from a poor/working-class background, Ripley has evolved refined tastes mainly because he believes he deserves to live the best life possible. Other people are inconveniences most of the time, hindrances to him enjoying the luxury offered to the wealthiest among us. If ever there was a character to highlight the negative aspects of sociopathy, an actual condition that isn’t as one-dimensional as much media would like you to think. Ripley can’t seem to care about anyone other than himself; it troubles him, but it is not enough to stop his pursuit of comfort.

Movie Review – Vampyr

Vampyr (1932)
Written by Christen Jul and Carl Theodor Dreyer
Directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer

Vampyr is a strange, troubled movie. It was Danish filmmaker Carl Theodor Dryer’s follow-up to The Passion of Joan of Arc, one of the great silent masterpieces. Vampyr came about at a time of transition in films. Dreyer conceived of the film, based on a collection of ghost stories, as a silent picture. That DNA is still very present in the sparse spoken dialogue and the film’s emphasis on movement and camerawork. The end result is a mixed bag. There’s not enough story here to say it’s a compelling horror narrative. It feels more like an interesting mood piece that evokes the spooky tone of Halloween and creepy old houses.

Movie Review – Werckmeister Harmonies

Werckmeister Harmonies (2000)
Written by László Krasznahorkai and Béla Tarr
Directed by Béla Tarr and Ágnes Hranitzky

Janos, a philosophical young man in a small isolated European town, arranges the patrons of a tavern one night in a simulation of the Sun, the Moon, and the Earth. He uses this to tell a story about a total eclipse of the Sun. When the orbiting bodies achieve this conjunction, he tells a brief fable:

The sky darkens, and then all goes dark. The dogs howl, rabbits hunch down, the deer run in panic, run, stampede in fright. And in this awful incomprehensible dusk, even the birds, the birds are too confused and go to roost. And then… Complete silence. Everything that lives is still. Are the hills going to march off? Will heaven fall upon us? Will the Earth open under us? We don’t know. For a total eclipse has come upon us…. But… No need to fear it is not over. For across the Sun’s glooming sphere, slowly, the Moon swims away… And the Sun once again bursts forth, and to the Earth there slowly comes again light, and warmth again floods the Earth. Deep emotion pierces everyone. They have escaped the weight of darkness.

With that, he walks out of the tavern, and the rest of the film unfolds as a realization of this story.

Movie Review – Sátántangó

Sátántangó (1994)
Written by Béla Tarr and László Krasznahorkai
Directed by Béla Tarr

Seven hours and thirty minutes. That’s what will stand out for most people when they learn about Sátántangó. That is certainly something that makes it unlike most films. A runtime that long feels overwhelming, and that’s the reason Béla Tarr made this movie. Based on the novel of the same name, the film’s structure is a piece of wonder modeled after the actual tango dance. Broken into twelve parts, the story does not move chronologically and follows the steps of the tango – six steps forward, six steps back. It’s a daunting cinematic challenge, but I found it a very fulfilling experience and felt things I never had before about films.

Movie Review – The Earrings of Madame De…

The Earrings of Madame De… (1953)
Written by Max Ophüls, Annette Wademant, and Marcel Achard
Directed by Max Ophüls

As with so many artists in Europe during the 1930s, Max Ophüls could see the rise of the Nazis and fled to France following the Reichstag Fire. He would continue his odyssey across the continent, attempting to stay ahead of the Nazis, making films along the way before reaching Portugal and heading to the United States. Ophüls would settle down in Hollywood for a few years, where he continued making movies, and once the war was over, he returned to Europe in 1950. It’s this period he’s become most known for, when he made his most acclaimed feature film, The Earrings of Madame De…

TV Review – Shogun Season One

Shogun Season One (2024)
Written by Rachel Kondo, Justin Marks, Shannon Goss, Nigel Williams, Emily Yoshida, Matt Lambert, Maegan Houang, and Caillin Puente
Directed by Jonathan van Tulleken, Charlotte Brändström, Frederick E.O. Toye, Hiromi Kamata, Takeshi Fukunaga, and Emmanuel Osei-Kuffour

I must confess that of all the Japanese media, the stories surrounding this historical period typically leave me cold. I can acknowledge that there is tremendous quality here, but the philosophy of life is so dramatically alien to me that I have difficulty connecting to it. Unlike the protagonist here, I do not feel the intense etiquette systems. It comes across to me as oppressive and suffocating. But then, I wouldn’t be surprised if a Japanese person who finds this perspective normal looked at how I lived my life and felt that I was in a sort of prison, too. All societies are, to an extent, prisons; they have rules relatively rigid to outsiders. And that’s kind of what this show is exploring.

Movie Review – The NeverEnding Story

The NeverEnding Story (1984)
Written by Wolfgang Petersen and Herman Weigel
Directed by Wolfgang Petersen

This movie is a formative piece of many of my peers’ childhoods. I think I saw it twice as a kid. I remembered parts of it vividly, but The NeverEnding Story was never a picture I sought out or felt a strong connection with. That is odd because I was also a child who spent much time alone and read many books. You would think much of the story would resonate, but it did not. I think revisiting the movie as an adult made me appreciate it more, though I could see the weak points more vividly now, too.

Movie Review – Conan the Barbarian

Conan the Barbarian (1982)
Written by John Milius and Oliver Stone
Directed by John Milius

In 1932, pulp writer Robert E. Howard began to pen the tales of Conan, a barbarian fighting in an ancient time of magic. He’d write 21 Conan stories before his tragic death by suicide at the age of 30. The trademark for the character passed through several hands over the following decades, leading to numerous reprints of the original stories and new authors adding to the mythos. Marvel Comics acquired the license in the 1970s, leading to Conan finding his widest audience yet. During much of this time, John Milius had been a fan of what he read. This would lead to a film adaptation that was undeniably made by people who loved the source material.

Patron Pick – Tell It To The Bees

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.

Tell It To The Bees (2018)
Written by Henrietta Ashworth and Jessica Ashworth
Directed by Annabel Jankel

If you are looking for a passionate love story about two women, might I recommend two other, better films – Desert Hearts and A Portrait of a Lady on Fire. The reason why I promote those films over this one is because they are just simply much better made. From the writing to the directing of the actors to the cinematography, those movies don’t just deliver a lesbian love story; they are masterfully executed films. In discussions about representation in the media, I hate that there’s this rallying cry that groups which have been marginalized should be present in the utter shit that the cis white straight people make. I don’t know why anyone would want to set the bar so low. I want queer people, Black people, Indigenous people, disabled people, et al., to not just be in movies but to be in the best movies.

TV Review – The Sympathizer

The Sympathizer (2024)
Written by Park Chan-wook, Don McKellar, Naomi Iizuka, Mark Richard, Maegan Houang, and Anchuli Felicia King
Directed by Park Chan-wook, Fernando Meirelles, and Marc Munden

The portrayal of communism in Western media is fraught with contradiction. It has to be because to honestly present communism would mean capitalism would be critiqued in detail. Part of the ongoing American imperialist project is ensuring no cogent critiques of the dominant economic system happen. This means when communism is presented, it is always a brutal internment camp where people are tortured. This disregards the fact the United States has and continues to operate brutal internment camps where people are tortured. It seems that this behavior isn’t inherent to communism but something people seem to do regardless of the economic system they live under. While The Sympathizer starts out strong, its lead director steps aside three episodes in, and a very neoliberal centrist viewpoint leaves it as an imperfect creation.