comedy – Page 12 – PopCult Reviews

PopCult Podcast – The Blue Caftan/Rotting in the Sun

A beautiful & intensely intimate Moroccan drama & an intensely funny satirical Chilean comedy make up our two picks for this week.

TV Review – The Venture Brothers Season Three

The Venture Brothers Season Three (Adult Swim)
Written by Jackson Publick & Doc Hammer
Directed by Jackson Publick

Season One of The Venture Brothers was rough, though very inspired. Season Two focused on tightening things up and connecting the elements introduced into this unique world. I remember the episodes from these seasons with much detail. I owned them both on DVD in the mid/late-2000s and watched them on repeat with my then-roommate Eddie. Season three came along as I was starting graduate school and dealing with some new stresses in life, so I watched it, but there were a lot of distractions. It was also the last Venture Brothers season I watched in its entirety, so everything after this will be new territory for me. Season three felt a little new as well, with sudden flashes of memories that I had seen these stories before.

PopCult Podcast – Afire/Theater Camp

One of the most prominent German filmmakers today delivers his latest film which prove disappointing. Then we hop the bus to go visit the grounds of a Broadway kids camp.

PopCult Podcast – Please Baby Please/Save Yourselves!

Diving deep into the indie films we came up with two obscure titles you’ve probably never heard of. One is a hyper-stylized queer comedy about a newlywed couple realizing their relationship is far more complicated than they thought. The other is a Millennial comedy about a couple disconnecting from the internet for a week at a cabin in the woods only for aliens to invade.

TV Review – Mrs. Davis

Mrs. Davis (Peacock)
Written by Tara Hernandez, Damon Lindelof, Jason Lew, Alberto Roldán, Noelle Viñas, Jonny Sun, Jason Ning, and Chikira Bennett
Directed by Owen Harris, Alethea Jones, Nadra Widatalla, Frederick E.O. Toye

I can’t say that Mrs. Davis was my favorite TV series watch of 2023, but it was the most consistently surprising. From the opening sequence to the final episode, this has to be one of the most original pieces of streaming content ever made. You have Damon Lindelof bringing his mystery-centered storytelling, and Tara Hernandez adds comedy, resulting in something so hard to describe. If you have seen the trailers or even just production stills, you’re probably confused about what this show is. I will attempt to explain it without spoiling it, but it will be spoiled a bit. Going in blind is probably the best way to watch Mrs. Davis.

Movie Review – Pauline at the Beach

Pauline at the Beach (1983)
Written & Directed by Eric Rohmer,

Eric Rohmer was the right age to join his colleagues from the French film magazine Cahiers du Cinema in becoming a filmmaker. Jean Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut, whom he worked alongside as editor of the magazine, became the two most prominent names associated with the French New Wave. He did make movies, but not at the same breakneck pace as the others, and he didn’t receive the same level of acclaim until much later in his career. The filmmaker was very secretive about his private life, including that Eric Rohmer wasn’t his real name but a combination of actor/director Erich von Stroheim and writer Sax Rohmer. Unlike his colleagues, Rohmer outlasted them in terms of career length, finding his most significant acclaim in the 1970s & 80s. It was in the 1980s that he began a thematic series titled “Comedies and Proverbs,” with each film based on common sayings in French culture. One of these was Pauline at the Beach.

TV Review – The Bear Season One

The Bear Season One (FX)
Written by Christopher Storer, Sofya Levitsky-Weitz, Karen Joseph Adcock, Catherine Schetina & Rene Gube
Directed by Christopher Storer and Joanna Calo

I felt obligated to watch this one, but I knew it would be good. I can’t say The Bear was what I expected. I knew it was about a restaurant and starred Jeremy Allen White, but I was under the impression it was set at an upscale restaurant. Definitely not. And the first half of season one didn’t stand out as anything overly special. Ariana & I talked about how much the show used a premise akin to something like Cheers. If this had been made in the 1980s or 90s, it would have been a three-camera comedy-drama, probably with a “will they, won’t they” plot stringing the audience along for multiple seasons. We even have a Carla in the form of Tina, but even that character conflict is resolved relatively quickly, and the show moves on.

Solo Tabletop RPG Actual Play – Fiasco + Mythic Part Two

Read Part One where I explain what parts of Mythic I’ll be using as well as the character set-up for this game.

The heat beats down on Ginette LaFever as she sits in the pitiful shade of the dugout, shadows but not much cooler than the sun-blazed field she watches her players on. Her eye is on one particular player at the moment, Yu Kim. The girl has only been in Poppleton for about six months, and Ginette doesn’t like her attitude. If you were to ask Ginette to articulate what she didn’t like about Yu, the softball coach would probably stammer and search for the words, likely dropping the phrase, “I’m not racist, but…” The girl just “has a bad vibe” is Ginette’s go-to when she tries to justify the disdain in her own head.

TV Review – The Venture Brothers Season Two

The Venture Brothers Season Two (Adult Swim)
Written by Jackson Publick & Doc Hammer with Bed Edlund
Directed by Jackson Publick

While the Venture Brothers was primarily focused on parodying children’s shows, from Johnny Quest to G.I. Joe, it could also be strangely poignant. Where season one was about the co-creators Jackson Publick & Doc Hammer finding their footing in this world, season two is about expanding that established universe and adding depth to its characters. The three characters I found to get the most development this season would be Brock Samson, The Monarch/Doctor Girlfriend, and Doctor Orpheus. The show also teases the lore behind Hank & Dean’s origins. Are they clones of Rusty and Brock? Do they have a real mother? Is Dr. Girlfriend their mother? (Of course not). It was all of this with continuous references to the absurdity of genre media & culture.

Movie Review – Local Hero

Local Hero (1983)
Written & Illustrated by Bill Forsyth

I just couldn’t fall in love with this movie in the way I’d heard other people rave about it. There are a good number of people that love Local Hero. I can see why they would. It’s a slightly charming film, not overrun with nasty conflict, told almost like a fairy tale for grown-ups. On paper, these are things that appeal to me. I like films that go in unexpected directions. However, Local Hero never seemed to find its footing from my perspective. It plays around with ideas and characters but doesn’t really come to conclusions about them. Combined with acting that varies wildly in quality from performer to performer, I couldn’t quite latch onto the magic I’d heard about for all these years.