comedy – Page 3 – PopCult Reviews

Patron Pick – Quigley

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 Matt Harris.

Quigley (2003)
Written and directed by William Byron Hillman

When you see a film like Quigley, many questions flow through your mind. “Are we meant to believe 50-year-old Curtis Armstrong is actually 35?” “Was this just a money laundering scheme by the mob?” “Are we laughing with Gary Busey or at him?” If Quigley were to come out today, it would, like the work of Neil Breen, be caught up in the meme machine. Yet, this picture was released in the early 2000s, shot on video, and released straight to the VHS format. At every turn, I was confused by this picture, wondering how aware the people on set were that this was utter garbage. A paycheck is a paycheck, I suppose.

PopCult Podcast – Beetlejuice/Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

With Tim Burton’s latest opening in theaters, we decided to take a look back. The first is a classic, his second feature which introduced us to the ghost with the most. The second is YA novel adaptation from 2016 that is heavy on the CG and exposition.

PopCult Podcast – Kinds of Kindness/The Teachers’ Lounge

Two tense new releases are our focus in this episode. Yorgos Lanthimos delivers a triptych of tales about twisted versions of love. A teacher in Germany becomes caught in the drama of thefts in her school and decides to record who is doing it.

Movie Review – Daisies

Daisies (1966)
Written by Ester Krumbachová, Pavel Juráček, and Věra Chytilová
Directed by Věra Chytilová

There’s a vibrating chaos at the heart of Daisies, considered the most significant achievement in Czech cinema. It’s a study of patriarchy through the eyes of two cartoon-like women whose behaviors and antics are intentionally exaggerated. There’s no real plot to speak of, rather vignettes in which two girls, both named Marie, interact with people or engage in frantic behavior, giggling and gorging down food. The film conflicts with the conservatism present in Czechoslovakia’s communist government at the time. It is, in my opinion, a needed continued push to the Left that all communist governments are constantly in need of. We humans tend to settle into familiar routines and ruts, but we must also allow our perspectives to be challenged, especially when it comes to increasing our embrace of others outside of systemic power. Daisies is an attempt at that.

TV Review – Fantasmas

Fantasmas (2024)
Written and directed by Julio Torres

The post-Internet era of media is very much here, and one aspect of that is this DIY/hyperreal style of filmmakers like Julio Torres. The work is very much queer both in its presentation of diverse genders and sexualities but also in the strangeness of its presentation. It’s clearly modeled on our real world but often exaggerated in ways inspired by the cartoons of the 1990s and early 2000s these artists grew up watching. They address the current reality of capitalism’s buckling by finding humor in the mundane but nevertheless infuriating odyssey of trying to get adequate health care or resolving a bank charge. And it’s all done in a manner that feels fresh and exciting.

Solo Tabletop RPG Actual Play – Kids on Bikes Solo Part Five

You can purchase Kids on Bikes here.

You can purchase the Plot Unfolding Machine here.

Read our previous session here

(For this session, I will use the Powered Character rules for Waldo to reflect the change. The Powered Character gets 7 Power Tokens that can be spent to roll 1d6 each to add to a check roll. They only replenish with rest.)

(Powers for Waldo are

Heals others with a touch
Controls the elements – fire)

Scene 16 – Falling 1 of 3 – The Old Sykes House

Modified proposal: increase the intensity and tension
Action: Looking for some answers

Waldo’s eyelids flicker. Something has changed as he takes a breath. He can hear noise in the room. The ground beneath him is damp and dirt. Rita Hyde’s voice. Then Sally Gilliam’s, but weaker. The Mayor is there, too.

Movie Review – The Adventures of Baron Munchausen

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988)
Written by Charles McKeown and Terry Gilliam
Directed by Terry Gilliam

I was obsessed with Terry Gilliam’s Brazil as a college undergrad. It was the first time I saw it, and right away, I found the imagery to be spellbinding. I’ve cooled immensely since that time on Gilliam’s work. I find most of it to be incredibly inventive yet frustratingly messy. Some comments he’s made have also caused me to see him as a filmmaker I’m not too keen on following. The first film of his I saw was Time Bandits when I was a kid, and it left an indelible mark on me. I remember seeing commercials for The Adventures of Baron Munchausen and desperately wanting to see it. However, it was never an option when renting movies at the video rental store. Finally seeing the film, reminded me that, like all of Gilliam’s work, there is tremendous artistry here, but it is hindered by a lack of consistency.

Solo Tabletop Actual Play – Kids on Bikes Solo Part Four

You can purchase Kids on Bikes here.

You can purchase the Plot Unfolding Machine here.

Read about our previous session here

Scene 10 – Rising Action 6 of 8 – Westgrove PD
Modified proposal: Make the location less favorable
Danger: Risk honor or reputation
Who: A political or reasonable person

Waldo is awakened in the early morning hours by Clem shouting at him. Reid is there too and also, Mayor Sartain. The Mayor looks irritated and starts screaming at Waldo.

“Where are the kids, Holman? Tell us, you fucking freak!” the Mayor rages. Reid steps between the Mayor and the bars of the cell.

Patron Pick – Shanghai Noon

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.

Shanghai Noon (2000)
Written by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar
Directed by Tom Dey

“The feeling of belatedness, of living after the gold rush, is as omnipresent as it is disavowed. Compare the fallow terrain of the current moment with the fecundity of previous periods and you will quickly be accused of ‘nostalgia’. But the reliance of current artists on styles that were established long ago suggests that the current moment is in the grip of a formal nostalgia.” – Mark Fisher

If you were raised in the US or live there, you are in a period of artistic decline. The big movie studios, always focused on the dollar, have genuinely given up on any pretense of their output having long-lasting cultural meaning. In the golden era of the studio, some executives and presidents understood they had to make crowd pleasers but always tried to push the medium forward. They would give money to some smaller pictures that ended up being the ones remembered all these decades ago.

TV Review – Northern Exposure Season Three

Northern Exposure Season Three (1991-92)
Written by Martin Sage, Sybill Adelman, Ellen Herman, Robin Green, Stuart Stevens, Henry Bromell, Dennis Koenig, Jordan Budde, Craig Volk, Diane Frolov, Andrew Schneider, Jeff Melvoin, David Assael, Mitchell Burgess, Kate Boutilier, Jeffrey Vlaming
Directed by Nick Marck, Bill D’Elia, Miles Watkins, Jim Hayman, David Carson, Sandy Smolan, Michael Katleman, Jack Bender, Michael Fresco, Lee Shallat, Dean Parisot, Rob Thompson, Matthew Nodella, Steve Robman, Tom Moore

This was the season where the awards started coming in for Northern Exposure. It was also the first season to have a complete order, twenty-two episodes. The budget has been increased, and the amount of care put into many of these episodes approaches cinematic levels. I had to check what year these episodes came out, 1991-92, but they feel more complex than something you would expect from CBS then. It’s become clear to me how this show was one of the experimental US programs of the 1990s that paved the way for the prestige TV of the cable era.