drama – PopCult Reviews

PopCult Podcast – The Electric State/I’m Still Here

We look at two very different films about people living under oppressive connections. One is a bloated, charmless Netflix original. The other is a passion project about a family struggling to stay together in Brazil during the military dictatorship. Check out our reviews of The Electric State and I’m Still Here.

Movie Review – Osama

Osama (2003)
Written and directed by Siddiq Barmak

Over twenty years, during the US occupation of Afghanistan, an estimated 176,000 died as a result of the conflict. Well over six thousand US soldiers, contractors, and soldiers from allied nations were killed. What was it all for? It doesn’t seem like much that counters those deaths. Afghanistan has historically been a place where armies come to fail. Of all the films I’ve seen from Muslim-majority countries, this one felt the most regressive. The US equivalent would be regions of the States where right-wing militias are growing in power and enforcing their rule. I think it is essential to see this film not as a condemnation of Islam, a religion that has many positive aspects, but as a searing critique of patriarchy. Your average right-wing US pundit will always make it about religion because they ultimately don’t care about the oppression of women.

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.

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.

Movie Review – Julius Caesar (1953)

Julius Caesar (1953)
Written by William Shakespeare, adapted by Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz

Once upon a time, I was a student at university who didn’t know exactly what to major in. I had chosen mass communications, but after taking some of the English prerequisite classes for all students at my liberal arts college I found I really loved those teachers and the subject matter. Upon becoming an English major, I had some new required classes. Two of those were Shakespeare: Comedies and Shakespeare: Tragedies. I wasn’t a stranger to the work of the Bard. I was homeschooled but still assigned Romeo and Juliet to read. An afterschool Literature Club that our local homeschool group formed had us read Julius Caesar and even performed excerpts from it at the homeschool group talent show. I got to deliver Mark Antony’s “Friends, romans, countrymen” speech which I am sure if I reviewed the crumbling VHS tape I’d pick on several areas of improvement.

Movie Review – The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007)
Written and directed by Andrew Dominik

I have watched the films of Andrew Dominik in a slightly odd order. First, I saw Killing Them Softly, his third film. Then I watched Blonde, his dismal adaptation of a Joyce Carol Oates novel about Marilyn Monroe. Now I come to his second film, the one that garnered him attention in the States, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. It was an excellent film; kept its focus on the characters and never got caught up in the tropes of cinematic Westerns, which is the point.

PopCult Podcast – The End/Queer

A group of post-apocalyptic survivors live underground and sing about their feelings. A heroin addicted writer hanging out in 1950s Mexico develops intense feelings for a handsome younger man.

Movie Review – Stranger Than Paradise

Stranger Than Paradise (1984)
Written by Jim Jarmusch and John Lurie
Directed by Jim Jarmusch

Everywhere looks the same. This sentiment is shared by Eddie, one of three central characters in Stranger Than Paradise. He shares this as he and his friends stomp across a snow-covered railroad track, feeling down & out. If you are from the States or have spent much time in the vast middle of the continent, then you know how concrete blasted, copied & pasted so many communities are. Corporate stores and eateries pop up like seeds planted in the asphalt. As someone who grew up in a small town with a main street littered with McDonald’s, CVS, Domino’s Pizza, etc., you do start to feel that any personality the place you lived in once had has been systematically replaced with dull homogeny.

Movie Review – My Night at Maud’s

My Night at Maud’s (1969)
Written and directed by Éric Rohmer

Eric Rohmer is considered the last of the French New Wave directors to be established as such. He was known to be secretive about his personal life, with his name being a mash-up of two people he respected: Eric from director Eric von Stroheim (Sunset Boulevard) and author Sax Rohmer. The filmmaker worked as a teacher in the French Alps but quit in the mid-1940s to move to Paris. Rohmer started attending film screenings where he met Godard, Truffaut, Chabrol, and others. This led to a career as a journalist for the many popular film magazines at the time. When he began to get into filmmaking, he invented his pseudonym to keep his parents from learning he was working in the industry.

PopCult Podcast – The Order/A Real Pain

A troubled FBI agent discovers a white supremacist conspiracy in rural Idaho. Two cousins embark on a tour in Poland to reconnect with their deceased grandmother.