political – Page 2 – PopCult Reviews

Movie Review – Salo, or The 120 Days of Sodom

Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)
Written by Sergio Citti
Directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini

His body was nearly unrecognizable when it was found on a beach in Ostia, near the edges of Rome. Pier Paolo Pasolini had been savagely beaten and run over multiple times with his own car. Additionally, the director had his genitals crushed with a metal bar and had been doused in gasoline and set ablaze. He was 53 years old when his life was taken. He hadn’t started making movies until he was 35, having helped write dialogue for Federico Fellini’s Nights of Cabiria. Fellini brought him back for the La Dolce Vita script. Before films, Pasolini was known as a poet & a painter, both finding a potent presence in his cinematic work. His murder appeared to have been part of an extortion attempt by the mafia, stealing reels of Salo and demanding large sums of money in return. There was certainly hate behind it, too.

Book Update – September/October 2024

Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky

I had this recommended when I asked for people’s science fiction novel recommendations on a social media platform. I can’t say I loved it as intensely as I’ve seen others, but it has some incredible ideas and moments that have stuck with me. The parts I liked appealed to some existential ideas I have been thinking about for years, particularly humans, disregarding that they are ultimately just a type of animal who benefited (or were cursed) by being taken down an intense path of evolution.

Movie Review – The Atomic Cafe

The Atomic Cafe (1982)
Written and directed by Kevin Rafferty, Jayne Loader, and Pierce Rafferty

The context of the atomic bomb at its inception is not the same as it was viewed by the public two decades later. Our relationship with this weapon of mass destruction continues to evolve. We no longer have children practice “duck and cover” drills under the fear that the Soviets or their allies might launch nukes on the United States. Those drills weren’t really about protecting anyone if a bomb was dropped. We can look at what happened to Hiroshima and Nagasaki to see that our buildings would be of little protection to anyone. Those drills were about instilling fear of communists in the population. This is quite ironic, as no communist nation has ever dropped an atomic weapon on a civilian population. That “honor” is held by one country on this planet, and they did it twice.

Movie Review – Ninotchka

Ninotchka (1939)
Written by Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, and Walter Reisch
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch

Ninotchka is a perfect example of Western anti-communist propaganda. The impetus of this film came from a three-sentence short story written by Jewish Hungarian author Melchior Lengyel. The story went like this: “Russian girl saturated with Bolshevist ideals goes to fearful, capitalistic, monopolistic Paris. She meets romance and has an uproarious good time. Capitalism not so bad, after all.” I can also point to evidence that the U.S. government acknowledged this was anti-Soviet propaganda because when MGM attempted to re-release it during World War II, it was suppressed. After all, the USSR was our ally. It is informative to look at archived material from that time, particularly Western publications like Time and Life magazines, as they often spoke glowingly about the Soviets and even Stalin. It seems they suddenly became “evil” when the United States decided to pivot post-war for their own gain.

Book Update – March/April 2024

A Touch of Jen by Beth Morgan

What a strange book. Remy and Alicia are an odd couple. One of their favorite pastimes is to scroll through Jen’s social media profiles and make fun of her. Jen’s a former co-worker of Remy’s from when he was a waiter. Alicia clearly has insecurities because Remy has the hots for Jen but pretends he thinks she’s a pretentious basic bitch. Things have evolved into a weird sexual roleplay where Alicia will pretend to be Jen while Remy pretends he doesn’t like it. That’s not where the strangeness ends. Alicia insists strange noises are coming from the kitchen in their apartment at night. Remy says it’s probably just their roommate.

PopCult Podcast – The Sweet East/The American Society of Magical Negroes

This was a week of films that were not great. One is a Alice in Wonderland picaresque following a hipster down the East Coast. The second is a wildly misguided attempt at racial satire that is woefully hollow.

Comic Book Review – Palestine

Palestine (Fantagraphics)
Written and illustrated by Joe Sacco

Journalist/cartoonist Joe Sacco visited the Palestinian territory during the First Intifada (1987-1993). You may have seen the word, Intifada lately, and, depending on how you had explained it to you, you very possibly got the wrong definition. The Intifada was a period of sustained protest and civil disobedience by Palestinians against the Israeli occupation. 1987 was the twentieth anniversary of the Arab-Israeli War, which saw the occupation seizing even more territory, pushing the indigenous Palestinians into smaller & smaller walled-off spaces. Sacco spent a lot of time visiting the West Bank and Gaza Strip, having conversations with Palestinians of all ages who had all experienced brutality at the hands of the Western occupying force. He recreates these moments in this incredibly moving graphic novel.

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.

Movie Review – Moolaadé

Moolaadé (2004)
Written and directed by Ousmane Sembène

This was Ousmane Sembène’s final film. He passed away in Dakar in 2007 at the age of 84. For this last picture, the filmmaker focused his energy on a critique of his own culture. Female genital mutilation or circumcision is a common practice in several African countries. It’s traditionally performed with an iron sheet or knife. An elder will remove part or all of the female genitals with no anesthesia and then suture the wound with a needle or plant thorn. As much as 15% of girls forced to endure the procedure die from excessive blood loss or the infections that follow. Sembène wants to intensely critique his culture and highlight how some traditions must stop.

Movie Review – Xala

Xala (1975)
Written and directed by Ousmane Sembène

In the mid-15th century, the Portuguese landed on the shores of Senegal and began a centuries-long occupation that included the British, the Dutch, and the French. It would not be until 1958 that Senegal declared its independence and merged with French Sudan to form the Mali Federation. That would not last long, and by 1960, they went back to their individual states. The process of decolonization is not quick & easy. When the colonizers withdraw, there is still tremendous work to do, a lot of which centers around removing the ideologies & ways of doing imposed on the colonized people by their occupiers. Ousmane Sembène is keenly aware of this, and in his film Xala, he produces an angry screed at how Western capitalism is allowed to fester in the systems of the post-colonial African people.