political – Page 5 – PopCult Reviews

Book Update – July/August 2023

The Inconsolables: Stories by Michael Wehunt

I was an instant fan of Michael Wehunt after reading his debut collection, Green Pastures, back in 2016. I’ve been waiting for more, and this year, we finally got his follow-up collection. What I found interesting is that he’s changed a lot since that first book. The two still have common threads, but these felt like a real development of those initial ideas. I would argue Wehunt is taking on a significant influence from Robert Aickman, creating supernatural scenarios where the exact nature of the dreadful presence is never detailed. It might be strange things happening in the window in the apartment across the way, as in “Holoow,” or haunting childhood memories resurfacing, as in “Vampire Fiction.” Wehunt returns to some slightly familiar territory with “The Pine Arch Collection,” which continues his fantastic work translating found footage into horror lit. Wehunt works better with words to evoke powerful images than most horror films. My absolute favorite in this collection was “The Teeth of America,” framed as various excerpts from books and news articles detailing a bizarre event in the Appalachians involving hundreds of white supremacists congregating for a ritual. Once again, Wehunt’s imagery is so strong I don’t want any of this ever adapted to a visual medium because, in my opinion, it would diminish the potent horror of the source material.

PopCult Podcast – RMN/Past Lives

Two more new releases take the spotlight this week. In one we journey to Transylvania, but there’s no vampires here. Instead, it’s a tense & moody exploration of various ethnic groups at each other’s throat. In our second film, we span 24 years as a Korean woman retains thoughts of her childhood crush while moving on with her life and changing in so many ways.

Patron Pick – The Social Dilemma

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.

The Social Dilemma (2020)
Written by Davis Coombe, Vickie Curtis, and Jeff Orlowski
Directed by Jeff Orlowski

In every person’s mind lives three Vincent Kartheisers, at least according to this “documentary.” This might be the worst documentary I have ever seen. I was baffled from the first ten minutes and kept sitting there, unable to get over how amateurish and poorly edited the whole thing was. It’s also one of the most redundant films I have ever seen. The picture’s central thesis is explained in the first five or so minutes, and the rest of the runtime is just people saying the thesis in different ways over and over again. Oh yes, and using poorly thought-out metaphors. Two people used magicians as metaphors to explain social media, which was kept in the final cut rather than the director noting that this was unnecessarily repetitive. It’s also a film about a problem in which the people who caused it try to convince you that only they can solve it.

Movie Review – El Norte

El Norte (1983)
Written by Gregory Nava & Anna Thomas
Directed by Gregory Nava

The United States will never seal up their southern border. They will never stop using it as a political football, either. The States rely heavily on cheap, undocumented labor as part of capitalism. Allowing these workers to enter the country (even through illegal means) helps the wealthy squeeze native-born workers out of fair wages in exchange for compromising for lower pay to “be competitive.” This is a problem created by America as they additionally spend taxpayer money through the defense budget to continuously keep Central & South American countries economically & politically destabilized. They get to extract valuable resources from these regions and pay almost nothing, which leads to refugees seeking work elsewhere. The cruelty of this system is not an accident; it’s the catalyst that keeps the engine of capitalism running. It cannot be reformed; it must be abolished. In El Norte, we follow one such pair of economic refugees desperate to find a new life north of their home.

Movie Review – Meantime

Meantime (1983)
Written & Directed by Mike Leigh

When I was younger and saw a Mike Leigh movie, I didn’t understand it. I was very much into certain kinds of art-house cinema that were more heightened in the stylistics, and the quirky working-class tone of Leigh’s work was confounding. Now, in my early 40s, I find Leigh to be brilliant. He understands the class divide and how ordinary people are pitted against each other better than almost any other director alive. Unsurprisingly, Leigh holds up Yasujirō Ozu’s slice-of-life domestic films as a chief inspiration. Leigh adds his British flair to the characters’ affectations, but the stories are very grounded, focused on the travails of working people attempting to make their way through an increasingly hostile world.

TV Review – I’m a Virgo

I’m a Virgo (Amazon Prime)
Written by Boots Riley, Tze Chun, Whitney White, Marcus Gardley, and Michael R. Jackson
Directed by Boots Riley

When I saw Boots Riley’s Sorry to Bother You years ago it didn’t click with me. That was weird because so much of the underlying themes of the film meshed with my own beliefs. On reflection, having watched and loved I’m a Virgo, I think this has to do with the conflicting structures of film vs. television. There was so much to the world Riley was creating in his film that never got the time it needed to breathe, so that the audience could fully feel the impact. I’m a Virgo, with seven episodes, is able to avoid that while still feeling like a cohesive seven part film. Ideas are introduced and allowed to be fleshed out. Characters don’t just linger in the background, the focus will shift away from our protagonist to spotlight important figures. And it’s a story of superheroes that doesn’t suck like all the Marvel stuff.

Patron Pick – Philadelphia

Philadelphia (1993)
Written by Ron Nyswaner
Directed by Jonathan Demme

I don’t really gravitate towards “issue” films. You know, the type of movie. It’s centered around a pressing social issue and dramatizes it in a way that appeals to mainstream audiences. These types of films often shave off the rough edges to not make the audience feel too uncomfortable. That defeats the purpose of bringing up the topic in the first place. Feeling discomfort when contemplating something like prejudice is the correct way to feel. We must examine our unconscious biases to become better people, open our arms wider, and accept people for who they are. I’m not saying it is always easy, but it is necessary to be the best version of yourself and help humanity as a whole. Philadelphia was a film I wrote off as that sort of “issue” movie. I’ve never entirely understood Tom Hanks’s appeal so that probably moved me away from it too. Boy, was I wrong about this movie, though still correct regarding a few things.

Movie Review – Observe and Report

Observe and Report (2009)
Written & Directed by Jody Hill

In 2009, America got two mall cop movies. In January, the Kevin James vehicle Paul Blart, Mall Cop was released, and just a few months later, in April, Observe and Report dropped in theaters. At the time, this film was unfairly maligned and lumped in with Paul Blart. On the surface, they share a lot of elements but are ultimately vastly different movies with very different perspectives on law enforcement. Observe and Report is a film that full-throatedly yells, “All Cops Are Bastards,” and rightfully so. Police were not brought into existence to protect the ordinary person. They were an alliance made between those with systemic power and violent organized gangs with the express purpose of protecting private property. The misconception that police exist to watch over communities and spare them from harm is a myth that is proven false day after day. This isn’t about what a nice guy your cop uncle is or how the policeman gave you a lollipop when you were growing up. Those are anecdotal and ultimately irrelevant. ACAB is about the actual role of police in our societies and how they employ state-sanctioned violence to keep the populace virtually enslaved.

Movie Review – Walker

Walker (1987)
Written by Rudy Wurlitzer
Directed by Alex Cox

When I see or hear gringos complaining about Central & South American immigrants showing up in large numbers in the States, I can’t help but think in response, “This wouldn’t be a problem if the States and other colonizers just stayed the fuck home and minded their own business rather than imposing themselves and intentionally destablizing already established cultures.” Colonization means disrupting indigenous people’s development and almost always ends with them becoming an exploited class by foreign business interests that make up our extraction economy. Alex Cox is clearly furious, and we can see that broiling on screen in his savage, intentionally historically inaccurate depiction of one American madman’s crusade into Nicaragua. Something that happened long ago and was happening as Cox made this film.

Movie Review – Week End

Week End (1967)
Written & Directed by Jean-Luc Godard

I have never felt as enamored with the French New Wave directors as I thought I should have been. I love the Italian New Wave, the British films of this period, with their social realism, are fascinating, and the later German New Wave is full of movies I adore. But I still struggle to really “get” the French New Wave. No director is a perfect example of this filmmaking movement more than Jean-Luc Godard. He was born to deconstruct and reconstruct cinema as a reaction to World War II and the ripples it continues to make in the West. After a decade of writing film criticism, he kicked off the New Wave with Breathless, examining American mob movie tropes mixed with Godard’s cinematic sensibilities. Week End represents the end of the New Wave period, released at the end of a year when Godard had two other films shown in cinemas.