PopCult Reviews

Comic Book Review – Rogues

Rogues (2022)
Reprints Rogues #1-4
Written by Joshua Williamson
Art by Leomacs

Heist stories are always entertaining. It’s endlessly fun to watch as a group of scoundrels plans out a big theft, implements the plan, and then deals with all the ways things didn’t go as expected. It may appeal to a sense of karmic balance. No matter how much we think we know what we are doing, the randomness of the universe and the actions of other individuals can topple us in a second. The Flash comics have always had an interesting cadre of gimmicky rivals, outmatched only by Batman and Spider-Man. Joshua Williamson, who is no stranger to The Flash, having penned an okay run a few years back, returns sans the Scarlet Speedster in favor of his rogues’ gallery.

Movie Review – Duck, You Sucker!

Duck, You Sucker! or a Fistful of Dynamite (1971)
Written by Luciano Vincenzoni, Sergio Donati, Sergio Leone, Roberto de Leonardis, and Carlo Tritto
Directed by Sergio Leone

Leone’s time with the western came to an end with this picture. He couldn’t know, but it would be his penultimate film, causing his career to be framed through the lens of the genre forever. That’s not bad because Leone completely transformed western cinema beyond the borders of Italy. American filmmakers could no longer make westerns that sanitized the past in the ways they once did; that had to reflect the harsh survival that went on as America spread itself out across the continent. Duck, You Sucker! is not his greatest western, but it’s still not completely terrible. When watching the work of a director like Leone, it’s hard to critique the quality of any of his career. It’s at a level few people ever reach. What informed this movie was not Leone’s love of westerns but the rising up of left-wing revolutionary activism in Italy and a desire to highlight that the country as it stood was not going to survive unless things changed.

Movie Review – Once Upon a Time in the West

Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
Written by Sergio Donati, Sergio Leone, Dario Argento, and Bernardo Bertolucci
Directed by Sergio Leone

Sergio Leone was done with westerns. He’d said what he had to with the Dollars Trilogy and wanted to get onto his next film, an adaptation of the novel The Hoods, a film that would eventually be renamed Once Upon a Time in America. However, Paramount approached the director with an offer to direct a western for them as long as veteran actor Henry Fonda was attached. Fonda was Leone’s favorite actor, so he couldn’t pass up the chance to work with the performer. While the interiors were shot in Leone’s familiar Italian studios, and almost all of the exteriors were in Spain. But one fantastic sequence was a beautiful surprise. When one character arrives in the small town, they take a wagon ride through Monument Valley in Arizona, an iconic locale for western fans and such a wonderful sight in a Leone picture.

Movie Review – The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (1966)
Written by Age & Scarpelli, Luciano Vincenzoni, and Sergio Leone
Directed by Sergio Leone

So first things first, I didn’t know anything about this movie besides it being a western and the iconic central theme from Ennio Morricone. For years, my entire life, in fact, what I thought was The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (GBU) was actually For a Few Dollars More. That showdown in the final moments of More is what I thought happened in GBU. So this was a treat for me because it meant I honestly was going in blind to this movie, and whatever happened was going to be a completely fresh experience. I walked away solid in knowing that More is my favorite Leone picture, but this is a masterpiece as well, a perfect thematic culmination of everything the Dollars Trilogy set out to do.

TV Review – The Rings of Power Season 1

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 1 (Amazon Prime)
Written by J. D. Payne & Patrick McKay, Gennifer Hutchison, Jason Cahill and Justin Doble, Stephany Folsom, and Nicholas Adams
Directed by J.A. Bayona, Wayne Che Yip, and Charlotte Brändström

When Amazon announced they would make a prequel series set in the world of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, my first thought was, “Why?” I enjoyed Peter Jackson’s LOTR movies when they came out, but I couldn’t stand The Hobbit trilogy and was perfectly happy to let that cinematic world be as it is. But that’s the thing with capitalism; why let a story or I.P. just be when you could keep mining it for more content and eventually result in the public hating everything about it? How could we skip that opportunity? So, with some fragments of stories & unfinished tales plus a hell of a lot of creative agency to change things, we were finally given the billion-dollar bloat that is The Rings of Power.

Movie Review – Sick of Myself

Sick of Myself (2022)
Written & Directed by Kristoffer Borgli

Having a positive, productive relationship in the current modern context seems challenging. I got married in 2011 and, thankfully, since then, haven’t had to dip my toe back in the dating pool. I am lucky that I have an incredibly supportive partner, and we have just grown closer as the years pass by. For some couples, the pandemic was a moment where the relationship collapsed; for us, we were strengthened. I don’t think this is because we are exceptional in any way. We actively listen to the other person and absorb what they say. We still have arguments, though we don’t let them go beyond the moment they happen. This is a partnership where everyone has to come to the table with a win-win mindset. Anything else is just going to lead to dysfunction.

PopCult Podcast – Vesper/See How They Run

We kick off November with an indie sci-fi sleeper and a screwball murder mystery.

Comic Book Review – Immortal Hulk Book Five

Immortal Hulk Book Five (2022)
Reprints Immortal Hulk #41-50
Written by Al Ewing
Art by Joe Bennett, Ruy Jose, Belardino Brabo, and Paul Mounts

No Hulk creative run is better than Al Ewing’s Immortal Hulk. When I was a child, around 4 or 5 years old, I would religiously watch The Incredible Hulk animated series on NBC. I had to have been watching reruns as I was only one year old when it debuted, and I can’t imagine I remember anything from that period. This cartoon was my first exposure to the Hulk and the characters that make up his world: Betty Ross, Rick Jones, Ned Talbot, and General Thunderbolt Ross. As I got older, one of the first comics I purchased was Incredible Hulk #341, written by Peter David with art by Todd MacFarlane. At that time, I didn’t really understand what was going on. The Hulk was gray; he seemed to be on the run. He fought a villain named Man-Bull (who I later learned debuted as a Daredevil villain, odd). I just liked the power and fury of the Hulk. This character’s appeal to children comes from the same place as a love for dinosaurs. When you are small and powerless, it can be life-saving to imagine being something with more agency and the ability to crush anyone who messes with you.

Movie Review – For a Few Dollars More

For A Few Dollars More (1964)
Written by Sergio Leone, Fulvio Morsella, Luciano Vincenzoni, and Sergio Donati
Directed by Sergio Leone

Setting the table is essential. You need to know who is important, what they want, and what drives them. Director Sergio Leone delivers a straightforward example in the three opening prologues of his Western masterpiece For A Few Dollars More. With each introduction, we meet one of the notable characters of the piece, and more importantly, we see them reveal their fundamental selves through action. By seeing what they do, particularly their view of justice, the audience can immediately understand who we are dealing with. Our anticipation to see them cross paths is primed. I wondered how one person would react when in direct conflict with another and how fascinating it would be to watch play out.

Movie Review – A Fistful of Dollars

A Fistful of Dollars (1964)
Written by Sergio Leone, Adriano Bolzoni, Víctor Andrés Catena, Mark Lowell, Víctor Andrés Catena, Jaime Comas Gil, Fernando Di Leo, Duccio Tessari, and Tonino Valerii
Directed by Sergio Leone

The Western is an American storytelling genre predicated on the myths of Western Expansion and Manifest Destiny. Starting with dime story paperbacks and evolving into radio plays, comic books, films, and television, Westerns were even more prominent than Marvel movies at their peak. Their influence was so considerable that Westerns and gangster pictures became the exclusive representation of American cinema abroad. Italian director Sergio Leone grew up as the child of a film director and silent movie actress, so he was constantly exposed to moviemaking. Historical epics, nicknamed “swords and sandals,” were the popular genre films of the 1950s in Italy, but they fell out of favor as the decade closed out. So Leone decided to combine his love of samurai movies (particularly Akira Kurosawa’s work) and Westerns and make his own in the wilds of Spain. Nicknamed “Spaghetti Westerns” due to their Italian origins, this subgenre managed to reignite new interest. They challenged American directors’ rose-colored depictions of the West and presented the audience with a much darker, violent, and sexually threatening frontier.