PopCult Reviews

State of the Blog – June 2022

If you have been enjoying the reviews and other content I make for this blog, please consider showing your support on Patreon. Every amount is welcomed, and even a one-month donation helps in providing motivation. I like to think of it as a tip jar. At the $10 tier or higher, you can pick a film once a month for me to watch and review. You can add some of your thoughts to the review if you choose. Now, onto the State of the Blog

It has been approximately 14 years since I started PopCult. There was a pause of a couple years after I got married and started my teaching job. But since early 2016, I have been back and posting consistently. PopCult’s readership has grown considerably from 177 views in my first month back to a record 2,860 in May 2022. One of the things I realized I needed to do was establish a formal identity for the site.

Comic Book Review – Justice League: Throne of Atlantis & The Grid

Justice League: Throne of Atlantis (2014)
Reprints Justice League #13-17 and Aquaman #15-16
Written by Geoff Johns
Art by Ivan Reis, Paul Pelletier, and Tony S. Daniel

Justice League: The Grid (2014)
Reprints Justice League #18-20, 22-23
Written by Geoff Johns
Art by Ivan Reis, Jesus Saiz, and Joe Prado

Despite its title, the Throne of Atlantis begins with a two-part story, “The Secret of the Cheetah.” It concerns Wonder Woman’s nemesis, The Cheetah. At this point in the New 52, the Wonder Woman ongoing title was written by Brian Azzarello and was primarily concerned with Diana’s relationship with the Olympian gods. Her non-mythic villains were available, so Johns attempted to develop what The Cheetah is like in this reimagined DC Universe. The Cheetah as a solo villain against the Justice League is very unbelievable as she hasn’t quite proven to be a physical powerhouse against Wonder Woman. There’s some extra magic curse MacGuffin added to the story. I get the sense a lot of this story came out of the image of Superman receiving the curse and taking on cheetah features of his own. It’s reminiscent of those Silver Age covers that promised wild transformations of your favorite heroes. I find the constant push to create some sort of love triangle between Superman – Wonder Woman – Steve Trevor, or Batman really annoying and so unnecessary.

TV Review – The West Wing Sucks Part 1

America is in considerable trouble right now. Yet, this problem didn’t begin recently; it’s been a roiling, bubbling pot of chaos that’s just now starting to overflow. In attempting to do a living autopsy of America’s rapidly dying corpse, multiple moments mark the downturn. Watergate undermined public confidence in pretty much the entire institute of government. The election of Ronald Reagan installed a seemingly permanent reactionary class in the halls of power. The 2000 election was stolen by George Bush when a feckless Al Gore rolled over in the name of “civility.”

Movie Review – Meet the Browns

Meet the Browns (2008)
Written by Tyler Perry and Reuben Cannon
Directed by Tyler Perry

By 2008, Tyler Perry had directed four films following the financial success of Diary of Mad Black Woman. That film was number 1 at the box office on its opening weekend and would make $50.7 million worldwide. This propelled the money machine that has been going ever since, though it has slowed a bit in recent years. I chose Meet the Browns as my next film for a couple reasons. The first was that it introduces Mr. Brown and his daughter Cora who are important to the next movie in the series. The second is that Madea’s role is a cameo but communicates some wild new ideas about her that weren’t present in Diary. The plot is also very much in line with the critique from The Boondocks of colorism in Perry’s work.

Movie Review – The Diary of a Mad Black Woman

The Diary of a Mad Black Woman (2005)
Written by Tyler Perry
Directed by Darren Grant

Tyler Perry is one of the most commercially successful Black filmmakers in American history. That is a fact that we cannot deny. His personal net worth exceeds $800 million; that metric means a lot in America. What about Perry’s films has profoundly affected movies in the United States? What draws audiences to his work? I want to explore that, as well as the controversy surrounding him and his divisive Madea character. We’re going to unpack Perry’s ideology and see how the nature of Madea interacts with that. We won’t be watching every Madea film, but we will watch many of them. I credit the lovely May Leitz and her excellent tier list of Madea movies for inspiring this series.

Patron Pick – Motivational Growth

This is a special reward available to Patreon patrons who pledge at the $10 or $20 a month levels. Each month those patrons will pick a film for me to review. They also get to include some of their own thoughts about the movie, if they choose. This Pick comes from Bekah Lindstrom.

Motivational Growth (2013)
Written & Directed by Don Thacker

American independent film is a complicated industry that’s been through many transformations since movies were invented. The late 1990s to the mid-2010s were a Golden Age at the start but eventually became a time of diminishing returns. The 20th century ended with so much promise, especially with the advent of digital cameras, but by 2015 movies were being churned out that lacked a lot. Motivational Growth is one of those American indie flicks with an interesting premise, but the execution is ruined by a filmmaker who believes he’s cleverer than he actually is. He’s completely unsure of the tone, so the movie veers from body horror to dark comedy, back and forth again and again.

Patron Pick – Belfast

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 own thoughts about the movie. This Pick comes from Matt Harris.

Belfast (2021)
Written & Directed by Kenneth Branagh

The Troubles. For the people of Northern Ireland, that phrase is a reminder of a brutal period of thirty years where communities were at war. While the factions were referenced in the media as Catholic and Protestant, there was much more complexity to what was happening. This irregular war came out of unionists & loyalists (Protestants) wanting to remain as part of the United Kingdom. The nationalists & republicans (Catholics) sought to reunite with Ireland to form a single nation. That’s the basic explanation, but I could write a whole book about the details and go deeper and how the entire thing goes back to the early 17th century. Many people have already written those books.

Movie Review – Daniel Isn’t Real

Daniel Isn’t Real (2019)
Written by Adam Egypt Mortimer and Brian DeLeeuw
Directed by Adam Egypt Mortimer

Acts of brutal mass violence can have a powerful effect on people, especially children. Last week, over a dozen children and two teachers were brutally murdered in their school. This revived the seemingly never solved debates about gun control, health care, school safety, etc. The polling organization Gallup has found that most Americans stop engaging in online conversations about mass shootings approximately four days after they occur. Clearly, the problem will never be solved if we move into these same discourse cycles, so we must keep finding ways to incorporate awareness and potential solutions in everything we do. Though I viewed this picture weeks ago, I can’t help but find that it is relevant to what is happening now.

TV Review – Kids in the Hall (2022)

Kids in the Hall (Amazon Prime)
Written by Garry Campbell & Dave Foley & Bruce McCulloch & Kevin McDonald & Mark McKinney & Scott Thompson & Jennifer Goodhue & Matt Watts, and Julie Klausner
Directed by Aleysa Young & Kelly Makin

I was a nerdy kid. I’m sure that really surprises you. Because I was living in the middle of nowhere in the middle of a two adults’ very dysfunctional marriage, I found solace in odd things. The TV Guide Fall Preview issue was always a highlight, teasing all the fantastic things I’d be able to watch soon. In 1993, when I was 12 years old, I remember coming across a description of a show that was going to air late night on Fridays on CBS. It was called Kids in the Hall, and the description said Lorne Michaels, the producer of Saturday Night Live, was making it. 1993 was around the time I started watching SNL religiously, so I was excited. Unfortunately, I grew up in the Southeastern United States, and I genuinely think our local CBS affiliate chose not to air KITH because it was a very transgressive show that didn’t hide its countercultural take. It wouldn’t be until 1999, during my freshman year of college, that I finally got to see the Kids for the first time as they were rerun constantly on Comedy Central.

Comic Book Review – Justice League: Origin/A Villain’s Journey

Justice League Volume 1: Origin (2013)
Reprints Justice League v2 #1-6
Written by Geoff Johns
Art by Jim Lee

Justice League Volume 2: The Villain’s Journey (2013)
Reprints Justice League v2 #7-12
Written by Geoff Johns
Art by Jim Lee, Gene Ha, and Ivan Reis

In 2011, DC Comics shook up its titles by returning to square one and rebooting the universe. The first book published under the moniker of the New 52 (there were 52 ongoing monthly books) was Justice League #1. In this book, we are introduced to altered versions of classic superheroes. Batman. Superman. Green Lantern. The Flash. Wonder Woman. Aquaman. Cyborg. Through this title, we were meant to see a more modern interpretation of classic characters and narrative arcs. Unfortunately, by 2016, the series would be canceled, and the Justice League title continues to struggle to find its footing. Nevertheless, the series should be a grand slam; it features some of the all-time most iconic American pop media characters. As we look at these books, I hope to figure out if there is anything from this era that should be recognized and re-explored or if this is merely a misstep in editorial decisions.