January 2025 Posting Schedule

Film Series
[Hazy Shades of Winter –  2 Jan thru 20 Jan]
The Ice Storm, The Ascent, Ikiru, Winter Light, Fireworks, My Night at Maud’s, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Landscape Suicide, Stranger Than Paradise, Ariel

TV Reviews
19 Jan – Northern Exposure Season Six
26 Jan – The Prisoner (2009)

Comic Book Reviews
4 Jan – Daredevil by Frank Miller Part One
11 Jan – Daredevil by Frank Miller Part Two
18 Jan – Superman by Geoff Johns Part One
25 Jan – Superman by Geoff Johns Part Two

Solo Tabletop RPG Reviews and Actual Plays
12, 19, 26 Jan – Under Ashen Skies

Podcast Episodes
5 Jan – Wicked: Part One/Y2K
12 Jan – The Order/A Real Pain
19 Jan – TBD
26 Jan – TBD

31 Days of Character Creation 2025 #1 – Dungeons & Dragons 5e

I’ll be participating in this challenge which gets a good explanation at this blog post. I’ll be making a character from a different tabletop RPG system each day for the 31 days of January. First up is a system I have never made a character in or played at all, Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition.

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My Favorite Films of 2024

Honorable Mentions: Longlegs, Cuckoo, Love Lies Bleeding, Sasquatch Sunset, Furiosa, In a Violent Nature, Ghostlight, Janet Planet, Rebel Ridge, Good One, The Apprentice, Problemista, The Boy and The Heron, Last Summer, Flow, and All of Us Strangers

His Three Daughters (directed by Azazel Jacobs)
Listen to our full review here

Three women (Natasha Lyonne, Carrie Coon, Elizabeth Olsen) come together as their father is in the final days of hospice care. The audience is thrown into the middle of the situation, quickly figuring out that these sisters’ relationships are tenuous at best. Coon’s middle child swoops in and tries to take over the situation from eldest child, Lyonne. The youngest child, Olsen, is considered a flighty, flakey type but pushes back on her sister’s misconceptions about her. Azazel Jacobs has constructed a very human story about aging and family that never drowns in maudlin sentiment. This mix of empathy and reality is one of the best films I saw all year.

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My Favorite Film Discoveries of 2024

Here are the films that weren’t new in 2024, but they were new to me. Of all my first-time viewings this year, these movies stuck with me.

Mandabi (1968, directed by Ousmane Sembene)
Read my full review here

In 2024, I discovered the films of the late Senegalese filmmaker Ousmane Sembene. Most of Sembene’s work is focused on the colonial/post-colonial era. He looks at how even when the colonizer has been (mostly) physically removed, their specter remains in social and economic structures. That sounds very academic, but Sembene can make it easy to digest and genuinely hilarious in a film like Mandabi. A Senegalese man receives money from a nephew working in Paris. He’s meant to disperse this money in a specific way to particular people, but once news of the money gets around the community, everyone starts showing up to call in debt or plead their case. If you want an introduction to West African cinema, I think Mandabi is a great jumping-off point and had me cracking up many times.

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My Favorite Television Watched in 2024

X-Men ‘97 Season One (Disney+)
Read my full review here

I was skeptical of the animated X-Men revival. Like many others, I have been burned out on superhero shows and films for a while now. However, this was the one Marvel thing in 2024 that I actually enjoyed. It was probably aided by reading Chris Claremont’s 16-year run on Uncanny X-Men this year, where so many stories on X-Men animated old & new drew from. Stylistically the ‘97 revival felt like the 1990s version, but with slightly more sophisticated storytelling and some major upgrades regarding the animation. There were a few duds; the Jubilee/Mojo episode was meh. The season overall was fantastic. I was very happy to see characters like Nightcrawler added to the regular roster; it always felt odd that he wasn’t included as a regular. We get a big cliffhanger that suggests some twists for a second season. Hoping they can keep the quality levels just as high going forward.

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My Favorite Books Read in 2024

Good Night, Sleep Tight: Stories by Brian Evenson

I have never been disappointed by Brian Evenson, so I was delighted to see his short story collection coming out the exact same day as Laird Barron’s new book. These two books helped improve my October, and I needed it. This story collection was a slight shift from Evenson’s normal fare. I noticed a lot of variations on the same themes (mothers, robots, the end of humanity) and a shift to more science fiction stories than just horror.

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My Favorite Solo Tabletop RPGs of 2024

Becoming the Villain by There’s A Way Studios
You can purchase this game here
Read my actual play here

I didn’t play many solo journaling games this year, opting for games with more dice rolling and moment-to-moment action. I enjoyed this journaling game, which helped me create a villain for my Supersworn (Starforged with supers assets) game. Becoming the Villain uses tarot cards to unfold your future fiend’s history. You’ll track your character’s changing ambitions, goals, and motivations affected by the events keyed from your card draws. Allies very likely will become enemies. Precious resources will be destroyed and fuel your villain’s rage. For GMs wanting to have a firmer handle on their campaign’s BBEG, this could be an enjoyable resource during planning.

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PopCult Podcast – PopCult Christmas 2024 Special

Ghosts visiting a jaded television executive. A mad scientist’s creation hoping to find a home among the normies. A Japanese POW camp becoming the site of a clash between soldiers and honor.

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