PopCult Reviews

Movie Review – Last Night in Soho

Last Night in Soho (2021)
Written by Edgar Wright and Krysty Wilson-Cairns
Directed by Edgar Wright

Edgar Wright has consistently delivered good movies with broad appeal to audiences. From Shaun of the Dead to Baby Driver, I certainly respect Wright’s work while not my favorite films or my favorite filmmaker. Last Night in Soho is a different turn for Wright, his first female protagonist and an homage to giallo & Hitchcock. I wouldn’t say this is my favorite of his catalog of films, it’s certainly not bad, but I wasn’t drawn in that strongly by the story. This has been a common trend I’ve noticed with his last few movies, they are technically fantastic and visually inventive, but I feel cold to the characters.

Movie Review – The French Dispatch

The French Dispatch (2021)
Written by Wes Anderson, Roman Coppola, Hugo Guinness, and Jason Schwartzman
Directed by Wes Anderson

In recent years, director Wes Anderson’s particular aesthetic has been a point of critique and parody. As someone who has enjoyed his work since first seeing Rushmore, I have to admit that his style can be very overbearing at times, and his more recent films haven’t been my favorites. However, I get the sense Anderson has been listening but isn’t going to simply give up the stylization he enjoys. Instead, he made this anthology film that embraces his personal tastes and stretches & explodes them with slight variations. As a result, I found myself starting the film with low expectations and becoming wholly charmed by its wild non-linear storytelling.

Book Update – September/October 2021

Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler

We live at a time when much of the world we assumed was permanent is being shown as transitory at best. Unsustainable systems of living are falling apart before our eyes reminding us how dead-eyed consumption charging into the future will lead to our deaths. Science fiction writer Octavia E. Butler saw humanity headed in this direction back in the 1990s when Parable of the Sower was published. The book is set in the distant future of 2024 and is told from the perspective of Lauren Olamina, a young Black woman living outside of Los Angeles. Her deceased mother’s use of drugs during pregnancy imbued Lauren with hyper-empathy, meaning she experiences the sensations and feelings of others. In a crumbling world full of violence and rage, this is a very horrible thing to have.

September/October 2021 Digest

Features
Patron’s Pick – Let There Be Light (Matt)
Patron’s Pick – Treehouse of Horror I – III
Seth’s Favorite Films of 1971
Book Update September/October 2021

Comic Book Review – The Eternals: Cosmic Origins

The Eternals: Cosmic Origins (2021)
Reprints material from Eternals v1 #1-4, Avengers Spotlight #35, Avengers #361, and What If? #25-38
Written by Jack Kirby, Mark Gruenwald, Ralph Macchio, Danny Fingeroth, and Bob Harras
Art by Jack Kirby, Ron Wilson, Rich Buckler, Jim Valentino, and Steve Epting

This is probably not the best place for a newbie to start with The Eternals. The collection is an odd mishmash of pieces that often end with a directive to go to another collection where the story continues. Here you get a sampling of the ways Jack Kirby’s Eternals have been presented from their debut in the 1970s to the mid-90s when Marvel had sort of gone off the rails. The Neil Gaiman/John Romita Jr. Eternals mini-series was not included here, which would probably be the best place for one unfamiliar with this branch of the Marvel family to go to first. All that said, The Eternals is an interesting property in the Marvel Universe as it is one of the most purely Kirby things ever dreamed up and has a parallel in DC Comics during Kirby’s exile there.

Movie Review – The Wolf Man (1941)

The Wolf Man (1941)
Written by Curt Siodmak
Directed by George Waggner

Universal tried their hand at a werewolf movie in 1935 with Werewolf of London. The film was moderately critically successful but didn’t garner the acclaim Dracula, Frankenstein, and others had just a few years prior. The premise was seen as a little too similar to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, while the box office returns were poor. Universal didn’t see an immediate sequel in the property, so they went on with Dracula and Frankenstein sequels and a surprising number of follow-ups to The Invisible Man. When the 1940s came, it seemed like a time to revisit the werewolf, so we got The Wolf Man.

Patron Pick – The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror I-III

This is a special reward available to Patreon patrons who pledge at the $10 or $20 a month levels. Each month those patrons will get to 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 Matt Harris.

Treehouse of Horror
(original airdate: October 25, 1990)
Written by John Swartzwelder, Jay Kogen, Wallace Wolodarksy, Sam Simon, and Edgar Allen Poe
Directed by Wes Archer, Rich Moore, and David Silverman

Treehouse of Horror II
(original airdate: October 21, 1991)
Written by Al Jean, Mike Reiss, Jeff Martin, George Meyer, Sam Simon, and John Swartzwelder
Directed by Jim Reardon

Treehouse of Horror III
(original airdate: October 29, 1992)
Written by Al Jean & Mike Reiss, Jay Kogen & Wallace Wolodarsky, Sam Simon, and Jon Vitti
Directed by Carlos Baeza

I can vividly remember watching the first Simpsons’ Treehouse of Horror on a Thursday evening in 1990. I was genuinely scared and entertained by it. I think that’s one of the great appeals of those early Treehouse episodes; the writers injected it with genuine horror but pulled back just enough so you wouldn’t get too frightened. The annual series was inspired by the anthology horror comics of E.C. (Tales from the Crypt, etc.), evidenced by the prevalence of gruesome puns in the opening credits. It wasn’t intended to become an annual tradition but rather an experiment with the show’s format.

Movie Review – Bride of Frankenstein

Bride of Frankenstein (1934)
Written by William Hurlbut & John L. Balderston
Directed by James Whale

The best Universal horror film, hands down. I will fight you on this. James Whale returns, but he was a hard sell at first, believing the story had been squeezed dry in the first picture. The success of The Invisible Man has Universal begging Whale to please do the sequel. Cleverly he used their desperation to get them to greenlight a more serious picture he wanted to make. When he sat down to figure out Bride, Whale decided to make it a “hoot,” as narratively there wasn’t much more to say. And then he completely blew all the competition out of the water with one of the wildest, most insane horror movies I have ever seen.

Comic Book Review – Amazing Spider-Man Epic Collection V1: Great Power

Amazing Spider-Man Epic Collection Volume 1: Great Power
Reprints Amazing Fantasy #15, Amazing Spider-Man #1-17, Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1
Written by Stan Lee
Art by Steve Ditko & Jack Kirby

In hindsight, it’s often hard to see the chronological order that something iconic in our culture came about. If you were born decades after, you usually just see it as all mashed together. Take Spider-Man, for instance. He debuted in the pages of Amazing Fantasy in 1962. This was over a year (June 1961) that the Marvel Comics brand was created out of the former Timely/Atlas Comics. Fantastic Four #1 was published in November of ‘61, which many see as the start of what we know as Marvel Superheroes. Amazing Spider-Man #1 came out in March 1963 and was bi-monthly for its first three issues. What really makes this wild for me is realizing I was born 19 years after Spider-Man’s debut, a number that feels a lot smaller at 40 than it would have when I was eight years old. That’s the equivalent of something in 2021 that debuted in 2002. So from this perspective, it doesn’t feel so long ago.

Movie Review – The Invisible Man (1933)

The Invisible Man (1932)
Written by R.C. Sherriff
Directed by James Whale

As early as 1931, Universal was developing The Invisible Man as a film. It was based on the novel by H.G. Wells and was seen as an excellent follow-up to Dracula. Other projects sidetracked this one, but by 1933 the film debuted. Wells was alive at the time and demanded script approval while Universal incorporated elements from another invisible man short story they had also purchased the rights to. After Frankenstein’s fantastic performance and critical reception, James Whale seemed like the perfect fit for this project. It became a film that showed even more of the director’s wry, macabre sense of humor.