PopCult Reviews

Weekly Wonderings – May 23rd, 2021

My wife has the week off from work, so we spent part of the day making some dents in posting items for sale. I never realized how much framed art we had up in the house until we were packing the prints and pieces. We’re selling the frames through some local channels, and we have so many of them. I love having art up, and we have a mix of manufactured prints and some original pieces. My wife has had a few things commissioned on various websites, mainly after Lily passed away. I think it’s terrible how collecting art and displaying it in your home has been so co-opted by the wealthy and that many working people don’t think about decorating their home in such a way. The collecting and display of art should transcend class and be something everyone participates in to showcase their personalities and help out artists who are working in the craft.

Movie Review – Forbidden Planet

Forbidden Planet (1955)
Written by Cyril Hume
Directed by Fred M. Wilcox

I was utterly blown away by Forbidden Planet, which was helped because I went into my first viewing with pretty low expectations. I kept seeing the picture pop up on Best of Science Fiction lists, but from the images I’d seen, it looked like a collection of a lot of sci-fi cliches. I’d seen Robby the Robot in pop culture since I was a child and always associate him with The Robot from Lost in Space. Leslie Neilsen is the protagonist, and his association with comedy probably had me expecting something cheesier. What I was met with was a psychedelic powerhouse of a science fiction movie that certainly pushed the boundaries when it was released.

Comic Book Review – Crossover Volume 1

Crossover Volume 1: Kids Love Chains (2021)
Written by Donny Cates
Art by Geoff Shaw

The comic book crossover became a staple of the superhero genre in the 1980s. There were smaller precursors to this starting as early as the 1940s when the first superhero teams were assembled out of established solo characters. In the 1960s, Marvel Comics would weave long-form narratives through multiple titles. At the same time, DC Comics introduced the Multiverse and had the Justice League meet their counterparts on Earth-2. With each annual meeting, the scope of these adventures would expand to encompass more worlds. The first large crossover event is considered to be Secret Wars, published by Marvel in 1984. This was a 12-issue limited series whose storylines would be continued in ongoing titles. DC responded the following year with Crisis on Infinite Earths, which was the largest scale narrative ever told at that point in the comics medium. These days, you can’t have a year go by without the big two having at least a couple crossover events. It’s into this state of being that writer Donny Cates begins Crossover from Image Comics.

Movie Review – Planet of the Apes (1968)

Planet of the Apes (1968)
Written by Michael Wilson and Rod Serling
Directed by Franklin J. Schaffner

Based on the 1963 novel by Pierre Boulle, Planet of the Apes, the movie goes in a very different direction while holding to some of the same basic themes & ideas. In the book, the story is told through the framing device of a couple vacationing in their space yacht coming across a transmission from a human soul who claims to have landed on a planet of apes. The film’s screenplay was penned by Rod Serling, the mind behind The Twilight Zone; however, he portrayed the apes as advanced in technology beyond modern-day humans. That was going to be cost-prohibitive. The script was rewritten by Michael Wilson, with the apes being framed in a smaller, more rustic society.

Movie Review – Robocop (1987)

Robocop (1987)
Written by Edward Neumeier & Michael Miner
Directed by Paul Verhoeven

As an adult, I have developed an entirely new appreciation for the work of Paul Verhoeven. He was born in The Netherlands but managed to create a framework for American action movies in the 1980s while simultaneously delivering brutal satire about the United States. Robocop was his second English language film and his first pass at skewering the direction of Reagan’s America. The result is a science fiction classic, a combination of themes from Frankenstein mixed with commentary on the rise in corporatization of the public sphere. It’s not as biting as Starship Troopers, but it is full of brilliant takes on the United States’ ease & comfort with war and violence.

Movie Review – Aliens

Aliens (1986)
Written & Directed by James Cameron

It had been a good decade or more since I last watched Aliens and since then I’ve gotten two viewings of Alien under my belt. It is astonishing how different these movies are in almost every regard. It’s a true case of the aesthetics and tone changing to accommodate a different type of story and it doesn’t diminish from staying true to the one character that is a constant in this series. Alien is a claustrophobic, horror story that emphasizes a sense of being alone. Aliens is a more bombastic aggressive film, yet still fills its future with plenty of details. I think I found myself appreciating Aliens more while also understanding why Alien is still my favorite of the two pictures.

Weekly Wonderings – May 17th, 2021

A new episode of the podcast is up where my wife and I talk about our Top 5 favorite science fiction movies and thoughts from non-Trekkies about Star Trek: TNG and Picard Season 1. Check that out.

It seems like 2021 is rushing by pretty fast. It’s hard to believe we’re halfway through May already. It feels like it was just winter, and we’re already hurtling towards summer. I think the increasingly erratic weather of the region I live in is partially to blame. Last week, we had cold snaps down into the 40s, and this week they are predicting highs in the high 80s on multiple days. The NOAA recently released its climate outlook for the next decade, and it doesn’t look too promising on this continent. If you glimpse at their seasonal drought outlook for the U.S., it is pretty harrowing. Almost the entire western half of the country is set to continue languishing in drought conditions, with it spreading into the Pacific Northwest. I’m very much a person who has no desire to live in a Mad Max-like society. I would hope I’d die real early before the “gangs roving the wastelands in water wars” stage of things.

Movie Review – Gattaca

Gattaca (1997)
Written & Directed by Andrew Niccol

During my college years, I knew a couple of people that loved Gattaca. My first time watching it was around 2005, and I have to say I wasn’t left highly impressed. There has always been something empty about the film that I don’t think was intentional. That said, it has undoubtedly had a significant influence on science fiction films that have come out since, mainly with aesthetics. I think the themes of the movie don’t get explored in a way that feels satisfying. The ending feels like a bit of a letdown, and I don’t think the characters’ arcs are resolved in ways that make sense.

PopCult Podcast Episode 4

In this episode of the PopCult Podcast we continue the science fiction theme of the blog this month. First up, Ariana and I share our Top 5 Science Fiction Movies list. Then we have a casual conversation about Star Trek: The Next Generation and Picard Season 1.

We’d love to know what you thought of this episode so leave your comments here or leave a voice message on our Anchor page. We might share your comment on an upcoming episode of the show.

You can listen to the podcast here or on Spotify or Google Podcasts.

Comic Book Review – Justice League: Breakdowns

Justice League: Breakdowns
Takes place in Justice League America #52 – 60, Justice League Europe #28-36, and Green Lantern v3 #18
Written by Keith Giffen, J.M. DeMatteis, and Gerard Jones
Art by Trevor von Eeden, Bart Sears, Chris Wozniak, Darick Robertson, Joe Staton, Kevin Maguire

In 2019, I began re-reading this classic run of Justice League. I decided instead of waiting for the last omnibus or the final trade paperback collection (DC recently started to repackage this series from issue one in a new tpb series), I would just read this final epic storyline via DC Universe Infinite. If you have read my previous reviews, you know my personal love of this era of the League. They were not the most excellent roster to ever appear, but they were a breath of fresh air and a completely different direction that has become iconic. After five years, Giffen & DeMatteis decided it was time to wrap up their tenure on Justice League America and Europe and do so with a 15 part event titled “Breakdowns.”