PopCult Reviews

Movie Review – Fat City

Fat City (1972)
Written by Leonard Gardner
Directed by John Huston

After directing The Misfits, John Huston continued his work with Montgomery Clift in Freud: the Secret Passion. Huston was an avid supporter of psychotherapy, and the film is narrated by the director. It’s a somewhat Messianic portrayal of Freud as enlightening humanity. Huston would adapt the Tennessee Williams’ play Night of the Iguana in 1964, followed by The Bible: In the Beginning in 1966. That latter film produced by the legendary Dino de Laurentis was one of the last big overblown Biblical epics of the era. Huston appeared in the picture as Noah. These movies were not well received by critics & audiences, which was disappointing. Fat City would turn the tide as the director surveyed the changes happening in American cinema and adapted his style.

Weekly Wonderings – March 15th, 2021

This week marks the first anniversary of the COVID lockdown beginning for most of us in the United States. I would argue I never left the lockdown, at least in mindset, despite four months being forced to teach virtually from my former school. I also don’t think opening things up right now is the smart move with so little of the population having received vaccinations. As someone who saw how lax adherence to COVID policy was in a school, I don’t have confidence there won’t be another surge of spreads as variants pop up. What’s really going on is the American boredom mindset. They are done thinking about COVID, so they will invent a fantasy in their heads where we are past it.

Documentary Round-Up – March 2021

I Can’t Get You Out Of My Head (2021)
Written & Directed by Adam Curtis
You can watch this series here

I became a huge Adam Curtis fan a couple of years back when I watched his documentary Hypernormalisation. He can articulate the sentiments I feel about humanity’s current state, this looming sense of dread about a very uncertain future. Even better, he can go back in history and outline how we came to be in this state. Hypernormalisation outlined how so much of the world has come to accept capitalism’s sustained misery and just stop believing there can be anything else. I Can’t Get You Out Of My Head, subtitled An Emotional History of the Modern World, expands on that documentary’s ideas. We follow individuals from around the world as their stories reflect more significant movements happening in society.

Comic Book Review – Superman by Grant Morrison Omnibus

Superman by Grant Morrison Omnibus (2021)
Reprints Action Comics v2 #0-18, Annual #1
Written by Grant Morrison (with Sholly Fisch)
Art by Rags Morales, Andy Kubert, Brent Anderson, Gene Ha, Brad Walker, Cully Hamner, Ben Oliver, Cafu, Ryan Sook, Bob McLeod, Travel Foreman, Chris Sprouse, Karl Story, and more

It’s interesting to read these Grant Morrison stories alongside John Byrne’s Superman work. Byrne was tasked with rebooting Superman in the wake of the Crisis in 1986, reworking concepts and cutting away things considered to be too old-fashioned. Morrison was partially asked to do the same thing in 2011 when the New 52 initiative was rolled out. I don’t think Morrison was allowed as much leeway as Byrne because D.C. had become much more integrated alongside their parent company Warner Media. Like Byrne, Morrison is taken well-known concepts around Superman and trying to make them relevant for their time. However, they are a professed lover of the Silver Age, so Morrison isn’t entirely willing to make everything a modern parallel to our world. In true Morrison fashion, we get a tale of metaphors made reality, of meditations on fictional universes, and ultimately a vision of Superman that would be quickly discarded as editorial interference kept the New 52 from ever amounting to much.

TV Review – The Best of Seinfeld Part 2

The Pitch (Season 4, Episode 3)
Original airdate: September 16, 1992
Written by Larry David
Directed by Tom Cherones

There are few seasons of network sitcoms as wildly bold as Seinfeld Season 4. Because it’s become part of the cultural conversation, we don’t really notice it, but it was insane that this was even made. Larry David decided to make a season-long serialized story about the sitcom characters making a sitcom based on their lives. These days, meta-humor is a fairly common element in media, but in 1992, most audiences had never seen anything like this. One of the things I’ve noticed about rewatching these episodes is how often Jerry’s comedy routine was picked apart or made the butt of a joke. It all informs Curb Your Enthusiasm, which would be Larry David’s unbridled dissection of the entertainment industry and his continued examination of the minutiae of daily life.

Movie Review – The Misfits

The Misfits (1961)
Written by Arthur Hiller
Directed by John Huston

The Misfits is a heartbreaking film, both from what you see on screen and what was happening behind the scenes. This would be both Clark Gable and Marilyn Monore’s final performances. Montgomery Clift, who would only make three more appearances before his death in 1966, had a troubled background and struggled with his health and sexual identity. It was very fitting that these actors be the ones playing these broken characters, lost in the Reno wastes, trying to figure out where they were going and how to connect with others. While not a violent movie, The Misfits is the bleakest picture I’ve seen from John Huston. Despite its slightly hopefully ending, there’s a lot of uncertainty about what happens next.

Movie Review – The African Queen

The African Queen (1951)
Written by John Huston, James Agee, Peter Viertel, and John Collier
Directed by John Huston

Despite his track record of dark, crime-centric movies, John Huston was also a romantic. That was on full display in The African Queen. This wasn’t Huston’s last film with Humphrey Bogart, but it is considered his last great film working with the actor. He was working with a lighter, comedy type of film. Huston also shot on location in Uganda and the Congo. The African Queen was a Technicolor picture that added difficulty to the production. The cameras needed for the Technicolor process were large and somewhat unwieldy. But in an effort for authenticity, Huston refused to shoot most of the picture on a soundstage.

Movie Review – The Asphalt Jungle

The Asphalt Jungle (1950)
Written by Ben Maddow & John Huston
Directed by John Huston

John Huston was fascinated with the state of the urban in post-War America. We saw in Key Largo that there was a looming fear that the old Prohibition-era mobs would return to power. In The Asphalt Jungle, Huston takes a much more nuanced look at the criminal element, refusing to present them as one-dimensional and no good. The Asphalt Jungle was a challenge to get made as MGM studio head Louis B. Mayer did not like it. He was overridden by the head of production, Isadore “Dore” Schary. Schary was a Jew born in New Jersey who eventually worked his way up to run MGM after Mayer left when his direction was losing the studio money. Mayer favored dazzling wholesome spectacles, while Schary wanted darker movies that had a message.

Weekly Wonderings – March 8th, 2021

Time keeps on moving. I feel like I am doing a very good job of keeping myself busy most times during this unemployment period. I’ve made a few hundred dollars off work I’m creating for Teachers Pay Teachers, which feels good. We’ve also already started clearing out things that won’t be making our next move with us. There’s a local used media store that we’ve made two trips to and come out with around $250. I’ve also sold a board game on eBay, but I find the online marketplace environment, whether it’s there or Craigslist is slow and filled with idiots trying to rip you off. Within our first week of selling an exercise bike, someone tried to dupe us into this cashier’s check scam. They asked us to pay a person they had hired to come to pick it up, which was really odd. It felt off, but I didn’t know why so I just googled the elements of this sale and found out it’s a fairly common thing. Funny, when we started asking more detailed questions, we never heard from them again. I feel like most of my adulthood, I’ve done a pretty job of smelling a scam when I see one. So far, so good, crossing my fingers.

The newest episode of the podcast is up with all the reviews from last week. I am sketching out plans for something that isn’t so redundant, with me actually on the microphone. Look for that by at least the end of March. I already know what I’ll be talking about in the first one, just a matter of outlining everything.

Comic Book Review – Superman/Batman: Generations Omnibus

Superman/Batman: Generations Omnibus (2021)
Reprints Superman/Batman: Generations #1-4, Superman/Batman: Generations 2 #1-4, Superman/Batman: Generations 3 #1-12
Written & Illustrated by John Byrne

Superman debuted in the pages of Action Comics #1 in the summer of 1938, with Batman following closely behind in Detective Comics #27 in the winter of 1939. In 1999, comics legend John Byrne decided to write and draw an Elseworlds series that asked what would the DC Universe look like if these characters and their supporting casts aged in real-time? Immediately, this opens a lot of new ideas and story avenues, and the first volume is one of my personal favorites in the Elseworlds series. It’s not the most incredible story ever told in the DC Multiverse, but it’s a very fun one.