PopCult Reviews

Solo Tabletop RPG Actual Play – The Electric State Part Five

Two Months Ago

Crystal stumbled out of the barn and braced herself against one of its faded red exterior walls. She was having trouble breathing and slid down to the ground. A beat. Randy James stepped out into the moonlight, an annoyed look on his face.

“Why do you have to be like that, Crissie?” he asked, a slight whine in his voice.

“Th-that kid,” Crystal started. “How can you…do…that?”

Randy James clucked his tongue disapprovingly. “You have such shortsightedness, you know that? You just refuse to see the bigger picture, like everyone else. You don’t see them out here, freaking out, boohooing. Maybe you need to grow the fuck up, Crissie.”

Comic Book Review – X-Men Forever Volumes One and Two

X-Men Forever: Picking Up Where We Left Off (2012)
Reprints X-Men Forever #1-5
Written by Chris Claremont
Art by Tom Grummett

X-Men Forever: The Secret History of the Sentinels (2012)
Reprints X-Men Forever #6-10
Written by Chris Claremont
Art by Paul Smith and Steve Scott

This year, 2024, I read through the entirety of Chris Claremont’s Uncanny X-Men run. It’s one of the all-time great comic book runs with highs and lows, but always something new and interesting. It came from when comic book characters were not IPs making billions of dollars in box office revenue. With less scrutiny came more creativity & risk. But, by 1991, Marvel Comics wanted an X-Men comic that wasn’t so weird and had traditional team dynamics with missions against the villains of the month. Claremont stepped away. But he wouldn’t burn his bridges; Claremont understood the spotlight shifted to the hot young artists like Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld in the early 1990s. He kept plugging away with little projects here and there, even writing for DC Comics. Eventually, he started writing new stories for Marvel about many of the characters he helped to create. The idea was to have Claremont write an out-of-continuity series that continued his X-Men as if there had never been an interruption. Sounds great, right? It’s one of the most insane X-Men things I’ve read in a long time.

Movie Review – The Chambermaid

The Chambermaid (2018)
Written by Lila Avilés and Juan Márquez
Directed by Lila Avilés

I was profoundly impressed by Lila Avilés’s Totem, which will be on my list of favorite films in 2024. Her previous feature, The Chambermaid, was mentioned in an interview I came across about Totem. I put that on my To Be Watched list, and with this December film series, A Christmas Gift to Myself, I had the perfect opportunity to watch it. The film is not focused on a plot, much like Totem; it is a character study about a pivotal moment in a person’s life. They are not someone most of us would likely notice, yet their life is complicated and full of powerful moments of connection.

Movie Review – Luz

Luz (2018)
Written and directed by Tilman Singer

I decided to do a different kind of film series for December. There were several films that I had been adding to my Watchlist based on either enjoying more recent work by the filmmakers or simply curiosity. So, for the first half of December 2024, I will give myself a Christmas present, watch through nine of these pictures, and write up reviews. The last week and a half of the month will be focused on my Favorites of 2024 lists. This first film ended up on the list due to enjoying this year’s Cuckoo, filmmaker Tilman Singer’s sophomore effort. We reviewed that film over on the podcast, and while it didn’t blow me away, I enjoyed the point of view and style and wanted to see what Luz was like.

December 2024 Posting Schedule

Film Series/End of the Year Series

[My Gift To Myself – Random Movies I’ve Been Wanting to Watch – 3 Dec thru 19 Dec]
Luz, The Chambermaid, The Battle of Algiers, Cure, Celine and Julie Go Boating, Happy as Lazzaro, Johnny Guitar, The Spirit of the Beehive, The Double Life of Veronique

[My Favorites of 2024 – 23 Dec thru 30 Dec]
My Favorite Solo Tabletop RPGs, My Favorite Books Read, My Favorite Television, My Favorite Film Discoveries, My Favorite Films

TV Reviews
8 Dec – My Brilliant Friend Season Four
15 Dec – Disclaimer
16 Dec – The Prisoner
22 Dec – The Penguin

Comic Book Reviews
7 Dec – X-Men Forever Volume One & Two
14 Dec – X-Men Forever Volume Three & Four
21 Dec – X-Men Forever Volume Five

Solo Tabletop RPG Reviews & Actual Plays
7 Dec, 14 Dec, 21, Dec – The Electric State Solo
8 Dec, 15 Dec, 22 Dec, 28 Dec – Starforged: Messiahs

Podcast Episodes
8 Dec – Smile 2/Rumors
15 Dec – Christmas Eve at Miller’s Point/Juror #2
22 Dec – Xmas Special (Scrooged/Edward Scissorhands/Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence)
26 Dec – Favorites of 2024 Special

Movie Review – Arabian Nights

Arabian Nights (1974)
Written by Dacia Maraini and Pier Paolo Pasolini
Directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini

Pier Paolo Pasolini would be dead a year after Arabian Nights’ release. It was the final film in his Trilogy of Life, preceded by The Decameron and The Canterbury Tales. Of all his work, it was the first to fully embrace queerness. Pasolini was a homosexual who existed in a strange tension with the Catholicism in which he had been raised. His work often looked to the past to comment on or understand some aspect of the future. Instead of focusing on the misery of the peasant class, Pasolini sought to display the joy experienced by those people the wealthier parts of society often dismissed. These classic stories that had shaped so many people’s imaginations were the perfect soil from which to grow that seed.

Movie Review – The Canterbury Tales

The Canterbury Tales (1972)
Written and directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini

The Canterbury Tales is a text I have some history with. As an undergrad, I was an English major after toying with a Mass Comm degree for too many semesters. One of the classes I took was Chaucer and Medieval Literature, not because I necessarily loved that era, but because it was either a requirement for the degree and/or a bunch of my friends were taking it. I don’t remember which now. The class was taught by the head of the English Department, one of the best teachers at the university, and by the end, he had me interested in it all. One of the requirements to pass was that by the end of the term, you had to stand in front of the class and recite the General Prologue (the first 18 lines) of the Canterbury Tales.

Solo Tabletop RPG Actual Play – The Electric State Part Four

Read the previous part here

Scene One
Six months ago
Crystal went out the night she got the eviction notice. She needed to drink until she couldn’t remember anything. Losing her apartment. Catching her boyfriend cheating on her. It needed to drown and die. And that’s how she met Randy James. At first, Crystal saw him like any other shitkicker who wandered into Victorville on a Saturday night. But that wasn’t Randy James at all. He said he was a professional philosopher. She rolled her eyes. But damn, if he wasn’t charming as hell. RJ had many thoughts on neuronics; he said he worked in R&D for Sentre, developing new interfacing for the neurocasters. That’s what led to them having sex in his truck with their neurocasters on. It was unlike anything Crystal had ever experienced. She was enamored.

Movie Review – The Decameron

The Decameron (1971)
Written and directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini

While Pier Paolo Pasolini was fond of adapting classic pieces of literature, he wasn’t keen on making them period-accurate. Instead, he sought to use these foundational texts of Western civilization as critiques of the contemporary world. Changes to details like locales were commonplace to get his point across. This is why he transplanted Salo from revolutionary France to the era of Mussolini in Italy. The Decameron doesn’t see a shift in time; it’s still set in 14th-century Italy, but in the southern region where characters speak with a prominent Neapolitan dialect. Pasolini saw this as a commentary on southern Italy’s exploitation at the hands of the wealthier north.

Movie Review – Medea

Medea (1969)
Written and directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini

You hear about Medea’s homeland long before you see her. The film opens with the usurping of King Aeson and Jason, his son, being put in the care of the centaur Chiron. Chiron knows that one day, Jason will travel too far away from Colchis and steal the golden fleece. The film shifts to an almost documentary-like portrayal of an event on Colchis. We observe that the king’s own son is sacrificed, and Princess Medea, whose chief role is as a priestess, oversees the whole affair. It’s disturbing and portends trouble for Jason when he embarks on his eventual mission.