PopCult Reviews

TV Review – The Best of The X-Files Part One

If you weren’t alive or simply too young in the 1990s to remember, The X-Files was an insanely huge deal. UFOs, in particular, had a significant popularity resurgence in that decade, but this show was the most popular media to come out of all of that by a longshot. The X-Files aired on Fox for nine years and spawning two feature films, one of which came out between seasons 5 & 6 and a short-lived revival. Creator Chris Carter was inspired by his love of science fiction & horror media, with the most relevant source being Kolchak: The Night Stalker. That was a short-lived ABC series about a paranormal investigator in the Monster of the Week mold.

Movie Review – Little Joe

Little Joe (2019)
Written by Jessica Hausner & Géraldine Bajard
Directed by Jessica Hausner

Invasion of the Body Snatchers is one of the most recycled narrative tropes in cinema, and more often than not, those adaptations fall short. The original and the 1970s remake stand above the fray. Little Joe is a secret Body Snatchers picture, telling a very well thought-out variation on the official story. However, there’s so little to the script that its slow burn actually becomes a hindrance to the character development and tension that should be present in a picture like this. Technically and aesthetically, Little Joe has a lot going on that entices the audience, but ultimately it fails to deliver on the promise of these things.

Movie Review – Babe

Babe (1995)
Written by George Miller & Chris Noonan
Directed by Chris Noonan

I recall this movie being huge when it came out, and when looking at the box office returns and critical reviews, it truly was. Babe was a phenomenally popular film, one of those rare family films that didn’t pander to its audience and told a layered, thoughtful story. Most people probably just remember the cute little pig and his sweet voice, but there is a lot of heavy, dark material. The film doesn’t shy away from touching on the cruelty of factory farming and the eating of meat. With the talented work of filmmakers George Miller & Chris Noonan on the script, they never become didactic, though, making sure the story is always entertaining.

Movie Review – Tales From the Crypt: Demon Knight

Tales From the Crypt: Demon Knight (1995)
Written by Mark Bishop, Ethan Reiff, and Cyrus Voris
Directed by Ernest Dickerson

I never saw the HBO version of Tales From the Crypt. Instead, I caught the edited reruns on Fox that used to air late at night on Saturdays. I absolutely loved the show, and it was probably one of the first things that stoked my interest in horror short stories. Interestingly, Demon Knight isn’t a story adapted from the pages of the titular EC Comics publication like the episodes of the show were. Instead, this was a script initially developed in the late 1980s and shopped around before it was set to be the second in a trilogy of Tales From the Crypt movies. The other two were dropped, and we ended up with Demon Knight as the first theatrical production to bare the HBO franchise’s label.

Short Film Showcase 2020 #3

Rachel (Directed by Andrew DeYoung)
I love the comedic duo of John Early & Kate Berlant. Their Vimeo exclusive series 555 is brilliant, and everyone should watch it. This short film, directed by Andrew DeYoung, who was also behind the show, dramatizes a real-life situation that occurred to Early and his friends at a small house party one night. I don’t want to give away the details, but the short is a beautiful blend of horror, comedy, and that nervous, anxious cringey feeling—one of my favorite shorts of all-time, so simple yet brilliant.

Movie Review – Die Hard With a Vengeance

Die Hard With a Vengeance (1995)
Written by Jonathan Hensleigh
Directed by John McTiernan

I saw the first Die Hard movie by accident. My dad went to the video store and rented it without checking the rating. We were a lazy evangelical household in all the least fun ways, one of them being “no movies above a PG-13,” even then, it was fairly strict. I definitely knew kids with crazier parents, but we were still not normal. So, as we watched the film and the first “fuck” was said on screen, we all turned and looked at my dad. That said, we never shut the picture off and watched the whole thing. That is the only Die Hard movie I ever saw until I watched this, the third installment in the series.

Black Books Matter

It’s not just important to support Black Lives, but you also need to engage in and promote Black Art. Here are some books I absolutely love that are written by Black authors. I hope you find something here to pick up and read. These are not just books by Black writers but also some of the best books period I’ve ever read.

Movie Review – Network

Network (1976)
Written by Paddy Chayefsky
Directed by Sidney Lumet

Network is a masterpiece. This is true both in the sheer craft of Paddy Chayefsky’s dialogue and structure, but especially for how the themes are blended so perfectly in the narrative. One of my biggest complaints about the film has nothing to do with what we see on screen but with the audience’s popular interpretation. Most people know Network for the famous “I’m Mad As Hell” speech, which leads me to the belief they shut the film off right as the second act starts. The statement has to be viewed in the context of the entire movie and how the words of Howard Beale are used and twisted by institutions in power.

Movie Review – The Hospital

The Hospital (1971)
Written by Paddy Chayefsky
Directed by Arthur Hiller

The Hospital exists as a prelude to the masterpiece that was to come from Chayefsky’s pen. There are seeds of ideas here that are profoundly challenging. The film bores an ice core of the effect of modernism on American society circa the 1960s, never giving an excuse to wrong takes but laying out the psyche of a white privileged class that doesn’t know how to function in a new world. We also see a society that refuses to adapt and change to the demands of marginalized classes and does nothing to try and symphonize the cacophony of voices. The establishment would rather throw their hands up and complain then reconfigure the structural rot that runs through everything.

Movie Review – The Americanization of Emily

The Americanization of Emily (1964)
Written by Paddy Chayefsky
Directed by Arthur Hiller

You didn’t see a lot of films in the wake of World War II that called military action into question. You would see a slew of anti-war films twenty-odd years out from Vietnam. But on the twentieth anniversary of D-Day, it was a pretty bold move to put out a movie about the lead up to that event, which questioned the leadership of the U.S. military and spoke to how soldiers’ bodies are so often used as props for state-sanctioned propaganda. This material had to be couched inside a romantic comedy-drama, and the subversiveness is hidden deeper in the narrative after we’ve been given a seemingly light set-up.