PopCult Reviews

TV Review – Northern Exposure Season Four

Northern Exposure Season Four (1992-93)
Written by Robin Green, Michael Katleman, Diane Frolov, Andrew Schneider, Jeff Vlaming, Mark B. Perry, Sy Rosen, Christian Williams, Mitchell Burgess, David Assael, Jeff Melvoin, Denise Dobbs, and Geoffrey Neigher
Directed by Dean Parisot, Michael Katleman, Nick Marck, Charles Braverman, Rob Thompson, Joan Tewkesbury, Randall Miller, Michael Fresco, Daniel Attias, Win Phelps, Joe Napolitano, Bill D’Elia, Adam Arkin, Michael Lange, Jim Charleston, and Frank Prinzi

Northern Exposure was coming off season three, for which it won several Emmys. Season Four was to be the largest season order for the series, with twenty-five episodes. These days, most shows we get on the variety of streaming services come in around 8-10 episodes per season. Thirteen episodes feel like an indulgence. One of the downsides of having such large season orders was that quantity did not equate to quality. There are some utterly fantastic parts of season four. Then, some episodes are cringingly wrong and outdated. Even so, I’d rather watch this season again than watch much contemporary television, especially the fare that leans into cynicism.

Solo Tabletop RPG Actual Play – Supersworn: The Victory Academy Part Six

I chose to do something a little strange with this one. I wrote up two d6 lists of memories for Jude and Cortex, then scrambled those memories up. In this chapter we’ll float with Jude’s consciousness as it is pinballed through time and see how his power is unraveling reality.

Read the previous chapter here

Kismet – Jude Olmeda – knows he has a body that exists on the physical plane. Right now, all that exists is the endless void. He has no form but feels psychic extensions of his arms, legs, head, eyes, and mouth. There is something else here with him. It is metallic and cold. It pierces through his chest, tendrils linking up with a nervous system that floats aimlessly in the darkness of total oblivion. He has to reconnect with himself – his body to his mind before this alien thing replaces one or both.

Movie Review – Night of the Living Dead

Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Written by John Russo and George A. Romero
Directed by George A. Romero

Certain films unexpectedly have an impact when they are released. As much as big Hollywood studios would like to think they’ve cracked the formula on that, they never will. Real breakthrough movies are always a surprise; they can’t be predicted by a focus group. Night of the Living Dead is one of these films. I don’t think it’s a particularly fantastic movie, but there is no denying the cultural impact it has and continues to have. Before this film, zombies were associated with voodoo and were often seen as a singular threat rather than a horde. Funnily, this film never uses the term “zombie” to refer to the monsters. Instead, they are called “ghouls,” and their origins are hinted to be associated with a recent space exploration mission that brought back some strange cosmic energy.

Comic Book Review – X-Men by Chris Claremont and Jim Lee Omnibus Volume Two

X-Men by Chris Claremont and Jim Lee Omnibus Volume Two (2022)
Reprints X-Factor #63-70, Uncanny X-Men #273-280, X-Men #1-11, and Ghost Rider #26-27
Written by Chris Claremont, Louise Simonson, Whilce Portacio, Jim Lee, Fabian Nicieza, Peter David, John Byrne, Scott Lobdell, and Howard Mackie
Art by Jim Lee, Whilce Portacio, Klaus Janson, Marc Silvestri, Rick Leonardi, Michael Golden, Larry Stroman, Paul Smith, Andy Kubert, Steven Butler, Kirk Jarvinen, Ron Wagner, Art Thibert, Scott Williams, Hilary Barta, Josef Rubenstein, Michael Bair, Mike Witherby, Karl Alstaetter, and Dan Panosian

The first X-Men comic I ever read in full was Chris Claremont’s final issue. I didn’t know it at the time. It was Christmas 1991. For the last couple of years, I had desperately wanted one of 22 issue comic book grab bags sold in the Sears Wishbook. Having grown up watching Challenge of the Superfriends, Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, and other animated series, my interest had been piqued. Occasionally, I’d convince my mother to buy me a comic book at the grocery store, or I’d spend some birthday money to pick up a couple. That same year, I purchased some Superman books and a Wolverine comic. But this Christmas gift was the one that changed everything. This was the year I became a comic book collector, not for money, but because I was enamored with these complex worlds and their colorful characters.

Movie Review – Vampyr

Vampyr (1932)
Written by Christen Jul and Carl Theodor Dreyer
Directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer

Vampyr is a strange, troubled movie. It was Danish filmmaker Carl Theodor Dryer’s follow-up to The Passion of Joan of Arc, one of the great silent masterpieces. Vampyr came about at a time of transition in films. Dreyer conceived of the film, based on a collection of ghost stories, as a silent picture. That DNA is still very present in the sparse spoken dialogue and the film’s emphasis on movement and camerawork. The end result is a mixed bag. There’s not enough story here to say it’s a compelling horror narrative. It feels more like an interesting mood piece that evokes the spooky tone of Halloween and creepy old houses.

Movie Review – The Wicker Man

The Wicker Man (1973)
Written by Anthony Shaffer
Directed by Robin Hardy

I had seen the Nicolas Cage-led sequel in all its wild, camp glory but had never watched the film that inspired it. With it being October – the spooky month – I decided to kick off my Horrorpalloza 2024 with The Wicker Man. Before I even watched the film, I knew of the ending decades ago thanks to a Bravo series about the scariest movie moments. I wondered what knowing the protagonist’s fate would do with my thoughts on the film, but thankfully, there was so much of this movie I didn’t know about that I never felt deprived of surprises. It’s a movie that clearly inspired so many more films in the folk horror genre and still holds up after fifty-one years.

October 2024 Posting Schedule

Film Series
[Horrorfest 2024 – Oct 2 thru 31]
The Wicker Man, Vampyr, The Night of the Living Dead, Hausu, Hour of the Wolf, From Beyond, Martin, Anguish, The Wailing, Killer Klowns from Outer Space, Thesis, The Face of Another, The Devils, Motel Hell

Patron Pick – Inside Out

This special reward is available to Patreon patrons who pledge at the $10 or $20 monthly levels. Each month, those patrons will pick a film for me to review. If they choose, they also get to include some of their thoughts about the movie. This Pick comes from Bekah Lindstrom.

Inside Out (2015)
Written by Pete Docter, Ronnie del Carmen, Meg LeFauve, and Josh Cooley
Directed by Pete Docter with Ronnie del Carmen

Pete Docter has been a significant part of Pixar since their feature film debut with Toy Story in 1995, being one of the contributors to the script. His feature directorial debut was the well-regarded Monsters Inc., followed by Up. Inside Out was his third feature, with his most recent entry being 2020’s Soul. From just a little reading about Docter and seeing his work, I can tell he’s very introspective and thoughtful. Inside Out was inspired by his watching his daughter start internalizing her emotions as she began adolescence and wishing he could know what she was thinking. He and his team consulted with psychologists throughout the process to ensure their anthropomorphized portrayal of the human psyche was true to science.

Movie Review – The Turin Horse

The Turin Horse (2011)
Written by László Krasznahorkai and Béla Tarr
Directed by Béla Tarr and Ágnes Hranitzky

The world is dying. The world will die. This has been the world’s fate since before humans stood upright and began their intellectual evolution. The Turin Horse is a film about the brutal toil it is to be alive in this world, to experience death at all times, and to be able to do nothing about it. The world is going to die whether we are here for it or not. Eventually, billions of years from now, our sun will expand as it goes into its death throes and consume the inner worlds of our solar system. That is beyond the macro view; that is the omni view. On a smaller scale, we have the perpetuation of our species. Will one of us be able to observe this solar gargantuan devour our old homeworld from a safe distance, our species spread out across the Milky Way? That is something that feels very uncertain at this point in our history.

Comic Book Review – X-Men: Days of Future Present and The X-Tinction Agenda

X-Men: Days of Future Present (1989)
Reprints Fantastic Four Annual #23, The New Mutants Annual #6, X-Factor Annual #5, and Uncanny X-Men Annual #14
Written by Walt Simonson, Louise Simonson, and Chris Claremont
Art by Jackson Guice, Geof Isherwood, Terry Shoemaker, Chris Wozniak, Scott Williams, Allen Milgrom, Art Thibert, Harry Candelario, Jon Bogdanove, Arthur Adams, Dan Green, Steve Moncuse, Art Thibert, and Bob Wiacek

X-Men: The X-Tinction Agenda (1992)
Reprints Uncanny X-Men #270-272, New Mutants #95-97, and X-Factor #60-62
Written by Chris Claremont and Louise Simonson
Art by Jim Lee, Art Thibert, Scott Williams, Rob Liefeld, Joe Rubinstein, Jon Bogdanove, John Caponigro, Al Milgrom, and Guang Yap

Two of Chris Claremont’s stories dominated his run and every subsequent run to follow – “The Dark Phoenix Saga” and “Days of Future Past.” That latter story inspires “Days of Future Present,” a kind of sequel focusing on the adult Franklin Richards introduced in the old story. Over in the pages of Louise Simonson’s Power Pack, she had included Franklin, the son of Mr. Fantastic, and the Invisible Woman showcases his burgeoning mutant powers. The adult version of Franklin is essentially a god who can reshape reality. He’s searching for his lost love, Rachel Summers.