PopCult Reviews

Movie Review – A Separation

A Separation (2011)
Written & Directed by Asghar Farhadi

Simin and Nader’s marriage has reached a turning point. Simin wants to leave Iran while her husband wants to stay because of his ailing father, suffering from Alzheimer’s. Simin is adamant that their daughter Termeh be given opportunities that cannot be provided for her in Iran. As an act of protest, Simin separates herself and lives with her family waiting for Nader to at least allow Termeh to leave with her. Nader is forced to hire a housekeeper and nurse for his father during the days and settles on Razieh, a deeply religious young woman with a daughter. Razieh becomes distressed when she must change Nader’s father after he soils himself but keeps coming into work because her husband is in significant amounts of debt. One day a series of events transpire that lead Nader to believe Razieh stole money from his bedroom and left his father tied to a bed. An argument ensues with tragic consequences that will resonant within the lives of all people involved.

Comic Book Review – Justice League International Volume 5

Justice League International Volume 5
Reprints Justice League International Annuals #2-3 and Justice League Europe #1-6.
Written by Keith Giffen & J.M. DeMatteis (with William Messner-Loebs)
Art by Bart Sears, Bill Willingham, Mike McKone, & Tim Gula

We open with an earlier tale of the Justice League taking on the classic Batman villain Joker. The Joker has been hired by the dictator of Bialya, Rumaan Harjavti to assassinate the JLI. The collection is capped with a team-up of the two Leagues as they visit their various embassies to get to know the staff and bond. This goes off the rails when they meet an ambassador from KooeyKooeyKooey, a rather industrious island nation that wants the League to make their land a protected embassy. In between these two over-sized annuals, we get the opening arc of the Justice League Europe as they experience an incredibly rough introduction to Paris. A Nazi war criminal dies on their steps and soon after they learn members of the now-defunct Global Guardians are out to get them.

Movie Review – Modern Romance

Modern Romance (1981)
Written by Albert Brooks & Monica Johnson
Directed by Albert Brooks

Robert has decided it’s time to break things off with Mary. They have just drifted apart so it would be in their best interests to move on. This isn’t the first break up they have experienced, and as the movie unfolds, the audience realizes there will be more break-ups in their future. Robert tries to start a new life, seesawing between unbridled enthusiasm and wallowing in self-pity. He tries to take vitamins and pick up jogging but ultimately goes back to obsessing over Mary. Mary isn’t above it all though and keeps falling back into the same patterns. These two are comfortable in their co-dependent misery.

Movie Review – Velvet Buzzsaw

Velvet Buzzsaw (2019)
Written & Directed by Dan Gilroy

Morf Vanderwalt is a dissatisfied art critic searching for something that will bring inspiration to him both personally and professionally. His relationships with other members of the art community are all transactional leaving him even more hollow. Josephina, a lover of Morf’s and an agent in the art world, discovers a neighbor has died, and his home is full of hypnotic, unsettling artwork. Ventril Dease is the deceased artist and no matter who glimpses his Goya-esque paintings they seem enthralled. Art gallery owner Rhodora Haze sees a long term market for Dease and decides to squirrel away most of the thousands of pictures to trickle them out slowly over time. This is when the strange deaths begin, and Morf starts to realize that there is an evil presence surrounding this artwork.

Comic Book Review – Justice League International Volume 4

Justice League International Volume 4
Reprints Justice League International #23-25 and Justice League America #26 – 30
Written by Keith Giffen & J.M. DeMatteis
Art by Kevin Maguire, Ty Templeton, Mike McKone, and Bill Willingham

The world is in the midst of the alien Invasion! led by the Dominators. The Justice League has been stranded in the South Pacific where they attempt to get a Khund vessel up and running which leads them into the path of the Injustice League, an equally second-tier group of villains. Max Lord develops telepathic powers as a result of a Dominator gene bomb which causes him to seek out the artificial intelligence that has manipulated him. The League decides to expand its ranks and has a membership drive that brings together dozens of DC’s heroes and can only lead to more hijinks. After the new Justice League Europe forms and seen off to Paris, the American branch must deal with Blue Beetle’s brainwashing from his time in Biayla at the hands of Queen Bee. Batman meets the new Huntress and seeks out help from Amanda Waller and Kent Nelson (formerly Doctor Fate).

Movie Review – Black Swan

Black Swan (2010)
Written by Mark Heyman, Andres Heinz, and John J. McLaughlin
Directed by Darren Aronofsky

Nina is a ballerina working in a New York ballet company with aspirations of maybe becoming the lead dancer one day. Her chances arrive sooner than she realizes when prima ballerina Beth, aging and bitter about what the director has made her do over the years, is pushed aside for Nina in the lead role of Swan Lake. Thomas, the company’s director, is growing increasingly frustrated with what he says is Nina’s constraining inhibitions. While technically perfect she lacks the passion he wants to see and uses new company member Lily as an example of real emotion in the work. Nina’s mother doesn’t help things by creating a perpetual childhood in their apartment, treating the young woman the same as she did when Nina was a girl. All of this pressure begins to show the cracks in Nina’s psyche as she glimpses a shadow-self, a doppelganger wandering the streets living a life parallel to our protagonist. What is real and what is in the life of the mind begin to blur and dissolve.

PopCult January 2019 Digest

Movie Review – The Wife

The Wife (2018)
Written by Jane Anderson
Directed by Bjorn Runge

Elderly writer Joseph Castleman receives the call many artists dream about. He is being awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, being told that he has made a significant contribution to the realm of writing in ways that will resound for generations beyond. His ever-loyal wife Joan listens on the phone extension and then prepares to care for and navigate her husband through the gauntlet of press and meetings to come. There is a secret behind her attentiveness to Joseph. They travel with their adult son to Stockholm where a week of formalities follows related to the prize. Tensions build when Nathaniel Bone, a journalist shows up and tells Joan he plans on writing an expose about Castleman, that he knows how Joan is tied to his success that he wants her to be the one to come forward first, on the record.

Movie Review – Aquaman

Aquaman (2018)
Written by David Leslie, Johnson McGoldrick, Will Beall, Geoff Johns & James Wan
Directed by James Wan

Arthur Curry is the son of a lighthouse keeper and a runaway queen of Atlantis. When he was a toddler, his mother was taken back to her undersea homeworld, and so Arthur was raised by his father while learning about the strange new abilities he developed with each passing day. As an adult, Arthur has fought alongside the Justice League and has become a minor celebrity in his coastal town of Amnesty Bay. His profile increases when Mera, daughter of one of the seven kings of the ocean, implores him to help her stop a pending war with the surface. It seems, Arthur’s half-brother Orm is rallying the armies of the sea whether they like it or not. His end goal is to bring the land-dwellers to heel for the endless pollution of the ocean-realm. Arthur and Mera find themselves in a race to uncover the lost trident of Atlan, the one item that can only be wielded by the true king of Atlantis. With this weapon, they believe the war that will tear apart the planet can be avoided.

Movie Review – Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Written by Phil Lord & Rodney Rothman
Directed by Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, & Rodney Rothman

Spider-Man is the main hero of New York City and has been for decades. Meanwhile, Miles Morales is just a talented kid reluctantly attending a boarding school for the scientific minded. During a late excursion to tag a prime piece of real estate in the subway tunnels, Miles is bitten by a strange spider and begins to develop strange powers as a result. When Miles returns to the scene of the incident, he ends up dead center in a battle between Spider-Man and a host of villains in the employ of the Kingpin. The fight ends with Miles squarely set to inherit the mantle and in need of training. The result of Kingpin’s experiments is that the fabric of the multiverse is broken and a host of other Spider-people have found their way to Miles’ dimension. The clock is ticking as reality crumbles, and in a very short amount of time, our protagonist must learn to be the hero his universe needs him to be.