PopCult Reviews

TV Review – Outer Range Season Two

Outer Range Season Two (2024)
Written by Cameron Litvack, Glenise Mullins, Dagny Atencio Looper, Jenna Westover, Doug Petrie, Marilyn Thomas, Aïda Mashaka Croal, and Randy Redroad
Directed by Gwyneth Horder-Payton, Deborah Kampmeier, Blackhorse Lowe, Josh Brolin, and Catriona McKenzie

Outer Range was one of my most pleasant streaming TV surprises in 2022. This Amazon series was different from what I expected after seeing the promotional images of Josh Brolin in a cowboy hat standing in a field. My assumption was that this was some Yellowstone copycat. I could not have been more wrong. Instead, I found a complex and bizarre show about a man displaced in time & space and the odd ripples that seemed to have in his personal life and community. The end of season one dropped a significant twist (which I may have to talk about in this review, so beware if spoilers are a thing for you) that excited me to see where the show went next. Then news of strife behind the scenes came out, and I wondered if we would ever see season two. We have now, but not without dramatic changes, which have altered the original tone.

PopCult Podcast – Hit Man/Riddle of Fire

Richard Linklater’s latest places Glen Powell in the shoes of a pretend hired killer. Then, we visit a 16mm dreamworld where three kids are on a quest to make a blueberry pie.

Solo Tabletop Review & Actual Play – Sundered Isles Part Two

You can purchase Sundered Isles here.
You can purchase Starforged here.
You can purchase Sea of Sands here.

Read Part One here to see what we rolled up to begin our worldbuilding

Now that I have roughly sketched out my character through some rolls and the settlement I’ll be visiting first, it is time to fill in the details. Before I do, here are the islands I rolled to generate The Crimson Gulf, this opening region to the game.

Solo Tabletop RPG Review & Actual Play – Mothership 1e Part One

You can purchase the Mothership 1e Core Set here.

You can purchase Dead Planet here.

You can read the rules for solo and wardenless play in Mothership 1e here.

With the release of the trailer for Alien: Romulus, a game like Mothership 1e will likely get a new wave of attention. Like the film that originated that franchise, Mothership is a science fiction horror system where players are a starship’s crew in a dystopic future. They encounter horrific supernatural phenomena that they cannot defeat, so escape and survival are the only options on the table. There are many warnings in the game materials that this is the type of game where extreme horror can happen, but that is fine-tuned based on the table you are playing at. This isn’t a game where you get attached to your character and get precious about them.

Movie Review – The Abyss

The Abyss (1989)
Written and directed by James Cameron

I think James Cameron is neurodivergent, and his prominent special interest is the ocean. This is apparent when you examine his work’s direction from The Abyss to the present. Water and the life that teems within it are fascinating to the man. We can see that coming to the forefront with this film as he spends more time showing off some early digital effects, but more so the gorgeous underwater photography. When you realize this was 1989, it really does sound like a film you would expect to see in the mid-1990s or later. In that way, Cameron is ahead of the curve. It’s a shame the story and the characters are given short shrift here.

Movie Review – sex, lies, and videotape

sex, lies, and videotape (1989)
Written and directed by Steven Soderbergh

Steven Soderbergh is a filmmaker I feel ambivalent about. Of his prolific filmography, I’ve seen sixteen of his movies, and I still don’t have a strong opinion about him. This is likely because his subject matter, themes, and tone are profoundly eclectic. The director seems quite at ease making crowd-pleasing Hollywood fare as much as he enjoys experimenting with technology and structure. Often, I have a sense of the filmmaker as a person from their work. Directors like Scorsese, Kubrick, and Altman conjure specific emotions and images for me. Soderbergh remains a blank, an enigma that exists outside of any definitions I can articulate.

Movie Review – Heathers

Heathers (1989)
Written by Daniel Waters
Directed by Michael Lehmann

Screenwriter Daniel Waters originally envisioned Stanley Kubrick directing the screenplay he wrote while working at a Los Angeles video store in 1986. The initial script was three hours long, and the opening cafeteria scene, added in subsequent drafts, was meant to be an homage to the opening barracks scene in Full Metal Jacket. Well, Kubrick didn’t make Heathers, though I am fascinated by what the film would have been like. It is still a fantastic movie, a satire dripping with the most acidic venom toward its targets, a mockery of everything white, suburban, and middle-class in America.

PopCult Podcast – About Dry Grasses/Housekeeping for Beginners

Two European features make up this week’s episode. One follows a misanthropic rural schoolteacher in Turkey as he burns every bridge around him. The other is about a queer found family in North Macedonia.

Solo Tabletop RPG Review & Actual Play – Sundered Isles Part One

You can purchase Sundered Isles here.

You can purchase Starforged here.

You can purchase Sea of Sands here.

To say I was happy to see Sean Tomkin’s announcement for the Sundered Isles Kickstarter this year would be an understatement. While I am not a big fan of pirate-y-themed things, any expansion of the Ironsworn ruleset is always good. Rather than just make a second science fiction-themed book, Tomkin developed a third-themed way of play while leaving the mechanics open to be easily reskinned for whatever genre you wish to play in. This is an expansion, though, not a standalone game, so a copy of Starforged is required. It is very well worth it if you don’t have a copy yet.

Comic Book Review – Prophet Volumes One & Two

Prophet Volume One (Image Comics)
Reprints Prophet #21-26
Written by Brandon Graham (with Simon Roy, Farel Dalrymple, and Giannis Milonogiannis
Art by Simon Roy, Farel Dalrymple, Brandon Graham, Giannis Milonogiannis, and Marian Churchland

Prophet Volume Two (Image Comics)
Reprints Prophet #27-31, 33
Written by Brandon Graham (with Simon Roy, Farel Dalrymple, and Giannis Milonogiannis
Art by Simon Roy, Farel Dalrymple, Brandon Graham, Giannis Milonogiannis, Fil Barlow, Helen Maler, and Boo Cook

You might be a bit confused about the issues reprinted here. How is this volume one if it starts with issue 21? That’s a valid question. Prophet was the revival of a previously canceled series under Rob Liefield’s Image Comics imprint Extreme Comics. The initial Prophet series concluded in 1994 and was revived in 1995, with a second ongoing series canceled shortly after that. For over a decade, Liefield flailed around with his original IPs, as he is wont to do. In 2011, a radical revival was planned of several Liefeld properties, and Prophet ended up being the longest-running and best-executed, in my opinion. That was mainly due to the seemingly endless creativity of its writer, Brandon Graham.