PopCult Reviews

Movie Review – Goodbye, Dragon Inn

Goodbye, Dragon Inn (2003)
Written by Tsai Ming-liang & Sung Hsi
Directed by Tsai Ming-liang

Since March 2020, I have only seen a single film in a movie theater, and that was here in the Netherlands. The dangers associated with COVID-19, not just death but permanent or even temporary disabling, just made the act of going to the theater simply not worth it. I’ve felt justified in my choice the more horror stories I hear from the States about people talking at full volume or scrolling through their phones during the movie as if they were in their own house. I would consider attending an art-house theater because the crowds would be smaller and more respectful. But even then, most of my film-watching life will be at home for the rest of my life. Before COVID, I visited the theater at least once every other week. But life is change, and we have to move on with it.

Patron Pick – Monster (2023)

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 Matt Harris.

Monster (2023)
Written by Yuji Sakamoto
Directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda

After seeing Hirokazu Kore-eda’s 2017 masterpiece Shoplifters, I was in awe. Watching his follow-up, Broker, was less moving of an experience. It’s a good movie, but it wasn’t as good as the first one I saw. While there is a body of work going back to the 1990s that I want to explore, for now, we move forward to the director’s latest film, Monster. I made sure I went into this film knowing very little other than that the plot focused on two middle-school-age boys. I’m so glad I didn’t know the story’s details because with each loop the narrative made back to its start, I was left wondering where we were being led.

Movie Review – Millennium Actress

Millennium Actress (2001)
Written by Sadayuki Murai and Satoshi Kon
Directed by Satoshi Kon

Perfect Blue was my introduction to Satoshi Kon, which blew my mind. It was my first time seeing anime that wasn’t fantastical but grounded in reality. However, that didn’t stop Kon from showing us why animation was the best way to present this story. He did things with animation that were impossible with live action or too cost-prohibitive. Still, it felt right at home with any Hitchcock or De Palma psycho-thriller. Over the 2023 holidays, we watched Tokyo Godfathers, another film whose premise doesn’t automatically lead one to animation. However, Kon shows us again why he could only tell this story the way he wanted with the near-limitless possibilities of the form. Going into Millennium Actress, I wondered how he would showcase the art form with this film.

TV Review – Neon Genesis Evangelion: Episodes 1 thru 6

Neon Genesis Evangelion
Episodes 1-6
Written by Hideaki Anno, Yōji Enokido, and Akio Satsukawa
Directed by Kazuya Tsurumaki, Hiroyuki Ishidō, Tsuyoshi Kaga, and Keiichi Sugiyama

My track record with anime has not been fantastic. I find I more often prefer anime films over long-form series. Satoshi Kon (Perfect Blue) has become a favorite, though I have yet to see Paprika. Hayao Miyazaki is a genre of animation unto himself, so if anything, that’s an entire branch of anime separate from the rest. Katsuhiro Otomo (Akira) is a visionary whose work staggers me every time I see it. While I haven’t done a deep dive into it yet, Mamoru Oshii’s work, like Ghost in the Shell, is fascinating. When it comes to anime shows, my most significant exposure was being in the room during college while friends watched Dragonball Z on Toonami every afternoon. I was not a fan. I had other friends who were into things like Inuyasha, and I watched films like Vampire Hunter D. A few years ago, I took in a couple of Attack on Titan episodes, but it just wasn’t for me.

PopCult Podcast – The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp/A Matter of Life and Death

It’s a World War II Powell & Pressburger double feature today. In one film we follow the storied life of a career soldier in the British Army as he watches the world change around him. In the other a British soldier gets a second chance a life that might be snatched away from him.

Solo Tabletop RPG Review & Actual Play – Wanderhome Part One

Wanderhome (Possum Creek Games)
Designed and written by Jay Dragon
Book design by Ruby Lavin
Art by Sylvia Bi (cover) and Letty Wilson (interior)

Purchase this book here

Read Part Two here.

“Life is about the journey, not the destination.” This would be an apt blurb for the game Wanderhome, which is all about characters traveling across the land on their way home. This is not a journey of combat; this is after all of that. This is what happens after a war ends or a disaster strikes. Or this is just what your character does; their job entails that they are wanderers, delivering messages or attending to the shrines of forgotten gods scattered about the landscape. This is a pastoral fantasy game whose most apparent inspiration would be the films of Studio Ghibli. The land of Haeth is full of small communities across a variety of biomes, and your character can visit them on their long journey back to their home.

Solo Tabletop RPG Actual Play – Little Town: Bright Hills Episode Five

Little Town
Designed & Written by Gustavo Coelho

You can purchase this game here.

For this session of Little Town, I decided to play around with the system a bit more. If you solo play tabletop RPGs, then you know this is what often happens. You have the idea of what you want and find ways to bend and twist the mechanics to fit that. For me, it was the idea of having another character I controlled connected to the mystery who could have parallel scenes to my protagonist. I have them sharing a Clock so as not to complicate things, and as you’ll read, they meet reasonably quickly. I was thinking of how Twin Peaks presented Dale Cooper as its protagonist, but many characters had side stories that didn’t always intersect with what he was up to.

Read the last episode here.

Comic Book Review – X-Men: Fall of the Mutants Omnibus

X-Men: The Fall of the Mutants Omnibus (2022)
Reprints New Mutants #55-61, Uncanny X-Men #220-227, X-Factor #18-26, Captain America #339, Daredevil #252, Fantastic Four #312, Incredible Hulk #336-337 & 340, and Power Pack #35
Written by Chris Claremont, Louise Simonson, Peter David, Ann Nocenti, Mark Gruenwald, & Steve Englehart
Art by John Romita Jr, Marc Silvestri, Walt Simonson, June Brigman, Todd McFarlane, Sal Buscema, Jon Bogdanove, Kieron Dwyer, Keith Pollard, Kerry Gammill, & Bret Blevins

Mutant Massacre was not the end of the shake-up Claremont wanted with the X-Men books. With the pending launch of Excalibur and Wolverine’s solo ongoing set to start, the writer stepped away from New Mutants, handing the reins to X-Factor writer Louise Simonson. The Fall of the Mutants would be a crossover in theme only; each of the three X-books at the time would have a contained storyline to dramatically shift the status quo. There are some light mentions of events in the other books, but nothing that would force readers to buy all three. The tie-ins to other comics are even less necessary and can easily be skipped (as I did with many).

TV Review – The Kingdom Season One

The Kingdom (Mubi)
Written by Lars von Trier, Niels Vørsel, and Tómas Gislason
Directed by Lars von Trier & Morten Arnfred

Twin Peaks is my favorite television show, and it was a worldwide phenomenon that we rarely see these days. As choices in media have expanded exponentially with streaming, in 1990, broadcast television was still the dominant home entertainment option. Twin Peaks was unlike anything American TV networks had ever shown, and this uniqueness allowed it to flourish outside the States in places like Japan, Denmark, and more. Filmmaker Lars von Trier was so inspired he developed his own TV series about a Copenhagen hospital filled with similarly eccentric characters with a supernatural bundle of secrets roiling beneath the building’s foundations.

Announcement – Screen Play: Corp Borg

Coming in March to the PopCult Patreon.

For their second series of Screen Play, Ariana and Seth embark on an odyssey across the bleak & bloody demon-infested world of Corp Borg, a rules-lite tabletop RPG inspired by the hit game Mork Borg.

For more info on Corp Borg click here.