PopCult Reviews

Comic Book Review – The Uncanny X-Men Omnibus Volume One

The Uncanny X-Men Omnibus Volume One (2020)
Reprints Giant-Size X-Men #1, X-Men #94-131, and X-Men Annual #3
Written by Chris Claremont and John Byrne (w/Len Wein & Bill Mantlo)
Art by Dave Cockrum & John Byrne

Last year, I read through the initial X-Men run featuring the original five. Stan Lee & Jack Kirby started out as the creative team, quickly stepped aside, and the title just never found its footing. There was a great stint when Roy Thomas wrote with Neal Adams on pencils; that was a standout, but overall, it was a forgettable comic book. For five years, the X-Men book reprinted its sixty-six issues, and as Marvel got closer to running out of stories to reprint, they decided to do something new with the concept. Len Wein was doing double duty as writer & editor at Marvel in the mid-1970s and worked with artist Dave Cockrum to create some new mutants to shake up the X-Men dynamic. He also pulled in a character he’d introduced around the same time in the pages of Incredible Hulk. It was a short, clawed Canadian superhero named Wolverine.

Movie Review – Last Year at Marienbad

Last Year at Marienbad (1961)
Written by Alain Robbe-Grillet
Directed by Alain Resnais

Spoilers if you have not watched Twin Peaks: The Return. Like in the very next paragraph. You have been warned.

In the closing moments of David Lynch & Mark Frost’s Twin Peaks: The Return, Special Agent Dale Cooper stands with Laura Palmer outside her home in the titular town. They’ve just discovered the woman living there is not Sarah Palmer and has no clue who Laura is. Cooper does not know what to do next but is an investigator. He stands, staring into the distance, trying to grasp onto anything. He utters the final line of the show: “What year is it?” Laura screams. Darkness falls. Credits roll over the image of Cooper sitting in the red room, Laura whispering something in his ear. We are unmoored from time; past/present/future mean nothing. What do we have if we don’t have time to cling to?

Movie Review – Hiroshima, Mon Amour

Hiroshima, Mon Amour (1959)
Written by Marguerite Duras
Directed by Alain Resnais

Some historical events seem to be glossed over. We’re taught they happened, but then the textbook quickly moves on to other topics. One of these is the atomic bombing of Japan. I personally believe this sits beside the Holocaust as the two most monstrous acts ever performed by humans on each other. Because I came along decades after the act, I was fed the very manicured propaganda around it. Even worse, I was homeschooled and given Bob Jones University’s take. I think most of us couldn’t really articulate what happened directly following the dropping of those bombs or what the mood in Japan was in the following weeks or months. But such a thing could not happen without the people’s lives being devastated beyond anything we Americans have experienced.

Movie Review – Night and Fog

Night and Fog (1956)
Written by Jean Cayrol
Directed by Alain Resnais

It’s an image that your brain can’t quite comprehend at first. Then the camera pulls out. And continues to pull out. And just keeps going beyond anything you could have anticipated or expected. Literal mountains of human hair piled up into a range of which I could not see the boundary. It seemed to go on forever. This isn’t just violence inflicted on one person to another. This is something different. There is a scope & scale that could not have happened by accident. Each action, each cut, each kill was planned. Starvation was part of the plan. This was the same thought an exterminator puts into eliminating an infestation of rats because that is how the Nazis saw these human beings as something to be erased. And with cold, calculated action, they built an entire machine to kill them all.

Movie Review – The Rules of the Game

The Rules of the Game (1939)
Written by Jean Renoir and Carl Koch
Directed by Jean Renoir

Lately, I have spent much time wondering what it felt like for the average person in the West during the lead-up to World War II. Did people sense something in the air that the world was about to change? Was there a palpable unease as you started to see where allegiances lay among the people around you? BIPOC, LGBTQ, and disabled people were already keenly aware of how nasty the dominant class could be. But what about the average white person? The ones who get a few more crumbs when brushed off the table by the wealthy, could they feel the fangs of something dark & horrible sinking into this world? Or was it business as usual?

Movie Review – Grand Illusion

Grand Illusion (1937)
Written by Jean Renoir and Charles Spaak
Directed by Jean Renoir

The actor/filmmaker Warren Beatty tells how, near the start of his career after making Splendor in the Grass, he was at a party where he met playwright Clifford Odets. Odets mentioned in passing the films of Jean Renoir, who was also at the same party. Beatty had yet to learn who this was but knew the name. “Renoir? Like the painter?” In Beatty’s words, Odets was “too kind” and didn’t embarrass him. He told the young actor yes. Jean Renoir is the son of the French impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir. The playwright suggested Beatty track down Grand Illusion and The Rules of the Game to better acquaint himself with the work of Renoir. Beatty got copies of both and a 16mm projector. Afterward, he remarked: “These may be the best movies I have ever seen.”

January 2024 Posting Schedule

Film Series

[Some French Classics] – Jan 1st thru 8th

Grand Illusion, The Rules of the Game, Night and Fog, Hiroshima mon Amour, Last Year in Marienbad, The 400 Blows

[Palestinian Cinema] – Jan 10 thru 29

Chronicle of a Disappearance, Divine Intervention, Paradise Now, Salt of This Sea, The Time That Remains, Five Broken Cameras, Omar, It Must Be Heaven, Gaza Fights for Freedom

State of the Blog 2024

No year is what we imagine it will be, for all the good & ill that comes with it. It’s starting to feel bizarrely normal to come to the end of another year in the 2020s with such dread looming for the following year. Things on this planet are pretty dire, especially what humans are failing to do with urgency. I spend a lot of time in my head. I don’t come to any particularly enlightening conclusions, but I ponder things a lot. Who can say where we will be one year from this day? Such volatile times mean seeing our way through the fog is difficult. I hope that wherever this new year finds you, you are as safe as possible, and when the next one comes, your safety continues. And for those lacking safety, may the cause of their harm be obliterated in the following months.

November/December 2023 Digest

Features
Patron Pick – Maid [Bekah]
Patron Pick – Girl, Interrupted [Bekah]
Patron Pick – Dream Scenario [Matt]
Seth’s Favorite Solo Tabletop RPGs of 2023
Seth’s Favorite Books Read in 2023
Ariana’s Favorite Books Read in 2023
Seth’s Favorite Television of 2023
Ariana’s Favorite Television of 2023
Seth’s Favorite Film Discoveries of 2023
Seth’s Favorite Films of 2023
Ariana’s Favorite Films of 2023

Ariana’s Favorite Movies 2023

In retrospect, 2023 was an interesting time for movies, with the writers and actors’ strikes, which left some of us wondering if some films would even make it into the light. Upon looking at my 2022, I feel that 2023 films didn’t give me too many visceral reactions or strong emotions in comparison, especially with the last quarter of films we are able to see.

It is not that the films weren’t good, but I wasn’t in my feeling it as much. Perhaps I have fallen out of love with American/Western films, which wish to hold me emotional captive with manipulation. Here are the best, in my opinion, with a few honorable mentions.