PopCult Reviews

Movie Review – Tokyo Godfathers

Tokyo Godfathers (2003)
Written by Keiko Nobumoto & Satoshi Kon
Directed by Satoshi Kon

This year, I wanted to look at some Christmas-themed films & television specials that are not part of the traditional canon but aren’t a garbage fire. Last year, I did a series titled “A Very 2000s Christmas” and found that decade to have some of the most rotten, mean-spirited dreck centered around a holiday that purports to be the opposite. I needed some media that brought me Christmas cheer this year. We start with this animated feature film from Japanese master filmmaker Satoshi Kon. I first became aware of Kon when I watched his incredible psychological thriller, Perfect Blue. When I found out he had made a Christmas film, it seemed like a perfect addition to this list.

PopCult Podcast – May December/The Holdovers

It’s Haynes & Payne back at it again! In our first film, we follow an actress as she attempts to understand a couple whose lives are swamped in scandal. In the second, three people find a connection while spending the winter holiday at a boarding school.

TV Review – Scavengers Reign

Scavengers Reign Season One (HBO Max)
Written by Joseph Bennett, Charles Huettner, Sean Buckelew, James Merrill, Jenny Deiker Restivo, and Jillian Goldfluss
Directed by Joseph Bennett, Charles Huettner, Jonathan Djob Nkondo, Vincent Tsui, Rachel Reid, Christine Jie-Eun Shin, and Diego Porral

I’m not a huge fan of animated films & television. I have a soft spot for things like the films of Hayao Miyazaki or The Venture Brothers, but I don’t often gravitate toward animation. In the West, animation is still closely related to immature storytelling, leading to dreck like Family Guy or Rick & Morty. While I wouldn’t consider myself an anime fan, in the last few years, I’ve found what I’ve watched to be far more interesting than American crap. Satoshi Kon has quickly become a favorite, up there now with Miyazaki. While made by American animators, Scavengers Reign has the vibe of these Japanese productions. I was immediately thinking of Miyazaki’s Nausicaa as the characters explored the incredible alien life featured in this show. The vibe was a potent mix of chill with moments of tension & body horror.

Solo Tabletop RPG Review & Actual Play – Dark Space/Cthulhu Dark Part One

Purchase this game here.

Read Part Two here.

In space, no one can hear you scream, they tell us. Popular media has certainly given us lots of scares set among the stars. Dark Space is a collection of science fiction/horror scenarios compatible with the rules-lite Cthulhu Dark, with eventual support coming for Mongoose’s Traveller system. The rules for Cthulhu Dark are included at the back of Dark Space but are also available for free online. The game would also mesh well with any of the Cthulhu-themed rpg systems on the market.

Comic Book Review – Formerly Known As/I Can’t Believe It’s Not The Justice League

Formerly Known as the Justice League (2003)
Reprints Formerly Known as the Justice League #1-6
Written by Keith Giffen & J.M. DeMatteis
Art by Kevin Maguire

I Can’t Believe It’s Not the Justice League (2005)
Reprints JLA Classified #4-9
Written by Keith Giffen & J.M. DeMatteis
Art by Kevin Maguire

On October 9th, 2023, Keith Giffen passed away from complications following a stroke. I can’t say with complete certainty, but I believe my first Giffen comic was Justice League America #42, so I always think of this run with J.M. DeMatteis when I see the writer’s name. Since then, I’ve read more of his work. I enjoyed his time on the Five Years Later reboot of the Legion of the Superheroes, but nothing can eclipse his Justice League. I’ve re-read and reviewed all of that here on the blog, so it was time to look at the two sequels that came about in the 2000s.

December 2023 Posting Schedule

November 2023 was the busiest PopCult Reviews has ever been. We came in just six views shy of a total of 15,000. The next closest month was October 2023, with just under 13,000. The year will see astronomical growth for the blog, but I will talk more about that when we get to 2024’s State of the Blog in January. December will be a mix of what it always is: trying to cram in as many of the year’s best films to see where they end up on my list and sharing all my favorite pieces of media I’ve had the pleasure to enjoy in 2023. I suspect there will be many movies not listed here that I will be watching in the second half of December, should they become available.

Patron Pick – Maid

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.

Maid (Netflix)
Written by Molly Smith Metzler, Marcus Gardley, Rebecca Brunstetter, Colin McKenna, and Michelle Denise Jackson
Directed by John Wells, Nzingha Stewart, Lila Neugebauer, Helen Shaver, and Quyen Tran

Maid is an American drama mini-series created for Netflix and inspired by Stephanie Land’s memoir Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will to Survive. It focuses on Alex (Margaret Qualley) leaving her emotionally abusive boyfriend and struggling to provide for her daughter by getting a job cleaning houses.

I am going to start with the harsh bits. Although it has a lot of good qualities, there is a layer of cringe to Maid that resembles the storyline structures from the US version of Shameless. Their link to this is Molly Smith Metzler, a writer for both, and John Wells, executive producer and director for Maid, who developed, wrote, and directed for Shameless.

Movie Review – Detachment

Detachment (2011)
Written by Carl Lund
Directed by Tony Kaye

I was a licensed elementary school teacher in the United States for ten years. Before that, I was a student teacher & substitute for three years; before that, I worked as a reading tutor under the banner of AmeriCorps for a year. Altogether, I worked in public education for fourteen years before resigning from my position in December 2020 when our district in Tennessee demanded all students would come back into the building without any vaccines available. Tennessee has one of the highest deaths per capita rates from the virus in the country. I have a former colleague whose husband died within a week of contracting COVID-19. He was healthy and only in his 50s. I know of former students continuing to deal with the effects of long COVID. This was my last straw in education.

Movie Review – Stroszek

Stroszek (1977)
Written and directed by Werner Herzog

Bruno Schleinstein was a German artist & musician whose life was filled with struggles. He was abandoned as a baby during the Nazi regime. Bruno was mentally disabled and became one of those orphans experimented on by the fascists. He never received visits from his family despite knowing who they were and that they were ignoring his existence. Even after the war, Bruno was shuffled from one institution to the next with little regard for his humanity. Along the way, he learned the accordion, and music would become one of the few things that soothed & comforted him. He was eventually dumped onto the streets and made his way as a street performer, being spotlighted in a German documentary about this subculture. This film caused Bruno to come into the purview of Werner Herzog. The director saw great potential in Bruno as an actor and cast him in The Enigma of Kasper Hauser. He followed that up with this semi-biographical film with Bruno playing a fictional version of himself.

Solo Tabletop RPG Review & Actual Play – Dungeon World Solo Part Four

Begin with Part One here

In my last session, I managed to develop the mysterious purple orc that randomly came up. My thinking behind this character is that I dislike the Tolkien orcs as actual characters. They work as mindless hordes to throw at the heroes, but orcs, as characters in fantasy stories, have a lot of potential. I’ve always liked Warcraft’s handling of them much better, giving them a richer & more complex culture, showing they are not mindless savages but have a whole society of their own. I also liked the idea of Ukrom being an ancient mage (I rolled prehistoric on an Age table) and a reminder of what orcs used to be. While they will pop up near the end of this session, I do have ideas for the species when I continue this Dungeon World solo campaign in the future.