PopCult Reviews

Movie Review – Faces Places

Faces Places (2017)
Written by Agnes Varda
Directed by Agnes Varda & JR

French director Agnes Varda has never hidden her love of the French village. Her filmmaking career began with photographing the people who lived & worked in a working-class seaside town. Her first short film starred a couple who lived in such a place. While Varda’s narrative film work has varied in its subjects and interest, her documentary work has remained fixed on the working & the poor, people who do not get spotlighted much in media or society. That trend continues in her collaboration with street artist & photographer JR. They create giant portraits of people they meet, plastering them onto the facades of buildings and allowing so many “invisible” people to be seen. Along the way, the friendship between Varda and JR blossoms.

TV Review – My Brilliant Friend Season Three

My Brilliant Friend Season Three (HBO)
Written by Elena Ferrante, Francesco Piccolo, Laura Paolucci and Saverio Costanzo
Directed by Daniele Luchetti

I have been very impressed with how this show has made very young actresses appear to age into their late 20s/early 30s. It’s done through the talents of make-up artists, hair stylists, and wardrobe, along with the actresses’ physical and emotional performance. There are moments where the youth of Lenu might slip by all that, but for the most part, this season completely sold our two lead actors as maturing women, worn down by a society that looks all too similar to the one their mothers grew up in. That was the overarching theme of the season: Lenu’s realization that she was living a life as unexamined and pre-planned as her own mother, just with nicer furniture.

Movie Review – The Beaches of Agnes

The Beaches of Agnes (2008)
Written and directed by Agnes Varda

In her 2000 documentary The Gleaners and I, Agnes Varda shared how she had difficulty remembering even recent journeys she had been on. What helped her recall those rich details were the objects & souvenirs she returned with. In The Beaches of Agnes, the director surveys the entirety of her life up to this point, which is quite daunting to remember. To aid in that, she composes a bricolage of items. These trinkets are scattered on various beaches whose locations played a significant role in Varda’s life. The film was made to celebrate the artist’s 80th birthday, and she wonders aloud if this would be her final picture. It would not be, but at this point in her life, each subsequent movie surely felt like the last piece of art she would make.

PopCult Podcast – The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar/The Killer

Two new releases are the focus of the latest episode. In one, Wes Anderson adapts four short stories by the legendary author Roald Dahl. The second is the latest from the meticulous director David Fincher.

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

Make sure to read part one before this and part three next.

During my Dungeon World solo playthrough, I extensively used Perilous Wilds. While Parts Per Million’s Dungeon World Solo book is helpful, it only looks at Dungeon World. Here’s the thing about DW: it’s a fine game, but I have always felt it was underbaked. There’s very little about dungeon crawling in the core book, and some of the mechanics (Hirelings in particular) are confusing and not fun. Perilous Wilds feels like the missing portions of the game, providing revised rules for hirelings and tools to build dungeons as you play and even create monsters on the fly. These tools helped make this playthrough fun; I never knew what lay in store for me next.

Comic Book Review – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Ultimate Black & White Collection Volumes One & Two

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Ultimate Collection Volumes One & Two (2014)
Reprints (V1) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1-7 and Raphael One-Issue Micro-Series
(V2) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 8-11, Michelangelo One-Issue Micro-Series, Donatello One-Issue Micro-Series, and Leonardo One-Issue Micro-Series
Writing and Art by Kevin Eastman & Peter Laird

I won’t go over the backstory of how Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles came to be. That is a well-trod path you can find in various forms online. Instead, I want to share my first encounters with these characters in animation and comic books. Like almost every child in 1987, I watched television, unaware of what would be coming next. It was around Christmas, and our local Fox affiliate was showing a new episode of the opening mini-series each day of the week. I couldn’t remember the full name of the show, so I just called them “The Turtles” until I had it down. I was six years old at the time.

Movie Review – The Gleaners and I

The Gleaners and I (2000)
Directed by Agnes Varda

There is a tension in art between planning & spontaneity. I feel it when I write fiction. I’m always wrestling with how detailed an outline I give myself. Where is the room left to be surprised? But I also need to ensure the whole piece feels cohesive and connected. Agnes Varda embraces spontaneity in her documentary The Gleaners and I but strikes a good balance. She sets out with an idea of what she wants to explore but allows herself to be open to drift. Varda is so fascinated with people that she won’t hold back if the people she encounters inspire something new in her. I can see how contemporary filmmakers like Nathan Fielder or John Wilson are inspired by Varda’s work, particularly how she engages with strangers.

Movie Review – Vagabond

Vagabond (1985)
Written and directed by Agnes Varda

It seems easy for so many to demonize the vulnerable. That’s one of the most upsetting things about humanity for me, to see & hear people refer to subgroups of their fellow human beings as animals. One group in America that is treated in such a way through legislation & everyday rhetoric is the homeless. There are myriad reasons why a person might end up living on the streets. In the West, we still fail to treat the mentally disabled with respect & dignity. The average worker lives in constant peril that each paycheck might be their last. Queer & trans youth are routinely kicked out of their homes by parents whose brains have been inundated with the most hateful propaganda. When I see videos on TikTok of fellow teachers disparaging young people for being disengaged in what they are being taught, I feel like the speakers are missing the point. This is a society that has no intent of ever helping you and would instead grind us into bone meal. If you do not submit your life wholly to the capitalist game, then the ones who are too frightened to ever break away happily piss on your grave.

Movie Review – One Sings, the Other Doesn’t

One Sings, the Other Doesn’t (1976)
Written and directed by Agnes Varda

Time feels distorted. It didn’t just start with COVID-19 either. Our understanding of even recent history is blurred, with significant historical events from just a decade or two prior feeling like they happened so long ago or disconnected from our point in time. Part of this is the poor perception of the human brain, whose recall & memories have been proven very unreliable. It also emanates from the neoliberal project outlined in Francis Fukyama’s The End of History and The Last Man. The argument made via neoliberalism is that all possible political ideologies have been discovered & developed and that we live in a period in which no more historically significant events will happen. Essentially, human development is now a capitalist machine meant to run forever, powered by the “benevolence of capitalism.”

PopCult Podcast – Bottoms/Killers of the Flower Moon

These films couldn’t be more different. One is a comedy based on a series of Comedy Central shorts about two horny lesbian losers. The second is the true story of a series of killings at an Osage reservation in the early 20th century.