PopCult Reviews

Comic Book Review – Batman by Jeph Loeb & Tim Sale Omnibus

Batman by Jeph Loeb & Tim Sale Omnibus (2018)
Reprints Batman- Legends of the Dark Knight Halloween Special, Batman- Madness–A Legends of the Dark Knight Halloween Special, Batman- Ghosts–A Legends of the Dark Knight Halloween Special, Batman- The Long Halloween #1-13, Batman- Dark Victory #0-13, Catwoman- When in Rome #1-6 and a short story from Superman/Batman Secret Files & Origins 2003
Written by Jeph Loeb
Art by Tim Sale

There is no dearth of Batman comics at DC these days. Since his debut in Detective Comics #27, followed by a media push with his 1966 TV series and the cultural phenomenon of Batman 1989, the character has only seen his presence grow. It makes sense that DC Comics would publish so many Batman-related books because they ultimately sell. However, with such an increase in quantity comes a lack of quality. The incredible Bat-books are not typical, so when you find them, they shine brighter than the rest. Writer Jeph Loeb & artist Tim Sale not only created one of the best Batman stories of all time (The Long Halloween), but they followed up with two more fantastic mini-series (Dark Victory and Catwoman: When in Rome). This omnibus collection combines those three plus the one-shot Halloween specials that started it all, making for one of the best value oversized collections you could pick up.

Movie Review – [Rec]

[Rec] (2007)
Written by Paco Plaza, Luis A. Berdejo, and Jaume Balagueró
Directed by Jaume Balagueró & Paco Plaza

If you have read my reviews for a few years, you know I am not a big fan of the found footage subgenre of horror. When Blair Witch came out in 1999, I was a neophyte: a homeschooled little weirdo going into his freshman year at a private Christian college. The Sixth Sense terrified me at the time. However, in the subsequent 20-plus years, I have seen thousands more films and matured in my sensibilities regarding horror. I find films like Blair Witch or Paranormal Activity excruciatingly dull. Part of the found footage concept is that the audience must be convinced of the “reality” of the story, and to do that, you need long periods of boring, mundane scenes. The horror is contained in microchunks or held back until the very end. I’d heard people claim the Spanish language horror film [Rec] was different, that it was good, so I decided to check it out.

Movie Review – Freaks

Freaks (1932)
Written by Willis Goldbeck & Leon Gordon
Directed by Tod Browning

Tod Browning had a solid career as a director in Hollywood during the Silent Era and into the first decade or so of Talkies. He is responsible for a significant first in movies: the first Talkie horror film with Dracula. Based on a popular stage play (which was, in turn, based on Bram Stoker’s novel), Browning kickstarted the age of the Universal Horror Monster with this picture. It also gained him considerable clout and a blank check to make whatever he wanted next. MGM was interested in getting in on the horror game and offered Browning a shot at directing one for them. The filmmaker decided to go with the short story “Spurs” written by Tod Robbins. This film would be considered Browning’s magnum opus & disgusted the studio so thoroughly they cut it down from 90 minutes to 64, and the lost footage was destroyed.

Patron Pick – The Pledge

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.

The Pledge (2001)
Written by Jerzy Kromolowski & Mary Olson-Kromolowski
Directed by Sean Penn

I remember liking this movie more when I saw it in college. It’s not a bad film, but The Pledge is incredibly messy. There’s a clear sense of director Sean Penn getting a day with an actor he likes and shoehorning a scene in with them. The film drips with the essence of being a picture directed by an actor. It’s more interested in being a character study that plays in the tropes of the crime thriller; that’s one of its strongest aspects. However, the script demands a plot, so throughout the entire runtime, we experience tension between Penn’s desire to play with his performers and the genre tropes indicating specific plot beats to the audience. It doesn’t surprise me that The Pledge is a movie that split critics & audiences on its release. And despite all its many flaws, it is one of Jack Nicholson’s great late-career performances.

PopCult Podcast – Little Shop of Horrors/The Faculty

We continue our Halloween celebration with two creepy tales of invasions from beyond. In the first, our aliens strike in the form of flesh-eating plants. In the second they take on the role of authority figures in a high school.

TV Review – Reservation Dogs Season Three

Reservation Dogs Season Three (FX)
Written by Sterlin Harjo, Dallas Goldtooth, Tazbah Chavez, Erica Tremblay, Tommy Pico, Bobby Wilson, Migizi Pensoneau, Ryan RedCorn, Kawennáhere Devery Jacobs, and Chad Charlie
Directed by Danis Goulet, Tazbah Chavez, Blackhorse Lowe, Kawennáhere Devery Jacobs, and Erica Tremblay

Reservation Dogs was one of those rare shows that presented the life of poor people without pitying them. It didn’t dull the edges of poverty or how it feels to come from a marginalized group, but it never wallowed in misery. American Indigenous communities are composed of survivors, those who have endured horrific abuse over generations. This final season of the series centered on the effects of white-run boarding schools on generations removed from them but never made the white perspective anything more than an afterthought. That is the correct way to tell these stories because the Indigenous people carry the trauma of that treatment with them. I can tell that series creator and showrunner Sterlin Harjo wanted to connect two seemingly distant generations to show how history resonates through to the present.

Movie Review – The Silence of the Lambs

The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Written by Ted Tally
Directed by Jonathan Demme

There are many glaring omissions in my film-viewing life, and this was one of them. I’d seen bits & pieces of The Silence of the Lambs over the years. Channel surfing in my twenties led me to see Clarice & Hannibal’s chats in prison, Mr. Lecter’s fantastic escape, and Clarice’s showdown in the labyrinth of Buffalo Bill. Yet, I had never seen the picture from start to finish while having seen the sequel Hannibal, 1984’s Manhunter, and the second version of that in Red Dragon. I’d also watched the first season of Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal. It seems silly that I’d never managed Lambs in total, so I decided to amend that for the horror season. Was it good? Of course, it was. It was also a reminder of how much this film impacted the crime/thriller genre for the rest of the 1990s and into the 2000s.

Patron Exclusive: Screenplay Episode One

Our first episode of Screenplay is here, exclusively for our patrons. In this podcast, Ariana & Seth collaborative sketch out a world for our tabletop role playing experience, sharing tropes we like from media, building out NPCs with motivations & conflicts. Make sure to join PopCult Reviews’ Patreon now to listen to this and other exclusive podcasts.

Solo Tabletop RPG Review & Actual Play – Frontier Scum: Lonesome Drifter Part Two

Read Part One of this series.

The story of Hamsor Pang comes to a tragic ending, however we continues things a little further by shifting our perspective to a new protagonist.

(Oracle question: Is the upside-down silver cross worn by the bounty hunter in the cabin? Likely odds. Nat 20. Yes)

Pang takes a breath of the fresh, snowy air outside the mountain cabin. He turns back and looks at the dark mouth of the doorway. He remembers the necklace the bounty hunter wore, the upside cross. Something itches in his brain, that this could be useful to have in his possession. Taking a deep breath, Pang steps back into the abattoir and after a few minutes of searching finds the necklace still hanging from the butchered corpse’s neck. He takes it.

(Luck check DR14 vs. 6, 5. Failure)

Comic Book Review – DC vs. Vampires

DC vs. Vampires Volume One (2022)
Reprints DC vs. Vampires #1-6
Written by James Tynion IV and Matthew Rosenberg
Art by Otto Schmidt, Simone Di Meo, and Daniele Di Meo

DC vs. Vampires Volume Two (2023)
Reprints DC vs. Vampires #7-12
Written by James Tynion IV and Matthew Rosenberg
Art by Otto Schmidt, Francesco Mortarino, and Daniele Di Nuculo

Try as I might, I have never really enjoyed vampires as a horror concept. I’ve watched many vampire films of varying quality; some I have liked, but the vampire aspect isn’t scary. Bram Stoker’s Dracula is a wonderfully made film, and Dracula is certainly creepy at moments, but I never felt scared of him. Vampires typically seemed to be used to explore ideas of titillating sexuality, which is fine if you’re into that. I don’t really think most of the classic monsters are all that scary, to be honest. Overexposure has demystified them to the point where they are cartoon characters. So when I picked up this Elseworlds comic series, my expectations were relatively low despite the creative talent behind it.