Celebrating the Unpopular Arts
 

Category: Pop culture

Comics, Jim MacQuarrie, Movies, Pop culture, Review, Rummaging & Ruminating

It’s Not About What It’s About: Dissecting Some Cult Classics

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Buckaroo Banzai is really more fantasy than SF. Where Star Wars is the classic Quest fantasy, Buckaroo Banzai follows a different story; there is a hidden world we don’t know about, and in that world, forces of good and evil are waging a war with our world hanging in the balance. Our hero, a surprisingly resourceful person, has the ability to enter that world and fight for us, along with a team of allies, each of whom is an expert in a different area with skills that the team needs. By recasting this trope in the form of urban legends and conspiracy theories, Buckaroo Banzai responds to anxieties about things out of our control and assures us that we have a champion in the hidden battle. It’s religion for a post-supernatural world.

DIY, Jim MacQuarrie, Pop culture, Websites

When You GISH Upon a Star….

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Back in 2017, my friend and sometimes co-worker, Bethany, asked me if I wanted to be on her GISH team. “What the hell is GISH?” I asked. She told me, and now I’m telling you, so that you can sign up and do weird things in public and on social media, possibly win prizes, have a lot of fun, and help to make the world a better place.

Jim MacQuarrie, Movies, Pop culture, Review

In Defense of ‘Solo: A Star Wars Story’

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Let’s take a second look at ‘Solo: A Star Wars Story’, the much-derided Star Wars movie that carefully (perhaps too carefully) tied up just about every little detail of Han Solo’s early life, from where he got his blaster to how he got his name, giving more attention to what’s happening on the sidelines.

History, Jim MacQuarrie, Pop culture, TV

‘Hollywood’ Clumsily Rewrites History

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Ryan Murphy, the creator of Glee and American Horror Story, has a new seven-episode series up on Netflix, so I gave it a look. Hollywood (co-created with Ian Brennan) turned out to be one of the more frustrating productions I’ve seen in a while. I found it so annoying, in fact, that I’m going to complain about it in detail. [Spoilers] abound.

Culture, History, Jim MacQuarrie, Movies, Pop culture, Science Fiction

The Tomorrowland Promise

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Somehow, we were all convinced to abandon the idea of Utopia, to give up on the notion that the future would be better than today. The reason Disneyland’s Tomorrowland was allowed to become quaint and kitsch and eventually retro-cool is that it couldn’t be updated, because we’ve had no vision for the future since the mid-1970s. Or at least not for a future that’s nicer than our present.