PopaHALLics #123 "Pop Tarts & Pop Sweets"
What can we say about Jerry Seinfeld's new movie about Pop Tarts? How about: You'd be better off taking a bite of the Spanish Inquisition ("The Familiar"), teenage murder ("Under the Bridge"), a murderous con man ("Ripley"), the Ku Klux Klan ("A Fever in the Heartland"), even an apocalyptic wasteland ("Fallout").

Streaming:

• "Unfrosted," Netflix. Seinfeld's directorial debut is a relentlessly silly film about the creation of Pop Tarts. Seinfeld, Melissa McCarthy, Jim Gaffigan, Amy Schumer, and many other comedians star in this tale of the early '60s race between the Kellogg's and Post companies to create a square gooey-filled pastry.
• "Fallout," Amazon Prime. Most of this drama based on the popular video game franchise takes place hundreds of years after a nuclear war. A perky vault dweller goes to the desolate surface in search of her abducted father; a squire becomes a "knight" in a motorized suit of armor; and a sentinent zombie who dresses and acts like a Clint Eastwood spaghetti Western creates havoc wherever he goes. Imaginative and violent, with an odd, goofy sense of humor.
• "Ripley," Netflix. In this limited series, Andrew Scott (the hot priest in "Fleabag," Moriarty in "Sherlock") plays the latest incarnation of Tom Ripley, Patricia Highsmith's scheming con man. Dakota Fanning and Johnny Flynn also star in this neo-noir psychological thriller.
• "Under the Bridge," Hulu. Eight teenagers are accused of murdering a 14-year-old girl in this "American true-crime" miniseries. Oscar nominee Lily Gladstone plays an investigator while Riley Keough plays Rebecca Godfrey, who wrote the book that inspired the miniseries.
• "Byzantium," for rental or various channels with ads. Gemma Atherton and Saiorse Ronan ("Brooklyn") play two nomadic female vampires surviving on their wiles in this visually stunning, atmospheric 2013 film. Director Neil Jordan ("The Crying Game") reinvigorated vampire movies with his version of Anne Rice's "Interview with a Vampire."

Books:

• "A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them," by Timothy Egan. This true story explores the second coming of the Klan in the 1920s and their leader, a grifter named D.C. Stephenson, who had so much power in Indiana at one time that he said "I am the law." He was undone by a trial that featured the dying testimony of a young woman he had abducted, raped and tortured.
• "The Familiar," by Leigh Bardugo. When a disgraced secretary tries to regain the favor of Spain's king, a scullion with a gift for "little miracles" becomes involved in an effort to defeat the hated English. Unfortunately, the Spanish Inquisition does not look kindly on her use of magic.