All over the tents, small lights begin to flicker, as though the entirety of the circus is covered in particularly bright fireflies. The waiting crowd quiets as it watches this display of illumination. Someone near you gasps. A small child claps his hands with glee at the sight. When the tents are all aglow, sparkling…
Author: alving4
The Avengers – Movie Review
When I heard that Marvel Entertainment was planning to do individual superhero movies that would culminate in The Avengers bringing all the characters and cast together in a superhero team movie, it seemed ambitious to say the least. Thank goodness they got a capable director like Joss Whedon, who’s also a genre/comic book fan himself….
Cabin In The Woods – Movie Review
Most of the hype around this movie is about two things: how it defies (or plays with) conventions of the horror movie genre; and how it took (courtesy of the fall of studios) three years to see the light of movie screens. I don’t have much to say about the second topic, but the first…
A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin – Book Review
Some of you fellow pop-culturists might be like me, enjoying the preparation for movie sequels or new TV seasons by re-watching past instalments or (better yet) reading the next book in an adapted series. I decided to prepare for Game of Thrones season two by reading the second book in George R.R. Martin’s epic series,…
Mirror, Mirror – Movie Review
Since Disney has long cornered the market on fairy tale adaptations, it’s actually hard to know what to expect from one that isn’t full of singing birds and pixie dust. After watching director Tarsem Singh take on Greek mythology with The Immortals, I was willing to bet that his adaptation of the Snow White story…
The Hunger Games – Movie Review
Happy Hunger Games! In adapting a book to screen, living up to the expectations of readers about how the characters look and act is not the only challenge. If you can make viewers tear up when a scene is moving, or jump when a scene is surprising even though they already know what’s coming, that’s…
Salmon Fishing in the Yemen – Movie Review
In Lasse Hallstrom movies (like Chocolat, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?, and now Salmon Fishing in the Yemen), special individuals originally thought of by normal society as outsiders eventually draw the so-called “normal” people in and help them bring imagination, passion, and joy to their staid lives. In this movie, it’s a super-wealthy Yemeni Sheikh Muhammed,…
Kraken by China Mieville – Capsule Book Review
A literate novel about odd, cleverly-conceived cults who worship ancient gods and primal forces; a magical reality right under our noses (set in London, no less!); an epic end-of-days scope worthy of Joss Whedon; not to mention a squad of occult police officers — these are all the crazy elements that I’d love in a…
The Secret World of Arrietty – Movie Review
Studio Ghibli (like its American cousin/rival, Pixar Studios) has such a flawless reputation for producing beautiful, magical, creative, and original masterpieces of feature animation that audiences are predisposed to liking any new movie that they produce. The Secret World of Arrietty is the latest from these Japanese animation masters and for me, while it is…
Alvin's Adventures in Pop Culture 