It won’t take a viewer long to notice that Christopher Nolan’s mind-bending movie Inception has a lot in common with the Wachowski Brothers’ reality-questioning Matrix trilogy. In Inception, Leonardo DiCaprio (as Dom Cobb) is our new Morpheus, expertly manipulating the virtual reality, except this time he’s an “extractor” who steals corporate secrets by entering a…
Author: alving4
The Sorceror’s Apprentice – Movie Review
I really didn’t expect to enjoy this movie as much as I did. For starters, there’s the Nicolas Cage factor (for me he takes any movie down a notch), but he’s not bad when he’s just having fun (see also National Treasure). This time he plays Balthazar, an apprentice to the original Merlin, who’s been…
Movie #11: Moon
One thing I’ve learned about indie sci-fi is that it’s usually high-concept. Moon is no exception (though I don’t want to reveal how, exactly). Sam Rockwell stars as Sam Bell, a lowly labourer maintaining and monitoring harvester machines as they glean high-energy elements from the moon. He’s all alone and spends the duration of his…
Movie #10: Daybreakers
Wow! Even in our current age of ‘fang-mania’ Daybreakers was actually a fresh take on the vampire movie — kind of a cross between True Blood and Children of Men. A plague of vampirism led to over 90% of the population becoming vampires in 10 years. That allows the filmmakers to come up with all…
Movie #9: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
After all the hype around the novel, I was intrigued by the Swedish film adaptation of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. I thought I might read the novel, then wait for the Hollywood movie (whenever that’s coming) but the book’s opening chapter was so dense (I am told that it’s a page-turner, but those…
Movie #8: The Lovely Bones
I almost never call any movie “a mess”, but I think that’s the best way to describe The Lovely Bones. I have no idea how much of this film was true to the original Alice Sebold novel and how much of it was artistic license taken by writer/director Peter Jackson, but I hope that the…
Predators – Movie Review
The hype around the latest Predator movie says that it’s pretty good. I’m no Predator expert, but it seems like a pretty typical action movie to me. Start out with Adrien Brody waking up in free-fall, hurtling towards the planet’s surface. Good thing he manages to activate his chute. On the ground, he discovers that…
Movie #7: A Single Man
A bit of a change of pace, A Single Man is the Oscar-nominated (best actor nod for Colin Firth) drama directed by fashion designer Tom Ford (movie-goers will know him as the Man Who Dressed James Bond). Naturally, I expected something stylish, with everyone impeccably dressed, filmed at interesting camera angles, each shot a potential…
Movie #6: Taken
I put off seeing Taken because I find kidnapping stories a bit too tense with the emotional stakes involved. Plus, there’s always some weepy mother who won’t let the hero take the risks needed to get the victim back. Anyway, that’s what I expected, so I was in no rush to see Liam Neeson play…
Alvin's Adventures in Pop Culture 