With our national pride in full bloom, I was eager to revisit a classic written by Canada’s premier fantasy author, Guy Gavriel Kay. I think I read The Summer Tree back in the 80s (for a class project on a Canadian writer), but sadly I have forgotten almost the entire story. Inspired in many ways…
Category: Fantasy
The Malevolent Seven by Sebastien de Castell – Book Review
I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from this book, but with a title like “The Malevolent Seven”, I knew it was going to be fun. Though it’s got mages and spells and a quest to stop evil other-dimensional beings from taking over the world, it’s not your typical epic fantasy nor is it a…
Wicked – Movie Review
I am a big fan of the Wicked musical. It’s one of my favourites. So I came to this movie with love for the material, along with high expectations. Shockingly, and happily, this film adaptation exceeded them all, and brought the musical wonderfully to cinematic life. I enjoyed the stage musical primarily for its soundtrack….
Creepily Catching Up With It & It Chapter Two
To celebrate spooky season this year I read some scary stories, and decided to finally watch the movie adapting Stephen King’s It (from 2017) and It Chapter Two (from 2019). Despite being old enough to have watched it on TV when it originally aired in 1990, I decided not to check out the Tim Curry…
Hellboy: The Crooked Man – Movie Review
As we have entered “spooky season”, I find myself once again looking for chilling stories (but nothing too scary for us chickens). Because I’ve always been a fan, I find myself turning to the latest Hellboy movie. The gruff, bruiser, quasi-anti-heroes are great characters to use as protagonists for exciting, action-fantasy stories (see also Marvel’s…
Dune Part 2 – Movie Review
The first part of Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s classic sci-fi novel Dune was amazing. Visually stunning, it delivered an engaging story that brought Herbert’s characters to life and made this incredible, fictional universe feel very real. This second part continues right where the first film left off: Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) and his…
Frightfully Catching Up With Jordan Peele’s Get Out, Us, and Nope
In honour of spooky season, I decided to do a little movie marathon of scary films by the recent horror-meister, Jordan Peele. Part of the comedy duo, Key & Peele, more recently Peele split his career down a very different path, becoming a celebrated writer-director of successful horror movies. When I heard positive reviews of…
Wheel of Time, One Piece, Ahsoka, Ragnarok, Mech Cadets & Lower Decks: Fun genre TV is back! (Fall 2023)
The rush of having these six genre (aka nerd-friendly) series release within a couple of weeks brings me back to the days of watching dozens of new series whenever the fall season kicked off on network TV. Nevertheless, I now relish the flexibility of being able to watch them at my own pace (and savour…
Animation is awesome: 10 new and returning shows to prove it
Ever since I grew up in the 80s watching Saturday Morning Cartoons, I have loved watching animation. When done well, there is a dynamic fun and imaginative freedom to animation that even the most CGI-heavy live action cannot reproduce. With the streaming channels there are a lot of animated series floating around (most of them…
Alvin's Adventures in Pop Culture 