I didn’t know what to expect from this movie, but I’m a sucker for indie sci-fi movies. I think sci-fi concepts open up a huge realm of storytelling — it’s a great way to explore dramatic and philosophical questions. Anyway, in this case, Another Earth is mostly a human drama about a teenage girl, Rhoda,…
Category: (3.5 out of 5)
Movie #22: Skyline
Skyline really brings home the idea of alien invasion, since it’s set entirely within a high-rise condo — Hey, that’s how I live! Unfortunately, I don’t live in a super-deluxe modern condo in L.A. with sleek modern styling and automated blinds — but then again, those blinds didn’t save these residents from being sucked away…
Movie #17: Chronicle
I love these kinds of indie films with sci-fi or supernatural premises. In Chronicle, three teenage guys are exposed to some kind of freaky glowing space rock and end up with incredible super powers. Though that story (or one like it) has been done repeatedly (especially in the comic-book world), this movie takes an extremely…
Movie #10: Morning Glory
What could be better than a romantic comedy from the director (Roger Michell) of my favourite rom-com (Notting Hill), with Rachel McAdams (one of my favourite actresses today), featuring Diane Keaton (who, with Woody Allen, pioneered the rom-com in Annie Hall)? Well, the irony is that Morning Glory isn’t a romantic comedy. Sure, McAdams meets…
Movie #9: Limitless
Why do they have to keep doing this? Limitless starts out with an interesting sci-fi premise, then squanders it as merely a gimmick to lure us into a relatively typical story. Some might argue that that’s a rather harsh critique of this movie which actually has some style and carries the premise consistently through to…
Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor – Book Review
It was foolish of me not to have realized (even just from the opening epigram: “Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love. It did not end well.”) what this book was going to be like. Daughter of Smoke and Bone is in the same genre as Twilight (and so many…
Movie #5: Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
While I’d played the original 1989 game, I had not seen the 2010 video game on which Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time was based. So, I was pretty surprised at the impressive scale of the visual effects that were put into this movie (though less surprised at how they still made the main…
Movie #4: Hanna
Did you ever wonder what amnesiac assassin Jason Bourne would have been like if he’d been a teenage girl instead? Probably not. Who would? But that’s the gist of the movie Hanna. Raised by her father Erik (played by Eric Bana) in the cold, wintery country somewhere isolated from the rest of the world, he…
Movie #3: In Time
Even from the previews, it was obvious that In Time was going to be another one of those movies where a cool, sci-fi premise was going to be stretched over a weak story (cast with some attractive young actors), like The Adjustment Bureau, or Source Code. The idea in this story is that everyone is…
Alvin's Adventures in Pop Culture 