Thanks to their both being available on home video (take the hint, cinema-industry) I was finally able to watch two of the biggest movies of …. 2014! The only reason I didn’t find The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies even more disappointing than I did was because my expectations had been lowered by the…
Category: (3 out of 5)
Capsule Book Review Catchup
Now that I am listening to audiobooks on my commute to and from work, I’m catching up on so many books that I’ve got a backlog of books to write about on my blog. Of course, this is all thanks to Audible.com (Free credits for the plug, please!) which has been a great way for…
Movie #15: Amazing Spider-Man 2
I had really loved the first instalment of this latest reboot of the Spider-man series on the big screen. I thought the combination of director Marc Webb, along with lead actors Andrew Garfield (as Peter Parker/Spider-man) and Emma Stone (as Gwen Stacey) gave an indie-film freshness to the non-superhuman parts of the story. While all…
Movie #10: The Congress
I guess it’s not surprising, but so often with independent films with sci-fi themes, you are never quite sure what you’re going to get. Being science fiction gives them the license to go almost anywhere with story and character because the anchoring concept can be something totally out-there. The Congress is an odd blend to…
Super-fiction: Brilliance, Amped, Ex-Heroes, and Steelheart – Book Reviews
In case you have not noticed, superhumans are all the rage. Whether it’s being bitten by a spider, receiving a shiny green ring, being struck by some special lightning or meteor, or just by being born this way, people on screen are getting supernatural powers in droves. Movies like Amazing Spider-man and X-Men are obvious…
Cramming: 2013’s leftover Movie reviews
Over the course of the year, I wrote a few movie reviews on this blog (though not as many as I had hoped). However, I also watched a few other movies that I didn’t get around to reviewing. So, as 2013 closes, I still want to give my two cents on each of them (though…
Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl and Richard LaGravenese – Book and Movie Review
I’m not quite sure what brought me to another supernatural, teen romance (especially after giving up on the Twilight books after only halfway through the second) but I guess I wanted to see if they were truly as similar as they seem. One of the things I noticed right away (especially since I was listening…
The Magicians by Lev Grossman – Book Review
Did you always think that there needed to be more sex, drinking, or 4-letter words in the Harry Potter books? Or that the kids in the Chronicles of Narnia weren’t as snarky, cynical, or full of ennui as the ones you knew at that age? Perhaps that upending of a beloved series of fantasy books…
Midseason TV 2013
For a couple of years, I thought that the networks were taking a genius new direction in developing a year-long TV schedule, where ultimately there would be great new shows premiering throughout the year. Instead, midseason seems to have reverted to its old ways of being a dumping ground for shows that were not good…
Alvin's Adventures in Pop Culture 