Missing hardly a beat from the conclusion of the first movie, Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark (played again by Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson) are living in the aftermath of their victory in the 74th Hunger Games, the fictional arena sport where teenagers fight for their own survival, for the benefit of their home district,…
Category: (4.5 out of 5)
Doctor Who: The Day of the Doctor – TV Review
Doctor Who celebrates 50 years of television history this week, though I only joined for the last eight or so (and I’ve probably only really understood about 60% of those eight seasons). Still, it was really exciting to see how The Day of the Doctor would continue the story of this Gallifreyan Time Lord while…
Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins – Book Review
I wasn’t very excited to read Catching Fire at first. The first book, The Hunger Games, was an original blend of sci-fi, action, and drama but I expected that the 2nd novel might be a revisiting of those same elements: the Katniss-Peeta-Gale love triangle, the inventive yet cruel Hunger Games, and the dystopian backdrop of…
Drop Dead Healthy by A.J. Jacobs – Book Review
Recently iTunes had a promotion on the audiobook version of Drop Dead Healthy so I picked it up for $7. Normally I don’t spend much time reading health books, or self-help books. All lot of them seem bogus, or only useful for people who are willing to change everything about their lives in order to…
Skyfall – Capsule Review
After Quantum of Solace, I was a bit concerned for Daniel Craig’s 007. I was worried that the franchise was too preoccupied with what is supposed to make up a Bond movie to make it a good movie, period. Thank goodness that Skyfall proved the previous film to be an aberration. This movie is not…
A Storm of Swords – Book Review
If you’re reading this review, I presume that you have an interest in the George R.R. Martin “A Song of Ice and Fire” series of novels and preferably you’ve read at least the first two (or at least watched the HBO television series up to season 2). I have become a big fan myself, and…
Oscar Schmoscar 2013
Each year I write this post for two reasons: 1) to show how much I don’t really care about the nominees (not really true) and 2) do quickie reviews of the nominated movies that I haven’t already reviewed separately. Back when there were fewer Best Picture noms, I tried to watch all of them by…
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time – Theatre Review (National Theatre Live @ Cineplex)
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon is one of my favourite novels. Imagine my delight to learn that not only was the book being made into a play, but that the play was going to be performed by the National Theatre in London, and that the performance was going…
Movie #50: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
First let’s establish that I couldn’t get past a few pages of the Stieg Larsson novel; and I viewed-but-didn’t-enjoy the original Swedish film featuring Noomi Rapace (who I did enjoy watching). Nevertheless, I was excited when I heard that The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo was being remade in English by director David Fincher (whose…
