Despite a prologue scene that tries to fill in some backstory (and remind viewers about this big quest that the main characters are on), there’s no fooling anyone about The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug being the middle segment of a movie trilogy. Still trying to live down comparisons to its more-epic older brother, The…
Category: (4 out of 5)
The World’s End – Movie Review
It’s not hard to see how The World’s End is meant to be an unofficial sequel to 2004’s Shaun of the Dead. Featuring the same lead actors (Simon Pegg and Nick Frost) and the same writer/director (Edgar Wright), The World’s End also features the pub as a backdrop for a bunch of ordinary British blokes…
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke – Book Review
I consider it a miracle in itself that I finished reading Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke. After all, the book is almost 800 pages long (and since I listened to the audiobook, it was also over 30 hours long)! While it deals with magic and is set in an England where magic…
Monsters University – Movie Review
Being a huge Pixar fan, I’ll pretty much go see anything they put on screen. Nevertheless, I had really enjoyed Monsters Inc. so I was excited to see this prequel — Mike and Sulley: the College Years. Now, it’s no stretch to the imagination that there was going to be some element of Revenge of…
Redshirts by John Scalzi – Capsule Book Review
Redshirts has got to be one of the most geek-friendly book titles I have encountered. The uninformed might guess that it’s about wearing a certain colour of clothing, and they might be wondering why it’s a single compound word. However, any sci-fi fan worth his salt knows that it actually refers to the laughable tendency…
Argo – Capsule Review
With its other awards this year, I knew Argo was likely to win the Best Picture Oscar. The distribution company probably felt the same way so they released it on disc (and iTunes) with enough time for us all to see it before the Oscars ceremony. I think I skipped seeing this movie in the…
Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 2 – Capsule Review
Though I no longer consider myself a Twilight fan, I was anticipating this final chapter in the “saga” (at least enough to make an iTunes rental of it). I was not crazy about Part 1 mostly because of how unpleasant it was to watch Kristen Stewart waste away as Bella, the human girl who fell…
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 Life of Pi – Movie Review
The Life of Pi has often been considered an “unfilmable” book, and I’m not sure if that’s because the bulk of the story is given by the protagonist’s monologue and has almost no interaction with other human characters, or because it’s an ocean-bound tale with animals playing major roles. In either case, director Ang Lee…
