One thing that disappointed me about the prequel Prometheus was that it started to open up the Aliens mythology (with the Engineers, and a Lovecraftean backstory), but in the end the story was reduced to another space crew finding a primitive version of the Alien xenomorph, and being slaughtered. I was hoping that Alien: Covenant…
Category: (4 out of 5)
Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2 – Movie Review
The “Marvel Cinematic Universe” has become something of a beast, weighed down by continuity, history, and the expectations of big budgets and big fandom. However, a new Guardians of the Galaxy movie comes out to remind us that there are still fun adventures to be had in the MCU. One of the advantages that the…
Oscar Schmoscar 2017
Each year, when I do these quickie reviews of Oscar nominees that I’ve seen, a few of them are marginal categories — like sound editing, or costume design — but this year I think I’ve got a better slice. I still may not necessarily love the winners, but I’m glad that doing my Oscar-viewing “homework” gets me to…
Fall TV 2016 Wave 2
I’m enjoying the new fall TV season so far. There’s nothing that I absolutely can’t miss, but a number of shows are still intriguing enough that I want to keep watching. New Shows Westworld At the top of the list of new shows worth sticking with is definitely Westworld. Hype has pegged this to be HBO’s…
Fall TV 2016 Wave 1 – Returning Shows
In this year’s batch of returning shows, we’ve got a few long-timers, some shows with a few seasons under their belts, but very few sophomores — mostly because last year’s new shows were so weak. Surprisingly and disappointingly, rather than getting a fresh start on the new season, the pattern or theme this year so…
Fall TV 2016 Wave 1 – New Shows
Every year the networks seem to try different scheduling patterns for releasing fall premieres. This year seems to be waves. Many shows have started up already, and we’ve actually got a couple of episodes under our belts before the next wave of premieres come out. With so many shows in this first wave, I’m going to…
What I watched on TV this summer
Now that the summer is ending, and the fall tv season is around the corner, I wanted to look back at what I watched over the holidays. Though I technically watched all these shows on my TV, none of them were actually broadcast over the summer. The shows I enjoyed (The Night Manager, Black-ish, Star…
Kubo and the Two Strings – Movie Review
There aren’t many animation studios left, but I’m really glad that there’s Laika (who also brought us Coraline and The Boxtrolls), the kind of studio willing to put a lot of craft into their movies (they’re still committed to stop-motion animation!), and tell imaginative tales rooted in folklore and fantasy. Kubo and the Two Strings…
Star Trek Beyond – Movie Review
I guess it says something that a die-hard Star Trek fan like myself took so long to see Star Trek Beyond. (Why did they call it that, anyway? The title makes it seem like the Enterprise crew is going to travel outside the galaxy or something, rather than stay in the nebula-around-the-corner.) This is…
Alvin's Adventures in Pop Culture 