Alvin's Adventures in Pop Culture

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse – Movie Review

After having seen so many super-hero movies (especially Spider-Man movies) already, I did not expect to be impressed (never mind blown-away) by this movie. It not only needed to bring something fresh to the well-trodden Spider-Man story, but in order to be visually impressive, it also has to compete with Pixar’s animation benchmark and other…

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald – Movie Review

At first I thought the negative reviews for Crimes of Grindelwald might just have been critical, but now that I’ve seen it, I can understand how this movie has been hurt by its overabundance of story. Even the first Fantastic Beasts movie had a hard time deciding if it was about Newt Scamander and his…

Fall TV 2018 – Part 3

After another 2 weeks, the fall TV season is definitely in full swing. I’ve already given up on some shows (Goodbye, Manifest!) and some I’m still waiting out to see (Talkin ’bout you, Murphy Brown!). Another thing I’ve been waiting for has been the new “witch” shows to debut. I was semi-excited for the Charmed…

Fall TV 2018 – part 2

The flood of premieres slowed down a bit over the last couple of weeks, but there were still some interesting premieres with a few surprises. Doctor Who Hugely anticipated was the arrival of Jodie Whittaker as the latest incarnation of the reincarnating Doctor — first time as a woman. In the premiere episode, everything…

Fall TV 2018 – part 1

Have I really not written about TV since last fall’s premieres? I get more response from movie reviews, but I really should be posting more about TV — my first love — especially when there is so much more to watch these days! Anyway … after years of gradually spreading out the fall premiere period,…

Mission Impossible: Fallout – Movie Review

I know I’m late to the game, since most people have already seen Mission Impossible: Fallout and given their own great reviews of this movie. One of the best things about this movie is that it proves that a long-running action movie franchise can still impress in its sixth instalment. It’s not as if this…

Summer Movie Catch-Up 2018 part 2

Unfortunately I’m not making it through a lot of movies, but here’s the second batch of movies that I’ve watched as part of my summer catch-up exercise (including recent genre hits, and Studio Ghibli rewatch). Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales Going into this one I had no illusions that it was…

Summer Movie Catch-up 2018

Now that summer is in full-swing, it’s time to catch all the big-budget blockbusters making their way to the theatres, right? Well, I don’t know if every movie these days is worth its weight in ticket-sales. So, between movie-going, I’m going to take some time to catch up (in the comfort of my living room)…

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom – Movie Review

As much as I have enjoyed the Jurassic Park franchise, each movie makes me wonder if they’ve exhausted all the premises for getting characters back to face the dinosaurs again. Each time they find a reason, but it’s never a very good one. The action sequences and the visual effects are typically enough to carry…