Alvin's Adventures in Pop Culture

A Feast For Crows by George R.R. Martin – Book Review

Featured image is Cersei turns to Ash by Duncan Dewar As I typically do, I read books to prepare for movies and tv seasons, so I was eager to catch up with our friends in Westeros before Game of Thrones season 5 returns in a couple of weeks. However, as I read/listened, I also started…

The Liebster Award

Thanks to YoungCinemaBuffs for the nomination RULES • Thank the person who nominated you and link their blog. • Answer the questions given by the nominator. • Nominate 11 other bloggers who have less than 200 followers, and link them. • Notify all the bloggers you nominate. • Create 11 new questions for your nominees…

Citizenfour – Movie Review

Sad that it was only because of the Oscar win that I decided to watch Citizenfour, the face-to-face documentary about Edward Snowden and the journalists who brought this story about NSA surveillance and invasion of privacy to public light. To be frank, I was pretty ignorant about these events and this story, only having heard…

Oscar Schmoscar 2015

It’s Academy Awards time, and that means it’s once again time for me to weigh in with my ignorance and inability to appreciate an Oscar-worthy performance. If you’re like me, you’ll want to cram-watch a few more of the nominees in time to at least have an opinion for the awards next week. Let me…

Midseason TV 2015

Midseason is here again. It’s that time of year when TV networks (and a growing number of non-TV channels who are delivering episodic content) take a second run at catching the audience’s attention. It’s usually a time when some of the more outlandish/inventive shows come on, which the programming execs might have thought were too…

Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey – Book Review

I was surprisingly disappointed by Leviathan Wakes, which is the first of a series of books now headed to tv on the US SyFy channel as “The Expanse”. They characterize the show as a Game of Thrones set in space, so that gave me all kinds of expectations of an array of interesting characters and…

2014 Blockbuster Movie Review Catch-up

Before the bell rings on 2014 and rings in 2015, I wanted to give my two cents on a few of the blockbuster movies that blew away the box office in 2014 (but I missed catching them at the theatres). Guardians of the Galaxy Marvel’s leap into space adventures had a US opening weekend of…

2014 TV Characters: Love and Hate

Some say that TV is going through a quality renaissance. That might be true, but unfortunately if you have enjoyed hard-edged shows like True Detective, Broadchurch, American Horror Story, or Breaking Bad for their wonderfully complex and messed-up characters, you won’t find any of those shows on my list. I tend to enjoy the lighter,…

Unholy Night by Seth Grahame-Smith – Book Review

Featured image is Diamond Star by Brian Yi (please click the link to see the full image — it’s nice.) Seth Grahame-Smith is the author who brought zombies to Pride and Prejudice, and turned America’s “great emancipator”, Abraham Lincoln, into a vampire hunter. He’s been tipping some of the sacred cows of literature and history for…