Alvin's Adventures in Pop Culture

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…

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1 – Movie Review

Having recently read (and reviewed) the book, the last part (lucratively split into two films) of the Katniss Everdeen story was still pretty fresh in my mind when I went to see the movie. I knew to expect that the saga that began with a teenage girl bravely competing in a dystopian to-the-death competition has…

Big Hero 6 – Movie Review

Big Hero 6 represents the true coming-together of Disney and Marvel universes (even moreso than being able to play The Hulk alongside snow-queen Elsa in the videogame world of Disney Infinity). Disney animators (with no small influence from their Pixar brethren) have taken an obscure Marvel Comics super-team and brought them to cute, plastic life…

Capsule Book Review Catchup

Now that I am listening to audiobooks on my commute to and from work, I’m catching up on so many books that I’ve got a backlog of books to write about on my blog. Of course, this is all thanks to Audible.com (Free credits for the plug, please!) which has been a great way for…

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman – Book Review

I enjoy it when authors perform on the audiobooks themselves. The interpretation of the voices and the inflections of any dialogue are true to their original vision and conveys the intended feelings. That’s especially helpful in the case of Neil Gaiman’s novels because they are full of surreal imagery and magic realism. This story is…