Alvin's Adventures in Pop Culture

Movie #48: The Woman In Black

I think the biggest question on viewers’ minds was how actor Daniel Radcliffe (aka Harry Potter) would continue his career after playing the young wizard for a decade. I don’t know if anything was proven by his role/performance in the gothic horror movie The Woman In Black, but I guess it’s not a bad idea…

Movie #47: Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame

I debated not including this movie in my summer 50, because it’s so different (especially if you’re not used to this genre of quasi-historical Chinese martial arts fantasy epic adventure movie). However, the more I thought about it, the more Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame actually reminded me of a much…

Movie #46: The Descendants

I don’t think these kinds of serious, mundane films are really for me. I think I like my movies more for escapism, taking me to places and experiences I would probably never have in real life. While The Descendants was set in Hawaii, it clearly wasn’t meant as an escape (in fact, those false expectations…

Movie #45: Headhunters

I love movies with good plot twists, and the Norwegian film Headhunters (Hodejegerne) is enjoyable not only because of the surprises in its storyline, but the movie twists from style to style as well. The film starts out as an edgy, modern, satirical fable (like Fight Club or American Psycho). Executive recruiter Roger Brown feels…

Movie #44: We Need To Talk About Kevin

Wow. I literally don’t think I’ve hated watching any movie so much as this one. Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers had been the defending champ, but Mickey and Mallory have now lost to Kevin and Eva. To be clear, it was not the subject matter that turned me off. In fact, I found a movie…

Movie #43: John Carter

Hearing that there’s going to be a big-budget sci-fi-fantasy movie made, gets me pretty excited. But when the movie turns out to get bad reviews, I get a bit nervous to watch the movie for fear of how they’ve botched something that could have been really good. I was going to save John Carter for…

Movie #42: We Bought A Zoo

I figured that this movie would be sweet and sentimental, but I did not expect how adorable it would be. Based on a true story, We Bought A Zoo is about a journalist-adventurer named Benjamin Mee (played by Matt Damon) who wants to make a fresh start with his two kids, after the death of…

Movie #41: The Debt

I set myself up for a Helen Mirren double-bill by watching this movie and The Tempest back to back. I had heard good things about The Debt but was hesitant to watch it in the theatres because it seemed to have that retro Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy vibe (and I hated that movie). Who knew…

Movie #40: The Tempest

I’ve been fascinated by William Shakespeare’s The Tempest ever since I first learned that this “olde tyme” playwright (that our teacher was making us read) had written a tale featuring spirits, spells and sorcery rather than his usual cast of English kings and queens. When director Julie Taymor’s version came to the screen featuring actress…