Alvin's Adventures in Pop Culture

Movie #20: Trollhunter

At first I was growing tired of the “found footage” sub-genre of movies, but recent TV series like the now-cancelled The River, movies like Chronicle and now this movie continue to expand possibilities. The title of this Norwegian film, Trollhunter (Trolljegeren), sounds like a cheesy Syfy channel B-movie, but actually it’s pulled off with a…

The Dark Knight Rises – Movie Review

As a finale to writer-director Christopher Nolan’s three-part reinvention of the Batman movie mythos, and the superhero movie genre as a whole, The Dark Knight Rises fits right in. It brings back not only the kinds of action sequences and fight scenes that we’ve come to expect, but also the cynical social commentary and themes…

Movie Confessions Blogathon

I haven’t really been much of a blogosphere kind of guy. I don’t really connect with other blogs or bloggers, but through another movie blog (Today I Watched A Movie), I discovered this Movie Confessions blogathon, so I thought that I might branch out a bit and participate. When you’re done with my responses, click…

Some Nights by fun. – Music Review

Last week I was trawling through iTunes, when I noticed Some Nights by the American band simply called “fun.” making its way to the top of the charts. I liked their previous mega-hit “We Are Young” so I decided to give it a preview, and I loved it! When I also tried the rest of…

Movie #19: Tucker and Dale vs Evil

Ever since Scream, there’s been almost a sub-class of horror movies that play with the expectations and stereotypes of the genre. Recently I really enjoyed the Joss-Whedon-produced Cabin in the Woods, and Tucker and Dale vs Evil actually has a lot in common with that movie (except in those parts where they are completely opposite)….

Movie #18: The Young Victoria

Even though I enjoy movies about British royalty, and I studied some history in university, I can’t say that I know much about Queen Victoria’s life. Unfortunately, after watching The Young Victoria, I still don’t. It wasn’t that there were historical details missing, but it was difficult to follow who the characters were, or what…

Movie #17: Chronicle

I love these kinds of indie films with sci-fi or supernatural premises. In Chronicle, three teenage guys are exposed to some kind of freaky glowing space rock and end up with incredible super powers. Though that story (or one like it) has been done repeatedly (especially in the comic-book world), this movie takes an extremely…

Movie #16: Drive

Can a movie be both slick and raw? Drive had a high degree of style: artful cinematography (nicely composed, with a great sense of balance; every scene could have been used for a movie poster), beautiful Baroque lighting (the night scenes had a warm-cool glow), thrilling car chases, and a curiously eclectic soundtrack (ranging from…

Movie #15: Anonymous

This movie starts out with an interesting premise (and a prologue by Shakespearean heavyweight, Derek Jacobi). He describes, with poetic and dramatic flair, some of the facts we know about William Shakespeare the playwright and leads to how little we know about Shakespeare the man. According to this story, Shakespeare was a hammy, buffoonish actor…