Alvin's Adventures in Pop Culture

Movie #7: The Lincoln Lawyer

When The Lincoln Lawyer came out in theatres last year, I was surprised to see another lawyer movie being made. It seemed that good, legal dramas had become the domain of TV. There had definitely been a whole slew of John Grisham movies back in the 90s (in fact, Matthew McConaughey made his first big…

Movie #6: Real Steel

I am no fan of boxing movies, so I was pretty sure that the gimmick of having robots doing the fighting wasn’t going to make me enjoy Real Steel any better. The stories in boxing movies are always predictable: underdog rising-star makes it good, suffers set-back, then comes back for the win; all the while…

Movie #5: Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

While I’d played the original 1989 game, I had not seen the 2010 video game on which Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time was based. So, I was pretty surprised at the impressive scale of the visual effects that were put into this movie (though less surprised at how they still made the main…

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter – Movie Review

It’s not really until I watched this movie did I consider how ridiculous a premise this was: President Abraham Lincoln as a secret vampire hunter. It sounds like a spoof or something silly for Halloween (maybe a segment from The Simpsons latest “Treehouse of Horror” episode). However, this movie isn’t tongue-in-cheek. Except for some vampire…

Movie #4: Hanna

Did you ever wonder what amnesiac assassin Jason Bourne would have been like if he’d been a teenage girl instead? Probably not. Who would? But that’s the gist of the movie Hanna. Raised by her father Erik (played by Eric Bana) in the cold, wintery country somewhere isolated from the rest of the world, he…

Robopocalypse by Daniel H. Wilson – Book Review

Do you often feel like computers have it in for you? Do you fear that the more technology advances, the more it’s going to take over our lives? I don’t really share those sentiments, but after reading Daniel H. Wilson’s novel Robopocalypse, I did start to look at all the gadgetry in my daily life…

Movie #3: In Time

Even from the previews, it was obvious that In Time was going to be another one of those movies where a cool, sci-fi premise was going to be stretched over a weak story (cast with some attractive young actors), like The Adjustment Bureau, or Source Code. The idea in this story is that everyone is…

Brave – Movie Review

It’s great to see that (7 years after the two studios joined) Brave brings together the computer-generated artistry of Pixar with the fairytale storytelling of Disney. While it’s the first Pixar movie with a strong female lead, Disney has been producing “princess” tales for years. The story of young Merida, princess to the Scottish kingdom…

Movie #2: Attack The Block

Were you a fan of 80s “creature features”? Y’know, B-movie horrors like Gremlins, Ghoulies, CHUD, Arachnophobia or even more serious ones like Alien? Well, this movie is a great throwback to those kinds of scary, fun flics. It all takes place on a single night in a south London housing project nicknamed “The Block”. As…