Alvin's Adventures in Pop Culture

Movie #46: Gone Baby Gone

I had never even heard of Gone Baby Gone until my brother recommended it to me. He knows that I like movies full of plot twists, but unfortunately this was still not my kind of movie. This tale of a child abducted from her trashy drug-addict mother and the messiest set of circumstances surrounding the…

Movie #45: Sleuth

I like movies adapted from plays. Even though the action is typically very static (two actors on a single set), play-films usually offer the promise of superior dialogue. Sleuth was not only one of those films, but also a remake of a movie adaptation of a play, and the new version was written by acclaimed…

Movie #44: Operation: Endgame

I’m not quite sure what to think of Operation: Endgame. It’s a black comedy unlike too many I’ve seen. New recruit (codename: The Fool) starts his first day in a secret underground office housing two opposing teams of covert agents all named after Tarot cards. At first we get a dose of office humour through…

Movie #43: Bedtime Stories

It seems a bit harsh to criticize a sweet little kids movie like Bedtime Stories when all it’s trying to do is put a little artificial sweetness out in the world. Adam Sandler plays Skeeter, a (you guessed it) man-child, who was raised in a hotel by his father the owner (cameo by Jonathan Pryce)….

Movie #42: The Ghost Writer

I always thought I was an intelligent movie-watcher, but there’s just something about thrillers like The Ghost Writer that dim my enjoyment a bit. I enjoy the twists and the clues, but the pace is slow and often characters have conversations that sound like they’re meaningful and revealing, but aren’t really that interesting to watch….

Movie #41: The Orphanage

Guillermo Del Toro is becoming one of my favourite directors (and there’s an opening now that Shyamalan has moved to my bad books). I loved Hellboy II and Pan’s Labyrinth. While his 2007 film The Orphanage has more in common with his earlier ghost story, The Devil’s Backbone, than his more recent works, there’s no…

Movie #40: Under The Mountain

I can’t believe that people on the internet found Under The Mountain imaginative and fresh. It was a lame fantasy/horror adventure for tweens is what it was. Generally, I go for those kinds of Harry Potter, Golden Compass, even Lemony Snickett kind of movies, but this one was beyond-blah. Essentially, after the death of their…

Movie #39: Elizabeth: The Golden Age

After The Other Boleyn Girl, I figured that I’d treat myself to a Tudor double-bill by watching Elizabeth: The Golden Age, the 2007 quasi-sequel to 1998’s Elizabeth. Both films feature Cate Blanchett in amazing performances as England’s “virgin queen” (and daughter, of course, of Anne Boleyn). While the first one was mostly about Elizabeth becoming…

Movie #38: The Other Boleyn Girl

I forgot how much I like period dramas. I used to enjoy the sumptuous costumes, the ornate dialogue, the spectacular buildings, and the historical intrigue of movies like The Other Boleyn Girl all the time. I guess they’ve fallen out of fashion since their heyday in the 80s and 90s when Merchant-Ivory productions (like A…