Alvin's Adventures in Pop Culture

Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief – Movie Review

There is a litany of similarities between Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, and the first Harry Potter film that goes way beyond their shared director, Chris Columbus. Like Harry, Percy Jackson’s life is turned upside-down when he learns of his special background and destiny. He realizes that things around him aren’t as…

2010: Is it midseason already?

While the movie box office is still suffering from after-effects of the Hollywood writers’ strike, those unhappy times are a distant memory to the TV networks who are rushing to fill our DVRs with new content. Most of our favourite series made a quick return after the holidays, bringing with them some new (Caprica) and…

2009 Hits and Misses: Movies

I probably say the same thing every year. Despite the fact that I see 30+ movies in the theatre (which is only 2.5 movies per month, so not really that much), they continue to disappoint me. Many of the ones I intended to see got such mediocre reviews that I decided not to go (I’m…

2009 Love and Hate: TV Characters

One of the things that have made this TV season so enjoyable is the many memorable characters that have cropped up. I’ve listed those that I’ve loved this year, who I can’t wait to see and who really add a unique and refreshing element to the moments when they appear on screen. Of course, not…

Sherlock Holmes – Movie Review

I have to admit that I’m a bit Downey’d out. When I found out that the role of the latest incarnation of the British super-sleuth, Sherlock Holmes, was going to Robert Downey Jr., I was less than excited. It’s not that he’s not an excellent actor, or that his movies are not enjoyable, but the…

Nine – Movie Review

Nine, the new movie-musical from director Rob Marshall obviously faced the same challenge as its Oscar-winning predecessor, Chicago: How do you integrate musical numbers with serious drama? In the case of Chicago, the songs were figments of the character Roxie Hart’s imagination. In Nine, it’s not clear what the songs are there for. In fact,…

Avatar – Movie Review

For a film with revolutionary CGI effects, such as Avatar, all eyes are definitely on the visuals. Director James Cameron (remember him from Titanic and Terminator 2?) has taken his time to produce this amazing new movie. Using the kind of computer techniques that brought to life Gollum in the Lord of the Rings series,…

2009 Tops and Bottoms: TV Shows

2009 has been a really fun year for TV. Lots of good shows returned or debuted. There’s so much exciting stuff to write about, that I’m going to split my year-end post into 3 parts: TV shows, TV characters, and Movies. (I’m saving Movies to the end because there are a whole slew of intriguing movies…

The Princess and the Frog – Movie Review

I might have felt slighted that Disney’s first 2D animated movie in a while was so derivative if it did not successfully remind me of the things I’d been missing from Disney animation for so long. Unlike the recent hit Enchanted, which up-ended the conventions of the Disney fairy tale movie and squeezed it into…