Alvin's Adventures in Pop Culture

Rebel Moon: Part One – A Child of Fire – Movie Review

It hasn’t been a great year for blockbuster movies, or for beloved action franchises, but along comes director Zack Snyder, with his big-budget space-opera based on a rejected Star Wars movie idea, and I didn’t really know what to expect. First off, I am an established fan of Snyder’s, having loved 300, liked Watchmen, Sucker…

Frightfully Catching Up With Jordan Peele’s Get Out, Us, and Nope

In honour of spooky season, I decided to do a little movie marathon of scary films by the recent horror-meister, Jordan Peele. Part of the comedy duo, Key & Peele, more recently Peele split his career down a very different path, becoming a celebrated writer-director of successful horror movies. When I heard positive reviews of…

Finally Catching Up With John Wick

I’m not sure why, but I have not watched any of the John Wick movies up until now. Since my TV viewing has slowed a bit, I’m making time to catch up on my movie watchlist (which is really too infinite to think about), and I just watched all four John Wick movies nearly back…

Wheel of Time, One Piece, Ahsoka, Ragnarok, Mech Cadets & Lower Decks: Fun genre TV is back! (Fall 2023)

The rush of having these six genre (aka nerd-friendly) series release within a couple of weeks brings me back to the days of watching dozens of new series whenever the fall season kicked off on network TV. Nevertheless, I now relish the flexibility of being able to watch them at my own pace (and savour…

Animation is awesome: 10 new and returning shows to prove it

Ever since I grew up in the 80s watching Saturday Morning Cartoons, I have loved watching animation. When done well, there is a dynamic fun and imaginative freedom to animation that even the most CGI-heavy live action cannot reproduce. With the streaming channels there are a lot of animated series floating around (most of them…

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One – Movie Review

I’m not sure what Tom Cruise’s secret is, but I enjoy every one of these Mission Impossible movies even though I barely recall what happens in them by the time I leave the theatre. Admittedly, it’s been a minute since this movie came out and the hype train seems to have moved on to “Barbenheimer”…

BookTube: For the love of reading (& YouTube)

If you had told me a few years ago that soon I would be spending more time watching videos on YouTube than streaming Netflix, I would have called you crazy. While I observed YouTube’s incredible popularity, I always thought it was more for kids with short attention spans watching pranks, unboxings, or their friends playing…

Summer TV 2023

Now that summer has become a legitimate TV season (thanks to streaming), it’s exciting to be able to watch series that I enjoy (along with a few new shows) during a period when everything used to be on hiatus or reruns. The new seasons of Black Mirror and the debut of Marvel’s Secret Invasion really…

The Flash – Movie Review

The box office is a pretty tough place these days — even for a big-budget superhero action movie. Fans are told more about the machinations of the mega-studios in the background than the actual movies themselves. We hear about 10-year roadmaps, reboots, and the ever-elusive shared cinematic universes. All that static was no help to…