Alvin's Adventures in Pop Culture

The Blacktongue Thief (Blacktongue, Book 1) by Christopher Buehlman – Book Review

The Blacktongue Thief is a classic fantasy adventure that is equal parts fun, fresh, and familiar. Christopher Buehlman’s writing is what makes this story special. He has an impressive imagination and his world-building is masterful. He doesn’t waste efforts on making everything incomprehensibly otherworldly. Nor does he create entirely new universes with crazy rules of…

Harry Potter Lives! (and other wild speculation)

As I approach my one year blogiversary, I thought I would celebrate by revisiting the topic of my first post, Harry Potter. At the time, I’d just finished reading Book 6 (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince to us muggles) and decided to write a review. In the year that has passed, none of my…

Superman Returns – Movie Review

Despite the passage of almost three decades, the recycled John Williams theme music not only took me back, but it begged comparisons between Superman Returns and the 1978 Christopher Reeve classic Superman. How does this one match up against its predecessor? How does Brandon Routh do against Reeve? What about Kate Bosworth vs. Margot Kidder…

Cars – Movie Review

Cars is set in a world where there are no people, but cars are alive (it sounds a bit eerie, but you have to remember that it’s a cartoon so you’ll get over that feeling quite easily). The hero of the story is an up-and-coming rookie race car (i.e. athlete) named Lightning McQueen, who’s tapped…

X-Men: The Last Stand – Movie Review

What is it with sci-fi and trilogies? And why do they end so poorly? Matrix Revolutions was confusing and a bit of CGI overkill (not to mention rainy!). Aliens3 was so poorly received that they tried to compensate with Alien:Resurrection (oops!). Even Return of the Jedi was a bit over the top with its golden…

Mission Impossible III – Movie Review

Since I’m getting to this review so late, probably those of you who intended to see M:I:III have already seen it, so I’m writing this more for us. Spoilers aplenty! So look out if you haven’t yet had the M:I:III experience. I definitely enjoyed this installment in the series, arguably the best of the three….

So long, farewell: Series finales 2006

Spoiler warning: Read at your own risk. As the 2005/2006 television season ends, several of my favourite shows are coming to close. Series finales are usually some of the best episodes. They might reward fans by summing up the show’s long run (like Seinfeld did by bringing back guests from throughout the series to testify…

Cartoons: The Adventure is Back

Do you remember the good ol’ days? When cartoons were full of heroic characters, fantastic villains, and exciting adventures? Remember the days of He-Man? Thundarr? Megatron? Visionaries? Orbots? Herculoids? Space Ghost? Mumm-Ra, the ever-living? Even She-Ra (in her “I’m just like He-Man but targeting the female demographic” kind of way)? For a kid like me,…

Midseason TV Mania, Part 2 (Comedy)

As I described last post, midseason means new shows. The general perception is that it’s only the weaker shows (especially comedies) that come out as midseason replacements but that’s not necessarily the case. I believe Seinfeld premiered in midseason, but this year’s batch definitely doesn’t seem much like Seinfeld (though it does feature one of…

Midseason TV mania, Part 1 (Drama)

Between January and March (which networks loosely like to call “midseason”) a number of new shows have debuted (and there are a few more to go). I don’t know whether it’s scary or not that so many of the new fall shows have been cancelled, leaving room for such a number of midseason replacements. With…