Abraham Lincoln: Historical Hero or Vampire Slayer?

If you aren’t familiar with Seth Grahame-Smith, you shouldn’t be concerned that you’ve missed the next big thing in academic literature. You should, however, remedy the situation. Grahame-Smith is the author of both Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Now, having been force-fed the original Pride and Prejudice in high school, I could never bring myself to recommend it, even with the addition of zombies. His second book, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, is a different story completely.

Tinker Taylor Gary Oldman

I once tried to read a Le Carré novel when I was still in middle school and am pretty sure I didn’t make it through the first two chapters before thinking “WTF is going on? This book is confusing and boring. I’m going to read Dune instead.” So it was with trepidation that I saw Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. The plot seems basic enough. It is the 1970’s, the heart of the Cold War, and there is a mole in British Intelligence. The only person who can sniff him out is retired intelligence officer, George Smiley (Gary Oldman).However, this is no Tom Clancy movie; this is a John Le Carré film, meaning nothing is explained or straight forward. For example, what exactly does MI:6 stand for? Is there MI:1 through 5?

The Voice, or American Idol for Cool People

The popular slang database urbandictionary.com aptly defines “guilty pleasure” as “something that you shouldn’t like, but like anyway,” which is elegant in its simplicity. It is also suitable to describe my relationship with the popular singing competition show American Idol, which is currently a few weeks into its eleventh season. I have experimented with a few other similar shows, including NBC’s America’s Got Talent and the relatively new Sing-Off, which limits itself to a cappella performances, but was unimpressed. I never really thought I would find another singing show, but then NBC hit me one more time, premiering The Voice back in April of 2011 (not accidentally riding the coattails of the Idol finale).

Those acquainted with the show can skip this paragraph, but for the uninitiated, The Voice is a singing competition that distinguishes itself from more traditional programs like Idol or Talent in two important ways. The first is its use of blind auditions, in which the judges hear auditions with their backs turned, and must commit to voting for a particular singer before they are permitted to turn their chairs around and see them. The second distinction lies in the talent base, which for other shows is drawn from massive open auditions, but for The Voice is actually recruited from individuals who already have successful small-time, low-exposure music careers (singing teachers, wedding singers, etc). This makes for a higher-caliber competition from day one, which is a positive for everyone who thinks the painfully awful auditions in the early phases of American Idol are precisely that - painful.

ScreenFix Review: The Grey

Let me start off by saying that I am not a fan of the winter formula that has started off by taking Liam Neeson and putting him in a movie (Taken, Unknown) in which he plays a stoic badass.  It’s not that Liam Neeson doesn’t play tough guy well- he totally does- it’s just that I feel like he is such a powerful actor that his talents could be better put to work in more dynamic roles.  That said, I loved “The Grey.”  The plot could not be simpler.   Neeson plays Ottway, the man tasked with protecting the workers at an Alaskan drilling station.  On his trip home, the plane crashes in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness and Neeson must lead his fellow survivors to safety.  This film actually fits into a genre that I haven’t seen done well in a while; namely the monster movies from the 90s.  In these movies the characters are slowly picked off one by one until the dramatic conclusion when the last one or two characters figure out the necessary information to defeat whatever is killing them.

The big difference in this movie is that rather then some shadow in the forests hunting our survivors, we have a pack of poorly CGI-ed wolves (one of my few complaints).  Luckily Neeson’s Ottway is very familiar with the wolves of the area and serves as a pocket encyclopedia to the rest of the survivors, telling them what the wolves are doing and thinking.  This comes off as less “I know wolves” and a lot more “wolf-whisperer,” but it doesn’t detract from the story much and it allows many parallels to be drawn between the pack of wolves hunting the survivors and the survivors themselves.  The wolves are obviously stronger, faster, and better suited for the terrain then seven regular Joes, but the wolves only ever seem to attack the group when they are doing something wrong, such as fighting amongst themselves or letting one of their own fall behind the group.  It’s almost as if the wolves are trying to teach them a lesson about teamwork.