Thursday, May 30, 2013

Review: Small Soldiers (1998)

Small Soldiers (1998)

Sunday, May 12, 2013

Review Double Feature: The Hangover (2009) and The Hangover Part II (2011)

So last night, I watched The Hangover Part II again with James, Mary, and Mom. This morning, I rewatched the original film to see both how well it stood up and to have a reference for how the sequel compared. How were they? Read on...

The Hangover (2009)

Monday, May 6, 2013

Literary Analysis: Little Star by John Ajvide Lindqvist (2010)

Decided to step away from reviewing movies for a second in order to post the paper that I wrote for my Communications 2 class. We each had to pick a recently published (2006 or later) bestselling novel with more than 400 pages, read it, and write a literary analysis using the guidelines created by our professor, Dr. David Bradford. (If you're reading this, you were an awesome professor!) I kinda fudged the rules by picking a book that appeared on the Swedish bestseller list, but that still counts, doesn't it?

Here it is, the 3,000-word, nine-and-a-half-page paper that I got an A+ on. The only change is that I removed the works cited page and the MLA citations. Given that this is a literary analysis, I also spoil the entire novel in this paper, so if you're interested in reading it, I'll just post the final paragraph right here, detailing my thoughts on it.


"I would recommend Little Star for anybody interested in modern horror literature. If one is familiar with Stephen King’s slow-burn style, where he spends the first two hundred pages setting up characters and story before getting into the meat of the horror, then he or she will feel right at home with Little Star. Those looking for something more fast-paced might be turned off, but for those with patience, Little Star is very good both as a horror story and as a commentary on social media and celebrity culture."

A Literary Analysis of Little Star by John Ajvide Lindqvist



Full paper after the jump.

Friday, May 3, 2013

Review: Iron Man 3 (2013)

Iron Man 3 (2013)


EDIT: Apparently, there was a big twist in this film for fans of the Iron Man comic books, taking a major plot from the comics and going in a completely different direction with it. My knowledge of comic books (as opposed to the films and TV shows based on them) begins and ends with Watchmen, 30 Days of Night, and The Walking Dead, so I cannot comment on it either way, though a trip to Wikipedia means that I think I know what twist they're talking about. (For those who haven't seen this film, I won't say anything more.) In any case, I think it worked in the context of the film on its own.