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For the love of pop culture, I give you reviews, rants and ramblings on movies, music and m...books.

Love of Pop

Guaranteed Tear Jerkers

July 15th 2008 02:33
I don't cry a lot.

When I was younger I would sooner die than cry in front of friends or family. The only time it happened in public was in Year 11, when my friend Ellie went back to New Zealand off a six-month exchange. We were in art, the last lesson of the day, and reality hit us all hard and set off a chain reaction of sobbing 16 year old girls. I held it in for as long as I could before hiding my face in my hands as the tears began to fall.
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The Master of Noir

June 5th 2008 14:25
Coming Soon!

The greatness of Raymond Chandler's prose.
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The Trouble With Lyra: Redux

June 2nd 2008 07:13
It was the day after Christmas, and I was bound for the cinema.

The film I was waiting to see had been anticipated more than any Christmas present, including my brand-new iPod and season two of Laguna Beach. Earlier that month I had been to see Enchanted (as a devoted cinephile, I try to absorb a wide cross-section of popular culture), and squirmed with delight as the preview for The Golden Compass unfolded. I may have even shed tears of excitement. So they had changed the name from Northern Lights to The Golden Compass—disappointing, but I could deal. I had the wonderfully promising trailer to buck me up. There was Lyra! There were solemn and possibly evil statements of intent! There was the doomsday choir! It appeared to be everything I adored in fantasy films. In my glee, I failed to notice something odd- the preview was being coupled with a Disney film. An admittedly great, G-rated, children’s film.
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Anatomy of a Song: Bittersweet Symphony

April 24th 2008 01:53
Bear with me and my taste in movies for a second. Ever seen Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit? Sister Mary Clarence could be describing me when she says:

"Now. When you think about various people and what they like... you think, "well, this one likes this, this one likes that." Me- I'm what you call 'eclectic'."

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My Buffy Will Go On

April 16th 2008 10:51
Like its titular heroine, Buffy the Vampire Slayer endures against all odds. The final episode aired in 2003, however the series lingered in the cultural consciousness. Rumours popped up like mushrooms, proclaiming spin-offs and television movies that have yet to see the light of day. Fans twittered and muttered amongst themselves before the God known as Joss Whedon smiled upon them. And with the eagerly awaited advent of the season eight comic books, Buffy lives again. The none-too modest success of the continuation of the series is yet another raspberry in the face of Buffy’s surely baffled detractors. Point: the March 10th Buffy reunion at the Paley Festival had tickets going on eBay for $1000 a pop. Phew! Just what is it about this show that refuses to die?

Oh. I see.
The only way Bangel and Spuffy shippers will ever make peace

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Why should I care who Keyser Soze is?

March 29th 2008 02:46
Step Up. A Cinderella Story. High School Musical?? Sadly, I'm part of a generation that has all but forgotten the importance of classic pop culture. So about a year ago, I took it upon myself to get educated. I went down to the local Civic Video shop, and commenced Pop Culture 101: Film Studies.

High School Musical
The cast of HSM: Future rocket scientists

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Mulholland Drive: WTF?

February 17th 2008 02:59
So. Mulholland Drive. An exercise in deft surrealism, or a pointless plotless mish-mash of vignettes and strange images? Speaking of images, and as an illustration of this debate, here are a few that Google offered in a simple search for "Mulholland Drive":

Okay, seeing as my computer is playing up, and I can't actually show you the images at this time, let me use my powers of description to show you:
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Is It Brains? Is It Dough? No It's Hairspray!

December 18th 2007 05:38
The more musicals I watch and hear, the more I realise how addicted I am to 'em.

I was introduced to Les Miserables at around 6 or 7 years old, because my mum had the "Dream Cast" album, with highlights from the 10th anniversary concert in 1995. This album was usually played around bathtime, so sitting in the tub singing along with Fantine as she died was a great tradition in our house. Les Mis is still my favourite musical. Phantom of the Opera, Chicago, The Sound of Music, Grease, Moulin Rouge, Jesus Christ Superstar, The Wizard of Oz, Calamity Jane, Once More With Feeling, and the classic Disney films from the early 60s (The Sword in the Stone, anyone? The Aristocats?) till the early 90s (up til Pocahontas) -- they're all great, but can't quite reach the bar set by Les Mis. It's a sentimental thing, probably.
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My Brain's Playlist

October 27th 2007 02:47
I'm listening to:

"Touched" by Vast
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The Evil in Eragon

August 23rd 2007 04:50
Eragon is a story about a boy and his dragon. Been done before, right? But surely, such a best-selling book (in 2005 after 2 years in print, 2.5 million copies had been sold and Eragon continued to top The New York Times bestseller list for children's books) must be dazzling in its originality, characterisation, writing style and pure story-telling?

You'd be forgiven for thinking it was so. But Eragon is nothing but a pulp novel, easily accessible and easily forgotten. There are few redeeming qualities about the book- it's poorly written with horrible grammar, sentence structure and a style that betrays the author's love of his thesaurus. It's derivative, using almost word for word the plot of the original Star Wars movie and plonking it down on the fringes of Tolkien's Middle-Earth. The characters are dull and incredibly predictable, none more so than the titular hero of the story, simple farmboy (snort) Eragon.
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July 2008
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