Adam Selvidge's Website Blog
Avatar Aang, the world’s last Airbender, learns of an ancient power that could save his culture from extinction. With the help of his friends, he embarks on a global quest to find it before it falls into the wrong hands and threatens to upend the peace they sacrificed everything to achieve. A review for a movie that’s not even released yet? There was a leak and it was all over the internet! Go to your favorite shady streaming site and check it out, it’s a great movie. OR BETTER YET, wait until it’s released on Paramount+ in a few weeks...
In a world where sports and magic combine, farm boy Key discovers his ultrapowerful natural talent and learns he could be the legendary Dragon Striker. I watched the first episode of this on a lark when I ran on out X-men ’97 episodes to watch and holy moly was I absolutely blown away by the high quality of everything about this show. It’s tightly scripted and moves extremely fast, but I enjoyed every moment of it. The action is way way over the top, but for me it was a perfect way to wake up my eye/brain combo. Buy On...
Nola grew up living in a van with her father, Clint—two nomads against the world. When tragedy strikes, Nola must confront the reality of life on the road alone, learning to own her grief, her past, and her new destination. Much sadder than I though it was going to be, I only found my way to this film because the Danny Trejo scene showed up on Tik Tok a few times. Sabrina Carpenter is completely unrecognizable here in comparison to her blonde music persona, which is of course a normal thing for artists to keep their various efforts slightly apart...
Jeff Arcuri’s rapid-fire wit is nonstop as he balances outrageous jokes with heartfelt reflections on making his wife laugh during her cancer journey. This guy’s pretty funny and has a very specific way of working a crowd that gets old after about an hour, but golly, would you look at that, this special is about an hour long. He’s quick on his feet, very witty, and is the perfect example of an active listener. Buy On Amazon!
A young boy known as the Avatar must master the four elemental powers to save a world at war — and fight a ruthless enemy bent on stopping him. The time between the first season and the second is extremely noticeable when the first had a young boy as the avatar and the second opens with a man that’s clearly well into puberty. Everyone else has clearly aged in the years since they filmed the first season, but Momo and Appa haven’t aged a day! The story is a refinement of the obviously superior cartoon series that came out over...
A headstrong orphan discovers a world of spells and potions while living with a selfish witch. Studio Ghibli was somehow involved in this movie and it’s obvious they did the storyboarding for the end credits, but the rest of the film feels pretty far from what they’ve done in the past. It’s a great film with an unfortunate cliff hanger of an ending, but getting to that ending was fun adventure with enjoyable story elements that kept my attention. Buy On Amazon!
Socially awkward Muriel Heslop wants nothing more than to get married. Unfortunately, due to her oppressive politician father, Muriel has never even been on a date. Ostracized by her more socially adept friends, Muriel runs into fellow outcast Rhonda Epinstalk, and the two move from their small Australian town to the big city of Sydney, where Muriel changes her name and begins the arduous task of redesigning her life to match her fantasies. Sometimes the dreams we have aren’t the dreams we should want, and sometimes when we get what we dreamed of we realize that those dreams weren’t ever...
When murder and sabotage imperil the time-sensitive and top-secret mission of a team of civilian scientists, Starfleet deploys Captain Christopher Pike and the Enterprise crew to Kathara Station, a classified research facility located above the accretion disk of a black hole. My very first full length audiobook as narrated by Robert Petkoff, who does a shockingly good M’Benga impression. This was a little long for me, it took me about 2 weeks of driving 30 minutes at a time to pick up my kid to finish the story. the plot revolved around the most unlucky and insecure space stations that...
When Sosuke, a young boy who lives on a clifftop overlooking the sea, rescues a stranded goldfish named Ponyo, he discovers more than he bargained for. Ponyo is a curious, energetic young creature who yearns to be human, but even as she causes chaos around the house, her father, a powerful sorcerer, schemes to return Ponyo to the sea. Ponyo has a fun theme song! The rest of the film is a lovely Studio Ghibli story of family and how it’s made, but with some terrifying tsunami situations and questionable magic implementation. Buy On Amazon!
When once distant UFOs become a terrifying threat and an alien invasion force begins attacking Earths major costal and riverside cities, a U.S Marine staff sergeant and his team are sent into battle only to find they must take it upon themselves to defeat an unknown enemy and protect what remains of Los Angeles. Oh I’ve seen this one before, but it’s been so long since I’ve seen it that I forgot that I didn’t have a high opinion of it. It’s by no mean by bad film, but the story is pretty shallow and the patriotism is firmly tattooed...
