Adam Selvidge's Website Blog
Told through the eyes of Starship Trooper Johnny Rico, Robert A. Heinlein’s classic story of war and warriors is set 5000 years in the future. Not sure why I felt like I needed to reach this again, other than it popped up to the top of my Kindle list for some reason. It’s still one of the best military science fiction stories with nearly a third of the book taking place in boot camp and really only having a single real combat story element, but it’s tightly written and the world is so well made that I didn’t even notice...
Nadia, an assistant EMT for a privately-owned business known as Trauma Team International, is the sole survivor of a failed rescue mission turned shootout. Afte After watching the anime from Netflix, I’m somewhat more interested in this universe. The Trauma Team plays heavy in both the show and this book, and it’s a unique concept to me: a military extraction team that can stabilize a patient and put plenty of lead down range. Of course it’s framed as a failure of the capitalist society that Cyberpunk 2077 exists in, but it’s still a novel idea that has legs. Buy On...
The Princess Diaries: Directed by Garry Marshall. With Julie Andrews, Anne Hathaway, Hector Elizondo, Heather Matarazzo. Mia Thermopolis has just found out that she is the heir apparent to the throne of Genovia. With her friends Lilly and Michael Moscovitz in tow, she tries to navigate through the rest of her sixteenth year. I bought, then watched this because Stan Lee makes a 5 to 10 second appearance in the second film. I was happy to discover that this isn’t just a fluffy Disney princess story, but is actually a breakout role for the fantastic Anne Hathaway, helped along on...
The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement: Directed by Garry Marshall. With Anne Hathaway, Julie Andrews, Hector Elizondo, John Rhys-Davies. Now settled in Genovia, Princess Mia faces a new revelation: she is being primed for an arranged marriage to an English suitor. Finally, after sitting through nearly the entire movie, I get what I spent money to see: a very typical Stan Lee cameo that had absolutely no reason to be in this fairly well made “fish out of water learning to be a new princess” movie. From my brief internet sleuthing, looks like the late Garry Marshall and Stan Lee...
Jay and Silent Bob Reboot: Directed by Kevin Smith. With Joey Lauren Adams, Ben Affleck, Fred Armisen, Diedrich Bader. Jay and Silent Bob inadvertently sign away their names and rights to the new Bluntman and Chronic movie. Now they head to Hollywood to stop the film from being made. Along the way Jay discovers that he is a father. Back when I first watched this I said that I enjoyed the bloopers and other funny stuff during the credits more than the film itself and while that’s still true, I think I enjoyed the film somewhat more now that I’ve...
HIDDEN AGENDASCaptain James T. Kirk and the Enterprise crew race to save a missing Federation scientist, only to become trapped between the Klingons’ infamous Captain Kang and Starfleet’s mysterious Operation: Vanguard.ANCIENT TERRORSIn eons long past, alien hegemons known as the Shedai ruled A well written novel with all sorts of fun adventures for a very small subset of the crew, who are trying to find a missing scientist, only to find a god like creature has enslaved a planet’s worth of natives and is going crazy. I’m not too happy with some of the main thrusts of the book, primarily how many...
White Noise: Directed by Noah Baumbach. With Don Cheadle, Madison Gaughan, Douglas Brodax, Carly Brodax. Dramatizes a contemporary American family’s attempts to deal with the mundane conflicts of everyday life while grappling with the universal mysteries of love, death, and the possibility of happiness in an uncertain world. An over the top zany adventure in mediocrity that didn’t land for me, but if you enjoy surreal post-apocalyptic stories with dark humor, this might be up your alley. Buy On Amazon!
A savage satire reuniting the critically acclaimed team behind DC’s The Flintstones-writer Mark Russell (SECOND COMING) and artist Steve Pugh (Harley Quinn: Breaking Glass)-in a new graphic novel. Welcome to Billionaire Island, where anything goes…if you can afford it. But the island’s ultra-rich inhabitants are about to learn that their ill-gotten gains come at a VERY high price. After sitting on these issues for a few years, I finally got the gumption to read them. The story feels familiar, with a similar feeling to “Martha Washington Goes To War”, a dash of “Watchmen”, and it’s own unique take on the...
Contact: Directed by Robert Zemeckis. With Jena Malone, David Morse, Jodie Foster, Geoffrey Blake. Dr. Ellie Arroway, after years of searching, finds conclusive radio proof of extraterrestrial intelligence, sending plans for a mysterious machine. After reading the book for the first time, of course I had to watch the movie again. I’m still thinking that I like the story edits for the movie much better than the story in the book, but at the same time, the book is so much more fleshed out. That’s not necessarily a surprise, but it is what it is. Buy On Amazon!
The Boxcar Children: Directed by Daniel Chuba, Mark A.Z. Dippé, Kyungho Jo. With Illeana Douglas, Mackenzie Foy, Zachary Gordon, Joey King. Four children set out on a journey to find a new home. If you were judge this from the poster alone, or even the screenshots on the back of the dvd, you might think this is a low budget, low effect cash grab involving a 99 year old beloved franchise of books with over 160 titles. Turns out though, that this is a faithful adaptation for the most part, with a competently done soundtrack and well known and recognizable...
