Blogcritics Author: Steven van Lijnden

Movie Review: The X-Files - I Want to Believe

Steven van Lijnden — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 11:36:14 EDT

The X-Files without conspiracies or aliens - I don't believe it!
I watched The X-Files regularly up to the point where Fox 'Spooky' Mulder (David Duchovny) was starting to turn into a guest star rather than being one of the leads. What made the series work originally was the core concept of a cynic and a believer investigating the paranormal, working as a sniffed-at-by-colleagues branch of the FBI. The...

Movie Review: The Ruins

Steven van Lijnden — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 17:28:14 EDT

Creepy and borderline silly, The Ruins grow on you. And possibly inside you.
The Ruins is an isolate-and-kill horror movie, based on an allegedly thick and depressing novel (unread by me). The ending has been fiddled with, so it does not match the one in print and on the DVD there is yet another alternate ending - though mostly just extended. But it is not so much what happens at the end of the movie that interests me,...

Movie Review: Mamma Mia!

Steven van Lijnden — Thu, 7 Aug 2008 12:21:39 EDT

Watching Mamma Mia! is like being repeatedly slapped about the face with a rainbow.
Sophie was raised by her single mother on an idyllic Greek island and is about to get married. She has no idea who her father is. Naughtily reading her mother's old diary, she narrows the gene pool to three guys her mom dallied with twenty years ago and she invites them all to the wedding under false pretences. Such is the unlikely framework...

TV Review: Doctor Who

Steven van Lijnden — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 14:48:34 EDT

Doctor Who takes you through time and space for high adventure, entertaining both your children and your inner child.
Doctor Who is a British television series about a Time Lord. This is an alien who looks totally human, but possesses two hearts and has the ability to regenerate into a different body - and therefore a different actor - when he is on the edge of death. There used to be a lot of Time Lords, but according to the current run of the television series,...

Movie Review: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Steven van Lijnden — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 06:32:57 EDT

Indiana Jones makes a somewhat underwhelming comeback in an entertaining but overly silly popcorn movie.
I really tried to keep my expectations low for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I had heard mixed things about it, but being a fan of the first three films and even of the television series The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, I could not give it a pass. Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) now finds himself in the Cold War era -- a bit...

TV Review: Lost

Steven van Lijnden — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 11:54:12 EDT

Despite the occasional slow spot and unlikelihood, this island drama richly rewards loyal viewers.
Lost is about the survivors of a plane crash who end up on an island where all sorts of strange things happen. As the series goes on, we discover more about the twisty past of the large cast of characters through flashbacks and also -- in the present -- about the nature of the island. Without spoiling too much: a violent creature roams the woods,...

Movie Review: Rambo (2008)

Steven van Lijnden — Sun, 25 May 2008 20:48:36 EDT

Rambo teaches us that suffering is horrible, but that it looks - like - really kewl!
It has been a while since I saw a movie that made me feel dirty. And not dirty in a sexy way, but in a moral way. Rambo starts with some documentary footage of real people in Burma suffering, combined with a short history lesson. Then we are shown in a very graphic way how a local infantry unit is killing off civilians in that region. If the movie...

Book Review: I Am Not Myself These Days by Josh Kilmer-Purcell

Steven van Lijnden — Thu, 15 May 2008 18:16:47 EDT

A well-written memoir that lets you experience the life of a drunken drag queen vicariously.
I Am Not Myself These Days by Josh Kilmer-Purcell taught me a few things about myself: I would make a lousy drunk and an even lousier drag queen. The irregular hours and lack of sleep would totally derail my tight schedule and the black-outs would also put me off: waking up not knowing where I was, with possibly a naked stranger next to me. Plus, I...

TV Review: Torchwood

Steven van Lijnden — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 18:30:07 EDT

Plenty of wood in Torchwood, in every sense of the word. But give it a chance!
Torchwood is a spin-off of Doctor Who, a British series that has a fan following as fanatic as Star Trek's. It has been around since the sixties and after a long time off the air, it was recently revived to great success under the skillful guidance of Russell T. Davies, best known for creating Queer as Folk (the original UK version). Doctor Who...

Book Review: Fish: A Memoir of a Boy in a Man's Prison by T. J. Parsell

Steven van Lijnden — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 15:39:02 EDT

In this fascinating memoir, Parsell shows there is a lot more to prison rape than 'dropping the soap'.
In the context of Parsell's book, Fish: A Memoir of a Boy in a Man's Prison, the term "fish" means first-timer or new arrival in prison slang. It is the story of the truth behind all those "dropping the soap in prison" jokes, and the memoir of T.J. Parsell, who was locked up in 1978 for a couple of years when he was a fairly naive 17-year-old...