September 16, 2014 – SparklyPrettyBriiiight

Life is, notes one of the main characters in famed writer/director Woody Allen’s latest love letter to the glories and excesses of the Jazz Age, Magic in the Moonlight, a Nietzchean exercise in self-delusion, with every moment dedicated to distracting ourselves from what the German philosopher called “the horror Continue Reading

Movie review: Broker

Finding a place to belong, and by extension, people to belong to, is central to what makes us human. We are a tribal people, and without the emotional touchstone of those whom we consider family, we can find ourselves strangely unmoored, our experience of human interaction truncated by being rendered Continue Reading

A mini-mass of movie trailers: A Tourist’s Guide to Love, Trolls Band Together and Master Gardener

If ever you needed proof that I have eclectic taste in movies, may I present this post as Exhibit A right through to Z. In just three movies, you have a rom-com – likely garden variety but warmly sweet and uplifting, anyway – a kids animated feature (hello Christmas outing Continue Reading

Road to Eurovision 2023: Week 2 – Israel, Latvia, Malta, Moldova and Netherlands (Semi-final 1, part 2)

What is the Eurovision Song Contest?Started way back in 1956 as a way of drawing a fractured Europe back together with the healing power of music, the Eurovision Song Contest, or Concours Eurovision de la Chanson – the contest is telecast in both English and French – is open to Continue Reading

Book review: The Minuscule Mansion of Myra Malone by Audrey Burges

Life may not seem all that magical much of the time, largely because for all the beauty and romance it is capable of, there’s a great deal of pain and loss too. So overwhelming can that grief become that finding something wondrous in its midst can feel like an impossible Continue Reading

Get fired up! Character posters and new trailer make a splash for Pixar’s Elemental

SNAPSHOTDisney and Pixar’s Elemental is an all-new, original feature film set in Element City, where fire-, water-, land- and air-residents live together. The story introduces Ember, a tough, quick-witted and fiery young woman, whose friendship with a fun, sappy, go-with-the-flow guy named Wade challenges her beliefs about the world they Continue Reading

Songs, songs and more sings #84: BENEE, Stace Cadet, Jessie Ware, Jason Mraz + Girli

You need to dance your troubles away! Yes, you do! But don’t take my word for it – there are five artists in this post who have poured their hearts and souls into songs that not only get you off your seat and onto the dancefloor of your choice, even Continue Reading

Boldly going one last time: More thoughts on the final season of Picard (S3, 3-6)

Bringing the old gang back together can often seem like an alluringly romantic idea. And why not? You had fun once, or many times, years back so, of course, you’re going to have fun again because all good things live and endure as long as we will them to, right? Continue Reading

Book review: Under the Fortunate Stars by Ren Hutchings

In a genre of well-mined tropes and clichés (many of them very well done it should be noted), it can be hard to find a truly original story in science fiction. But Ren Hutchings, author of Under Fortunate Stars, has managed it with impressive original and vivacious imagination, delivering one Continue Reading

She wants to talk to you: The quirky wit of Mrs. Davis is coming your way!

SNAPSHOTMrs. Davis is the world’s most powerful Artificial Intelligence. Simone (Betty Gilpin) is the nun devoted to destroying Her. Who ya got? Faith and technology are at odds as a nun confronts a power of artificial intelligence. Mrs. Davis is a streaming series created by writers Tara Hernandez (The Big Continue Reading

Movie review: Living

Life, you may have noticed, doesn’t really come with a manual. We have to make the best of it we can, usually, and for most people, that means putting one foot in front of the other, getting a job, making a family of some kind and finding small moments of Continue Reading

The travails and joys of being Jane the Virgin

Movie review: Magic in the Moonlight