* This post first appeared on An Online Universe * I am a rom-com tragic. (It’s an odd juxtaposition of terms since (a) romantic comedies are supposed to be all Meet Cute to happily ever after ending with only a minor third act detour into sadness of any kind Continue Reading
Happy shiny zombies: What if everyone in The Walking Dead was understanding and compassionate?
You can well understand why The Walking Dead‘s Rick, Daryl, Michonne and the rest of the onetime prison gang (before it was rather shortsightedly blown up by the Governor) don’t always see eye to eye. After all, fighting for your life against the flesh-eating undead while simultaneously holding on Continue Reading
First impressions: Madam Secretary (S1, E1 “Pilot”)
If the current imbroglio with Islamic State in Syria/Iraq with its witches brew of sectarian fighting, genocidal bloodbaths and endlessly-on-the-move geo-political posturing has taught us anything, it is that (yet again) the world is not, not has it ever been, an easy place in which to operate, much less Continue Reading
Dance! Mindy Kaling and Elmo get enthusiastic about grooving to a beat
I LOVE MINDY KALING! AND I LOVE ELMO! OH AND DANCING … I LOVE DANCING! What’s with all the capitalised effusive declarations you ask? Why I am just being ENTHUSIASTIC!, a state of being where, as Mindy explains to a happily-hyped Elmo, “you’re really excited about something”. You know, like Continue Reading
Movie review: The Boxtrolls
There is something pleasingly, imaginatively dark in the drinking water at animation studio Laika, whose latest stop motion release The Boxtrolls (based on the book Here Be Monsters! by Alan Snow) follows in much the same storytelling vein as its previous films Coraline and Paranorman, both of which were firmly Continue Reading
The Swingin’ Sixties in space: Syfy’s Ascension gets its first full trailer
The Sixties were a tumultuous decade to say the least. The certainty of the rigid and often blatantly sexist and racist social mores of the ’50s and early ’60s were swept aside as the counter-culture “Flower Power” revolution gained momentum, a host of countries around the world gained independence, the Continue Reading
Book covers: all questions and no answers … till now
Let’s face it, we live in a busy, busy world with a billion and one insanely interesting things beckoning for our attention. We want to get to every movie, watch every TV show, read every book and get absorbed in every play but we simply aren’t able to, nor Continue Reading
Movie review: The Skeleton Twins
Ask anyone who’s been an adult for longer than about five minutes if life has ever disappointed them, and the odds are you will get, with varying degrees of emotional candour, a shaking of the head, followed by a prolonged sigh and a knowing glance that suggests the business of living never Continue Reading
So many Pixar emotions, one smartly-executed Inside Out trailer
It’s been over a year since we last feasted our eyes on some emotionally-rich, well-told feature length animation from Pixar (2013’s Monsters University) and I feel SAD (I’ve missed their beautiful stories) … And ANGRY (at the wait) … and FEARFUL (there won’t be another film ever) … and Continue Reading
A recipe for Captain Picard face palm cookies? Get me to a kitchen and … Engage!
Being the captain of a Starfleet vessel is not an easy task at any time, what with aggressive Klingons or Romulans always on the lookout for a bruising encounter, Q liable to pop at a moment’s notice and inconvenient rips in the space/time continuum to contend with. It’s even Continue Reading