Jenny Ebert is not even remotely comfortable in her own skin. That much is apparent from the get-go in The Lonely Hearts Cinema Club, the latest book from David M. Barnett (Calling Major Tom) in which the film nerd who won’t accept she’s a film nerd – she loves Continue Reading
It takes an arachnid to crush a village: Lucas the Spider in “Giant Spider”
Lucas the Spider is a sweetheart. True in the latest adventure from creator/animator Joshua Slice, Lucas, who is voiced by Slice’s nephew, he upends the lives of some fair wooden folk who he charmingly calls in on in the kind of sing-songy way people in musicals are wont to Continue Reading
Book review: LIFEL1K3 by Jay Kristoff
When the cover of a book proclaims it’s Romeo & Juliet meets Mad Max meets X-Men with a little bit of Blade Runner cheering from the headlines” it’s either got a healthy sense of what makes it work so well or its hopelessly derivative and is hoping that bringing Continue Reading
The creativity of mental playfulness: Calvin and Hobbes’ Bill Watterson speaks to what really matters
Brain Pickings, a fascinating website run by the supremely-dedicated Maria Popova which she describes as “an inventory of cross-disciplinary interestingness, spanning art, science, design, history, philosophy, and more”, and Bill Watterson’s masterfully-clever, exuberantly funny and visually imaginative comic strip Calvin and Hobbes are a perfect match. Even more so Continue Reading
Colony: “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” (S3, E7 review)
SPOILERS AHEAD … AND THE UNEASY SENSE A MONSTER IS LURKING BENEATH THE HAPPY FACADE OF THE Sometimes the darkest shadows lurk in the most well-lit of places. Dazzled by the light, you don’t notice them at first but take a look around – the darkness creeps in on Continue Reading
“And that’s why I always say, ‘Shumshumschilpiddydah!'” Deep dives into Rick and Morty
Dan Harmon’s fantastically off-the-wall, clever animation creation, Rick and Morty, is a very clever beast indeed. (And on its way to be pleasingly prolific with another 70 episodes on their way … eventually.) Possessed not only of beautifully-detailed characters, highly-imaginative plots and lush visuals that take worldbuilding to an Continue Reading
Sword at the ready: The fantastical destiny of The Outpost
SNAPSHOT “Years after her entire village is destroyed by a gang of brutal mercenaries, Talon travels to a lawless fortress on the edge of the civilised world, as she tracks the killers of her family. On her journey to this outpost, Talon discovers she possesses a mysterious supernatural power Continue Reading
Movie review: Puzzle #SydFilmFest
Agnes (Kelly Macdonald) is lost. Not physically necessarily; in fact, as you watch her walk, automata-like, through her daily routine of housework, church meetings, religious observance, and even waking up where the sameness of waiting for the alarm to go off is a thing of exquisite drudgery in and Continue Reading
Weekend pop art: People, books and the seamless matching of the two
The Librairie Mollat is an independent bookstore in Bordeaux, France that has had a great deal of fun, so notes Laughing Squid, matching customers and books together in fantastically creative ways. So seamless and imaginative are their efforts that it looks as if book and customer belong perfectly together, Continue Reading
Colony: “The Emerald City” (S3, E 6 review)
SPOILERS AHEAD … AND GRIEF AND GRUBBY SELF-PRESERVATION (GUESS WHO … GO ON, YOU’LL NEVER GUESS … OK, YES YOU WILL … Grief is a perniciously unpredictable thing. Much as we might like to think we have a neatly-categorised, five stages delineated grip on it, the reality is that Continue Reading