April 21, 2019 – SparklyPrettyBriiiight

Easter festival #2: Yogi the Easter Bear

Posted on April 21, 2019April 21, 2019 by aussiemoose

Yogi Bear, as we all know thanks to his constant recitation of the self-ascribed fact, is “smarter than the average bear.” But Yogi, who first made his appearance as an extra on The Huckleberry Hound Show in 1958, is not always as smart as he claims to be, at least Continue Reading

Easter festival #2: Easter Parade

Posted on April 21, 2019April 21, 2019 by aussiemoose

Love has a great many homes in popular culture – chart-topping songs, poems, TV dramas and sitcoms, books of all genres; honestly, we could happily go on and on and on, so romantically omnipresent is love wherever you turn. But perhaps its most natural home, and the one in which Continue Reading

Friendship is a trip: Wine Country explores friends, wine and weekends away

Posted on April 21, 2019April 20, 2019 by aussiemoose

SNAPSHOTIn honor of Rebecca’s (Rachel Dratch) 50th birthday, Abby (Amy Poehler) plans a scenic Napa getaway with their best, longtime friends. Workaholic Catherine (Ana Gasteyer), post-op Val (Paula Pell), homebody Jenny (Emily Spivey), and weary mom Naomi (Maya Rudolph) are equally sold on the chance to relax and reconnect. Yet Continue Reading

“It’s good for me. It makes me feel useful” – thoughts on A Man on the Inside

(courtesy IMDb) Ask most people what sitcom should make you do, and you’ll likely to be told it’s to make you laugh. And while you can’t really argue with that as an outcome – it’s all in the abbreviated of “situation comedy” after all – the really good sitcoms should Continue Reading

Movie review: Wicked

(courtesy IMP Awards) Having the loftiest of your hopes and dreams fulfilled in life is a very rare thing. Oh, we are very good at going big and large when it comes to how good things can be or how they might play out – unless you’re a glass half-empty Continue Reading

Fun animation movie trailers x 4: Elio, The Bad Guys 2, Night of the Zoopocalypse + Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl

Please stop thinking animated films are just for kids. Yes, they are a perfect way to entertain, amuse and inform children and thank goodness for them during school holidays, long car trips and inordinate waits anywhere. But these gems of cinema also beautifully entertain adults too, and not just the Continue Reading

Festive book review: A Merry Little Christmas by Cathy Bramley

(courtesy Hachette Australia) There is an idea that if you’re writing an escapist story, then it must be purely froth and confection, its fairytale heart untroubled by the real issues of the world. And while, yes, a healthy amount of reality-defying escapism is just what the mental health-enhancing doctor ordered, Continue Reading

Movie review: And Mrs

(courtesy IMP Awards) When my parent died within 3 1/2 years of each other, the grief that enveloped me was unlike anything I’d ever experienced before. It felt as if all the old certainties had been swept away and that all the things I knew and could count on were Continue Reading

Happy Christmas ads to all! John Lewis, Aldi Australia, Barbour, M & S Christmas Food, Sainsbury’s + Deutsche Telekom

(via Shutterstock) Yes, yes, I know, I know, Christmas os commercialised, we’ve lost the true spirit of the season etc etc blahedy-blah-blah and on and on … But honestly? I love Christmas ads. The good ones anyway. Sure, they’re trying to get you to buy something but they are often Continue Reading

Festive movie review: The Best Christmas Pageant Ever

(courtesy IMP Awards) As a child of the Church (thought failed, ultimately, to stick in childhood), it’s always fascinated this reviewer how something as pure as belief in the goodness of a higher power, which should always elevate and enliven can somehow become a tool for oppressive, punitive religious expression. Continue Reading

Book review: A Recipe for Christmas by Jo Thomas

(courtesy Penguins Books Australia) Life is full of “It seemed like a good idea at the time” moments. We can, we believe anyway, have all the wisdom of Solomon and the insight of a god, in one crystal moment of absolute clarity and act accordingly, only to find not that Continue Reading

Festive movie review: Hot Frosty

Having your festive viewing expectations subverted is a rare and precious thing indeed. Much of the time in Christmas viewing land, what you see is what you get, and that is usually a good thing since you want fun, escapist entertainment with a heartwarming moral core, and that is precisely Continue Reading

Comedy review double: Season wrap-ups of Frasier (S2, E9-10) and Only Murders in the Building (S4, 9-10)

(courtesy IMP Awards) Frasier (S2, E9-10) If you’ve been paying attention , and for the sake of my robustly fragile writer’s ego, I hope you have, you will have noticed how thrilled I am that Frasier 2023, as it’s often termed, has well and truly come into its own in Continue Reading