SPOILERS AHEAD … GROWN BABIES, TIME CRYSTALS AND A TEMPORAL PARTRIDGE IN A PEAR TREE … Well, strike me down, fill me full of nanobots, try to take any sense of freewill and personality (and decent fashion sense) and call me a bio-mechanical life form, Star Trek: Discovery went all Continue Reading
What if there’s not a villain? Wall-E as sociological storytelling (video essay)
2008’s WALL-E is on the surface a delightful film about two robots falling head over heels in garbage-strewn love. Pretty simple and straightforward, right? Well, yes … and no. As Pop Culture Detective aka Jonathan McIntosh (sponsor him on Patreon) explains, the film is actually considerably more complex than that, Continue Reading
Movie review: Man in a Hurry (Un homme pressé)
If there is one thing Hollywood believes with absolute certainty, it is that sudden disability of any kind automatically and completely ennobles someone. Gone are their abrasive edges, their psychological ticks and their flawed humanity, replaced by an inspirational outlook and persona that makes Mother Theresa look like a serial Continue Reading
Toy Story 4: Another trailer, another poster, more Forky!
SNAPSHOT When a new toy called “Forky” joins Woody and the gang, a road trip alongside old and new friends reveals how big the world can be for a toy. (synopsis via Bleeding Cool) Is it possible, and I am, of course, asking for a friend, to have too much Continue Reading
Book review: Gingerbread by Helen Oyeyemi
If you have ever wondered if there is magic lurking within and without the banal cruelties of everyday life, if it is possible for dolls to talk and make active narrative companions or for apartments to change their architecturally-decreed configurations at will, then you need to dive a delicious deep Continue Reading
Movie review: SHAZAM!
Think back to the heady, carefree days of childhood for a second. Now, anyone will tell you not all days were coloured by idyllic splendour and unfettered enthusiasm, but there were enough of them for most of us to recall the sheer joy of discovering something new and exciting that Continue Reading
Road to Eurovision 2019: Week 2 – Finland, Georgia, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Montenegro
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
Movie review: Dumbo
It has oft been said, and by far wiser heads than mine, that just because you can do something, doesn’t necessarily mean you should. That axiom could well be applied to Disney and its current mania for remaking its animated films as live-action epics, a strategy which makes sense in Continue Reading
Zombies! Fear the Walking Dead S5 trailer and The Dead Don’t Die
Zombies aren’t dead! Well, OK yes they are technically but as robustly-rambling leading lights of the pop culture zeitgeist, they are alive and kicking. Take the fact that not only does Fear the Walking Dead have a fifth season coming up on 2 June at 9/8c this year on AMC Continue Reading
Star Trek Discovery: “The Red Angel” / “Perpetual Infinity” (S2, E10 + E11 review)
SPOILERS AHEAD … THE IDENTITY OF THE RED ANGEL IS REVEALED AND A RATHER TASTY RECIPE FOR MAC ‘N’ CHEESE … Now that was one impressive reveal! Sherlock Holmes or Agatha Christie herself would have been proud of the way the identity of the Red Angel, the focus of the Continue Reading