“Bless the Harts follows a group of Southerners who are always broke as a joke, and struggling for the American dream of status and wealth. What they don’t realize is that they’re already rich, in friends, family and laughter.” (synopsis via Coming Soon) There’s something about animation that gets me Continue Reading
Hell is other people: Thoughts on … After Life
The thing about grief, which hangs over After Life like an omnipresent dark cloud, is that it doesn’t play out the way you think it will when it’s simply an abstract concept. In other words, when you’ve yet to lose someone. But when that kind of life-altering, world-shattering loss strikes, Continue Reading
Dream over or just begun? Eurovision 2019 – who won, who lost and who’s sweeping up the glitter?
One of the fun things to do as you watch the Eurovision Song Contest, and trust me “fun” is a relative concept in this instance, is to try and divine which songs Europe will, and just as importantly, won’t like, and thus which will progress from the two semi finals Continue Reading
Book review: A Boy and his Dog at the End of the World by C. A. Fletcher
It’s tempting to think of the apocalypse, any apocalypse, as the end of all things. In many ways it is, of course, with all the things that define us as a people rendered obsolete, thrust into oblivion so completely that retrieving them, even if we wanted to, is well nigh Continue Reading
Beverly Hills 90210 reboot: Can’t get the theme song out of my head
SNAPSHOT The series, which premieres August 7, is a quasi-revival of the original featuring the original actors of the 1990s teen drama playing “heightened” versions of themselves. In a tongue-in-cheek twist, the actors star as versions of themselves reuniting as they consider a 90210 revival. How’s that for meta? (source: Continue Reading
#Eurovision cultural festival film review: Maktub
Comedies with heart are not exactly a new thing under the cinematic sun, but Maktub, a film about two lower level mobster enforcers who have a distinct change of heart about their careers and life in general after a traumatic event, does it far better than most. It accomplishes this Continue Reading
Cameras … zombies … action! Season 5 of Fear the Walking Dead is almost here!
SNAPSHOT Heading into season 5 of Fear the Walking Dead, the group’s mission is clear: locate survivors and help make what’s left of the world a slightly better place. With dogged determination, Morgan Jones leads the group with a philosophy rooted in benevolence, community and hope. Each character believes that Continue Reading
#Eurovision book review: Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valente
Way back on 12 September in 1962, President John F. Kennedy announced that humanity, well, Americans really were going to the moon: We choose to go to the Moon! We choose to go to the Moon…We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not Continue Reading
Saturday morning TV: Help! … It’s the Hair Bear Bunch
For a kid who dutifully played by the rules the entire time I was growing up (eldest child; say no more), I sure had a love for cartoons where people or bears or squid or rabbits – or insert creature of your choosing – flouted the regulations with gleeful, mischievous Continue Reading
Songs, songs and more songs #7: Hot Chip, Silver Sphere, GIRLI, AU/RA, Alison Wonderland
Life can be wonderful; it can also be intensely, deeply, emotionally-eviscerating. (More the latter than the former, much of the time, alas.) How do you cope with all those ups and, soul-crushing, downs? Well, if you’re these artists, you pour your heart and soul into talking about it, set it Continue Reading