Words are beautiful things. More than just a collection of letters – although some words like “plethora” and “myriad” are cadence-rich in and of themselves – words give us access to stories, to thoughts and ideas and play a critically-important role in shaping the way we see our world and Continue Reading
Getting on with the business of living: After Life S2
If your sole appreciation of British comedian Ricky Gervais is as the gleefully-mischievous, envelope-pushing (really, breaking) host of awards show or star of his brutally honest and very funny stand-up routines, then After Life, the second season of which has just released on Netflix, will likely be quite the revelation Continue Reading
Something new on Netflix? You don’t know The Half of It
SNAPSHOTBookish introvert Ellie Chu (Leah Lewis) is perfectly content with her life: watching old movies with her widowed father and ghostwriting papers for her high school classmates to help pay the bills. But her side gig turns personal when lovelorn jock Paul Munsky (Daniel Diemer) hires her to craft love Continue Reading
Movie review: Onward
If there is one thing that animation powerhouse Pixar is justifiably famous for, it’s the ability to invest its animated features with a metric ton of meaning and emotion in every frame. Films like the Toy Story franchise, UP, Inside Out are so well-loved and highly-regarded not just because they Continue Reading
Book review: Providence by Max Barry
Depending on how whose etymology you believe, many a person has observed and subsequently remarked that the first casualty of war is truth. Truth is twisted or downright ignored during conflict for a variety of reasons – keeping the enemy in the dark, elevating the good spirits of a beleaguered Continue Reading
Magic behind the scenes: The Mandalorian comes to Disney Gallery
SNAPSHOTTitled Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian, the show is billed as “an unprecedented look at the making of the series … each chapter explores a different facet of the first live-action Star Wars television show through interviews, never-before-seen footage, and roundtable conversations hosted by [executive producer] Jon Favreau. Topics this season Continue Reading
Road to Eurovision 2020: Week 4 – Albania, Armenia, Austria, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark
This is normally how I begin these review posts … 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 Continue Reading
Book review: Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes
If we’re really paying attention to the various stages of our life, and they’re hard to miss if you’re looking for them, it will become glaringly obvious that we change a great deal between the very beginning of things and the (hopefully many years distant) and their end. For some Continue Reading
When life manically defies expectations: Thoughts on I am Not Okay With this
There is nothing new under the mutant superhero sun … or is there? It appears that in a world where you might think X-Men, Legion, The Gifted and even The Incredibles and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have said all there is said about diverging away from the evolutionary mainstream (yes, Continue Reading
SXSW 2020 may not have happened in the real world but you can catch it in the virtual
Many are the events that have fallen to the remorselessness of COVID-19. Keep track of them has become almost impossible unless, you assume as many people have that events are cancelled unless advertised otherwise. While I have yet to make to a South by Southwest event, held each year in Continue Reading