It is a rare and wonderful thing indeed to stumble by accident across a series of graphic novels that happily combine an imaginative sense of the surreal and the fantastical, an emotional resonance that captures the heart and profoundly so, and a willingness to unapologetically reflect the world as it Continue Reading
The answer is always more? Wonder Woman 1984 asks the question in new trailer
SNAPSHOTRaised on a sheltered paradise known as Paradise Island, when an American pilot crashes on their shores and tells of a massive conflict raging in the outside world, Diana then leaves her home, convinced she can stop the threat. Now a new era of wonder begins… Fast forward to the Continue Reading
Weekend pop art: The gorgeously colourful illustrations of The Very Hungry Red Panda
SNAPSHOTThis children’s book is a journey about an endangered red panda who eats its way through the world, meeting other animal friends and trying food that is unique to their countries. It is a celebration of food, animals, and art, promoting biological diversity, cultural diversity, and belonging. (synopsis via Laughing Continue Reading
Magical vocals: Remembering Disney voice actress Verna Felton
SNAPSHOTTim Nydell of Saturday Morning Rewind pays wonderful tribute to legendary voice actress Verna Felton (1890-1966), whose distinctive timbre was featured in such classic Disney films as Dumbo, Cinderella, Lady and the Tramp, Sleeping Beauty, Alice in Wonderland, and The Jungle Book. Felton also portrayed the original Pearl Slaghoople (Wilma Continue Reading
Book review: Goldilocks by Laura Lam
Humanity has a perverse gift for shooting itself comprehensively in the foot even as it tries to take heady and hopeful steps into a necessary future. This enduring Achilles Heel is on full and invigoratingly involving display in Laura Lam’s novel Goldilocks, which is less about bears, young girls and Continue Reading
Dive into the mysteries of the universe: Thoughts on Tales from the Loop
There is an exquisite aching beauty and deep, abiding emotional resonance to every single frame in Tales From the Loop. Inspired by the retro-futuristic-bucolic artwork of Swedish artist Simon Stålenhag and drawing its name from the title of his book, Tales From the Loop is an eight-part artwork all of Continue Reading
Book review: The Animals in That Country by Laura Jean McKay
Ladies and gentlemen of the pandemic current – even Doctor Dolittle has taken an apocalyptic turn, something that shouldn’t surprise in an age when horror seems to be writ large on just about every part of the human experience. Granted, Hugh Lofting, who penned the Doctor Dolittle series, saw his Continue Reading
Movie review: Project Power
Humanity may not be awash in actual mutants or those with special powers – well, not yet anyway; who knows which way the evolutionary cookie may crumble – but the movies we watch certainly are. You can’t enter a cinema (figuratively anyway; literally, it’s a literal trickier in COVID-rampant 2020) Continue Reading
Some people are just born to be buried: The Devil all the Time (trailer)
SNAPSHOTIn Knockemstiff, Ohio and its neighboring backwoods, sinister characters — an unholy preacher (Robert Pattinson), twisted couple (Jason Clarke and Riley Keough), and crooked sheriff (Sebastian Stan) — converge around young Arvin Russell (Tom Holland) as he fights the evil forces that threaten him and his family. Spanning the time Continue Reading
Book review: The Operator by Gretchen Berg
Of the many things we mythologise in society, and they are great and many because life very rarely matches our ideal, small towns sit very close to the top of the aspirational heap. We see them as some perfect urban realisation of community, a place where you are known and Continue Reading