THE MANDALORIAN SPOILERS AHEAD … AND STAR WARS EASTER EGGS GALORE … In a franchise with a history as illustrious and long-lasting as Star Wars, it’s all but inevitable, and thoroughly, wonderfully welcome, that its books, movies, and in this case, TV shows, will feature a treasure trove of Easter Continue Reading
Movie review: Operation Christmas Drop
Fittingly for a film that acts in part as a soft, warmhearted US military recruitment campaign, Operation Christmas Drop arrives on Netflix with a great big target painted on its altruistic back. Why, you might ask, might anyone want to target a film dedicated to celebrating the Christmas spirit, a Continue Reading
Weekend pop art: Greeting cards get a funny pop culture twist
It’s always been lovely to get a card in the mail, especially around big, important events like birthdays and Christmas. But in the current climate, where the pandemic has rendered many of us physical strangers to each other, they are even more special, a sign that we are being thought Continue Reading
Comics review: Tartarus by Johnnie Christmas and Jack T. Cole
Heading home can often be quite bittersweet. There are those things you remember fondly, the tropes and hallmarks of family life that bring warmth to your soul and a smile to your face; then there are the parts of being with the ones you know and love that induce teeth Continue Reading
Songs, songs and more songs #37: Jacob Collier, The Neighbourhood, Heather Somner, Dan Croll, Lev
If 2020 has done anything, well apart from driving us to drink, despair and an unending stream of feel-good animated movies, it’s reminded us how much we need stuff that matters to us. When life is busy and frantic, it’s all too easy to get caught in all kinds of Continue Reading
Book review: Random Sh*t Flying Through the Air by Jackson Ford
In the often action-packed world of urban fantasy, where narratives move at a blistering pace and the time for introspection or contemplation is scant, it’s rare to have characters who truly wear their hearts on their sleeves. That’s not to say that characters in all urban fantasies don’t go on Continue Reading
Fear the Walking Dead: “The Key” (S6, E4 review) + The Walking Dead: World Beyond – “Madman Across the Water” (S1, E5 review)
FEAR THE WALKING DEAD SPOILERS AHEAD … AND A SHAMBLING HERCULE POIROT … Two episodes may not necessarily a comeback make but following on from last week’s wholly emotionally resonant episode, “Alaska”, Fear the Walking Dead seems to have its pulse again. While it does still seem to be veering Continue Reading
The short and the short of it #Halloween redux: A Night in Camp Heebie Jeebie
SNAPSHOTDuring a stormy night in Camp Heebie Jeebie, the ghost stories shared by a group of Jeebie Scouts become all too real. Happy Halloween! (synopsis via Vimeo) Yes, yes Halloween has shambled off this festive mortal coil for another year but it’s hard not to take one more scary detour Continue Reading
Star Trek: Discovery – “People of Earth” (S3 E3 review) / The Mandalorian – “Chapter 9: The Marshall” (S2, E1 review)
STAR TREK: DISCOVERY SPOILERS AHEAD … AND THE WARMTH OR TRUE CAMARADERIE AND A PLACE TO CALL HOME It’s rare to find a show that evokes a sense of camaraderie and belonging the way Star Trek: Discovery does. Truth be told, a bold, enduring sense of “made family” has always Continue Reading
A mini-mass of movie trailers – The Midnight Sky, Love and Monsters, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
Once more to your streaming platform of choice, my friends, once more! OK granted Shakespeare likely did not have that injunction is mind when he penned those immortal words, but they are fitting, oh so fitting, in a horror-scarred year when actual films in actual cinemas kept moving release dates Continue Reading