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Andrew's wonderful world of pop culture

ABBA: An exploration of old fandom and new music

Posted on September 8, 2021September 8, 2021 by aussiemoose

ABBA had previously been voted the band the British public would most like to see reunited. Alamy Shanika Ranasinghe, Royal Holloway University of London It may have been almost 40 years since their last single, but ABBA are now back in the charts with two new songs – “I Still Continue Reading

Posted In MusicTagged In ABBA

His biggest adventures are in his own backyard: Thoughts on Dug Days

Posted on September 8, 2021September 8, 2021 by aussiemoose

There is a great deal to love about Pixar’s 2009 masterpiece Up, which still stands 12 years later as a stellar of example of how big hearted, narratively rich and character-driven animation can be. Chief among its many delights is the character of Dug, voiced by Bob Peterson, a sweetly Continue Reading

Posted In Animation, Streaming, TV

Movie review: The Suicide Squad

Posted on September 7, 2021September 7, 2021 by aussiemoose

If you think of the Marvel Comic Universe (MCU, for all its angst and blockbuster bombast, as the glossy, pretty member of the superhero family where bad things happen but it’s all reasonably tidy by the end, then the DC Universe is its scrappy, angry, dark and messy sibling, the Continue Reading

Posted In Movies

Rutherford Falls: a laugh-out-loud funny TV show about colonisation

Posted on September 7, 2021September 5, 2021 by aussiemoose

First published in The Conversation Bronwyn Carlson, Macquarie University In a new series, writers nominate the TV series keeping them entertained during a time of COVID. As the lockdown continues, I find myself looking for Indigenous content to watch on TV to feel a sense of nourishment and joy I Continue Reading

Posted In Streaming, TV

Book review: Still Life by Sarah Winman

Posted on September 5, 2021September 6, 2021 by aussiemoose

If you take a good hard look at love in the real world, it is far from the light, fluffy confection of romantic comedy legend. Sure, that’s appealing and who doesn’t want to feel wafted along on Cupid’s lighter-than-air ministrations, but the reality is that love, real love, is muscular Continue Reading

Posted In Books

#ABBA Voyage #4 – Songs, songs and more songs: ABBA and five songs of energetic defiance

Posted on September 5, 2021September 8, 2021 by aussiemoose

This post was originally published on 6 May, 2020. There is a popular perception of ABBA out in the general public of a Swedish group who were perpetually upbeat and sunny and whose music, composed of rich melodies and luscious harmonies, courtesy of the combined superlative vocal talents of Agnetha Continue Reading

Posted In MusicTagged In ABBA

“I just wanna be drama free and happy” – Insecure S5 teaser trailer

Posted on September 4, 2021September 4, 2021 by aussiemoose

SNAPSHOT“According to showrunner Prentice Penny, the final season hinges on one question: ‘If life doesn’t look like how you imagined it, does that mean it’s a success or a failure?’ He spoke to Entertainment Weekly about what that means and how it should carry into Season 5, and it builds Continue Reading

Posted In Streaming, TV

ABBA Voyage #3 – Our Last Summer: The emotionally-evocative geography of ABBA’s songs

Posted on September 4, 2021September 8, 2021 by aussiemoose

This post was first published on 25 November, 2018. ABBA is the great musical love of my life. Every single last one of their songs summon up some kind of powerful memory, including as a man in his ’50s a joyous/melancholic recalling of past memories, a theme that is common Continue Reading

Posted In MusicTagged In ABBA

ABBA Voyage: After 39 years, everyone’s favourite musical Swedes make sweet new music again

Posted on September 3, 2021September 8, 2021 by aussiemoose

It’s a strange but wonderful thing indeed to find yourself taken back to the emotions and sensibilities of your youth. It can happen through all kinds of things – smells, old movies or TV shows and classic books but the medium which most quickly and completely transports me back to Continue Reading

Posted In MusicTagged In ABBA

Book review: Swashbucklers by Dan Hanks

Posted on September 3, 2021November 1, 2024 by aussiemoose

ARC courtesy Dan Hanks – release date 1 February 2022 in Australia and 9 November 2021 in UK. No one ever really talks about what happens after the movie ends. Especially when the movie is a bright, adventurous blockbuster in which a band of gallant children come together and defeat, Continue Reading

Posted In Books

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  • He’s gone too far! Trailer releases for a feisty and fun Cat in the Hat movie
  • One last roll of the planetary dice … Project Hail Mary releases its first gripping trailer
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  • This just ain’t his story. It’s our story.” Washington Black makes the leap from book to screen
  • Book review: Thoroughly Disenchanted by Alexandra Almond

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RSS SparklyPrettyBriiiight

  • He’s gone too far! Trailer releases for a feisty and fun Cat in the Hat movie
    (courtesy IMP Awards) SNAPSHOT“Today is going to be THE. BEST. DAY. EVER!” Meet the Cat in the Hat you don’t know! In the whimsical tradition of Dr. Seuss, The Cat in the Hat comes to the big screen in his animated theatrical feature film debut, an all-new, epic adventure with Continue Reading
  • One last roll of the planetary dice … Project Hail Mary releases its first gripping trailer
    (courtesy IMP Awards) SNAPSHOTAstronaut Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling) awakens with no memory of himself or his mission. He deduces he is the sole survivor of a crew sent to the Tau Ceti solar system in search of a solution to a catastrophic event on Earth. In his search for answers, Grace must Continue Reading
  • Book review: Rise and Shine by Kimberley Allsopp
    (courtesy Harper Collins Publishers Australia) There’s a popularly-held very binary dynamic at work when it comes to love stories. You’re either falling wildly and hopelessly in love with nothing but wine and roses and sunshine through dew drop eyes ahead of you … OR … you have reached the end Continue Reading
  • This just ain’t his story. It’s our story.” Washington Black makes the leap from book to screen
    (courtesy IMP Awards) SNAPSHOTFollows the 19th-century odyssey of George Washington “Wash” Black, an 11-year-old boy born on a Barbados sugar plantation, whose prodigious scientific mind sets him on a path of unexpected destiny. When an incident forces Wash to flee, he is thrust into a globe-spanning adventure that challenges & Continue Reading
  • Book review: Thoroughly Disenchanted by Alexandra Almond
    (Harper Collins Publishers Australia) What great longing rests in the depths of our seemingly endless hearts and soul? For most of us, it’s really no more than a guess though if pressed we could likely name a few wished and longed-for things that we would like to see manifest like Continue Reading
  • Graphic novel review: Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees by Patrick Horvath
    (courtesy Penguin Books Australia) Appearances, as we all know and have been instructed about repeatedly, can be deceiving. For one reason or another, people project one thing while living quite another, a white lie in most cases that avoids emotional entanglement, vulnerability or the need to share in something that Continue Reading
  • Book review: The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
    (courtesy Penguins Books Australia) Delving deep into someone’s life over a long period of time is something rarely afforded to us unless they are a family member or close friend. We might know people well and converse, laugh and cry with them over all sorts of life events but really Continue Reading
  • Songs, songs and more songs #124: GRANT KNOCHE, MO, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Lil Nas X + Miley Cyrus
    (via Shutterstock) Life is a LOT. And while there’s no escaping that, you can find ways to work through the myriad of emotions that summons, including of course channeling it into some highly cathartic music. These five artists do that brilliantly and well and the resultant songs manage to get Continue Reading
  • Book review: Salvage by Jennifer Mills
    (courtesy Pan Macmillan Australia) What would happen if the world “ended” in slow motion? In other words, rather than the big bang and boom of the usual fall of civilisation that we have seen documented in all kinds of apocalyptic storytelling, what if the cataclysmic hell of the end of Continue Reading
  • Movie review: Flow
    (courtesy IMP Awards) It’s a rare thing indeed to emerge from watching a movie of any kind and feel both soothed and euphoric. Surely the two states are antithetical, with the more active one bludgeoning the other into emotional oblivion with boundlessly energetic vivacity? Or the former chilling you the Continue Reading
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