(courtesy IMP Awards) Creative inspiration can come from all kinds of strange, beautiful and unexpected places – a waterfall at sunset, a colourfully-dressed woman on a train at peak hour or a snippet of history, long forgotten but dredged up to fill a social media post with a fascinating factoid. Continue Reading
#Halloween book review: Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney
If you are an inveterate reader, the odds are good, better than good actually, that fellow readers or close friends (sometimes, happily, they are both) that at some point they will recommend a book to you. A book, they will assure you with a mix of solemnity and enthusiasm, is Continue Reading
#Halloween graphic novel review: Voyaging Vol. 1 – The Plague Star by George R R Martin (story) and art and adaptation by Raya Golden
(courtesy Penguin Random House) If really good sci-fi is all about to taking a great big, long, hard look at the dark soul of humanity, and the best of it is, then Voyaging Vol. 1 – The Plague Star by George R R Martin with art and adaptation by Raya Continue Reading
Retro movie #Halloween review: Scooby-Doo! and the Witch’s Ghost
(courtesy IMDB (c) Warner Bros. Family Entertainment) Halloween would not be Halloween without Scooby-Doo! somewhere in the hauntingly spooky and hilariously freaky mix and, of course, solving a great mystery which in the case of 1999’s Scooby-Doo! and the Witch’s Ghost is literally bewitching one quaint New England town. The Continue Reading
Sitcom double: Upload (S3, E1-4) and Frasier reboot (E3-4)
(courtesy IMP Awards) UPLOAD S3, E1-3 Death has never been so complicated. Back in them thar olden days, people died, they were buried, those left behind believed they had gone to a better place and gave the goods they’d need in their grave to make the most of it, everyone Continue Reading
Heading out of a crabby comfort zone in Under the Boardwalk
(courtesy IMP Awards) SNAPSHOTFrom the director of Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie comes a hilariously fun beach adventure for the whole family! When timid Jersey crab Armen (Michael Cera) meets bold tourist sea crab Ramona (Keke Palmer), it causes shell-shocking tension in the community. But when the duo are Continue Reading
Book review: The Bandit Queens by Parini Shroff
(courtesy Allen & Unwin Book Publishers) We live in a grievously unbalanced world. No surprises there you say; one look at the 24/7 news cycle or at the place we work or the society in which we live and it becomes clear that fairness very rarely rules the day and Continue Reading
What would you do If You Were the Last?
(courtesy IMP Awards) SNAPSHOTAdam and Jane (Anthony Mackie and Zoe Chao) are three years into a NASA mission that has gone very wrong: Their ship is broken and drifting between Jupiter and Saturn. Finding ways to pass the time as they become certain that no one is coming to save Continue Reading
Book review: Bound to Happen by Jonathon Shannon
(courtesy Ultimo Press) When it comes to Sliding Doors territory, that exciting or maddening place, depending on your perspective, where possibilities are endless and change, incremental or large is a constant, there are always a multitude of ways things can either come together or go spinning far apart. At least, Continue Reading
Retro movie review: Puss in Boots – The Last Wish
(courtesy IMP Awards) The really great animated films, the one that capture your heart and delight the eyes, are the ones that give you something to really connect to and which make you feel like you’ve come home. Yes, home. That might seem like an odd thing to say about Continue Reading