(courtesy Hachette Australia) When a novel starts with four young friends accidentally steal a spaceship on a near-future earth stumbling towards environmental and societal collapse, you know you’re in for something rippling with verve and imagination. But then, when said novel throws in a big, deep mystery – just where Continue Reading
The mystery deepens: Review of Star Wars: The Acolyte E3 “Destiny” and E4 “Day”
(courtesy IMP Awards) Episode 3 “Destiny” WHAT HAPPENEDForce witches everyone! In this episode, Star Wars, which has always embraced the light and dark of its supernatural underpinnings gave grading and nuance to this duality, introducing Force practitioners, all women, who are not evil and have a strict, if spookily expressed, Continue Reading
Shhhh! Why cats may win you over during the terrors of A Quiet Place: Day One
(courtesy IMP Awards) SNAPSHOTA Quiet Place: Day One is a post-apocalyptic horror prequel – taking place at the beginning of it all before the original A Quiet Place (2018) film. a woman named Sam (starring Lupita Nyong’o) on a day trip to the city must survive an invasion in New Continue Reading
Book review: The Lifeline by Libby Page
(courtesy Hachette Australia) For all the talk of “it takes a village” and laudatory proclamations about the power of community, there remains this sense that somehow we need to muddle through on our own terms and not trouble anyone else. Quite where this individualistic drive to not bother anyone with Continue Reading
Graphic novel review: Garbage Night (The Complete Edition) by Benji Lee
(courtesy Walker Books) If you think you have seen everything possible about the apocalypse, then Benji Lee and his wondrously imaginative and affectingly thoughtful graphic novel, Garbage Night: The Complete Edition is here to urge you to think again. Set in a near-future Earth where humanity has just up and Continue Reading
Comedy/dramedy roundup: Loot (S2, E6-10), Not Dead Yet (S2, E6-10) and Big Door Prize (S2, E5-10)
(via Shutterstock) Loot (S2, E6-10) WHAT HAPPENEDIn the back half of the season, Loot manages to go to some expected and wholly unexpected places. Let’s start with the obvious stuff such as the simmering romance between Molly Wells (Maya Rudolph) and her accountant at the Well Foundation, Arthur, played by Continue Reading
“Sometimes to survive, we must become more” … The Wild Robot debuts second trailer
(courtesy IMP Awards) SNAPSHOTFrom DreamWorks Animation comes a new adaptation of a literary sensation – Peter Brown’s beloved, award-winning, #1 New York Times bestseller, The Wild Robot. The epic sci-fi adventure story follows the journey of a robot—ROZZUM unit 7134, “Roz” for short — that is shipwrecked on an uninhabited Continue Reading
Book review: Love From Scratch by Amy Hutton
(courtesy Simon & Schuster Australia) Well-written romantic comedies are always good for the soul. There’s something about a rom-com which possesses not only the fairytale loveliness of two people meet-cuting and finding they need each other more than any one else they’ve encountered to date, but also some real emotional Continue Reading
“I’m gonna keep you from ruining my creation no matter what!” All the bonkers hyperactivity of Exploding Kittens
(courtesy IMP Awards) SNAPSHOTTom Ellis is GodCat – he may look like a chunky house cat, but he’s actually God trapped in that body. The eternal conflict between Heaven and Hell reaches epic proportions when both God and the Devil are sent to Earth – in the bodies of chunky Continue Reading
Movie review: Inside Out 2
(courtesy IMP awards) Regardless of what else it might be, and the sequel to 2015’s Inside Out is a great many brilliantly well-done and, it must be said, not as finely executed things, Inside Out 2 feels like a great big hug from some much-loved, incredibly emotional friends. That was Continue Reading