September 28, 2024 – SparklyPrettyBriiiight

(courtesy IMP Awards) You could be forgiven for wondering if life has any redeeming features at all in master stopmotion animator Adam Elliot’s lates feature-length triumph, Memoir of a Snail. That’s not because the writer-producer-director is some kind of irredeemable pessimist; he is in fact wonderfully optimistic in the face Continue Reading

“This is it. Don’t get scared now.” Home Alone’s Kevin McAllister in Christmas classics mash-up

(courtesy IMP Awards) Christmas is always super busy, right? It’s part of the charm, part of the curse; but what if you could see a bona fide classic like Home Alone, well, fun parts of it anyway, woven into a number of other classics of the genre? And what if, Continue Reading

Festive movie review double: Your Christmas or Mine 1 and 2

(courtesy IMDb) Your Christmas or Mine? Coming with an inventive take on a romcom, let alone a festive romcom where the rules are even more restrictive, is no easy undertaking. But somehow Your Christmas or Mine manages it, delivering a story that, sure, strains the bounds of credibility but then Continue Reading

Brilliantly imaginative festive fun and healing: The Night Before Christmas in Wonderland by Carys Bexington (story) and Kate Hindley (illustrations)

(courtesy Pan Macmillan Australia) In this postmodern, mash-up obsessed, creatively synergistic digital age of ours, it’s fun to see what really imaginative people will do when they mix their own highly original ideas with an existing, much-loved story. Case in point is The Night Before Christmas in Wonderland by Carys Continue Reading

Festive book review: The Nine Lives of Christmas by Florence McNicoll

(courtesy Hachette Australia) Christmas is popularly thought of as a magical time of second chances. It often doesn’t feel that with all the rush and busyness and the general furious exhaustion and angst of life seeming to reach a tinsel-draped fever pitch, but in The Nine Lives of Christmas by Continue Reading

All the hope and hilarity you could want: The heartwarming story of Elmore the Christmas Moose

(courtesy Penguin Books Australia) We’ve all been there. A great job presents itself, we know we can do it so we throw everything into landing it, only to discover that maybe it wasn’t the right fit after all. But is that the end of the story always? Not necessarily; sometimes Continue Reading

Festive movie review: The Merry Gentlemen

(courtesy IMP Awards) If you’ve watched a Christmas film or two, and this reviewer has seen a considerable share of them, then you’ll quite familiar with the idea that when things go wrong in your life, your automatic first thought is to hightail it back to your hometown. Nothing unusual Continue Reading

Festive book review: Christmas at the Island Hotel by Jenny Colgan

(courtesy Hachette Australia) Jenny Colgan’s books always feel like you’re falling into the embrace of an old and trusted friend, whose very presence makes all the terrors and troubles of the world dim, and then go away. That’s especially so when you return to one of the many series she Continue Reading

Songs, songs and more songs #118: Five songs I love from Heartstopper S3 by beabadoobee, Baby Queen, Tom Odell, Griff + Angie McMahon

(courtesy Netflix) For anyone who’s ever struggled to make their authentic way into the world as a young adult because they didn’t match the world’s very restrictively narrow idea of what a person should be sexually, Heartstopper has been a liberating revelation. Warmly inclusive and funny and heartfelt to a Continue Reading

Shaun the Sheep goes charitably festive: The Knit Before Christmas support Save the Children’s Christmas Jumper Day

(courtesy Aardman) SNAPSHOTAs the woolliest day of the year approaches on Thursday 12th December, our favourite Mossy Bottom Farm residents can be seen preparing for the big day. With snow falling, festive tunes playing and Christmas decorations at the ready, Timmy’s excitement grows, and the barn calendar shows the woolliest day Continue Reading

Movie review: Gladiator II

(courtesy IMP Awards) Sequels are tricky things to pull off. Not only are you battling against the fearsomely rose-tinted power of nostalgia, but you are trying to engender the same emotional response and devotion that the original garnered but without the full force of novelty and with a need to Continue Reading

Movie review: Memoir of a Snail

Book review: The Book Swap By Tessa Bickers