April 12, 2025 – SparklyPrettyBriiiight

What is the Eurovision Song Contest?Started way back in 1956 as a way of drawing a fractured Europe back together with the healing power of music, the Eurovision Song Contest, or Concours Eurovision de la Chanson – the contest is telecast in both English and French – is open to Continue Reading

Road to Eurovision 2025: Week 3 – Portugal, San Marino, Slovenia, Sweden + Ukraine (semi-final 1, part 3)

Book review: By Her Hand by Marion Taffe

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Movie trailer double! Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning and Ocean with David Attenborough

(via Shutterstock) My cinematic tastes are nothing if not eclectic, and if you need proof of that, take in the two choices for this movie trailer double. The grand finale to a two-parter of possibly one of the greatest action movie franchises ever shares space with the legendary Sir David Continue Reading

The short and the short of it: The Social Chameleon learns to live on his own terms

(courtesy Premium Films) SNAPSHOTCosmo the Chameleon doesn’t fit in with the other animals and must learn to live by his own colors. (courtesy Premium Films YouTube) Not fitting in with the crowd is something with which I’ve long been familiar. Growing up, I was bullied furiously and relentlessly, and I Continue Reading

Book review: When the Moon Hits Your Eye by John Scalzi

(courtesy Pan Macmillan Australia) At first glance, the premise for When the Moon Hits Your Eye, seems nonsensically silly and hardly the kind of plot to support a hard-hitting and substantially thoughtful exploration of humanity and the many it expresses itself under pressure. But then, then if anyone can weave Continue Reading

Worlds … will … collide … Tron: Ares delivers an impressively intense first trailer

(courtesy IMP Awards) SNAPSHOTTron: Ares follows a highly sophisticated program, Ares (starring Jared Leto), who is sent from the digital world into the real world on a dangerous mission, marking humankind’s first encounter with A.I. beings. The highly anticipated sequel to the sci-fi classics Tron (1982) and Tron: Legacy (2010). Continue Reading

Look out for it: Thoughts on Pixar’s Win or Lose

(courtesy IMP Awards) There are always stories behind the stories – if you care to look for them, of course. Which is precisely what Pixar’s first TV/streaming series, Win or Lose, with the studio’s customary blend of whimsy and hard-hitting, heartfelt humanity. Set in a small U.S. community on the Continue Reading

Road to Eurovision 2025: Week 2 – Estonia, Iceland, Netherlands, Norway + Poland (semi-final 1, part 2)

Book review: The Bookshop Detectives #2: Tea and Cake and Death by Gareth Ward and Louise Ward

(courtesy Penguin Books Australia) Cosy crime has become quite the thing in recent years, and while those unacquainted with the genre might wonder how something so awful could be considered in the same vein as warm fires, knitting and supportive found families, there’s something about combining cosiness and crime that Continue Reading

Movie review: The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie

(courtesy IMP Awards) Nostalgia, handled carefully, can be a wonderful thing. You can relive and renew your love for something that gave you, and likely still gives you, great joy, and as long as it doesn’t ensnare and entrap you from adding to your living library of life experiences, you Continue Reading