May 2025 – SparklyPrettyBriiiight

(courtesy IMP Awards) It’s rare for a movie to really leave a mark on your heart and soul. Most movies, while thoroughly enjoyable and well worth your cinematic or streaming time, glance off you, never to be heavily thought of again; they have their moment, sometimes a very good one, Continue Reading

Movie review: The Last Showgirl

Book review: Exodus: The Archimedes Engine #1: Become the Traveler by Peter F. Hamilton

(courtesy Pan Macmillan Australia) There is an enormous luxury and sense of expansive indulgence that comes with settling into a sci-fi epic that stretches for almost 900 pages. That sense of narrative pleasure only grows greater still when the author who has penned this magnificent space operatic masterpiece is Peter Continue Reading

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds meets Spongebob Squarepants in fun new Paramount+ ad

(courtesy YouTube (c) Paramount+) SNAPSHOTThe “Patrick Starship Enterprise” ad takes place on starship shaped like Patrick himself, complete with a thruster positioned right on his butt. This ship is crewed by the characters from Strange New Worlds — Captain Pike, Uhura, Spock — with the addition of Sandy Cheeks and Continue Reading

“If I’m giving up everything… I want to win. We have to.” Andor S2 E1-3 review

(courtesy IMP Awards) ***** SPOILERS AHEAD ***** When the history of some great struggle is recounted, most relevantly in this case, that of the liberal western democratic allies who took on the might of fascist Germany and won in World War Two, there is an inadvertent tilt towards stripping all Continue Reading

Haha cinema: Trailers for Bride Hard, Heads of State and Jess Plus None

(via Shutterstock) Comedy is hit or miss, it’s true but if a creator gets it right, then on the soul-lightening joys that await! Life is so damn serious, dark and a thousand kinds of terrible all jostling for a place in our crowded slate of existential angst, and yet there Continue Reading

First hunt. Last chance. Teaser trailer releases for Predator: Badlands

(courtesy IMP Awards) SNAPSHOTThe sci-fi action movie Predator: Badlands is set in the future on a remote planet, where a young Predator (starring Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi), outcast from his clan, finds an unlikely ally with Thia (Elle Fanning) and embarks on a treacherous journey in search of the ultimate adversary. Predator: Continue Reading

Book review: Down in the Sea of Angels by Khan Wong

(courtesy Penguins Books Australia) A preview of this novel was provided by Angry Robot Books in return for a free and fair review. Plunging into any fictional book is an act of active and engaged imagination. It can’t not be; here you have a story that recounts events that have Continue Reading

“Every family has dark secrets, Wednesday … and secrets can have deadly consequences” Wednesday S2 has a long-awaited first trailer

(courtesy IMP Awards) SNAPSHOTWednesday Addams (Jenna Ortega), returns to prowl the Gothic halls of Nevermore Academy, where fresh foes and woes await. This season, Wednesday must navigate family, friends and old adversaries, propelling her into another year of delightfully dark and kooky mayhem. Armed with her signature razor-sharp wit and Continue Reading

Movie review: The Penguin Lessons

(courtesy IMP Awards) At first glance, you may not think there’s a great deal of emotional depth to The Penguin Lessons. This is not even remotely a criticism of the film adapted from the memoir of the same name by Tom Michell; it’s simply to say that the trailer suggests Continue Reading

Graphic novel review: Ember and the Island of Lost Creatures by Jason Pamment

(courtesy Allen & Unwin Book Publishers) I can still remember how incredibly isolating and alone it felt to be bullied continuously and mercilessly during 13 long years of school. Like anyone under constant attack by bullies, I alternated between crushing despair, near-palpable loneliness and a sense that no one would Continue Reading