August 30, 2025 – SparklyPrettyBriiiight

(courtesy IMP Awards) How do you, to wildly and wilfully paraphrase a song from The Sound of Music, solve a problem like keeping a franchise fresh and vital years after the height of its emergent and zeitgeist dominating popularity? It’s a great and enduring conundrum, one given even more present Continue Reading

Book review: The Life of Chuck by Stephen King

(courtesy Hachette Australia) Like many other people, I am well acquainted with Walt Hitman’s immortal line “I contain multitudes”, taken from his poem “Song of Myself, 51”. It is one of those popularly understood but not always fully ruminated on lines that resonate with people, even if many of us Continue Reading

Get ready to go on a Big Bold Beautiful Journey with a gorgeously emotive second trailer

(courtesy First Showing) SNAPSHOTWhat if you could open a doorway and walk through it and re-live a defining moment from your past? Sarah (Margot Robbie) and David (Colin Farrell) are both single strangers who meet at a mutual friend’s wedding and soon, through a surprising twist of fate, find themselves Continue Reading

Book review: Strange New Worlds: The High Country by John Jackson Miller

(courtesy Simon & Schuster Australia) I am not one of those consumers of books and movies and TV shows that recoils in horror whenever a story or a set of characters which originated in one medium make the leap to another. In fact, watching these people or a much enjoyed Continue Reading

“Let’s get lucky, shall we?” Fallout debuts an epic season two trailer

(courtesy IMP Awards) SNAPSHOTThe new season will pick up in the aftermath of Season One’s epic finale and take audiences along for a journey through the wasteland of the Mojave to the post-apocalyptic city of New Vegas. Based on one of the greatest video game series of all time, Fallout Continue Reading

To new beginnings … Thoughts on Leanne

(courtesy IMP Awards) If I am going to be completely honest, when I saw the trailer for Leanne, I was not overly impressed. It came across as one of those tired, laugh track-heavy efforts with lacklustre plotting, punchline jokes that stick out like a sore, barely-funny thumb, and no sense Continue Reading

Movie review: 28 Years Later

(courtesy IMP Awards) Sustaining interest in a movie franchise is a tricky business. If you simply keep serving up more of the same, with little variation or innovation on narrative or prevailing themes, audiences will quickly grow bored, walk away and gut your box office; but if you go too Continue Reading

Book review: Clarke by Holly Throsby

(courtesy Allen & Unwin Book Publishers) Connection is the heart and soul of the human condition. It gives us a sense of place and time and often identity, of feeling as we matter because we love and we are loved back; but for all the good things that come our Continue Reading

“This hotel has a darkness!” Trailer for Haunted Hotel delivers all the hilarious goosebumps

(courtesy First Showing (c) Netflix) SNAPSHOTThe adult animated comedy series created by writer Matt Roller will center on a single mother of two who struggles to run The Undervale, a hotel that just so happens to be haunted. Luckily, she has some help from her estranged brother… who is now Continue Reading

Get close up with trailers for Only Murders in the Building S5 and Wednesday S2 Part 2

(courtesy Shutterstock) Want more shows to stream even thought time is tight and you still haven’t watch about 2/3 of this year’s “Must Watch” list? (Or is that just me? Could be just me!) Well, the various streaming platforms have more shows, WAAAAAY more shows and among them are these Continue Reading

Looking ahead: Wicked for Good featurette promises a wild and unbridled story

(courtesy IMP Awards) SNAPSHOT“You’re the only friend I ever had…” The final chapter of the untold story of the witches of Oz begins with Elphaba and Glinda estranged and living with the consequences of their choices. Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo), now demonized [sic] as The Wicked Witch of the West, lives Continue Reading

Retro movie review: Jaws (50th anniversary)

Season 2 is the death of me: Thoughts on Wednesday S2 Part 1