November 4, 2025 – SparklyPrettyBriiiight

(courtesy Penguin Books Australia) If you have ever travelled through the valley of the shadow of death of grief – and yes, that is some prime-grade Psalms-level language there but being plunged into grief often feels quite Biblical – you will know that it feels like it is sucking all Continue Reading

Retro Christmas movie review: Haul Out the Holly

(courtesy IMDb) There’s a strange disconnect that can emerge when you’re consuming festively themed pop culture – for instance, you might be perfectly fine with reading endlessly escapist, coincidence-full rom-com novels but find their Hallmark equivalents to be a Christmassy bridge too far. You know there’s a strange kind of Continue Reading

Halloween book review: Alice by Christina Henry

It’s quite the thing these days to take a classic novel as inspiration, or even an ancient one in some cases, and take it to new and exciting places that honour the original work and author but explore new territory. In many cases, it’s done brilliantly and originally well, as Continue Reading

The spirit of Halloween future: Teaser trailer for 2026’s Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom

(courtesy IMDb) SNAPSHOTShaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom sees the residents of Mossy Bottom Farm looking forward to Halloween – until the clumsy Farmer trashes the Flock’s beloved pumpkin patch! When Shaun turns into mad scientist to help fix the problem, things rapidly spiral out of control… With Continue Reading

Halloween retro animated movie: Coraline

(courtesy IMP Awards) There’s often admittance by people that they are “late to the party”, as if watching or reading or whatever something long after it’s come out – or sometimes, mere weeks, such is the frantic and unforgiving pace of the modern digital age which eats its newly-released young Continue Reading

Halloween book review: The Last Bookstore on Earth

(courtesy Penguin Books Australia) Any time any author decides to take a well-established genre, give it a good shake-up and reshape its form entirely is a good time. Especially when it comes one as well-trafficked as the end-of-the-world genre which has been pretty much full-to-bursting with zombies and aliens and Continue Reading

Halloween Family Guy special 2025: “A Little Fright Music” (review)

(courtesy IMDb) Halloween is definitely the one festival of the year where you are fully and absolutely allowed to get your freak on, to let loose, defy assumptions and expectations … and lie to your wives about going trick or treating? Hmmmm, not sure the last one is really part Continue Reading

Book review: Our Life in a Day by Jamie Fewery

(courtesy Hachette Australia) Whenever we’re asked to pick the highlights for anything, whether it’s a relationship or an overseas trip or our childhood, we unerringly pick the glowingly positive high points, driven by some unspoken acknowledgement that for something to be a highlight it must have unquestionably upbeat qualities. But Continue Reading

The short and the short of it: It’s garden gnomes vs. golf club in FOREVER

(courtesy YouTube (c) Omeleto) SNAPSHOTThe story begins in a cheerful and peaceful backyard garden, where brightly painted gnomes stand proudly among flowers and trimmed grass in quirky poses and scenarios. Bathed in sunlight and silence, their existence is static yet content. But their serene existence is disrupted when a golf Continue Reading

Book review: Tiny Uncertain Miracles by Michelle Johnston

(courtesy Harper Collins Publishers Australia) It is hard, if not next to impossible when you are caught down in the depths of grief and loss, and the suffocating smallness of life that often comes with it, not to feel as if there is any hope left in life. But as Continue Reading

Molly does her best to live up to her promise in Loot S3, E1-3 (review)

(courtesy IMP Awards) The great joy of Loot, not just in the first three episodes of its third season but in the first two superlative seasons too, is that it is just so damn funny. Not just funny bog standard ordinary but cleverly inspired, oneliner-quoting funny, the kind of sitcom Continue Reading