May 26, 2026 – SparklyPrettyBriiiight

(courtesy IMP Awards) You have to feel a certain amount of sympathy for anyone connected to a major franchise who is trying to steer it through the viciously opinionated waters of today’s digital age. Everyone seems to have an idea about what should, and even more emphatically what shouldn’t happen Continue Reading

Is it the end of the world or a new beginning? The Dog Stars asks some very big, action-packed questions

(courtesy IMP Awards) SNAPSHOT“The end of the world was just the beginning.” 🛩️ Set in Colorado after the world’s population has been ravaged by a pandemic, a man lives a lonesome existence in an airplane hangar with his dog and a door gunman he has befriended. When a mysterious transmission Continue Reading

Songs, songs and more songs #138: Lady Gaga + Doechii, Nelly Furtado, Hyd, Robyn and Marley Wildthing + EXTRA! Toy Story 5 song by Taylor Swift

(via Shutterstock) It’s a heady mix of the old and the new this time around with three artists I have long loved, admired and listened to, and two relative newbies on the block who are well and truly making their mark on the musical landscape. It’s a thrill listening to Continue Reading

“Make a choice: your friend or this organisation.” Trailer drops for Ride or Die series

(courtesy First Showing) SNAPSHOTRide or Die is a comedy series following the best friends Debbie Claybourne (Octavia Spencer) and Judith Burton (Hannah Waddingham) who thought they knew everything about each other, except Judith turns out to be an international assassin. When a mysterious figure emerges from Judith’s past and a Continue Reading

Deep TBR June book review: Gus and the Missing Boy by Troy Hunter

(courtesy Wakefield Press) Growing up, it’s often well nigh impossible to feel comfortable in your own skin. Things are changing fast, and figuring which way is up or down emotionally, socially and in a thousand other hugely challenging ways, becomes the stuff of exhausting everyday coming-of-age parkour-ing. It’s not as Continue Reading

Graphic novel review: Lightfall (Book 4): A Place Between by Tim Probert

(courtesy Harper Collins Australia) I cannot begin to express how much I’d love the storytelling brilliance and imaginative bravery of Tim Probert’s darkly warm and beautiful Lightfall series. Now four instalments in with the release of Lightfall: A Place Between, which follows from The Girl and the Galdurian (book #1), Continue Reading

“Three makes it a murder mystery!” Is there a killer Among Us?

(courtesy IMP Awards) SNAPSHOTAmong Us follows a premise similar to that of the original video game from 2018. A crew team aboard the spaceship The Skeld discovers there is an alien shapeshifter who plans to cause chaos, sabotage the ship, and kill each member. Thus, the Crewmates must find out Continue Reading

It’s coming in HOT! Ice Age: Boiling Point fries up a sizzlingly funny teaser trailer

(courtesy IMP Awards) Ice Age: Boiling Point is an upcoming American animated adventure comedy film directed by John C. Donkin. It is the sixth main installment in the Ice Age film series following Collision Course (2016), and the seventh Ice Age feature film overall. The film features Ray Romano, Denis Continue Reading

Deep TBR June book review: Love Overdue by Ali Berg and Michelle Kalus

(courtesy Allen & Unwin Australia) Romcom detractors, and honestly who stole your rose-eyed, happily romantic hearts and replaced with them stones, will tell you that once you’ve read one story in the story, you’ve read them all. But that dismissive assessment of an entire genre completely ignored the fact that Continue Reading

Movie review: Masters of the Universe

(courtesy IMP Awards) The 21st century is not exactly a laughfest of goofy silliness. That’s been obvious for quite some time but when you compare it to the ’70s and ’80s when all kinds of fabulous strangeness was not only play but exuberantly celebrated, it feels very grim and serious Continue Reading

Songs, songs and more songs #137: Emei, METTE, MARIS, Scratching + Holly Humberstone

(via Shutterstock) Can a danceable song really speak to your heart? Damn straight it can and here are five artists who really give substance to the idea that your music can have really bounce and vibrancy to it and yet have you feeling all of the deep and sometimes painful Continue Reading

Latest releases May book review: Side Character Energy by Olivia Tolich

Movie review: Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu