July 28, 2026 – SparklyPrettyBriiiight

(courtesy First Showing) SNAPSHOTThis November, Johnny Depp is Ebenezer Scrooge. “A stingy, penny-pinching, cantankerous, lonely old man whose sheer miserly nature leads him to despise Christmas & all things which engender happiness.” The name you know, the story you don’t. From director Ti West – a Christmas fantasy set in Continue Reading

Christmas preview: Ebenezer: A Christmas Carol – a new take on a classic festive story

Christmas in July music review redux: The Holiday Sounds of Josh Rouse

This review was first published on 18 December 2019. When it comes to summoning up the sounds, and more pertinently for this review, the sounds of Christmas, there is an understandably heavy bias towards evoking the sensibilities of a cold and cosy northern hemisphere Christmas. Thanks most notably to the Continue Reading

Christmas in July book review: The King and the Christmas Tree by A. N. Wilson

(courtesy Allen & Unwin Australia) Since 1942, with a break between 1943-1946 and beginning again in 1947, Oslo has sent a minimum twenty-metre tall, eighty-year-old tree to Trafalgar Square in London as a symbol of the enduring bonds between the two countries, established most profoundly during the dark days of Continue Reading

Christmas in July animated movie review redux: The best Christmas tree he can be: The festive adventures of Albert

This review was first published on 23 December 2019. Christmas television is usually pretty inspirational stuff. It makes sense – if you’re going to set a story at the most, magical time of the year, it’s almost impossible for it not to be uplifting in some fashion. Comes with the Continue Reading

Christmas in July book review: A Very Irish Christmas by Debbie Johnson

When you think of a romcom novel, you think usually of two people which is fair enough because a relationship isn’t much good if there’s only person in it. Fairly logical when you think about; but when you really dive into a romcom, what keeps you there, and keeps you Continue Reading

Movie review: The Odyssey

(courtesy IMP Awards) There is an epic grandeur to the works of Homer and even if you are not a learned student of his well-known works, The Odyssey and The Illiad, you will be familiar with many of the elements. This lends Christopher Nolan’s enthrallingly immersive adaptation of The Odyssey, Continue Reading

Why you keep buying books you don’t read – and why it feels so good (curated article)

(via Shutterstock) Author: Michelle Spear, Professor of Anatomy, University of Bristol (article via The Conversation) At busy times, I find I simply cannot read as much as I would like to. Life has a habit of filling every available hour with work, meetings, emails, chores, errands and deadlines. Standing in Continue Reading

Timing is everything … thoughts on Two Years Later

(courtesy IMDb (c) Paramount+) There is a trick, a gloriously clever and grounded trick, that sits at the heart of all the very best romantic comedies or romcoms. On the surface, and this is true of any story which looks flawlessly simple and easy but which is anything but when Continue Reading

A triple movie trailers treat: Momo and the Time Thieves, Love Me Tender + & SONS

( via Shutterstock) I am a man of many and varied cinematic tastes. If fact, the more the merrier as far as genres go, with the exception of horror which frankly involves far too much hiding under blankets and peering through fingers for my tastes. There is real joy for Continue Reading

Christmas in July short story review: A Very Merry Christmas by Holly Martin

(courtesy official Holly Martin site) Full disclosure upfront – I am not a fan of short stories. It’s not how they are written or the characters or the narrative ideas contained within; in a great many cases, these are all superbly presented and you have to admire how the various Continue Reading