Happy pop culture new year everyone! – SparklyPrettyBriiiight

Here’s to more movies, books, songs, TV shows, cartoon and comic strips and so much more in 2019!

Movie review: Separate Beds (2 cuori e 2 capanne)

(courtesy IMDb) Doing something fun and interesting with a well-trod and cliche-saturated genre like romantic comedy is always a challenge. It’s why many romcoms, delightful though they are, are barely discernible riffs on well-worn tropes and cliches, serving up just enough escapist romanticism to keep eager audiences happy; occasionally, though Continue Reading

Sci-fi September book review: Earth 7 by Deb Olin Unferth

(courtesy Graywolf Press) The end of the world, it will not surprise those of you who are studiously paying attract to the current deleterious drift of our planet into, variously depending on the news of the story, into climate change catastrophe, AI annihilation and fascistic governance, is very much on Continue Reading

The Muppet Show flashback: Animal goes all out on “Fever” until Rita Moreno puts him in his place

(courtesy Muppet Wiki (c) The Jim Henson Company) SNAPSHOTIn a 1976 episode of The Muppet Show, the great Rita Moreno performed a sultry cover of the classic song “Fever”, famously recorded by Peggy Lee, with Animal on the drums. At first, everything was going smoothly, but about halfway in, Animal Continue Reading

The key to the future lies in the past … Thoughts on Silo S3

(courtesy IMP Awards) Unless you live under a rock, and honestly as living strategies go it’s not a completely unreasonable one at the moment, it won’t have escaped your notice that humanity is potentially screwed in any number of emphatically species-ending ways. As one character in the third gripping season Continue Reading

They’re not back … they never left: Trailer drops for Ghosts: The Possession of Button House

(courtesy IMP Awards) SNAPSHOT‘This Halloween, secrets will be unlocked…’ The beloved and award-winning BBC comedy Ghosts arrives on the big screen this Halloween. Ghosts‘ stars, writers and creators Mathew Baynton, Simon Farnaby, Martha Howe-Douglas, Jim Howick, Laurence Rickard, and Ben Willbond are all back, along with Lolly Adefope, Charlotte Ritchie Continue Reading

Sci-fi September book review: Exit Party by Emily St. John Mandel

When I read Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel a good chunk of years ago, two things stood out for me in a novel full of clever and emotionally resonant storytelling. First, that the author possessed a brilliant capacity for imaginative world-building, for predicting what might lie just over Continue Reading

Songs, songs and more songs #143: half•alive, Mitch Tambo, Logic1000, Priyanka & Lemon + Ladyhawke

(via Shutterstock) There’s something about just the right song that can lift a mood or soothe the soul or simply make you feel lighter and airier than life is allowing for at a given time. Honestly, I can’t fathom how you can possibly get through life without music soundtracking the Continue Reading

Movie review: Coyote vs. Acme

(courtesy IMP Awards) We’ve become so used to the well-structured cycle of movie hype and promo, which always finishes with the release of said ballyhooed film either in the cinema or a streaming platform, that the idea that you could make a film and actually never released it, not because Continue Reading

Life is a rollercoaster: Thoughts on Trying S5

(courtesy IMP Awards) Making all your dreams come true is an intoxicating feeling, but what happens when the dust settles and reality bites and you have to deal with the fact that the dream may be wonderful but it has some thorns attached with all the floral zest and colour? Continue Reading

Sci-fi September book review: Scion by James Islington

(courtesy Text Publishing) One of the things that makes or breaks a sci-fi novel is how well an author establishes a sense of evocatively definitive time and place; half-do it and you find it hard to imagine the world they create as anything real or tangible, potentially hobbling the ability Continue Reading

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