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Andrew's wonderful world of pop culture

aussiemoose

I am an extrovert gay man living in Sydney who loves Indian food, current affairs, music, film and reading, caramel anything, and a beautiful guy called Steve who makes every day a delight. I am trying to get two novels in a trilogy ready for e-publication, love my iPhone & iPod, and am secretly Canadian in my soul. Life is fun, exciting and joyful and I aim to make the absolute most of it!

Movie review: The Suicide Squad

Posted on September 7, 2021September 7, 2021 by aussiemoose

If you think of the Marvel Comic Universe (MCU, for all its angst and blockbuster bombast, as the glossy, pretty member of the superhero family where bad things happen but it’s all reasonably tidy by the end, then the DC Universe is its scrappy, angry, dark and messy sibling, the Continue Reading

Posted In Movies

Rutherford Falls: a laugh-out-loud funny TV show about colonisation

Posted on September 7, 2021September 5, 2021 by aussiemoose

First published in The Conversation Bronwyn Carlson, Macquarie University In a new series, writers nominate the TV series keeping them entertained during a time of COVID. As the lockdown continues, I find myself looking for Indigenous content to watch on TV to feel a sense of nourishment and joy I Continue Reading

Posted In Streaming, TV

Book review: Still Life by Sarah Winman

Posted on September 5, 2021September 6, 2021 by aussiemoose

If you take a good hard look at love in the real world, it is far from the light, fluffy confection of romantic comedy legend. Sure, that’s appealing and who doesn’t want to feel wafted along on Cupid’s lighter-than-air ministrations, but the reality is that love, real love, is muscular Continue Reading

Posted In Books

#ABBA Voyage #4 – Songs, songs and more songs: ABBA and five songs of energetic defiance

Posted on September 5, 2021September 8, 2021 by aussiemoose

This post was originally published on 6 May, 2020. There is a popular perception of ABBA out in the general public of a Swedish group who were perpetually upbeat and sunny and whose music, composed of rich melodies and luscious harmonies, courtesy of the combined superlative vocal talents of Agnetha Continue Reading

Posted In MusicTagged In ABBA

“I just wanna be drama free and happy” – Insecure S5 teaser trailer

Posted on September 4, 2021September 4, 2021 by aussiemoose

SNAPSHOT“According to showrunner Prentice Penny, the final season hinges on one question: ‘If life doesn’t look like how you imagined it, does that mean it’s a success or a failure?’ He spoke to Entertainment Weekly about what that means and how it should carry into Season 5, and it builds Continue Reading

Posted In Streaming, TV

ABBA Voyage #3 – Our Last Summer: The emotionally-evocative geography of ABBA’s songs

Posted on September 4, 2021September 8, 2021 by aussiemoose

This post was first published on 25 November, 2018. ABBA is the great musical love of my life. Every single last one of their songs summon up some kind of powerful memory, including as a man in his ’50s a joyous/melancholic recalling of past memories, a theme that is common Continue Reading

Posted In MusicTagged In ABBA

ABBA Voyage: After 39 years, everyone’s favourite musical Swedes make sweet new music again

Posted on September 3, 2021September 8, 2021 by aussiemoose

It’s a strange but wonderful thing indeed to find yourself taken back to the emotions and sensibilities of your youth. It can happen through all kinds of things – smells, old movies or TV shows and classic books but the medium which most quickly and completely transports me back to Continue Reading

Posted In MusicTagged In ABBA

Book review: Swashbucklers by Dan Hanks

Posted on September 3, 2021November 1, 2024 by aussiemoose

ARC courtesy Dan Hanks – release date 1 February 2022 in Australia and 9 November 2021 in UK. No one ever really talks about what happens after the movie ends. Especially when the movie is a bright, adventurous blockbuster in which a band of gallant children come together and defeat, Continue Reading

Posted In Books

Countdown to ABBA Voyage #2 – Ring Ring to The Visitors: My top 50 ABBA songs

Posted on September 2, 2021September 8, 2021 by aussiemoose

With ABBA set to release (hopefully) their first new music in 39 years, with the announcement scheduled via a worldwide event commencing at 5.45pm UK time today (2.45am Australia – and yes, I’ll be up!), and the excitement for this longtime fan at fever pitch, it seems like a good Continue Reading

Posted In MusicTagged In ABBA

Countdown to ABBA Voyage #1 – Yes, I am the City: My 5 big ABBA moments

Posted on September 2, 2021September 8, 2021 by aussiemoose

With ABBA set to release (hopefully) their first new music in 39 years, with the announcement scheduled via a worldwide event commencing at 5.45pm UK time today (2.45am Australia – and yes, I’ll be up!), and the excitement for this longtime fan at fever pitch, it seems like a good Continue Reading

Posted In MusicTagged In ABBA

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Recent Posts

  • Animated movie review: In Your Dreams
  • Festive book review: Grace and Henry’s Holiday Movie Marathon by Matthew Norman
  • Festive movie review: Jingle Bell Heist
  • Festive book review: The Christmas Tree that Loved to Dance (A Tall Tale) by Miranda Hart (illustrations by Lucy Claire Dunbar)
  • A whole new world: Thoughts on Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age

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RSS SparklyPrettyBriiiight

  • Animated movie review: In Your Dreams
    (courtesy IMP Awards) As a lifelong fan of animation, one of the things that I love about the artform, and which still holds true even in the face of ever more sophisticated CGI, is how much it emboldens and empowers the imagination. If you dream it, and good lord there Continue Reading
  • Festive book review: Grace and Henry’s Holiday Movie Marathon by Matthew Norman
    (courtesy Amazon) Life’s “Great and Terrible Sadnesses” have a way of wiping absolutely everything before them and even reducing a season full of love and good cheer like Christmas to a dull, depressive footnote in a long line of unremarkably barren calendar moments. That’s certainly been the experience of Grace Continue Reading
  • Festive movie review: Jingle Bell Heist
    (courtesy IMP Awards) Is grand larceny the path to true love? Not typically, no, but this is Christmas and when the festive season comes calling, it seems that anything and everything is possible. Which is just as well for Jingle Bell Heist, a festive London-set romcom which asks what might Continue Reading
  • Festive book review: The Christmas Tree that Loved to Dance (A Tall Tale) by Miranda Hart (illustrations by Lucy Claire Dunbar)
    (courtesy Penguin Books Australia) Ever since I discovered her breakthrough sitcom Miranda, I have loved the whimsy and old-fashioned chatty cheerfulness of comedian/writer/actor Miranda Hart with the sort of enthusiasm that people much younger than me reserve for zeitgeist-heavy K-Pop bands. She embodies all of the fun and silliness of Continue Reading
  • A whole new world: Thoughts on Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age
    (courtesy AppleTV) Losing yourself in a documentary is one of life’s great, often unsung, pleasures. If they’re done well, and many are, they are gateways to magical places of knowledge and experience, a chance to find yourself somewhere you’ve never been or to get lost in the rapture and wonder Continue Reading
  • Festive book review: The Most Wonderful Time of the Year by Beth Moran
    (courtesy NetGalley) Life is full to the brim with traumatic moments. Hardly a surprise there; while most of us head into life all wide-eyes, enthusiastic and bushy-tailed, believing no harm can befoul us and all we will have are sunshine and rainbows, we soon discover life, alas, has other ideas. Continue Reading
  • It’s beginning to look a lot like the festive season … Christmas ads 2025 round-up
    (via Shutterstock) I know there is a significant school of thought that rails against the materialism and rampant consumerism of Christmas. And yes, while I can see it, and it’s valid point as far as it goes, it leaves aside the fact that much of that drives this need to Continue Reading
  • Festive animated love? Disney’s Hulu’s Family Guy’s Hallmark Channel’s Lifetime’s Familiar Holiday Movie
    (courtesy IMP Awards) If you only watch one parody of a festive romcom movie this year, and let’s face it, much as I love many of them, the actual films are almost parodies of themselves, then make sure it’s Disney’s Hulu’s Family Guy’s Hallmark Channel’s Lifetime’s Familiar Holiday Movie. The Continue Reading
  • Festive movie review: A Merry Little Ex-Mas
    (courtesy IMP Awards) Christmas is the season where love is all around us, and you’ll be happy to know, it’s not just Love, Actually that thinks so. A Merry Little Ex-Mas is also a big believer in the power of the season to change hearts and minds and even wind Continue Reading
  • Festive book review: It Always Snows on Mistletoe Square by Ali McNamara
    (courtesy Hachette Australia) When you think about it, Christmas as a concept and an idea, as opposed to the reality of the season, is full to the tinsel-draped, eggnog-soaked brim with magical realism. It’s in the original Biblical tale – not a diss; I grew up in the church and Continue Reading
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