Identity is a powerful thing and it sits, or rather the lack of it sits, at the heart of Angeliki Antoniou’s Green Sea, a movingly understated film that explores what it is like to forge a new life when you are not even sure who you are. Anna (Angeliki Papoulia) Continue Reading
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!
Songs, songs and more songs #60: UPSAHL, RÜFÜS DU SOL, Barrie, AURORA, Smile (feat. Robyn)
For the final song round-up of the year, it seemed only fitting and right, after the weight of a long and sad COVID-saturated year, to feature five songs that carry some element of hope with them. The way this hope is folded into the songs may not be conventional but Continue Reading
Going back a century! Pixar gives Monsters Inc. the silent film treatment
SNAPSHOTPixar has remixed their wonderfully heartwarming CGI classic Monsters, Inc. into an amusing silent, four-minute, black-and-white animation with such vintage cinematic tricks as intertitles, exaggerated jump scares, and an old-timey piano rag playing in the background. (synopsis (c) Laughing Squid) What a delight! As if Monsters Inc. was already a Continue Reading
Book review: Anything But Fine by Tobias Madden
When you dive into a book, there are three key things you hope will be presented and accounted for: Characters who are so fully-realised that you swear they are but a sentence or two from leaping off the page. Writing that sweeps you up in its grasp such that you Continue Reading
Movie review: Nowhere Special #sydfilmfest
Imagine if you will that you are a devoted dad in Northern Ireland named John (James Norton) who has devoted the four years of his son Michael’s (Daniel Lamont) life to being the best dad possible, investing your time between window cleaning gigs (you run your own business) reading to Continue Reading
They go together like pasta and pesto: The heartfelt Luca redux of Ciao Alberto + Baymax! series trailer
Whatever your thinking about the merits of streaming platforms or production studios holding big, bold splashy all-day events to herald their upcoming shows and movies – crass commercialism or a tantalising glimpse into an eagerly awaited future? – the just-staged inaugural Disney+ Day 2021 was worth its existence alone for Continue Reading
Book review: How to Survive Family Holidays by Jack Whitehall (with Hillary and Michael Whitehall)
Families are, by and large, rather wonderful things. They give us a sense of belonging, a place to call home, people who notionally, and often, literally have our back and a vital brick in our identity. We need our families – but do we, for all those laudable positives, want Continue Reading
Lives changed beyond all recognition: Thoughts on Invasion (S1, E 4-6)
The second half of 2021 has been a tale of two slowly unspooled series. Rather counter to the counter, and often well-done trend for huge epic moments in every episode, cliffhangers seemingly falling from the narrative sky like confetti, both Foundation and Invasion have taken a welcome slow-and-steady approach to Continue Reading
Weekend movie poster art: Encanto and the magical gift on finding yourself
SNAPSHOTWalt Disney Animation Studios’ upcoming feature film Encanto tells the tale of the Madrigals, an extraordinary family who live in a wondrous, charmed place called an Encanto. Each child has been blessed with a magic gift unique to them—each child except Mirabel. But when the family’s home is threatened, Mirabel Continue Reading
Christmas movie review: The Claus Family
As anyone who has ever experienced great loss will tell you – grief does not take a holiday. When you are wrapped in its necessary but deadening hold, it’s hard to remember that there was a time when you laughed, when you simply let yourself relax and be, and when, Continue Reading