(courtesy Ultimo Press) One of the ways we survive the many vagaries of life is to tell ourselves stories; they’re usually self-serving storylines that reinforce the internal narrative we have long told ourselves to help us make sense of events that would otherwise defy easy categorisation. Are they always truthful? Continue Reading
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One week for a lifetime … Emily Henry’s People We Meet on Vacation gets the cinematic treatment
(courtesy BRIT + CO via Yahoo) SNAPSHOTFree-spirited Poppy (Emily Bader) and routine-loving Alex (Tom Blyth) have been unlikely best friends for a decade, living in different cities but spending every summer vacation together. The careful balance of their friendship is put to the test when they begin to question what Continue Reading
Movie review: The Lost Bus
(courtesy IMP Awards) Survival against all odds stories can often descend into overwrought melodrama with uncanny ease. Maybe it’s because the creators of these larger than life tales are dealing with such hyperbolically enhanced events that it’s all too easy for them to get swept up in the adrenaline-rushed facts Continue Reading
Book review: Eva Reddy’s Trip of a Lifetime by Fiona McKenzie Kekic
(courtesy Harper Collins Publishers Australia) Life, we are told, is a series of sliding door moments. Step one way, and your life will head down one, hopefully beneficial and rewarding course; go in the other direction and your trajectory takes on another look and feel entirely. If the choices were Continue Reading
The building always wins … Thoughts on Only Murders in the Building S5 E1-5
(courtesy IMP Awards) As season five dawns, many shows are struggling to remain buoyant, fresh and divertingly interesting, with a significant number succumbing to the inevitable ennui that afflicts many a once vital program. But thanks to its previous insistence on sparkling writing, richly idiosyncratic characterisation and a willingness to Continue Reading
“This is as full a life as any human can live.” The life of a great comedian is explored in John Candy: I Like Me
(courtesy IMDb) SNAPSHOTFrom director Colin Hanks and lifelong John Candy fan Ryan Reynolds comes John Candy: I Like Me, an exploration of the life of the Canadian comedic icon. This comprehensive John Candy film documents his on- and off-camera existence, featuring never-before-seen home videos, intimate access to his family, and Continue Reading
Book review: Vera, or Faith by Gary Shteyngart
(courtesy Allen & Unwin Book Publishers) Coming to grips with who you are isn’t easy. It’s even less easy when you’re a ten-year-old girl who’s been raised almost in a vacuum of information about yourself and who can tell that the world she inhabits is not only built on convenient Continue Reading
Movie review: A Big Bold Beautiful Journey
(courtesy IMP Awards) If there’s one thing you likely shouldn’t do before you go to see a movie, it’s check out what one of the review aggregation sites is saying about it. Sure, it can be good to read the sites and avoid a real lemon, and that can be Continue Reading
Sci-fi triple: Strange New Worlds S3 E9-10, Foundation S3 E8-10 and Invasion S3 E3-6
(via Shutterstock) STRANGE NEW WORLDS S3 E9-10: “Terrarium” and “New Life and New Civilizations” (courtesy IMP Awards) It’s been a wildly inconsistent season for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, something which has been directly commented upon by co-showrunners Akiva Goldsman and Henry Alonso Myers who are promising far more consistent Continue Reading
TV trailers triple: Loot S3 and Nobody Wants This S2 + BOOTS
(via Shutterstock) TV aka streaming with a huge dollop of humour is absolutely my jam. While I do appreciate a searing drama, my appetite for it has dropped considerably in the wake of the pandemic, and a remorselessly, overwhelmingly stressful job and so I’ve returned to my great first love Continue Reading