Balancing snark and sweetness is never an easy undertaking in storytelling, with two quite disparate elements either slipping one way or the other out of balance, or failing to get at all, leaving you with confused characterisation, a muddled narrative and ultimately, half-baked, listless story. But in the case Continue Reading
Movies
What does Neil deGrasse Tyson think about this summer’s sci-fi movies? We’re glad you asked
Unless you’ve been living on the dark side of a particularly remote moon of late, you would be aware that Neil deGrasse Tyson, an astrophysicist, author and all science expert, is insanely good at communicating everything you could possibly want to know about the world around us and the Continue Reading
Stephen Hawking needs a new voice – which celebrity can fit the bill?
SNAPSHOT Stephen Hawking has had the same trademark voice for 30 years and has now decided it’s time for a change. Watch him view the audition tapes from hopeful celebrities… (synopsis via Laughing Squid) You know how it is – you’ve had something for a while and true you Continue Reading
What what?! What do Ryan Reynolds and Jake Gyllenhaal make of their most popular Google searches about them?
While Life, the film they were promoting may not have performed to expectations, being variously described by critics as “an inferior addition to the genre” (David Stratton, The Australian) and a film that “goes nowhere fast” (Gary Dowell, Dark Horizons), stars Ryan Reynolds (not Debbie Reynolds son FYI) and Continue Reading
Video essay: Wonder Woman – A Symbol of Progress @kaptainkristian
Hailed by her writer W. M. Marston, who was the educational consultant at publisher DC Comics, as “an antidote to the bloodcurdling images of masculinity”, Wonder Woman made her debut in December 1940 in the final eight pages of All Star Comics #8. While she didn’t get the front Continue Reading
I have been waiting for these Visitors: @gezanthony’s amazingly evocative ABBA videos #Eurovision2017
If there is one thing that really made ABBA’s name, apart from their superlatively good music and a handy high-profile win at the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest, its the way they pioneered the use of visual images, in concert with now-famed director Lasse Hallström, to promote their songs as Continue Reading
Movie review: Snatched
“On paper, at least …” has to be one of the most depressing lead-ins to any sentence. Throw it in front of just about any assessment of anything, and what looked to be bursting with shiny excitement and breathless anticipation is now tarnished a little (or a lot), a Continue Reading
Join the animated dots: How Disney movies are connected through hidden Easter eggs
At first glance, you might not think that every Disney film is connected. But they are, my friend, they are! From Beauty and the Beast to Aladdin, and from The Little Mermaid to Moana, every feature from the Mouse House is connected by a deliciously enticing chain of easter Continue Reading
Movie review: Things to Come (L’avenir)
In a fictional context, life is often rendered in big, bold, exclamation-rich, declarative moments, ripe with portentous meaning and unable to be shrugged off with a cursory nod and a move on to the next task of hand. But the reality is that the emotionally-intense moments of our lives Continue Reading
Movie review: A Stroke of Luck (Villaviciosa de al Lado) #SpanishFilmFest
It has oft been said, and yes I’m about to say it again, that there is nothing new under the sun. Everything that can be said has been said in one form or another meaning that if you’re going to make use of any frequently-used, been-there-done-that elements that you Continue Reading