Movies – Page 21 – SparklyPrettyBriiiight

Mini-mass of movie trailers: Jurassic World Rebirth and The Fantastic Four: First Steps

Posted on February 5, 2025February 7, 2025 by aussiemoose

(via Shutterstock) A new year and a metric ton of new films! While we are currently awash in some very fine arthouse/indie films thanks to the overspill from awards season, which is in full swing, it’ll soon be time for blockbusters and plenty of them. Two that debuted this week Continue Reading

Movie review: Queer

Posted on February 4, 2025January 31, 2025 by aussiemoose

(courtesy IMP Awards Finding somewhere to belong, and just as importantly, someone to belong to, is one of the great drivers of what it means to be human. We need, crave and desperately desire connection, and when we find it, there is joy and contentment in abundance … but when Continue Reading

Movie review: A Complete Unknown

Posted on January 29, 2025January 30, 2025 by aussiemoose

(courtesy IMP Awards) Plunging into a biopic of someone you know about but who isn’t someone you know well, can be an interesting, and sometimes illuminating, exercise. By sheer dint of their celebrity and ubiquity, you will have some surface knowledge about them floating around your knowledge-burgeoning mind, but beyond Continue Reading

Movie review: Paddington in Peru (#3)

Posted on January 17, 2025January 15, 2025 by aussiemoose

(courtesy IMP Awards) Any time you’re around Paddington Bear is a good, warmhearted and wonderful time. In the case of this reviewer, it began some decades ago with the books of Michael Bond, the man who gifted us this remarkably lovely and thoughtful character, beginning in 1958 with A Bear Continue Reading

Movie review: Wallace & Gromit Vengeance Most Fowl

Posted on January 14, 2025January 13, 2025 by aussiemoose

(courtesy IMP Awards) It’s a rare thing in this hyperconnected, digitally frenzied age where something is demanded of you almost every second of every day to just sit back, switch off and spend some time with old friends. And when that happens, when the gods smile upon you with an Continue Reading

Movie review: Grey Matter

Posted on January 11, 2025January 2, 2025 by aussiemoose

(courtesy IMDb) What is it like to lose someone before you actually lose them? Ask anyone who has walked with a loved one through the long dimming road of dementia, and you will hear harrowing tales of what it is like to see that person disappear task by task, memory Continue Reading

What does it feel like to be alive? Love Me asks some big and deeply moving questions

Posted on January 10, 2025January 2, 2025 by aussiemoose

SNAPSHOTLong after humanity’s extinction, a buoy and a satellite meet online and fall in love. As filmmakers Sam & Andy demonstrate in their wildly imaginative debut feature, telling the love story of a smart buoy and an orbiting satellite that spans a billion years and probes the mysteries of being Continue Reading

Movie review: Mufasa: The Lion King

Posted on January 7, 2025January 2, 2025 by aussiemoose

(courtesy IMP Awards) Full admission upfront: this reviewer, for reasons that still evade him, never quite warned to The Lion King, the 1994 animated gem from Disney that introduced us to the world of Mufasa, Simba and the Elton John-soundtracked Circle of Life. Two trips to the cinema were made Continue Reading

Movie review: Sonic the Hedgehog 3

Posted on January 2, 2025January 2, 2025 by aussiemoose

(courtesy IMP Awards) Is it possible to quip merrily while still saving the world? You might think the level of concentration needed to avert global annihilation might preclude any and all comedic utterances, black humour laced and otherwise, but in Sonic the Hedgehog 3, directed by Jeff Fowler (who also Continue Reading

Movie review: Falling Into Place

Posted on December 31, 2024December 15, 2024 by aussiemoose

(courtesy IMP Awards) Most romantic comedies (romcoms) would have you believe, and honestly this kind of escapism is why we loe them so much, that all you have to do to move beyond the pain and trauma of your past or present is to meet someone special and suddenly, WHOOSH!, 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

The short and the short of it: The emotional canine journeying of Archie

(courtesy IMDb) SNAPSHOTArchie is devastated to learn of the death of his beloved aunt. He makes the long journey to the home she’s left him in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland and a new day brings renewed hope for Archie and his dog. Archie is written and created by Domenica Continue Reading

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds S4 review: “Like Chronitons Through the Hourglass” (E7) and “Orders of Magnitude” (E8)

(courtesy Memory Alpha) “Like Chronotons Through the Hourglass” One of the best things about Star Trek storytelling in general and Strange New Worlds (SNW) in particular, is its ability to channel what I like to call the “Nordic Effect”. In essence, it’s the co-existence of both light and dark in Continue Reading

A trio of triumphantly tantalising trailers: Whalefall, The Cat in the Hat and Below

(via Shutterstock) How can you not love going to the movies? Look at the dazzling variety in these three films alone – a gripping if fantastical thriller, a garrulously chaotic animated delight based on an iconic Dr Seuss book and some seriously Halloween adjacent supernatural goings-on in an otherwise ordinary Continue Reading

Sci-fi September book review: Massif by Garth Nix

(courtesy Allen & Unwin – Australia) One of the reasons this reviewer loves science fiction is because at its heart, it is devoted to exploring, thinking through and celebrating big ideas; woven into its storytelling DNA is an impelling need to peek behind the curtain, to wonder why things are Continue Reading

Italian Film Festival movie review: Life is Life (La vita va così)

(courtesy IMDb) If there’s one thing audiences love, it’s a David vs. Goliath tale. In the real world, we sigh inwardly and rail with quiet fury, and often not-so-quiet fury, at the gross injustices of companies not paying tax and in effect screwing over the public they serve, fascistic politicians Continue Reading

Songs, songs and more songs #142: Rose Gray, Violet Days, Slayyyter, almost monday + Cherry Bomb … plus ABBA’s most and least streamed songs

(via Shutterstock) Songs are made to make us feel something, the more emphatically the better. Whether it’s the music or the lyrics or a delicious combo of the two, the right song can make you feel, think, move and look at life, or at least a part of it, from Continue Reading

“I decide when I return!” Haunted Hotel S2 drops teaser trailer for October 9 return

(courtesy YouTube (c) Netflix) SNAPSHOTA single mother tries to run the world’s most haunted hotel with her ghost brother, two kids, a demon trapped in a little boy’s body, and an ever growing collection of ghosts, monsters, and supernatural disasters. Haunted Hotel features the voices of Will Forte (Nathan), Eliza Coupe (Katherine), Skyler Gisondo (Ben), Natalie Palamides (Esther) and Jimmi Continue Reading