This year was a highly unusual year. I finally started going back to the movies in something approaching normal fashion, and while the choices were a little limited with a lot of the big tentpoles titles such as No Time to Die, The French Despatch and Ghosterbusters: Afterlife all being Continue Reading
Movies
Movie review: Encanto
There was once a time, not all that long ago, when grief was treated as a linear, open-and-shut case, something that struck you, affected you and then left you alone to rebuild your life. That view of grief was simplistic at best, and as we’ve grown in our understanding of Continue Reading
#Christmas movie review: A Boy Called Christmas
As origin stories go, the one that belongs to Santa Claus is a doozy. Drawn from a host of different European traditions, embellished by one Charles Dickens in the nineteenth century and prettied up with fetching red and a convivial air courtesy of a soda maker in the 20th, Santa Continue Reading
Merry pop culture Christmas to all … and to all a goodnight!
Well, hello and goodbye to 2021, thank you very much! As I sat writing my brief thoughts for 2020 on last year’s Christmas Eve post, I thought we were free and clear of COVID; well, not completely obviously since an outbreak and partial city lockdown in Sydney meant we couldn’t Continue Reading
Winnie the Pooh gets festive in A Very Merry Pooh New Year (incl. Winnie the Pooh and Christmas Too)
If you had the choice of all kinds of fictional characters to spend Christmas with, and yes, there are an awful lot of them – although, to be fair, avoiding the xenomorphs from Alien or Pennywise from IT may keep a lot more festive – picking the residents of the Continue Reading
Movie review: Ron’s Gone Wrong
Modern animation often sets out with three distinct goals – to be riotously funny, visually striking and to have a beating heart of humanity at its core that also imparts a meaningful message. It’s a tricky trio of things to keep in balance and not every animated features well, or Continue Reading
Festive movie review: A Castle for Christmas
Whether you are staring out a frosted window, eggnog in hand, onto a snowy, pine-clad landscape in the northern hemisphere or sitting on the verandah of your summer rental down south, wine in hand and salad on the table in front of you, work long since forgotten, there is something Continue Reading
On 7th day of Christmas … I put 15 more pop culture ornaments on my tree incl. Paddington, View-Master, Goofy, Smurfette, Olaf (Frozen) + Blondie
Is there such a thing as too many new Christmas ornaments. I say NO, although my boyfriend likely thinks there is as the tubs of ornaments threaten to overwhelm our apartment (for the record he loves Christmas and my love of the season), which is why I went crazy this Continue Reading
On 6th day of Christmas … Festive singing, dancing and all the feels with Zoey’s Extraordinary Christmas (movie review)
Christmas is usually the most wonderful time of the year. But when you have just lost someone impossibly near and dear to me, and you have have fond and abiding memories of Christmas, it can often feel like the land that happiness forgot, a season awash in jollity, tinsel and Continue Reading
On 5th day of #Christmas … I rewatched The Muppet Christmas Carol
Can you think of anything better than Christmas with the Muppets? How about Christmas with the Muppets as they bring quirky but affecting life to Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, his immortal tale of festive redemption and renewal in which cruelly fossilised businessman Ebenezer Scrooge, played in this heartwarming iteration Continue Reading