Who doesn’t want to become rich and famous? Especially if it’s Orson Welles, in a cameo as World Wide Pictures studio boss Lew Lord (a tribute to Sir Lew Grade who co-produced the original Muppet Show), offering it to you? Certainly not one Kermit the Frog who finds himself strumming Continue Reading
Movies
On 3rd day of Christmas … I watched Klaus
In the well-trodden, Santa-saturated, redemption-obsessed world of the Christmas film, there is very little snow-covered ground that hasn’t already been well and truly sleigh ridden over. Nowhere this is likely more true, besides the story of the baby Jesus himself, than in stories which address the origins and activities of Continue Reading
Movie review: The Addams Family
People, by and large, are not that good with anything that deviates from universally-agreed norms. Quite when this great conformist meeting of very small minds took place is never quite clear, but somewhere at some point, a group of people decided that things should be this way and not that, Continue Reading
On 1st day of Christmas … I decorated my tree wth 10 new pop culture ornaments incl. Forky, Carl & Ellie (Up), Huckleberry Hound, Mary Poppins and Big Bird
You know that old classic Christmas song “O Christmas Tree” which contains the very appreciative line – “How lovely are your branches”? It’s a lovely sentiment, and as a piece of lauding nature, pretty damn exultant, but what it misses, and yet even with all the gushing positivity it misses Continue Reading
Forget phoning home! ET comes back to see Elliott and the result is magical
SNAPSHOTDuring this [year’s] Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, Xfinity dropped an incredibly nostalgic commercial reuniting Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster alien with his former co-star Henry Thomas. It’s a moving commercial, all things considered, mostly due to all the callbacks and the use of John Williams’ iconic score. Die-hard fans will no doubt Continue Reading
Movie review: Frozen 2
You have to applaud the bravery of directors Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee (the latter also wrote the screenplay) who took on the challenge of crafting a sequel to arguably the biggest animated hit of the last decade, Frozen. Bestriding the cultural landscape in late 2014 and well into 2015 Continue Reading
The short and the short of it: The bright lights and dedication of Mr #Christmas
SNAPSHOTAn offbeat, touching portrait by director/editor/producer Nick Palmer of a man who has spent three decades turning his small Northern California home into a beautiful, towering Christmas display people travel across the country to see. (synopsis courtesy Vimeo) As someone who adores, lives and breathes Christmas – now, I think Continue Reading
Movie review: Knives Out
If you think you have seen every possible cinematic permutation of classic whodunnit storytelling, then Knives Out is here to show you that there’s some mileage left yet in this classic genre. Sporting an exuberantly zestful approach to its narrative that is in evidence even in the more nuanced parts Continue Reading
Is there still magic out there? Two brothers find out in the fantastically real Onward
SNAPSHOTThe story is set in a world with no humans, only elves, trolls and sprites. The film centers on two teenage elf brothers whose father died when they were too young to remember him. But thanks to the little magic still left in the world, the boys embark on a Continue Reading
Alexa with a mo’? Blade Runner parody gets to the heart of the real techno issue of 2019
SNAPSHOTCan an Alexa feel? Can it experience emotion? Can an Alexa pass the Voight Kampff test? Those are the sort of questions this version of Blade Runner is interested in, and it quickly devolves into various forms of slapstick as Deckard and his compatriots try to interrogate and interact with Continue Reading