(courtesy IMP awards) One of the things, of many, which I have loved about Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (SNW) from the very start is its embrace of genre-hopping, a willingness to be darkly serious one week and goofily quirky the next. The Original Series (TOS) and Next Generation (NG), Continue Reading
TV
Growing up too fast: Thoughts on Hal & Harper
(courtesy IMDb) Hal & Harper is one of the most rewarding series I’ve seen in quite some, full of an indie authenticity, a nuanced pace and a characters who make so much sense if you’re prepared to be honest about how exhaustingly painful life can be and yet how possible Continue Reading
Why are the aliens here? Teaser trailer for Invasion S3 suggests someone has figured it out
(courtesy YouTube (c) AppleTV+) SNAPSHOTInvasion follows an alien invasion through different perspectives around the world. In Season 3, those perspectives collide for the first time, as all the main characters are brought together to work as a team on a critical mission to infiltrate the alien mothership. The ultimate apex aliens have Continue Reading
During Christmas in July, I decorated my tree with 5 new pop culture ornaments
(via Shutterstock) Somewhere around five years ago, with Christmas in July gathering in popularity all the time, I decided that I would use the white tree originally bought to display Easter ornaments, to display some Christmas ornaments during the cold winter months in Australia. The wins were many – we Continue Reading
Take a big swing: Thoughts on Stick (S1, E1-5)
(courtesy IMP Awards) Ostensibly, Stick is all about golf. Watch the trailer and even dive into the first five episodes and you will come across many discussions about why golf matters, how to play it well and what it means to the soul as well as the body. But, and Continue Reading
This just ain’t his story. It’s our story.” Washington Black makes the leap from book to screen
(courtesy IMP Awards) SNAPSHOTFollows the 19th-century odyssey of George Washington “Wash” Black, an 11-year-old boy born on a Barbados sugar plantation, whose prodigious scientific mind sets him on a path of unexpected destiny. When an incident forces Wash to flee, he is thrust into a globe-spanning adventure that challenges & Continue Reading
Breaking free: How Jim Henson and his team made the Muppets magic happen
(courtesy Muppet Wiki / (c) The Jim Henson Company / Disney) SNAPSHOTThe illusions that have baffled me for years is when muppets go outside when they seem to break free from their puppeteers and become little sentient creatures….These movies were released before CGI was ubiquitous. These are in-camera effects. What Continue Reading
Want to borrow some nostalgia? Head on over to Video Heaven
(courtesy First Showing) SNAPSHOTFor some thirty years, from the 1980s until their decline in the 2010s, video shops were crucial arenas for film culture – and both highbrow and lowbrow American cinema has documented their rise, fall and changing meanings. Alex Ross Perry’s Videoheaven, a labour of love ten years Continue Reading
Is love all a bit Too Much? Discover the pent-up rage and dark secrets in the first trailer
(courtesy First Showing (c) Netflix) SNAPSHOTJessica (Megan Stalter) is a New York workaholic in her mid-thirties, reeling from a broken relationship that she thought would last forever and slowly isolating everyone she knows. When every last block in New York City tells a story of her own bad behaviour, the Continue Reading
Finishing up a season … and starting the next: Review of Poker Face S1 E6-10 + S2: E1-6
(courtesy IMP Awards) Season 2, E 1-5 review One of Poker Face‘s great strengths in its first season was that even thought it never trivialised murder, which was always seen as an evil act in need of some form or redemptive justice – handed out, of course, by protagonist Charlie Continue Reading