Happy pop culture Christmas everyone! – SparklyPrettyBriiiight

Festive wishes from Hiro and Baymax … and from me to you! Thank you for reading and just being here with me. (Image via Pinterest (c) **Sharkie19, Deviant Art**)

Christmas movie preview: Jingle Bell Heist, A Merry Little Ex-Mas, Champagne Problems + My Secret Santa

(via Shutterstock) If you have only ever paid passing attention to this blog, and seriously, why would you not dive into its wonderfully eclectic depths (a conversation for another time perhaps?), you will realise that I LOVE Christmas. LOVE. IT. The apartments gets decorated within an inch of its life. Continue Reading

Movie review: Tron: Ares

(courtesy IMP Awards) Movie trilogies are often, though not always, governed by the wholly unforgiving law of diminishing returns. What was vital and fresh in the first film becomes diluted though often still appealing in the second film all of which means that by the third instalment, there is a Continue Reading

Book review: The Maskeys by Stuart Everly-Wilson

(courtesy Transit Lounge Publishing) Despite this book’s title, The Maskeys, and no, this does not require a spoiler alert, are not the centrepiece of the novel which bears their rather blighted name. Penned by Stuart Everly-Wilson, who brought us the superlatively good Low Expectations, The Maskeys revolves instead around Rodney, Continue Reading

Step into your future with the first official trailer for Star Trek: Starfleet Academy + sneak peek at Star Trek: Strange New Worlds S4

(courtesy IMP Awards) SNAPSHOTThis thrilling new chapter follows a fresh class of cadets as they train under the watchful, demanding eyes of Starfleet’s finest. Together, they’ll face highs & lows of academy life: forging unbreakable friendships, clashing in explosive rivalries, experiencing first loves, & stepping into their destiny as the Continue Reading

Retro movie review: Tron: Legacy

(courtesy IMP Awards) Long delayed movie sequels are pretty thick on the ground with Hollywood having taken up the rallying cry of “Leverage the IP!” with bottom-line scanning gusto. Like anything driven partly by a desire to expand a franchise rather than coming up with a startling new idea, some Continue Reading

Book review: Love Bites by Cynthia St. Aubin

(courtesy Tor Publishing Group) The crime genre, early teenage voracious consumption of Agatha Christie’s entire output aside, has never really compelled this reviewer to sit down and read like, say science-fiction or slice-of-life quirky dramas. While most sections of my favourite bookshops see regular footfall from me, the crime section Continue Reading

Graphic novel review: Stitch Head by Guy Bass (writer) and Pete Williamson (artwork)

(courtesy Larrikin Press) It’s a recurring theme in all kinds of creative expression – just who are the monsters really and might they be lurking where you least suspect? The answer, to the second question at least, is an emphatic “YES!!”, owing to the fact that humanity, despite millennia of Continue Reading

Retro movie review: Tron

(courtesy IMP Awards) Jumping back in time, if not literally then at least cinematically, is always an interesting exercise. Nostalgia exerts a powerful pull on all of us, and watching how it fares when it comes to seeing the object of its hagiographying live and in person again is a Continue Reading

Book review: The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) by Rabih Alameddine

(courtesy Hachette Australia) Life can often like a series of existentially testing events, punctuated by rare moments of levity and joy and wrapped in a lifetime of pain, hurt, loss and hard-won gains. That might seem bleak but for most it’s an accurate take on this thing called life, and Continue Reading

Songs, songs and more songs #129: Georgia, BENEE, Sigrid, Ella Collier + Moyka + ABBA performimg “Mamma Mia” in 1975

(via Shutterstock) There are some months that just reward you with brilliant songs. Songs that, for a whole host of reasons, you play over and over again and which, for this beleaguered commuter reviewer at least, making walking to the train station and back not feel quite so arduous and Continue Reading

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