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**)

Easter special review redux: It’s the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown!

This review was first published on 20 April, 2019. You have to hand it to Linus (Stephen Shea) – in the face of all evidence to the contrary, he continues to believe, and believe with a capital “B”, even when sceptics such as Sally mock him gently, and let’s be Continue Reading

Trailers upon trailers upon … The Life of Chuck, The Fantastic Four: First Steps, 28 Years Later, Thunderbolts* + Jurassic World: Rebirth …

(via Shutterstock) Whenever I see a blockbuster movie trailer, and this post is packed to the epic rafters with them, I am immediately taken back to being a wide-eyes kid who would see trailers for the likes of Star Wars: A New Hope and E.T. and get a visceral, fizzy Continue Reading

Book review: The Montegiallo School of Swearing by Andrew HC McDonald

(courtesy The Fremantle Press) Reinventing your life is no easy thing. Oh everyone dreams of Eat. Pray.Love.-ing the hell of their tired, meaningless or traumatically disrupted lives, but dreaming of it happening is far easier than taking the concrete steps necessary to manifest it in the real world. But sometimes Continue Reading

AFFFF25 movie review: In the Sub for Love (A toute allure)

(courtesy Alliance Francaise French Film Festival 2025) As premises for romantic comedies go, and let’s face it they are as wide and different as the days in the middle of summer are long, In the Sub for Love (A toute allure) has an absolute cracker. A handsome male flight attendant, Continue Reading

Streaming review: The opening episode of Doctor Who season 15/season 2 “Robot Revolution”

(courtesy Doctor Who Facebook page) If you have ever watched a Doctor Who episode, and given it’s been around for about six decades, there’s a reasonably good chance you have, you will have noticed that there’s a certain pattern to how new companions are introduced. They are always babes in Continue Reading

Book review: Cascade Failure by L. M. Sagas

(courtesy Pan Macmillan Australia) There are countless space operas out there in the world of science fiction, a great many of them imaginatively adept at crafting galaxies of possibility, good and bad, and of taking us on rip-roaring journey from planetary pillar to cometic post. But not all of them Continue Reading

More delightfully quirky Wes Anderson goodness coming up in the beguiling The Phoenician Scheme

(courtesy IMDb) SNAPSHOTThe story of a family and a family business. A dark tale of espionage following a strained father-daughter relationship within a family business. Wes Anderson’s unique twists revolve around betrayal and morally gray choices in this spy comedy thriller. The Phoenician Scheme is both written and directed by Continue Reading

She has nowhere to go but up: Thoughts on North of North

(courtesy IMP Awards) Stories of empowerment generally take the form of someone discovering they are lost and trapped in a place shorn of agency and vivacity who then takes steps to change their lives in ways that are triumphant and overcoming. But while these stories are meant to be inspiring, Continue Reading

Road to Eurovision 2025: Week 3 – Portugal, San Marino, Slovenia, Sweden + Ukraine (semi-final 1, part 3)

What is the Eurovision Song Contest?Started way back in 1956 as a way of drawing a fractured Europe back together with the healing power of music, the Eurovision Song Contest, or Concours Eurovision de la Chanson – the contest is telecast in both English and French – is open to Continue Reading

“Do you think we can trust it?” The innate humanity of Murderbot is on full display in its first trailer

(courtesy IMP Awards) SNAPSHOTBased on Martha Wells’ Hugo & Nebula Award-winning book series, Murderbot is a sci-fi thriller/comedy about a self-hacking security construct who is horrified by human emotion yet drawn to its vulnerable clients. Murderbot must hide its free will and complete a dangerous assignment when all it really Continue Reading

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