Happy pop culture new year everyone! – SparklyPrettyBriiiight

Here’s to more movies, books, songs, TV shows, cartoon and comic strips and so much more in 2019!

Christmas in July book review: Home Again for Christmas by Emily Stone

(courtesy Hachette Australia) When you have been hurt deeply, traumatically so, it’s understandable, especially if you’re a child and your ability to process the level and type of hurt isn’t yet developed enough to think it all through, to recoil and withdraw from whatever hurt you. Distance, we think, is Continue Reading

Movie review: Minions & Monsters

(courtesy IMP Awards) There’s a glorious sense of escapist release that comes from watching the Minions in action. They are, despite all their efforts to serve the greatest evil down throughout history and to do so with single-minded determination, as klutzy and ridiculous silly as they come, and while some Continue Reading

Christmas 2026 book preview: Stay Another Christmas by Phillipa Ashley

(courtesy Phillipa Ashley email) SNAPSHOTThe perfect festive Lake District escape from bestselling author Phillipa Ashley. After a life-changing accident, Katie’s plan for Christmas is simple: rent a spectacular island house in the Lake District, gather the people she loves, and enjoy snowy walks, crackling fires and the promise of a Continue Reading

The short and the short of it: Nube and the sacrifice and love of motherhood

(courtesy IMDb) SNAPSHOTAfter witnessing an old dark stormy cloud painfully rain and die in sorrow, Noma, a puffy white cloud realizes [sic] that Mixtli, her daughter, a dark stormy cloud, is in danger of raining prematurely. Nube is an animated short film written and directed by Mexican filmmakers Diego Alonso Sánchez de Continue Reading

Graphic novel review: Step by Bloody Step by Spurrier-Bergara-Lopes

SNAPSHOTTHERE IS A GIRL. She has no memory and no name. Nothing but a GUARDIAN. An armored giant who protects her from predators and pitfalls. TOGETHER THEY WALK across an extraordinary fantasy world. If they leave the path the air itself comes alive, forcing them onwards. Why? The girl doesn’t Continue Reading

Deep TBR book review: Geraldine by Andrea Thompson (2025)

(courtesy Fremantle Press) As I discovered fairly early in life, much of the world has very fixed and fiercely defended ideas about a “normal” person should be. And if you don’t fit that mold, then woe betide you because you will finds yourself battling against terrifyingly intense forces that won’t Continue Reading

Mini-mass of movie trailers: Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom, Ghosts: The Possession of Button House + Klara & the Sun

(via Shutterstock) This is a time grand confessions – I don’t particularly love popcorn. Scandalous, right? Actually, not really, but when you go to the movies as much as I do, a popcorn ambivalence doesn’t really fit with the usual moviegoing vibe (thought I do love choctops and lollies aka Continue Reading

Deep TBR June book review: The Lighthouse at the Edge of the World by J. R. Dawson (2025)

(courtesy Pan Macmillan Australia) Ostensibly the magically real world of The Lighthouse at the Edge of the World by J. R. Dawson is about a man and his daughter Nera who play a vital role in shepherding the souls of the dead, those immediately passed and those who lingered for Continue Reading

Trailer, trailers, so many streaming trailers! Check out Alley Cats, Lucky and Stuart Fails to Save the Universe

(via Shutterstock) I am, at heart, a vibrant and sustained optimist. I know not because, in the face of a thousand million things to the contrary (there may be some hyperbole there but not much), I still think life is wonderful and has so much to offer. And, and really, Continue Reading

Movie review: Toy Story 5

(courtesy IMP Awards) Five instalments into any movie franchise is a point at which you might wonder if the novelty and fun of the original instalment has been lost or at least diluted beyond any meaningful recognition. It happens to the best of long-running series but rather happily the Toy Continue Reading

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