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!

Valentine’s Day book review: Better Than the Real Thing by Brooke Crawford

This book was read at Kalimna, Yeranda cottages, near Dungog in early January 2026 “Life,” declares the front cover tagline of Brooke Crawford’s debut novel, Better Than the Real Thing, “is messy.” The central character of this rawly emotionally honest romcom, which serves up a potential fairytale ending but not Continue Reading

Songs, songs and more Valentine’s Day songs #133: MIKA, Go-Jo, Harry Styles, St. Lucia + Maisie Peters

(via Shutterstock) Ain’t love grand? It is, it absolutely is, but it’s also confusing and complex and hard and wondrous and alive and dying and full of hope and crushed by loss. It’s so many things, and while it’s ultimately a good and powerful thing, it needs songs that speak Continue Reading

Valentine’s Day book review: Swept Away by Beth O’Leary

(courtesy Hachette Australia) As premises go, the one what washes through Swept Away by Beth O’Leary is a doozy. We are meant to believe, and honestly you will trust us, that two people can retire to a houseboat for a one-night stand and find themselves, the next day, floating to Continue Reading

Joy to what’s left of the world … Thoughts on Fallout S2

The end of the world is generally considered to be a fairly awful, lawless, dark and terrible place where civility has died and base humanity rules in all its terrible glory. You know it, I know it and Lucy MacLean (Ella Purnell), ex-Vault 33 Dweller and unexpected wandered of the Continue Reading

A mini-mass of movie trailers: In the Blink of an Eye, Caterpillar + Tow

(via Shutterstock) One of the things I love about indie films is the time they take to really tell a story. That’s not to say that more mainstream, blockbuster fare doesn’t, but smaller, more dramatic films like the three spotlighted here take the time to let the characters and narrative Continue Reading

Book review: The Elsewhere Express by Samantha Scott Yambao

(courtesy Penguin Books Australia) Create a real sense of fantastical otherworldliness is not as easy it sounds. Surely, you reason, it’s simply a case of letting your imagination run free and allowing it to express itself in ways that defy any and all caveats of our actual reality? But while Continue Reading

A tiny ton of TV trailers: Margo’s Got Money Troubles, Lucky + How to Get to Heaven From Belfast

(via Shutterstock) The sheer amount of programs on streaming simultaneously excites and terrifies me. I love the idea of all those amazing stories at my dispersal and how much viewing pleasure they will give me; but I also know that I don’t have the time to get to them all. Continue Reading

Raising the curtain is still all kinds of happily offbeat fun: Thoughts on The Muppet Show special 2026

(courtesy IMP Awards) SNAPSHOT It’s The Muppet Show! Kermit, Miss Piggy and the beloved Muppet gang are back with a brand-new special event. Music, comedy, and a whole lot of chaos are bound to ensue when The Muppets once again take the stage of the original Muppet Theatre with their very special Continue Reading

Movie review: Is This Thing On?

(courtesy IMP Awards) One thing that strikes you pretty quickly as you exit childhood and enter the uncertain wilds of adulthood is that many of the big moments, which Hollywood has conditioned us to believe happen in big, soap operatic scenes, actually play out in far smaller, quieter ways. It’s Continue Reading

Book review: The Expert System’s Champion by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Expert System book #2)

(courtesy Pan Macmillan Australia) If you read a lot of really good science fiction, it will become immediately apparent that imagination is rarely in short supply among the boundlessly creative authors of the genre. But what will also emerge is how imaginatively fertile some of the giants of the genre Continue Reading

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