If the cast of Community were Batman villains…

(artwork by the very talented Ben Deguzman (@abouthebenjamin) from Southern California.)

Book review: Palm Meridian by Grace Flahive

(courtesy Hachette Australia) Reading, done right, is often a seismic trip to all kinds of extreme emotions. Often in the same book too, which is what Palm Meridian by Grace Flahive achieves with an effortless ease, reducing us to side-clutching bundles of laughter one minute before grabbing our heart, giving Continue Reading

Songs, songs and more songs #134: Pattie Gonia & Imogen Heap, Qveen Herby & THOT Squad, Jacob Collier, Absolutely + Metric

(via Shutterstock) I love music … but I don’t just love any music. I want music with presence, the kind of music that strides forth with energised music, lyrics that don’t play cute and timid and produced by artists who want to say things in unforgettable ways. These five artists Continue Reading

Come on a wild adventure at camp … thoughts on Snoopy Presents: A Summer Musical

(courtesy First Showing (c) AppleTV+) If you’re of a certain age, you will be well acquainted with how good Peanuts specials are for your heart, your mental health and your general sense of glowing wellbeing. Three of the most well-known of the 52 animated specials in existence are A Charlie Continue Reading

All the joy … K-Pops! and the hard work and happiness of second chances

(courtesy IMP Awards) SNAPSHOTMeet BJ (Anderson .Paak), a fish-out-of-water musician on the search for stardom carrying a bruised heart from a complicated past relationship. On his journey to revive his music career, BJ lands a gig with a house band in Seoul for a K-Pop competition show. While working on Continue Reading

Book review: Meet the Newmans by Jennifer Niven

(courtesy Pan Macmillan Australia) As ideals go, perfection has to be one of the most laughably impossible. Granted all ideals dance somewhere in the land of blue sky implausibility, cosily inspiring ideas that would be wondrously good if they made it from hope to actuality but which never quite manage Continue Reading

Movie review: Sketch

(courtesy IMP Awards) One of the things that you never realise about grief, until you are mired irrevocably in its desperately sad and regretful depths, is how powerless it makes you feel. On one level, of course, you know, especially when someone you love dies, that you can’t bring them Continue Reading

Book review: The Dogs of Venice by Steven Rowley

(courtesy Penguin Random House) Can you ever get away from yourself? Not really, but and this is crucial in the context of Steven Rowley’s delightful novella, The Dogs of Venice, you can get away from the place where you experienced trauma and that can make the world of difference, So, Continue Reading

Playtime has a new look as Toy Story 5 drops its first technologically menacing trailer

(courtesy IMP Awards) SNAPSHOTIn Toy Story 5, we’re introduced to a new character Lilypad, a high-tech frog-shaped smart tablet voiced by Greta Lee that makes Buzz, Woody, Jessie and the rest of the gang’s jobs exponentially harder when they have to go head to head with the all-new threat to Continue Reading

Book review: Engaged, Apparently by Amy Andrews

(courtesy Harper Collins Publishers Australia) Is it possible, we muse wonderingly at the start of this review, to reinvent a trope? Or, at the very least, and trust us, it’s a very good “very least” indeed, to put a shiny new sheen on it and present it to an enraptured Continue Reading

Dark, dangerous and hilarious … Thoughts on How to Get to Heaven From Belfast

(courtesy First Showing (c) Netflix) Think tightrope walkers have a challenge on their hands? Surely a greater feat is balancing comedy and drama in a show like How to Get to Heaven From Belfast – the title alone is redolent with quirky humour and melancholic longing, all in perfect unison Continue Reading

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