(courtesy Harper Collins Publishers Australia) There is a power in confronting past hurts and grief but understandably doing so can send seismic shocks through our life that have no guarantee of a happy ending when all the agonising dust has settled. That’s the stark truth that confronts Ruby in My Continue Reading
What’s Christmas without a little terror? Be careful what you wish for with Candy Cane Lane teaser
(courtesy YouTube (c) Prime Video) SNAPSHOTEddie Murphy stars in this holiday comedy adventure about a man on a mission to win his neighborhood’s annual Christmas home decoration contest. After Chris (Eddie Murphy) inadvertently makes a deal with a mischievous elf named Pepper (Jillian Bell) to better his chances of winning, Continue Reading
Book review: The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England by Brandon Sanderson
(courtesy Hachette Australia) It is said that you shouldn’t never judge a book by its cover (we all do, of course, but shhh, we’re not supposed to, so mum’s the word there). But what about a title? Is that fair game for appraising how clever, fun and interesting a book Continue Reading
Movie review: The Creator
(courtesy IMP Awards) One of the things that’s so appealing about science fiction and that makes it such an engrossing genre in which to immerse yourself is its seemingly infinite capacity for carrying all kinds of ideas, both big and small. All storytelling does this, of course, but somehow science Continue Reading
Season finale fun: Ahsoka (S1, E6-8) and Only Murders in the Building (3, E9-10)
(courtesy IMP Awards) Ahsoka (S1, E6-8) Talk about sticking the landing! After daring to take us deeper into the mystical otherworld of Star Wars via the dark magic of Morgan Elsbeth (Diana Lee Inosanto) – she and the Great Mothers of Peridea make the Sith look like rank amateurs on Continue Reading
Book review: The Blighted Stars by Megan E. O’Keefe
(courtesy Hachette Australia) Character is everything in an epic space opera. Some may disagree, and no doubt will, claiming that its very storytelling DNA is given over to massive moments and breathtakingly huge narrative twists and turns and that it’s that which defines it and makes it so undeniably thrilling Continue Reading
Graphic novel review: The Last West by Evan Young & Lou Iovino (writers) and Novo Malgapo (illustrator)
(courtesy Alterna Comics (c) Evan Young & Lou Iovino) Alternate histories are a flourishing genre and a really creative way to already established events that we now take for granted but which substantially changed the way our world is and how it works. The Last West by Evan Young & Continue Reading
Book review: Happy Place by Emily Henry
(courtesy Penguin Books Australia) One of the things that no one tells about getting older is that all those people you knew and valued and loved when you were younger might not be the same people as you move further into adulthood. If you think about it logically, that makes Continue Reading
Songs, songs and more songs #94: Jessie Ware & Róisín Murphy, THEIA, Chappell Roan, Lawrence + Bombay Bicycle Club
(Photo by Aditya Chinchure on Unsplash) Can something be fun and thoughtful all at once? Yes, indeed it can and these five songs all manage to have some fun, four more than the remaining one which is darker than its post-mates, while taking some pretty incisive deep dives into what Continue Reading
The short and the short of it: DUST presents the what-is-my-purpose rumination of Big Boom
(courtesy IMDb) SNAPSHOTThe mysterious disappearance of every human on earth leaves a service robot wondering what his purpose is. (courtesy YouTube (c) DUST) The end of the world is not generally a happy or freeing time. It’s usually marked by death and destruction and a quite pronounced end of things, Continue Reading