As 2020 has demonstrated with almost devilish glee, life is a LOT. While it can be gloriously uplifting and fulfilling and loving and rich with endless possibility, it can also feel like the entire weight of the world upon you, a disappointment so raw and gargantuan that coping with it Continue Reading
Movie review: Enola Holmes
It is a rare and wonderful thing indeed to walk away from a film feeling as if the world is a little brighter for having seen it. But that is precisely what happens to you as take in the convention-busting delights of Enola Holmes, newly-arrived on Netflix and based on Continue Reading
A mini-mass of movie trailers: Over the Moon, Ghabe, David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet
A mixed bag this time, with an animated feature, a thoughtful indie drama and a documentary from an icon of the natural world on the slate. If you look closer, all of them share one very important quality – the need and longing for a better world, something that all Continue Reading
Book review: The End of the World is Bigger than Love by Davina Bell
By its very nature, writing lends itself to great, vaulting leaps of imagination. Stories vary greatly and may take you to worlds magical or thoughtful, startling or reflective, whimsical or gravely serious; but whatever their tone or intent, every last one of them is underpinned by a surfeit of expansively, Continue Reading
G’day! Travels With My Father (S4) finds its ways grumpily and amusingly Down Under
SNAPSHOTJack and Michael Whitehall return with Season 4 of Travels With My Father, and this time they’re going down under. Join the duo as they tackle wild Emus, visit the Sydney Opera House and attempt Drag. (synopsis via YouTube (c) Netflix) This will surprise absolutely no one but travel is Continue Reading
Book review: The Morbids by Ewa Ramsey
For a species laying careless waste to the planet and appallingly skilled in the messily chaotic art of death, destruction and war, humanity has a prevailing passion for neat and tidy recovery from trauma and grief. Pop culture celebrates triumphant comebacks from breakdowns and mental setbacks, inspirational speakers spruik the Continue Reading
Is this just real life or is this just fantasy, wonders WandaVision
SNAPSHOTSet in the 1950s, WandaVision will follow the story of Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany’s superhero characters Scarlet Witch and Vision. The series blends the style of classic sitcoms with the Marvel Cinematic Universe in which Wanda Maximoff and Vision—two super-powered beings living their ideal suburban lives—begin to suspect that Continue Reading
More Lessons from the Screenplay: Christopher Nolan vs. Interstellar — The Nolan Crosscut
SNAPSHOTThis video examines one of Christopher Nolan’s trademark techniques—the crosscut—by dissecting The Dark Knight, Inception, and Interstellar. (synopsis (c) Lessons From the Screenplay) By any measure, Christopher Nolan is one of the most inventive, clever and enthrallingly immersive filmmakers working today. So who better than Lesson From the Screenplay‘s Michael Continue Reading
They’re back … and as heartwarmingly hilarious as ever! Thoughts on Muppets Now
As someone who had the distinct pleasure of watching The Muppet Show when it first premiered in 1976, and who thanks also to Sesame Street, has had a lifelong association with and love of the Muppets, it’s always been fascinating to watch how the legacy of Jim Henson’s superlatively wonderful Continue Reading
A mini-mass of movie trailers: Nomadland, On the Rocks, Save Yourselves!, Eternal Beauty, Tom of Your Life
It’s cinema, Jim, but not as we know it … COVID-19 has upended everything when it comes to films and cinema-going – cinemas are either shut or they’re open but barely or they’re showing retro retreads and precious few new films and all the old certainties have well and truly Continue Reading