For a species known for its inquisitiveness and love of freedom of expression, humanity, at least the more authoritarian parts of it which are far too commonplace for anyone’s liking, has an enduring liking for enforcing spirit-constraining rules on itself. Perhaps they made sense once upon a time when threats Continue Reading
Five Disney classics told by one classic storyteller: The hilarious narrative-spinning of Olaf Presents
If ever there was a breakout character from Frozen, the Disney animated juggernaut that bestrode the world when it first came out in 2013, it is the very much alive garrulously exuberant to a fault snowman Olaf (voiced with a boisterous of childlike wonder by Josh Gad) whose sheer presence Continue Reading
Book review: A Spindle Splintered (Fractured Fables #1) by Alix E. Harrow
One of the inestimable joys of reading anything by Alix. E Harrow, who has given the superlatively evocative joys of The Ten Thousand Doors of January and The Once and Future Witches, is her sublimely invigorating gift for gloriously reinventing well-worn tropes and cliches for the better. Equipped with rich Continue Reading
Growing up is a beast: New trailer for Pixar’s Turning Red
SNAPSHOTDisney and Pixar’s Turning Red introduces Mei Lee (voice of Rosalie Chiang), a confident, dorky 13-year-old torn between staying her mother’s dutiful daughter and the chaos of adolescence. Her protective, if not slightly overbearing mother, Ming (voice of Sandra Oh), is never far from her daughter—an unfortunate reality for the Continue Reading
Movie review: Green Sea #sydfilmfest
Identity is a powerful thing and it sits, or rather the lack of it sits, at the heart of Angeliki Antoniou’s Green Sea, a movingly understated film that explores what it is like to forge a new life when you are not even sure who you are. Anna (Angeliki Papoulia) Continue Reading
Songs, songs and more songs #60: UPSAHL, RÜFÜS DU SOL, Barrie, AURORA, Smile (feat. Robyn)
For the final song round-up of the year, it seemed only fitting and right, after the weight of a long and sad COVID-saturated year, to feature five songs that carry some element of hope with them. The way this hope is folded into the songs may not be conventional but Continue Reading
Going back a century! Pixar gives Monsters Inc. the silent film treatment
SNAPSHOTPixar has remixed their wonderfully heartwarming CGI classic Monsters, Inc. into an amusing silent, four-minute, black-and-white animation with such vintage cinematic tricks as intertitles, exaggerated jump scares, and an old-timey piano rag playing in the background. (synopsis (c) Laughing Squid) What a delight! As if Monsters Inc. was already a Continue Reading
Book review: Anything But Fine by Tobias Madden
When you dive into a book, there are three key things you hope will be presented and accounted for: Characters who are so fully-realised that you swear they are but a sentence or two from leaping off the page. Writing that sweeps you up in its grasp such that you Continue Reading
Movie review: Nowhere Special #sydfilmfest
Imagine if you will that you are a devoted dad in Northern Ireland named John (James Norton) who has devoted the four years of his son Michael’s (Daniel Lamont) life to being the best dad possible, investing your time between window cleaning gigs (you run your own business) reading to Continue Reading
They go together like pasta and pesto: The heartfelt Luca redux of Ciao Alberto + Baymax! series trailer
Whatever your thinking about the merits of streaming platforms or production studios holding big, bold splashy all-day events to herald their upcoming shows and movies – crass commercialism or a tantalising glimpse into an eagerly awaited future? – the just-staged inaugural Disney+ Day 2021 was worth its existence alone for Continue Reading