There is no doubting the universal appeal of Charles Dickens’ 1843 A Christmas Carol. Interpreted by just about franchise going, including the Muppets, and even run in reverse by the likes of Blackadder and Scrooged, A Christmas Carol appeals because it maintains with exuberant moral certainty that the hopes and Continue Reading
Is there hope at the end of the world? Station Eleven says “YES” (series trailer)
SNAPSHOTA post-apocalyptic saga spanning multiple timelines, this limited drama series tells the stories of survivors of a devastating flu as they attempt to rebuild and re-imagine the world anew while holding on to the best of what’s been lost. Created for television and showrun by TV filmmaker Patrick Somerville (also Continue Reading
Book review: The Girl Who Saved Christmas by Matt Haig
Christmas is as wondrous and magical as life gets. A giant, and often much-welcome step away from the same-old banality of the everyday, which is often not awful, just not that great, Christmas promises that everything, at least for a while, will be sparkly bright, awash in contentment, love, and Continue Reading
Movie review: 8-Bit Christmas
Ah, the hazy, crazy days of youth! Specifically the late 1980s when kids definitely wore bike helmets – shhhhh, no, they didn’t but don’t tell today’s kids that – and the biggest, baddest Christmas present goals out there were, beside getting a freckled Cabbage Patch Kid, was securing your very Continue Reading
Songs, songs and more Christmas songs: ABBA, Michael Bublé, Meghan Trainor, Gary Barlow Manchester Orchestra+ The Muppets get Animal-istically festive
Christmas music is wonderful. Granted it may wear thin when you’re in retail and listening to the same tracks day after tinsel-saturated day, but for a great many of us, music adds some extra whimsically charming, emotionally uplifting specialness to a season already brimming with a magical sense of hope Continue Reading
Movie review: Shang-Chi and the Ten Rings
If you have ever believed that characters go a long way to making a movie, and they are integral to a considerable degree however much importance you place them, then you’ll find Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings to be vindication of that approach. For though this recent Continue Reading
Book review: Spidertouch by Alex Thomson
ARC courtesy Angry Robot Books – release date 14 December in UK and 16 March 2022 Australia. There are some books that, when you plunge eagerly into them – hope always springs eternal when it comes to each and every new novel – come rapidly alive, so well-expressed and vibrant Continue Reading
Fear the Walking Dead: S7, E 5 & 6 review + World Beyond: S2, E 7 & 8 review
FEAR THE WALKING DEAD SPOILERS AHEAD FOR “TILL DEATH” AND “RECLAMATION” … You could be forgiven for thinking, and yes, that is still possible even in the midst of the apocalypse, that there’d be precious little humanity left in a landscape given over not only to the dead but also Continue Reading
Sneaking into #Christmas with Robin Robin: All warm mousey feelings, family and magic shiny wishing stars(review)
It honestly seems like Aardman Animation can do no wrong. Whether it’s the cheese-saturated domestic adventures of Wallace and Gromit or the hilarious mischievous of Shaun the Sheep, Aardman, known chiefly for their inspired stop-motion animation storytelling, have a gift, like Pixar, their spiritual narrative-shapers across the Atlantic, have a Continue Reading
Book review: Light Chaser by Peter F. Hamilton and Gareth L. Powell
One of the great appealing aspects of any science fiction worth it’s slave planet-mined salt is the imaginative audacity of the premise on which it sits. Time and again if you read or otherwise consume brilliant sci-fi, it’s hard not to sit back and gasp in wonder at the ideas Continue Reading