As highly as we might like to think of ourselves, almost all live cloaked in an eclectic assortment of lies, omissions, half-truths, fabricated portrayals and aspirational representation. It’s not a deliberate intent to deceive that drives us necessarily; rather we are often driven by a need to minimise vulnerability, to Continue Reading
Comics review: Star Trek: Picard—Countdown
It is a strategy of which, I’m sure, even the legendary Picard himself would approve. A man who happily mixed calculated insight and intuition, compassion and tenacity, whit and whimsy and steely-eyed resolved, Picard, as played by Patrick Stewart in Star Trek: The Next Generation, subsequent movies and recently to Continue Reading
COVID-19 retro movie festival: The Croods #MovieReview
With COVID-19 cutting a swathe through just about everything worldwide, it’s no surprise that cinema is being as affected as anything else. In just one day, one of my favourite cinema chains temporarily closed, the Sydney Film Festival was cancelled, the French Film Festival was postponed and my other favourite Continue Reading
Book review: Sixteenth Watch by Myke Cole
For all the mess we have made of things so far, humanity retains a fascinating capacity for believing we will be better in the future. It is perhaps the ultimate coping mechanism or the grandest of mass delusions; whatever it, for all the broken down societies and blue screens of Continue Reading
Love, death and the sins of the past: Thoughts on Carnival Row (season 1)
For all of its rich promise and bright, shining possibility, humanity is, by and large, a very dark and unenvious proposition as a species. While it is tempting to think of us in glowingly positive terms, something that the likes of Disney, Hallmark and just about every romantic genre would Continue Reading
Road to Eurovision 2020: Week 3 – Romania, Russia, Slovenia, Sweden, Ukraine
This is normally how I begin these review posts … What is the Eurovision Song Contest?Started way back in 1956 as a way of drawing a fractured Europe back together with the healing power of music, the Eurovision Song Contest, or Concours Eurovision de la Chanson – the contest is Continue Reading
The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt is coming back to Netflix in all-new special
SNAPSHOT“The story follows the show’s star, plus Burgess’ Titus, Jane Krakowski’s Jacqueline, and Carol Kane’s Lillian, on their quest to track and take down the man who held Kimmy captive in a bunker for 15 years (played by returning guest star Jon Hamm). ‘Kimmy always wants to right a wrong, Continue Reading
Songs, songs and more songs #25: Jax Jones + Martin Solveig + RAYE, GAUCI, Banoffee, The Naked and the Famous, Mija & Gammer
Life is bleak right now in lots of ways. But it hasn’t completely ground to a halt and we are still loving and laughing, living and hoping and trying to figure all the weird and contrary ups and downs of being alive. These five artists, who admittedly recorded and released Continue Reading
Book review: Would Like to Meet by Rachel Winters
There is a glorious sense of feel good wonder that comes with the very best romantic comedies. It’s that innate sense that, all indications to the contrary, and let’s face it, at the moment COVID-19 is the reigning bestial monarch of those contrary indications, life is marked with transcendent romantic Continue Reading
Let’s read with … Dolly Parton? COVID-19 hasn’t stopped storytime …
If you were pick anyone to sit snug as a bug in a bed in their pajamas and read a picture book to you, the odds are good surely that you would pick someone as wonderful as Dolly Parton. She’s bright, smart, effervescently lovely and has the perfect sing-song cadence Continue Reading