Stranger Things, an undeniable watercooler hit par excellence which is soon (“soon” being a relative concept in these COVID-delayed times; don’t hold your breath is all I’d say) to treat us to a fourth season of Spielbergian ’80s horror-filled delights, has never been short on atmosphere. It has always had Continue Reading
Fear the Walking Dead: “The End is the Beginning” (S6, E1 review) + The Walking Dead: World Beyond – “Blaze of Gory” (S1, E2 review)
FEAR THE WALKING DEAD If you can cast your mind, lo these many months back to when season five of Fear the Walking Dead (is there any other option, really?), you will recall that the Smiling Dictator Virginia (Colby Minifie) had split up our merry band of survivors, casting everyone Continue Reading
COVID-19 retro movie festival: Farmageddon #MovieReview
One of the great enduring joys of any movie or TV show that comes from Aardman Animations is the cheekiness and sense of fun that infuses every last frame. Movies like Chicken Run (2000), Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005) and Arthur Christmas (2011), and now, of Continue Reading
Book review: The Rain Heron by Robbie Arnott
Sociopaths and psychopaths aside, no one ever wakes up one day and thinks to themselves that now is the time I will put aside all my lofty hopes and dreams for the future and choose instead to do those things which slowly but surely corrode my soul and eat away Continue Reading
Comics review: The Ludocrats by Gillen, Rossignol, Stokely, Bonvillain, Cowles
If there is one thing that this quirk-obsessed reviewers adores, love and sends 100 dozen roses to on Valentine’s Day, it is a story that goes full Mad Cow Disease imaginative, puts the pedal to the sugar high idiosyncratic pedal and goes wherever the hyper-coloured inspiration takes them. Which is Continue Reading
Book review: The Devil and the Dark Water by Stuart Turton
Humanity is not, by and large, a fan of looking deep into its soul. You could be forgiven for thinking so when you look at the dizzying amount of literature, music, film and on and on devoted to exploring the darker and lighter parts of humanity’s inner self, but the Continue Reading
Weekend pop art: The whimsical joy of Accidentally Wes Anderson
SNAPSHOTJoin us to discover the most interesting and idiosyncratic places on Earth. Inspired by the unique vision of director Wes Anderson’s films, this book travels to every continent to tell the extraordinary and unexpected true stories behind more than two hundred stunning locations. (synopsis via Laughing Squid) Plague-ridden 2020 has Continue Reading
Comics review: Olympia
Imagination can be a powerful thing. In the face of reality, which can often be cruel, unrelenting and comes with few to any certainties including any sense of justice or guaranteed happily-ever-afters, imagination allows us to escape the world we occupy, to picture a place where we are triumphant, where Continue Reading
Songs, songs and more songs #35: Billie Eilish, Sylvan Esso, 070 Shake, joan, Emily Burns
Love, life and the universe can be profoundly exhausting. That doesn’t mean it’s awful or negative, though it can be; simply that on any given day or week we can be pushed and pulled in all kinds of exhausting directions, making figuring out which way is up a real issue. Continue Reading
Movie review: The High Note
There are, so we are told, only so many story types in circulation. Which means, of course, that even when you try to be blisteringly original, you are usually, no matter how hard to try or how much imagination you bring to the narrative table, repeating much of which has Continue Reading