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Andrew's wonderful world of pop culture

ABBA Voyage #3 – Our Last Summer: The emotionally-evocative geography of ABBA’s songs

Posted on September 4, 2021September 8, 2021 by aussiemoose

This post was first published on 25 November, 2018. ABBA is the great musical love of my life. Every single last one of their songs summon up some kind of powerful memory, including as a man in his ’50s a joyous/melancholic recalling of past memories, a theme that is common Continue Reading

Posted In MusicTagged In ABBA

ABBA Voyage: After 39 years, everyone’s favourite musical Swedes make sweet new music again

Posted on September 3, 2021September 8, 2021 by aussiemoose

It’s a strange but wonderful thing indeed to find yourself taken back to the emotions and sensibilities of your youth. It can happen through all kinds of things – smells, old movies or TV shows and classic books but the medium which most quickly and completely transports me back to Continue Reading

Posted In MusicTagged In ABBA

Book review: Swashbucklers by Dan Hanks

Posted on September 3, 2021November 1, 2024 by aussiemoose

ARC courtesy Dan Hanks – release date 1 February 2022 in Australia and 9 November 2021 in UK. No one ever really talks about what happens after the movie ends. Especially when the movie is a bright, adventurous blockbuster in which a band of gallant children come together and defeat, Continue Reading

Posted In Books

Countdown to ABBA Voyage #2 – Ring Ring to The Visitors: My top 50 ABBA songs

Posted on September 2, 2021September 8, 2021 by aussiemoose

With ABBA set to release (hopefully) their first new music in 39 years, with the announcement scheduled via a worldwide event commencing at 5.45pm UK time today (2.45am Australia – and yes, I’ll be up!), and the excitement for this longtime fan at fever pitch, it seems like a good Continue Reading

Posted In MusicTagged In ABBA

Countdown to ABBA Voyage #1 – Yes, I am the City: My 5 big ABBA moments

Posted on September 2, 2021September 8, 2021 by aussiemoose

With ABBA set to release (hopefully) their first new music in 39 years, with the announcement scheduled via a worldwide event commencing at 5.45pm UK time today (2.45am Australia – and yes, I’ll be up!), and the excitement for this longtime fan at fever pitch, it seems like a good Continue Reading

Posted In MusicTagged In ABBA

Heroes come in all sizes: Thoughts on the big things happening in Tiny World (season 1)

Posted on September 1, 2021September 1, 2021 by aussiemoose

In a year where the pandemic has somehow managed to get worse, and climate change is making its presence in scarily unprecedented and well ahead of the modelling ways, it can be all too easy to lose hope and think there is nothing good left in the world. But, of Continue Reading

Posted In Documentaries, Streaming, TV

Mini-mass of movie and streaming trailers: Solitary, The Guilty, Maya and the Three

Posted on September 1, 2021August 30, 2021 by aussiemoose

Another week and more trailers to remind that us, all evidence to the contrary, there is still life and creativity and vigour out there in the world. Thankfully since Sydney remains in hard lockdown, two of the three in this triple pick of trailers are available via streaming which means Continue Reading

Posted In Movies

Book review: The 24-Hour Café by Libby Page

Posted on August 31, 2021August 31, 2021 by aussiemoose

Walk through the streets of any big city and you will quickly come to understand that while you are surrounded by an untold number of people, all surging past with steely and impatient intent, you are, in many important ways, very much alone. None of those people know you or Continue Reading

Posted In Books

The Flintstones return in the frenetic fun of Yabba Dabba Dinosaurs

Posted on August 31, 2021August 28, 2021 by aussiemoose

SNAPSHOTBest friends Pebbles Flintstone and Bamm-Bamm Rubble are two kids from the town of Bedrock, a modern Stone Age civilization where dinosaurs are domesticated and helpful, including their lovable and loyal pet Dino. But the real ‘yabba dabba doo’ times are had in the open wilderness outside of Bedrock city Continue Reading

Posted In Animation, Streaming, TV

Book review: After Story by Larissa Behrendt

Posted on August 29, 2021August 30, 2021 by aussiemoose

In our information-saturated digital age, it is all too easy to think that everything that needs to be said, has been said. But After Story by Larissa Behrendt, makes it abundantly and movingly clear that a great deal remains swept under metaphorical carpets or held close to the chest and Continue Reading

Posted In Books

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Recent Posts

  • Songs, songs and more songs #146: U2, Bash Croft, The Linda Lindas, New Constellations + Lykke Li
  • Want some hilariously hellish hospitality? Thoughts on Haunted Hotel returns S2
  • Halloween picture book review: The Little Ghost Who Was a Quilt by Riel Nason (writer) and Byron Eggenschwiler (artist)
  • New release October book review: Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy
  • The Halloween short and the short of it: The haunting impact of Night of the Living Dread

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RSS feed: SparklyPrettyBriiiight SparklyPrettyBriiiight

  • Want some hilariously hellish hospitality? Thoughts on Haunted Hotel returns S2
    (courtesy IMP Awards) It may come as a surprise to those seeing a blog full-to-bursting of Halloween posts this October that this reviewer is not one for horror. That may seem to be a small and niggling liability in a season devoted to horror, both its manifestation and banishment, but Continue Reading
  • Halloween picture book review: The Little Ghost Who Was a Quilt by Riel Nason (writer) and Byron Eggenschwiler (artist)
    (courtesy Penguin Books Australia) There is an inestimable delight to opening a picture book and falling into a story which delivers imaginative and poetic wordplay and vividly arresting, often gorgeous illustrations; it doesn’t matter whether you are reading them to endlessly eager nieces and nephews (in my case) or simply Continue Reading
  • New release October book review: Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy
    (courtesy Penguin Books Australia) We live in an age where people are, with a few notable exceptions, divorced from the natural world, or what’s left of it, around them. We catch our trains, eat at our favourite restaurants and live our concrete-clad, digitally buttressed lives without any sense of the Continue Reading
  • The Halloween short and the short of it: The haunting impact of Night of the Living Dread
    SNAPSHOTWhen a power cut ruins Ruby’s bedtime routine, she finds herself haunted by some unwanted guests. The only way for Ruby to get a peaceful night of sleep is to confront her visitors. (courtesy Laughing Squid) What’s scarier than zombies and vampires and aliens and ghosts and werewolves and any Continue Reading
  • New releases October review: She Lied First by Dinuka McKenzie
    (courtesy Harper Collins Publishers Australia) A good, no, great crime thriller is always something to be savoured, enjoyed and thereafter, remembered. But for that to happen you need an author who understands that the crime is not the only thing and that for any of it to impact beyond the Continue Reading
  • Tiny ton of TV and movie trailers 10/26: Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew, 12 12 12, Minimum Wage + The Child
    (via Shutterstock) The tsunami of viewing possibilities continues, and while all this endless choice used to alarm and unnerve me because how could I possibility get to it all, now I see it as a TBW (To Be Watched) menu of possibility that’s exciting because who knows what I’ll watch Continue Reading
  • New releases October book review: People Skills by Nina Kenwood
    (courtesy Text Publishing) In a world full of hatred, bigotry, violent attacks and simmering intimidation, and that’s on the good days, having somewhere to escape to that also feels like it might just exist in the real world too is an incalculable joy. While romcoms get a lot of stick Continue Reading
  • Christmas movie preview: The Christmas Switch, A Dog’s Perfect Christmas, Guarding Stars + In a Holidaze
    (via Shutterstock) These trailers may be previews of Christmas Still to Come but the year is racing by and soon and very soon they will part of Christmas present. I am especially thrilled to have a new Nordic festive film to watch and while lay on the saccharine sweetness, I Continue Reading
  • Catch-up movie review: Avatar: Fire and Ash aka Avatar 3
    (courtesy IMP Awards) Reviewing a major Hollywood release almost a year after its initial release might seem like an oddly delayed thing to do in our hyper immediate world where the zeitgeist is super focused on something one day and curiously uninterested the next. Truth be told, the delay in Continue Reading
  • Christmas preview: Bob’s Burgers and the biggest holiday snow fort of all time
    (courtesy IMDb (c) 20th Television) SNAPSHOTIn “On the Fort Day of Christmas”, a record-breaking Christmas snowstorm means one thing to the Belcher kids — a record-breaking Christmas snow fort. (courtesy Animation Magazine) I fear with Bob’s Burgers that the TV horse has bolted. For me, at least. Kicking off in Continue Reading
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