Defined as a “broad subgenre of Western films that emerged in the mid-1960s in the wake of Sergio Leone’s film-making style and international box-office success”, Spaghetti Westerns are brilliantly, wonderfully over the top. They were a big deal with over 600 Euro-Westerns made between 1960 and 1978 and given their Continue Reading
Movie review: Just Mercy
Every cinematic genre comes with its own hard-and-fast rules, tropes and cliches that are invariably observed by filmmakers simply because as narrative devices go, they work. The trick of course is how much originality to bring to these oft-hallowed elements so your film feels like something fresh and unique even Continue Reading
Is there anyone left saving? Shhh … A Quiet Place Part II asks the big questions
SNAPSHOTFollowing the deadly events at home, the Abbott family must now face the terrors of the outside world as they continue their fight for survival in silence. Forced to venture into the unknown, they quickly realise that the creatures that hunt by sound are not the only threats that lurk Continue Reading
Book review: Love, Unscripted by Owen Nicholls
From the moment we call tell the difference between a long-stemmed red rose and a box of quality chocolates, we have been schooled to view love as a thing of perfect glory. It is, so a certain rather dominant strand of popular culture tells us, a thing of glorious wonder Continue Reading
The short and the short of it: Pushy doughnut demands to be eaten in Plaisir Sucré
SNAPSHOTIn the really amusing animated short “Plaisir Sucre” by MegaComputer Animation, a highly assertive pink frosted doughnut makes its way onto an office desk and challenges Stephane, a hapless worker, to eat him. When the worker refuses, the doughnut becomes more and more aggressive until Stephane is forced out of Continue Reading
Book review: Salvation Lost by Peter F. Hamilton
One of the great and multitudinous gifts of master science fiction storyteller Peter F. Hamilton is how masterfully well he can hold stories separated by time and space together in such a compellingly immersive manner. Time and again, across his Commonwealth saga and sundry other engrossing tales, he has slowly Continue Reading
What kind of Spider is Lucas? Don’t JUMP to conclusions
If you haven’t noticed by now, Lucas the Spider, full to brimming with childlike glee and enthusiasm, is a pretty talented fellow. Created by animator Joshua Slice, and voiced by the artist’s nephew, Lucas can play music, befriend spiders who normally don’t hang out with arachnids, and weaves the most Continue Reading
Have you seen our robot? Thoughts on Lost in Space (season 2)
If you were to be uncharitable, you could be forgiven for wondering why anyone in the 24th Colonist Group to Alpha Centauri lets the Robinsons anywhere near their precious spaceship, the Resolute, in the robust frame of which rests not only the lives of a select group of human refugees Continue Reading
Open up! Update from the Eurovision Song Contest 2020
It might seem like a long wait until the Eurovision Song Contest 2020, which takes place on 12-16 May, but truth be told, it’s just 135 days until the grand final! In a busy month for organisers, the first tranche of tickets went on sale, and surprise, surprise, completely sold Continue Reading
Book review: The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern
Imagination is a necessary ingredient in every work of fiction you read. Whether it’s brilliantly or prosaically exercised, the ability of a writer to take an idea and run with it such that you, as the reader, have no choice but to run right alongside them, is one of the Continue Reading