SPOILERS AHEAD … AND KIDS WITHOUT PARENTS … ZOMBIES WITHOUT SOULS AND SOME SECOND-HAND IDEALS LOOKING WORSE FOR WEAR … There’s a great yawning chasm between ideals and execution at the best of times – you know, when there’s running water, bedding and fresh episodes of Grace and Frankie – Continue Reading
Keep off the grass … or you might get Stuck
SNAPSHOTDarby (Heather Matarazzo) finds herself in trouble with the law, and is sentenced to house arrest. Now she must serve 30 days in the home she used to share with her ex-boyfriend Mo (Amir Talai), that he now shares with his new fiancé. Stuck is directed by American actress-turned-filmmaker Jillian Continue Reading
Book review: Postmarked Piper’s Reach by Jodi Cleghorn and Adam Byatt
In his 1953 novel The Go-Between, L. P. Hartley rather sagely observes, and no doubt from a position of much lived, wisdom-gathering experience, that “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” As opening lines go they don’t get much better, not simply because of the poetic Continue Reading
Movie review: Always Be My Maybe
There is a sacred contract between filmmaker and audience member for anyone who goes to see a romantic comedy – they will take you away on a magically romantic carpet ride to a place where “meet cutes” trounce Tinder and obstacles are overcome with a quick trip to the airport Continue Reading
Goodbye to Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Final six episodes (review)
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (UKS) has always been a goofily, quirky show. Almost from the word-go, but certainly as it went on over four seasons and 51 gloriously kooky episodes, one of Netflix’s big sitcom breakouts came to inhabit a televisual body that never shied away from being as hilariously off-the-wall Continue Reading
Pixar’s already gone UP(ward) … now it’s time for Onward
SNAPSHOTSet in a suburban fantasy world, Pixar’s Onward introduces two teenage elf brothers who embark on an extraordinary quest to discover if there is still a little magic left out there. “At Pixar, we try to create stories that come from some kind of personal truth”, said Dan Scanlon (Director). “This film Continue Reading
Book review: Emily Eternal by M. G. Wheaton
If you’re convinced that Terminator‘s Skynet and the dire warnings of Elon Musk are all there is to be the coming AI revolution, then reading M. G. Wheaton’s Emily Eternal may play a pivotal role in changing your mind. Or, at least, easing your fears a little (after stoking them Continue Reading
Baby bye bye bye: Walk on the roses of sadness with an AI-penned Eurovision entry
Were you a cynical person, and honestly where is the fun in all that pooh-poohing and condenscening scornfulness, you might think that all songs entered for The Eurovision Song Contest are cut from the same earnest cloth. They’re not, of course, as this year’s diverse crop of tunes showed only Continue Reading
Waiting for a treat: Cookie Monster is, believe it or not, a self-control expert
SNAPSHOT Cookie Monster joins NPR’s Life Kit Parenting Podcast to talk about practicing self-control, especially when you have to wait for something you really want… like a plate of delicious chocolate chip cookies. (synopsis via Laughing Squid) If you’re lucky, you’re one of those people who can wait and wait Continue Reading
The short and the short of it: The childlike fun of Coin Operated
SNAPSHOTCoin Operated, written and directed by Nicholas Arioli, is an award-winning 5 minute animated short film that spans 70 years in the life of one naive explorer. This film was proudly made by independent artists. (synopsis via YouTube) Hanging onto your childhood dreams and sense of imagination is tough. Tough, Continue Reading