We live in exceedingly weird times. With COVID-19 cutting a swathe of disruption across the globe, the issue for many cinemagoers right now, quite apart from whether you should go to a pplace of public gathering such as a cinema at all, is whether you will actually get to see Continue Reading
Movie review: A Friendly Tale (Le bonheur des uns…) #FFF2020
If a good friend of yours quietly told you that they had written a novel and were excited by this new found burst of creativity and that no less than France’s most famous writer, impressed by their talent, had encouraged them via Facebook to pursue their dream, you would be Continue Reading
Weekend pop art: The anatomically correct fun of “Cartoon Fossils”
You’ve no doubt heard people shopping for a home, or the real estate agents tryiong to sell them one, say that a house has “got good bones”. It’s the ultimate compliment and means that while house may look ill-kempt or unloved, that it’s basically got the makings of sound and Continue Reading
Book review: This Will Only Hurt a Little by Busy Philipps
Celebrity is a curious thing. While the near-omnipresence of a famous person suggests we know them intimately and well, know everything about them in fact, the truth is that we really only know what they and their publicity team choose to reveal. It’s a carefully-constructed facade that, if you dig Continue Reading
Come fly the silent skies … Emily Blunt premieres her super-shhhh new A Quiet Place airline
We’ve all been there. You get on a flight, happy to have a brief friendly nod and inconsequential quick chat with your seatmates before settling into reading a good book as you wing your way to your destination. But it rarely works out that sweetly; noise is everywhere, people are Continue Reading
A terrific trio of TV trailers: The Third Day, Unorthodox, The Undoing
This edition’s trailers tend towards the serious side of the storytelling spectrum and look brilliantly compelling because of it. The series centre on the known and the unknown, offering proof that life moves in mysterious and often troubling ways and figuring out what has gone wrong and if there is Continue Reading
How do spiders stay cool in summer? Lucas the Spider wants to know
SNAPSHOTOh boy, it sure is hot outside! How does a spider keep cool in the summer? (synopsis via Laughing Squid) It’s not technically summer anywhere in our COVID-19 blighted world right now. The Southern Hemisphere has bid the season farewell while the Northern Hemisphere is eagerly looking forward to things Continue Reading
Book review: Desire Lines by Felicity Volk
There is an exquisite beauty and longing to Desire Lines by Felicity Volk which never departs from the idea that life is a chaos of messy entanglements which none of us can ever quite pull apart. That should be obvious but time and again, society, or at least the shouty Continue Reading
Thank you for being a Super Golden Friend: What happens when superheroes retire and move to Miami
SNAPSHOTWhat happens when four superfriends retire and move to Miami to share a ranch style home? This is a pilot I’d like to propose to Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim, if I knew anyone who worked there, and if all the licenses could be obtained. (synopsis via Laughing Squid) It appears Continue Reading
Book review: The Girl Who Could Move Sh*t With Her Mind by Jackson Ford
Rather ironically for an age in which difference has rapidly become villified by far too many people looking for a quick, greasy populist win, pop culture is more obsessed with the Other of all stripes than ever before. The creative arts have often celebrated and held up those who differ Continue Reading