Does Kristoff have trenchant personal hygiene issues? Is Sven moonlighting on Christmas eve as a sleigh-pulling reindeer hailing a strangely jolly bearded man in red through the sky? And, most importantly because enquiring sentient snowman minds want to know, are the stockings hung by the chimney because they’re wet? Are Continue Reading
Happy 40th birthday The Muppet Movie! (anniversary review)
Who doesn’t want to become rich and famous? Especially if it’s Orson Welles, in a cameo as World Wide Pictures studio boss Lew Lord (a tribute to Sir Lew Grade who co-produced the original Muppet Show), offering it to you? Certainly not one Kermit the Frog who finds himself strumming Continue Reading
On 4th day of Christmas … I listened to Lea Michele’s Christmas in the City
If you really want to set the mood for a Christmas album, then kicking off with “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” is pretty the best way to do it. Which is what Glee alum Lea Michele does on her third studio album, and first Christmas album, Christmas Continue Reading
“I have a boyfriend!” The festive stress of finding love on a timetable in Home For Christmas
Families can be wonderful things. They can be warm, nurturing and safe, a haven from the outside world where people can be more than a little unknowing of your true self and inadvertently cruel as a result. But much as Hallmark and Disney might like to promote the idea that Continue Reading
On 3rd day of Christmas … I watched Klaus
In the well-trodden, Santa-saturated, redemption-obsessed world of the Christmas film, there is very little snow-covered ground that hasn’t already been well and truly sleigh ridden over. Nowhere this is likely more true, besides the story of the baby Jesus himself, than in stories which address the origins and activities of Continue Reading
Book review: The Wailing Woman by Maria Lewis
If you’ve ever had a sneaking suspicion that more goes in this crazy, mixed-up world than meets the naked mortal eye, then has Australian author Maria Lewis got a tale (or five) to tell you. A whole universe of them in fact with the fantasy author on the rise responsible Continue Reading
On 2nd day of Christmas … I read The Twelve Dates of Christmas by Lisa Dickenson
Christmas is supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year. Or so the 1963 evergreen classic by Edward Pola and George Wyle would have us believe, what with “kids jingle belling”, “everyone telling you to be of good cheer” and “caroling out in the snow” (unless you’re in Continue Reading
Movie review: The Addams Family
People, by and large, are not that good with anything that deviates from universally-agreed norms. Quite when this great conformist meeting of very small minds took place is never quite clear, but somewhere at some point, a group of people decided that things should be this way and not that, Continue Reading
On 1st day of Christmas … I decorated my tree wth 10 new pop culture ornaments incl. Forky, Carl & Ellie (Up), Huckleberry Hound, Mary Poppins and Big Bird
You know that old classic Christmas song “O Christmas Tree” which contains the very appreciative line – “How lovely are your branches”? It’s a lovely sentiment, and as a piece of lauding nature, pretty damn exultant, but what it misses, and yet even with all the gushing positivity it misses Continue Reading
Forget phoning home! ET comes back to see Elliott and the result is magical
SNAPSHOTDuring this [year’s] Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, Xfinity dropped an incredibly nostalgic commercial reuniting Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster alien with his former co-star Henry Thomas. It’s a moving commercial, all things considered, mostly due to all the callbacks and the use of John Williams’ iconic score. Die-hard fans will no doubt Continue Reading