Who doesn’t love to pull back the curtain, The Wizard of Oz-style – well, in that case the Wizard wasn’t a fan which was, fair enough I guess; he had a lot to hide – and see what happens before the glitz and the glamour, or in the case of Continue Reading
Movie review: Ben is Back
Hope is an intensely powerful thing. It persists in the belief that things can, and will be better, even in the face of all evidence to the contrary, when events time and again betray the fact that the thing that is being hoped against has already, regrettably, come to pass. Continue Reading
The sublime in the mundane: Ross Marquand impersonates A-list stars doing everyday things
You could be forgiven for being surprised that Ross Marquand, who plays beleaguered survivor Aaron on AMC’s The Walking Dead (to be fair every single last person on the show is beleaguered), is a man of 1001 celebrity impressions. But he is, and damn good ones at that, and the Continue Reading
Let’s talk about Sex Education baby
Love is, for all its Hallmark-tinged, Valentine’s Day-enabled, rose-tinted loveliness, a very messy business in the real world. Just how messy becomes clear in Netflix’s new eight-part show Sex Education in which the students at a British private school, Moreland, as typical a hotbed of hormones and unbridled lust as Continue Reading
Weekend pop art: Artists draw their greatest fears, inspired by Bird Box
It was Franklin D. Roosevelt who, in his first inaugural speech in 1933, famously said, “the only thing we have to fear is…fear itself.” And while that may well be true, the fact is there are a great many other things to fear as Netflix’s recent hit film, Bird Box, Continue Reading
Movie review: Aquaman
(image via IMP Awards) Being a superhero is a pretty serious undertaking. You are, after all, usually the one responsible for not only stopping the bad guy/gal/weird mutant person with delusions of grandeur from ending the world in some of over-complicated and avowedly-cataclysmic fashion, but also coping with a host Continue Reading
Toy Story 4: Little Bo Peep has found her … poster and teaser trailer
SNAPSHOTBo Peep is back! This long-lost friend of Woody, Buzz and the gang always shared a special connection with Woody, but they have not seen each other in years, and Bo has become chipped and faded over time. Bo’s strength and sarcasm always belied her delicate porcelain exterior, and it Continue Reading
Star Trek Discovery: “New Eden” (S2, E2 review)
SPOILERS AHEAD … AND WEIRD SIGNALS AND ALTRUISTIC ALIENS (AND AMISH BUTTER?) No matter how imaginatively-captivating it may be, a premise is only ever as good as its execution. Nowhere is this more evident, this week at least, than with episode two of Star Trek Discovery‘s sophomore season which was a Continue Reading
Mash-up mania: Men in Black meets up with The Blues Brothers
Has it ever occurred to you to mash up Men in Black and The Blues Brothers? No? Me neither. But it did, pop culture gods be praised, occur to French filmmaker Fabrice Mathieu who has quite the inventive track record of coming up with mash-up videos that make merry with Continue Reading
Book review: The Friend by Sigrid Nunez
There are many predictable, known things in this life but grief, alas, is not one of them. The form it takes is as individual as the person grappling with it, a contrary beast that demands different things of different people, and which is never, ever left behind, though its impact Continue Reading