For a kid who dutifully played by the rules the entire time I was growing up (eldest child; say no more), I sure had a love for cartoons where people or bears or squid or rabbits – or insert creature of your choosing – flouted the regulations with gleeful, mischievous Continue Reading
Songs, songs and more songs #7: Hot Chip, Silver Sphere, GIRLI, AU/RA, Alison Wonderland
Life can be wonderful; it can also be intensely, deeply, emotionally-eviscerating. (More the latter than the former, much of the time, alas.) How do you cope with all those ups and, soul-crushing, downs? Well, if you’re these artists, you pour your heart and soul into talking about it, set it Continue Reading
Here at Schmoopy Doop last! Rick and Morty announces season 4 premiere date
Two years everyone! Almost two long years! That’s how long it’s been – well, technically one year and seven months but you can’t shout that without sounding ridiculously and embarrassingly over-precise – since we saw new episodes and could grab our Szechuan Sauce and sit back and enjoy the inspired, Continue Reading
Book review: Places in the Darkness by Christopher Brookmyre
Idealism is a powerful thing. Though grim, inevitable reality might suggest that ideals will often die a quick and fiery death of the funeral pyre of exigency or the pragmatic demands of realpolitik, we cling to them anyway, convinced that this time, this time, things will be different. This is Continue Reading
What’s to eat? Lucas the Spider and his friend the fly find out in “I’m Starving”
SNAPSHOT After becoming friends with the skittish fly who got caught in his lovingly homemade web, a very happy Lucas the Spider decided that he was hungry. Lucas turned to his new friend to find out what spiders eat. Without betraying personal safety, the fly took the sweet arachnid on Continue Reading
You’re braver than you think: Thoughts on … Bonding
You have to love a show that defies expectations. Bonding is just such a show, and trust me, it is a very easy show to love. Set in the world of BDSM sex, where people pay to have their fetishistic fantasies enacted, Bonding tells the story of long time friends, Continue Reading
The Farewell: When saying goodbye isn’t said at all
SNAPSHOTDirected and written by Lulu Wang, The Farewell follows the story of a Chinese-American woman named Billi, who goes to China after her grandmother, Nai Nai has been diagnosed with a terminal lung cancer. Billi’s family chose to kept the illness from Nai Nai due to a Chinese saying. In Continue Reading
Movie review: Pokémon Detective Pikachu
Is it possible to be adorable, wisecrackingly funny and heartfelt all at once? It is if you’re Pikachu and you are the titular star of your own film in which a great mystery is solved, tables are turned, and estranged connections re-established, all against some fairly-impressive worldbuilding. Pokémon Detective Pikachu, Continue Reading
#Eurovision cultural festival book review: One Night, Markovitch by Ayelet Gundar-Goshen
One of the fascinating things about life is how it can be intensely-intimate and majestically-epic all at once, and how these two extremes, as far apart as the poles of the earth, can be so closely related that one cannot exist without the other, nor keep themselves from influencing what Continue Reading
Road to Eurovision 2019: Week 7 – France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Spain, UK
What is the Eurovision Song Contest? Started way back in 1956 as a way of drawing a fractured Europe back together with the healing power of music, the Eurovision Song Contest, or Concours Eurovision de la Chanson – the contest is telecast in both English and French – is open to Continue Reading