When you think about it, sitcoms have to accomplish a huge amount in 20 very short minutes. They have to make us care about characters, develop a cohesive storyline, obviously make us laugh – hence the comedy bit – and somewhere in the midst of all of this activity, Continue Reading
Fear the Walking Dead: “Weak” (S4, 12 review)
SPOILERS AHEAD … AND SOME REASSURING AND CHILLING IDEAS ON WHAT CONSTITUTES STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS We are kings and queens of the fight-or-flight response, and for good reason; back in ye olde prehistoric days, hanging around for a fight you couldn’t win or staying in the path of some Continue Reading
Video essay by Michael Tucker: Black Panther — Creating an Empathetic Villain
Black Panther is hands down one of the best films of the year. (Not just Most Popular OK Oscars, thought it is that, but BEST FILM.) Part of the reason it is so damn watchable, among so, SO many reasons, is that it took the time to not simply Continue Reading
Aubrey Plaza wants A Night With Beverly Luff Linn … and you will too
SNAPSHOT After getting fired by her scheming husband Shane Danger (Emile Hirsch) from his cappuccino shop, dissatisfied Lulu Danger (Aubrey Plaza) is stunned when a TV commercial for “An Evening With Beverly Luff Linn For One Magical Night Only” reveals a mysterious man from her past (Craig Robinson). When Continue Reading
The short and the short of it: Everything can change in an Instant
SNAPSHOT After a desperate criminal takes a bar hostage, six people must face their demons – past and present – in order to survive. But one of them is keeping a big secret that could change everything in an instant. Directed by Alex Albrecht, produced by Roddenberry Entertainment, lead Continue Reading
Book review: Extinctions by Josephine Wilson
Extinctions the 2017 winner of Australia’s Miles Franklin award is an ambitious novel on a lot of levels. In its 280-page length, Josephine Wilson has packed an impressive number of issues, sending the two main characters in the book, ageing academic engineer (obsessed with the use of concrete and Modernist Continue Reading
Garak in high-res? Deep Space Nine doco What We Left Behind offers that tantalising possibility
True to my idiosyncratic form on pretty much everything, my favourite Star Trek show of all Star Trek shows is Deep Space Nine, which ran for seven seasons from 1993 to 1999. A marked departure from the shows up to this point, but not so much afterwards where the Continue Reading
Cyndi Lauper and Seth McFarlane make beautiful Family Guy music together
Talk about a dream come true! Two of my favourite creative people in the world together on the one show, The Graham Norton Show to be exact, combining their talents to gloriously good effect. Taking the songs of the brilliantly-talented and quirkly-lovable Cyndi Lauper at the urging of host Continue Reading
Saturday Morning TV: The Wombles
One of the fascinating aspects of looking back at characters that were a part of your childhood or youth is discovering, often quite profoundly, just how much they mean to you way back when. Of course as an eight-year-old in 1973 I wasn’t sitting in front of the TV Continue Reading
Comics review: Daybreak by Brian Ralph
There is a tendency in apocalyptic literature to go for the frenetic juggler narrative-wise. Given the scenarios usually at play, this is reasonably understandable since we’re generally talking epic fights for survival and not a stroll in the park on Sunday. The problem with going hard and big, a Continue Reading