SNAPSHOT Despite his family’s baffling generations-old ban on music, Miguel (voice of newcomer Anthony Gonzalez) dreams of becoming an accomplished musician like his idol, Ernesto de la Cruz (voice of Benjamin Bratt). Desperate to prove his talent, Miguel finds himself in the stunning and colorful Land of the Dead Continue Reading
Movie review: Logan
Watching a Marvel film, with a few notable exceptions such as the playfully off the leash Guardians of the Galaxy, and the mischievously R-rated Deadpool, often feels like being trapped in some sort of real life Groundhog Day. Well made though many of the films are, they tend to feature Continue Reading
The Walking Dead: “Say Yes” & “Bury Me Here” (S7, E12 & E13 review)
*SPOILERS AHEAD … AND FUN FAIR ZOMBIES AND BACKPACKS, OMINOUS DEATHLY BACKPACKS* Given that I’ve already made liberal use of the Dickensian idea of a tale of a two episodes, it seems only fair that I not repeat myself by riffing on the same thing, though goodness knows The Continue Reading
Dance your way from A to Z with Disco Grover!
SNAPSHOT Step aside and let the King show you how it’s done. Grover is the King of ABC Disco and he is going to boogie oogie oogie through all twenty-six letter of the alphabet. Watch him get down! I have long been a fan of the absolutely impressive, endlessly Continue Reading
Book review: All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai
For a concept that has only been successfully realised in fiction (as far as we know; anyone noticed any weird temporal shifts in their timeline lately?), there’s a great deal about time travel that is assumed to be true. For instance, it’s easy enough to ricochet back and forth Continue Reading
A slice of heaven: RIP Murray Ball, cartoonist extraordinaire
One of my fondest childhood memories is lying sprawled on the family room floor with comic books spread out before me, everything from British comics like Cheeky Weekly and Whoopee through to Peanuts, Tumbleweeds and Murray Ball’s Footrot Flats (1975-1994). It’s that last title that has particular resonance for Continue Reading
More comics reinvention: Looney Tunes meets DC Comics
Now that they have (mostly) successfully re-imagined a slew of Hanna-Barbera characters such as Scooby Doo, The Flintstones and Wacky Races, Warner Bros, through their DC Comics imprint, have decided to move on to the goofy cast of Looney Tunes. The idea, according to the press release (below) is Continue Reading
Who Framed Roger Rabbit – The 3 Rules of Living Animation
Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) is an amazing film on so many levels. Made at a time when the digital revolution had yet to make its indelible mark on the art of animation, the Robert Zemeckis-dtrected film, which beautifully combined live action and animation in a story in an Continue Reading
Movie review: Jasper Jones
There is always a fraught element to any book-to-film adaptation – will the movie do its literary antecedent justice? – one made all the more pronounced when the book is as well-loved, and highly-praised as Craig Silvey’s instant Australian classic, Jasper Jones (2009). One way around this wellspring of Continue Reading
The short and the short of it: The psychology of The Narrow World
SNAPSHOT The Narrow World is the story of a gigantic alien that crashes to Earth and takes up residence in Los Angeles. Contrary to expectations, when the alien is neither hostile towards the tiny humans around it, nor communicative in any way, it falls on the populace to decipher Continue Reading