SNAPSHOT Isle of Dogs tells the story of Atari Kobayashi, 12-year-old ward to corrupt Mayor Kobayashi. When, by Executive Decree, all the canine pets of Megasaki City are exiled to a vast garbage-dump called Trash Island, Atari sets off alone in a miniature Junior-Turbo Prop and flies across the Continue Reading
Movie review: The Incredible Jessica James #ValentinesDay
It was those learned pop philosophers ABBA who once remarked that “Love Isn’t Easy (But It Sure is Hard Enough)”. It’s a fair bet that Jessica James (Jessica Williams, The Daily Show), an aspiring Brooklyn playwright who is without a relationship after dumping seemingly indifferent boyfriend Damon (Lakeith Stanfield), Continue Reading
Risk it all for love? The heatedly romantic decisions of Extinguished #ValentinesDay
Love is a beautiful, wonderful, fabulous thing. But what lengths would you go to make it happen? To go from looks of longing and sweet interest to unrequited love be damned? To stoke those gloriously bright fires of love? In Extinguished, a delightfully retro animated short film from Ashley Anderson Continue Reading
Star Trek Discovery: “Will You Take My Hand” (S1, E15 review)
SPOILERS AHEAD … AND A FRANTIC NARRATIVE WRAP-UP THAT WILL HAVE YOUR HEAD SPINNING LIKE IT’S JUST BEEN CUT OFF BY A BAT’LETH. So if the frenetic, helter-skelter, conveniently tied-up narrative is any guide, and I think it is, then the producers and writers of Star Trek Discovery were Continue Reading
Awww love sweet orbital love: Orbit Ever After
SNAPSHOT Nigel has fallen in love. But when you live in orbit, aboard a ramshackle space hovel with the most risk-averse family imaginable, it isn’t easy to follow your heart – especially when the girl of your dreams is spinning around earth the wrong way! (source: YouTube) As Romeo Continue Reading
Movie review: The Cloverfield Paradox
If there’s one message that comes through loud and clear, over and over, through dystopian storytelling, especially those stories that come with a science-fiction bent, it’s that we venture into space at our peril. Gone are the lofty aspirations of space exploration in the ’60s; they’ve been replaced by Continue Reading
3D Printer Rick? You’d better believe it, Shumshumschilpiddydah!
My oh my but some people are gobsmackingly clever. Take 3D Print Guy who creates plastic figurines of pop culture characters, and animates them, serving up in the process some inventive, world-extending adventures that take much loved animated fixtures to new and fascinatingly interesting places. His latest sparkling effort, Continue Reading
No body lives forever: First impressions of Altered Carbon
We are all fond of fairytales. Oh, I don’t mean those charmingly barbed and dark morality plays that we have Disneynified so they are little more than quaint stories with an appealing message; I ‘m talking about those societal-wide delusions that we all take onboard as we grow up, the Continue Reading
Animated Easter eggs for all! Pixar reveals some Shorts surprises
One of the great joys of going to see a Pixar film, and there are many, are the sweet nuggets of storytelling that proceed them, five-minute animation shorts that manage to introduce characters, make you care about them and tell at utterly immersive story in less time than it Continue Reading
Book review: Happiness for Humans by P. Z. Reizin
As we lurch somewhat uncertainly to the end of the second decade of the 21st century, fearfully drunk on the spectre of apocalyptic everything, it would be easy to see civilisation-ending reds under every bed, to co-opt some old Cold War anti-communist lingo. To some extent Happiness for Humans Continue Reading