When you pick up a book and the back cover blurb happily proclaims that J. Ryan Stradal’s novel is “joyous, quirky and heartwarming”, you fully expect it to be all those things. After all, a blurb writer at a publishing company wouldn’t just make that sort of stuff up Continue Reading
Enough to start a war: Neil Gaiman’s arresting poem Hate For Sale in powerfully animated form
Neil Gaiman is an imaginative, thoughtful, powerfully-talented writer with a seemingly endless capacity to take what many of us are thinking and put it into cogent, poetically-articulate form. So when you marry up his powerful poem Hate For Sale, on the seductive (though destructive) power of hatred, with the Continue Reading
Welcome to the Jungle? Jumanji reboot does its best to entertain
SNAPSHOT In a brand new Jumanji adventure, the tables are turned as four teenagers are sucked into Jumanji’s world – pitted against rhinos, black mambas and an endless variety of jungle traps and puzzles. To survive, they’ll play as characters from the game: meek Spencer becomes a brave explorer Continue Reading
Rick and Morty season 3 has a release date! No, really …
Rejoice and be glad lovers of inter-dimensional travel and those who practise it, for we have a release date for Rick and Morty season 3! It has been a long time coming and frankly some of us doubted it would ever come to pass but on July 30 at Continue Reading
The short and the short of it: Clanker and the orchestrated background reality of life
SNAPSHOT Reality doesn’t happen by itself. Terry Lothian works tirelessly to maintain the background details that we all take for granted. But with his department feeling the pinch of austerity cutbacks, it’s not just the fabric of reality that’s starting to unravel. (synopsis via Laughing Squid) Life moves along Continue Reading
Turtles All the Way Down: John Green has a new book a-coming!
SNAPSHOT Though the title might suggest a focus on the hard-shelled animals, publisher Dutton Books, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers, says the novel “begins with a fugitive billionaire and a cash reward. It is about lifelong friendship, the intimacy of an unexpected reunion, Star Wars fan fiction, and Continue Reading
Movie review: Monsieur Chocolat
Biopics are, in many ways, as reviled as they are loved. Done well, with inventiveness and a willingness to showcase creatively some core period in that person’s life that speaks best to who they were throughout, biopics are an illumination, a artistic snapshot grants compelling insight to figures often Continue Reading
Raise your marmalade sandwiches high: Farewell Michael Bond, creator of Paddington #RIP
Back on one warm Friday morning in late 2014, I walked into a darkened cinema in Sydney, beyond eager (but also a little trepidatious) to watch Paddington, the big screen adaptation of Michael Bond’s much-loved bear. I needn’t have worried because the people who brought this film to life, Continue Reading
Comic book review: Animal Noir (issues 1-4)
It is oft said that you should never discuss politics, religion or social issues. As truisms go, this is one that still carries a great deal of cautionary weight, especially in today’s world where people have retreated to hermetically-sealed belief towers into which no other line of thought should Continue Reading
A fascinating journey: Adam Driver talks about finding his true vocation as an actor
SNAPSHOT Before he fought in the galactic battles of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Adam Driver was a United States Marine with 1/1 Weapons Company. He tells the story of how and why he became a Marine, the complex transition from soldier to civilian — and Arts in the Continue Reading