*SPOILERS AHEAD … AND COWARDLY MEN WITH KNIVES … AND COWS* It was a case of worlds getting a whole lot bigger in “Knots Untie”. While on the surface a warm and fuzzy wonderful thing to have happen to anyone, in an apocalyptic world where brute survival rules and Continue Reading
Be together. Never the Same: The inspiring message of Android’s new ad
In general, I am not a fan of ads. Even if they are artistic triumphs, and the great ones often are, I’m not especially enamoured of giving air to brands that simply want to sell more product. The exceptions are the Christmas ads from various stores – c’mon it’s Continue Reading
CDs vs. LPs: 1985 news reports takes us back to the technological future
It’s always fascinating to look back at the way items we take for granted today such as the compact disc were viewed when they first came on the market. Like any new invention, there are detractors and advocates but in the case of this Detroit TV news report from Continue Reading
Singing and cracking jokes on Mars? When The Martian is a musical comedy, you bet you can
You have to admit, for sheer comedy value alone, that nothing beats watching someone, say Matt Damon as astronaut Mark Watney, being left alone on an inhospitable planet – guess which one? – and having to battle for survival against terrifyingly destructive odds to make it back home. I Continue Reading
The steampunk wonder of April and Her Extraordinary World (Avril and le monde, truque)
SNAPSHOT The plot of the film is the kind of slightly revisionist history that makes the mind tingle with delight. In this world, based on the world of graphic novelist Jacques Tardi, everything changed when Napoleon Bonaparte was killed before he became a famous world leader. His demise started Continue Reading
Benny Hill meets The Walking Dead? Yes really … and it’s great fun
There’s a better than even chance that the first thing you think of when someone, say like me, says The Walking Dead, is not The Benny Hill Show. And fair enough too – one show is all about trying to avoid either becoming undead chow or grist for sociopathic Continue Reading
Movie review: The Lady in the Van
If you’ve ever been tempted to judge someone based on their appearance or current circumstance, The Lady in the Van is an instructive lesson on the pitfalls of such a judgement approach. Based on the true story of British playwright Alan Bennett’s (Alex Jennings) fractious friendship with van-dwelling homeless woman Continue Reading
The short and the short of it: The deeply-moving bonds of Changing Batteries
What makes life truly worth living are the people who journey through it with us. Sure we might have interests we love to pursue, places we like to be, and TV programs we love to watch but when all is said and done, what makes all those things and Continue Reading
Not easy being green? Kermit and Stephen Colbert ponder life’s big questions
Why are we here? What makes us, us? and why didn’t we didn’t think of inventing the wheels that make puling along suitcases so much easier these days? All very good questions, and all pondered to one degree or another by Stephen Colbert and Kermit in an segment on The Continue Reading
Movie review: How To Be Single
Romantic comedies, in common with just about every genre of movie in existence, loves its tropes. As sure as a spectacularly reunion will follow a hackneyed misunderstanding, rom-coms, as they’re affectionately known (or not so affectionately depending on your point of view) regularly give us the lovelorn soul who Continue Reading