Hester & Harriet look like they’re on track for another bog standard Christmas at The Laurels, the small cottage the two widowed sisters share in a small, reasonably uneventful English village. Invited to cousin George’s home where they will endure his wife Isabelle’s ghastly cooking and their insufferably insolent Continue Reading
7 movie trailers! Fantastic Beasts, Star Trek Beyond, Ice Age Collision, Monster Hunt + more
Yes 7 trailers! 7 gloriously big and small, blockbuster-y, and not, trailers for you to delight in, get excited by and wish the movie was opening tomorrow by. Trailers are the windows to a movie’s soul – well they are if the marketing department behind them is any good and Continue Reading
On 10th day of Christmas … I listened to “It’s a Holiday Soul Party” by Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings
With a rousing 1 … 2 … 3 … 4 … 5 … 6 … 7 … 8!, Sharon Jones and The Dap Kings live up to their self-titled mission to start a Holiday Soul Party. Kicking off with “8 Days of Hannukah” which brings a bluesy chilled vibe Continue Reading
Now this is music #60: MÖWE, Matoma & Frenship, Tirzah, Meg Mac, Nimmo
Who said Christmas had to be all about carols and musical odes to lovers far away? Not that I don’t love that kind of music – the house is reverberating to it over and over again at this the most wonderful time of the year – but you need Continue Reading
On 9th Day of Christmas … I read Klaus #1, first in a series about Santa’s dark origins
SNAPSHOT Set in a dark fantastic past of myth and magic, Klaus tells the story of how Santa Claus really came to be. Where did he begin? What was he like when he was young? Why does he do what he does? How does he do what he does? Continue Reading
Movie Review: Star Wars The Force Awakens
Returning to your childhood, especially when it comes to the movies and TV shows the defined it, can be a fraught activity. There is an excitement certainly, how can there not be, but there’s also a sense that this nostalgic excursion may not be quite the enjoyable embrace with Continue Reading
On 8th day of Christmas … I watched the film The Night Before
Much as we might love our parents and siblings and crazy Aunt Phyllis and her 20 cats, it’s often the families we create throughout our lives of close, trusted friends that come to define our adult lives most profoundly. That’s certainly the case in Jonathan Levine’s The Night Before, Continue Reading
I sense a disturbance in the LEGO, Luke: Final Star Wars trailer gets bricked up
There is nothing in this world that can’t be made better, or at least wonderfully and entertainingly different, by the addition of a LEGO version of its trailer. And this definitely applies to the upcoming Star Wars: The Force Awakens which receives a LEGO-ised version of one of its Continue Reading
On 7th day of Christmas … I re-watched classic Vicar of Dibley ep “The Christmas Lunch Incident”
When you’re in the service of others, as is Vicar Geraldine Granger (Dawn French), the “babe with a bob cut and a magnificent bosom”, saying “No” even extremely nicely, can be a difficult undertaking. After all, your parishioners seeing you as their vicar, regardless of how many of them there Continue Reading
They’re back! Independence Day: Resurgence proves you can’t keep a bad alien race down
SNAPSHOT We always knew they were coming back. After Independence Day redefined the event movie genre, the next epic chapter delivers global spectacle on an unimaginable scale. Using recovered alien technology, the nations of Earth have collaborated on an immense defense program to protect the planet. But nothing can Continue Reading