SNAPSHOT It is 1944 and World War II is reaching its climax. The Allies are poised to invade France and finally defeat the German army. But in Walmington-on-Sea morale amongst the Home Guard is low. Their new mission then – to patrol the Dover army base – is a Continue Reading
Now this is music #53: HANA, franskild, NEKOKAT, Alice on the Roof, Ben Browning
Life is full of all kinds of twists and turns, contradictory highs and lows, shades of light and darkest night. It can be a lot to take in and deal with sometimes but it helps when you have artists like the following five acts to help you out. All Continue Reading
Book review: A Robot in the Garden by Deborah Install
Like cat videos and the word “Like”, memes, the perfect joining together of picture and word, find their natural home on the internet. One in particular, “I Can’t Adult Today. Please Don’t Make me Adult”, is especially popular with grown-ups everywhere, an exquisite summation of the exhaustion that comes Continue Reading
Falling Skies: “Respite” (S5, E6 review)
*SPOILERS AND OLD MACDONALD’S ESPHENI-FREE FARM AHEAD* There was an air of the Britney Spears about Falling Skies this week. And no, I don’t mean the entire 2nd Mass. dressed up in schoolgirl outfits and sashayed with pouts big enough to swallow an entire football team past rows Continue Reading
Small screen specials: My 5 favourite TV sitcom characters
I am pretty sure that someone somewhere, most likely my mother, or Big Bird, said with grave solemnity that you should never ever play favourites. Something to do with feelings getting hurt, people getting marginalised, and people starving over in Ethiopia (wait, no, that last one was for something Continue Reading
The Story of Kullervo: The epic J.R.R. Tolkien story that started it all finally gets published
SNAPSHOT Brought up in the homestead of the dark magician Untamo, who killed his father, kidnapped his mother, and who tries three times to kill him when still a boy, Kullervo is alone save for the love of his twin sister, Wanona, and guarded by the magical powers of Continue Reading
Rockin’ and a-rollin’ with Ricki and the Flash (poster + trailer)
SNAPSHOT Three-time Academy Award® winner Meryl Streep goes electric and takes on a whole new gig – a hard-rocking singer/guitarist – for Oscar®-winning director Jonathan Demme and Academy Award®-winning screenwriter Diablo Cody in the uplifting comedy Ricki and the Flash. In a film loaded with music and live performance, Continue Reading
Book review: The Guest Cat by Takashi Hiraide
Human beings are a famously contradictory lot. While our thirst for knowledge, for the new and the boldly imaginative has defined us as a species for thousands of years, we also creatures of habit, keen embracers of certainty and reassuring routine. That oddly-oppositional coming together of restless, driving curiosity and potentially stultifying Continue Reading
Talk to me! The New Mr. Peabody and Sherman Show interviews history (all of it)
Isn’t it a wonderful thing when treasured characters from your childhood spring forth back into the zeitgeist, looking and acting pretty much as you knew them with a few judiciously-executed, simpatico modern flourishes? Indeed it is, and much rejoicing is had. Such a welcome, and alas rare occurrence is Continue Reading
How about You, Me & the Apocalypse baby? (trailer)
Forget the vampires (The Strain), the zombies (The Walking Dead, Fear the Walking Dead and Z Nation), aliens (Falling Skies and Defiance) and nuclear armageddon (Jericho). What we really should be worrying about, say the producers of new TV comedy/drama You, Me & the Apocalypse are great big fiery comets crashing Continue Reading