From the first glorious moments of The Penguins of Madagascar, where we hear Werner Herzog, famed quirky German documentary maker effectively satirising himself as he narrates a documentary about the “chubby little bum-bums” penguins parading before him, it becomes patently and hilariously obvious that this movie will be a thing Continue Reading
Could Will Forte be The Last Man on Earth?
We’ve all done it at one time or another – pictured what it would be like to be the last people alive on earth, freed from the cold, dead hand of work and stultifying routine, left alone to sleep, read, eat, wander, the world ours, and ours alone, for Continue Reading
Book review: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
“The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it, no paper notices on downtown posts and billboards, no mentions or advertisements in local newspapers. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not.” So begins the only novel that has ever made me to want to run off and join the Continue Reading
Groot, Hodor and Chewbacca walk into a cantina … (LEGO short)
It ain’t easy being a sidekick. All of the work, very little of the glory and usually none of the romance or the glamour. How much worse is it then if you’re also, to everyone else’s ears at least, hopelessly mis-understandable, perpetually misinterpreted and yes always denied snacks or Continue Reading
Movie review: The Imitation Game
Being an outsider is never an easy thing. While there is often much you gain from observing from the sidelines, from not being subject to the usual whims, pressures and foibles of the so-called “in crowd” such as a keen appreciation for the multitudinous quirks of of human nature and Continue Reading
“Like a memory I didn’t know I had”: The Hanna Barbardians of the Galaxy
Ah the gods of pop culture creativity have smiled upon us once again! Just when you thought Guardians of the Galaxy couldn’t possibly get any bigger or more impressively cool, along comes Michigan-based artist Jay P. Fosgitt to render Starlord (Christ Pratt), Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Drax the Destroyer (Dave Continue Reading
The new world’s gonna need Rick Grimes: Walking Dead mid-season 5 teaser poster
Way back at the end of November 2014 when The Walking Dead departed our screens for a leisurely two month mid-season break from the televised apocalypse, Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and his band of beleaguered followers were wondering quite why it was they were continuing to put one foot Continue Reading
Movie review: The Water Diviner
War, or more specifically, the Great War of 1914-1918 has cost Mallee farmer Joshua Connor (Russell Crowe) a great deal. In the space of one gruelling, horrifyingly bloody war at Gallipoli in 1915, at which the enduring ANZAC legend was born, he loses all three sons to enemy Turkish Continue Reading
Dinosaurs in Pawnee! The hilarious mash-up of Jurassic World and Parks and Recreation
There’s no denying that Chris Pratt’s star is in the ascendancy. After many years of playing loveable goofball Andy on Parks and Recreation, and adding his own piece of just-played-right comic genius to what is in anyone’s books a shining ensemble cast, he’s now finding increasing success in Hollywood, Continue Reading
Movie review: Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
“And did you get what you wanted from this life, even so? I did. And what did you want? To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth.” (Raymond Carver, A New Path to the Waterfall) It is a rare thing indeed in this shout-everything-from-the-rooftop age that Continue Reading