Who doesn’t love a sequel? Hollywood adores them. Book publishers are having them written by living authors for books by dead authors. And even artists like Mary J Blige are doing album Part 2s. It’s all in the rage, and not wanting to miss the sequel boat – which looks Continue Reading
It’s raining cat and dog memoirs
It started way back in 1933 when Virginia Wolf published Flush, a cleverly written biography about Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s dog which told his story from abandoned stray to much loved pet. Then fast forward to 2005 when Marley and Me, by John Grogan, was released, telling the story of one Continue Reading
"Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" (Review)
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is grief writ large, and yet also taken down to it’s most raw and intimate. And you don’t get much more raw and intimate than the 11 year old boy at the centre of the absorbing drama, Oskar Schell (Thomas Horn), who loses his much Continue Reading
How quickly the pop culture loving masses forget… or do they?
Santigold, an innovative alternative music artist who shot to prominence in 2008 with her self-titled debut album (under her then moniker of Santogold), has a new single out, “Big Mouth”. It’s a funky, fresh slab of crackling alterna-pop. Almost simultaneously, Sam Sparro, who enjoyed massive success with his second single, Continue Reading
First Impressions: "Happy Endings"
I had heard a lot about this show. It was supposed to be a Friends-rip off that started slowly and unevenly, stumbling its way forward, in constant danger of being cancelled. That it only picked up mid way through the first season where it finally found it’s feet, was ordered Continue Reading
First impressions: "Alcatraz"
Alcatraz could well be the most perfect conspiracy show to come along in years. It has, as you’d expect in a show like this, dark overtones of paranoia and mistrust, and yet it remains in full possession of its humanity at the same time. That it does so is largely due Continue Reading
"Le Voyage Dans la Lune" – Air
The atmospheric spacey melodies of Air, a French outfit known for their ethereal electronica, are back in (admittedly delicate) force on his album which is the soundtrack for the re-issued 110 year old George Melies movie, Le Voyage Dans la Lune. A colour version of the film is about to Continue Reading
Review: "The Artist"
The Artist is one of the best movies I think I have ever seen. Granted, that is always a risky thing to say since I will no sooner declare that and another immensely creative, well-acted, beautifully shot and realised movie will come along and I will be in love all Continue Reading
Lindsey Stirling: never have violins been this much fun!
I hate to admit this but I have always found bouncy upbeat tunes featuring violins a bit twee. Perhaps it was the Switched On Classics of my youth. Perhaps I was attacked by a pack of poorly played violins as a child. Who knows? I can’t be certain what caused Continue Reading
First impressions: "Suburgatory"
There is hell, and then, as this show posits, there is Suburgatory. It is a name so perfectly apt, I desperately wish I had come up with myself. Along with the overly-manicured setting, Stepford Wives-like personalities, and the preternaturally clever teens who trade sophisticated witty lines like they imbibed dictionaries, Continue Reading