(courtesy Arthur A. Levine books) If a book has a quirky title, it’s a better than even bet than this reviewer will pick it up, hold it close and not yield it to anyone, save for the person at the bookstore (you know, because paying for things is good, not Continue Reading
Graphic novel review: Astronaut Down by James Patrick and Rubine
(courtesy AFTERSHOCK) Staring down the existential barrel of oblivion as we currently are, thanks to an epidemic, climate change, AI, encroaching fascism and a thousand other malodorous life-ending ailments, we have become well used to storytelling that inhabits a future apocalyptic/dystopian storytelling landscape. Usually these stories operate as a weird Continue Reading
Alone and together: Thoughts on Only Murders in the Building S3, E4-7
(courtesy IMP Awards) One thing that has demarcated this season of Only Murders in the Building from the two that preceded it is how much time our beloved three investigating podcasters have spent apart. In the first three episodes this seemed like a minor but irritating misjudgement, as if the Continue Reading
Movie review: A Brighter Tomorrow (Il sol dell’avvenire)
(courtesy IMDb) It’s all too easy to fall into ruts in life. What seems like the perpetuation of something good and rewarding, the sustaining of ritual and performance which has worked for so many years, suddenly becomes a weight around your neck, or more accurately around the necks of those Continue Reading
Streaming special: Everything Now, The Wonderful World of Henry Sugar, Our Flag Means Death S2, Lessons in Chemistry + Frasier
(via Shutterstock) Gird your loins people because the tsunami of streaming content continues to race towards us at great speed. Getting through it all is likely next-to-near impossible, but while that may be true, this reviewer is going to be giving these five shows a red-hot go because they all Continue Reading
Book review: Viewer Discretion Advised by Angus Stevens
(courtesy Shawline Publishing Group) For something so hyped and lauded and revered, life certainly fails to deliver much of the time on its great promise. We all enter it expecting the absolute best and on an epic scale that defies imagination and hands over the keys to all the good Continue Reading
“They’re coming to get me.” Humanity fights for its existence against future AI in final trailer for The Creator
(courtesy IMP Awards) SNAPSHOT“This is a fight for our very existence.” Amid a future sci-fi war between the human race and the forces of artificial intelligence, Joshua, a hardened ex-special forces agent grieving the disappearance of his wife, is recruited to hunt down and kill the Creator, the elusive architect Continue Reading
Christmas preview book review: The Gingerbread House at Mistletoe Gardens by Jaimie Admans
(courtesy Rakuten Kobo) By their very nature, books set around Christmas are supposed to be extra specially magical and joyful, a sizeable step away from the grim sheen of reality, festooned with sparkling lights, awash in mulled wine and festive-coloured candy with the air filled with the expressively happy tones Continue Reading
The short and the short of it: The playfully meaningful animation of Train Project
(courtesy Homework Radio (c) Luhan Wang) What a magical world is woven in the few all-too-short minutes of Train Project, the thesis film submitted by Luhan Wang for Sheridan College Bachelor of Animation 2022. Vivaciously colourful and exhibiting near-instant but fulsome worldbuilding, this gem of an animated short film gives Continue Reading
Book review: The Librarianist by Patrick deWitt
(courtesy Bloomsbury Publishing) Is it ever too late to turn your life around? All too often we think it is, figuring far too much water has flowed under the bridge and we haven’t got a hope of diverting it or purifying it and that who we are now is whom Continue Reading