SNAPSHOT For their eighth fully animated feature, Illumination and Universal Pictures present “The Grinch,” based on Dr. Seuss’ beloved holiday classic. The Grinch tells the story of a cynical grump who goes on a mission to steal Christmas, only to have his heart changed by a young girl’s generous Continue Reading
Christmas 2018
Let your heart be light: It’s beginning to look like A Legendary Christmas
Christmas makes me happy. Very happy. And Christmas music makes me even happier. There is something ineffably beautiful and wondrous about it that makes me feel like absolutely everything is going to be OK; it may not be, but oh, it feels that way and that’s enough for me. Continue Reading
HO! HO! HO! Action … The Christmas Chronicles and Anna and the Apocalypse (new trailers)
There’s no such thing as too many Christmas movies! You have to trust me on this; I have watched hundreds of the eggnog-soaked things and I am perfectly fine and do not dream of Christmas all year long, itching to decorate the tree, eat chocolate-covered sultanas and buy and Continue Reading
Christmas in July #5: I took joy in Mutts A Shtinky Little Christmas by Patrick McDonnell
Mutts, a delightfully retro, self-aware comic strip by Patrick McDonnell is not your usual humourous newspaper diversion. First published in 1994, and described by the immortally-great Charles M. Schulz (Peanuts) as “one of the best comic strips of all time”, Mutts has always had a keenly-felt beating heart at the Continue Reading
Christmas in July #4: Home alone feeling scrooged? These Christmas movies deserve some love, actually (curated)
Ari Mattes, University of Notre Dame Australia The cultural environment in which we watch a film inevitably shapes our response to it. Engaging with the Yuletide ecology by watching Christmas films offers a genuine cinephilic pleasure, be it kitsch, ironic, or sincere. The following taxonomy is by no Continue Reading
Christmas in July #3: Watched The Flying Nun’s “Wailing in a Winter Wonderland”
One of the great delights of The Flying Nun (1967-1970) was, and shall always be, how wonderfully sweet Sister Bertille (played by Gidget herself, the incomparable Sally Field) is in just about every scene. I know that kind of naively-enthusiastic caring character is not really in vogue anymore; people like Continue Reading
Christmas in July #2: I read A Sesame Street Christmas by Pat Tornborg
If you’re a big kid at heart, and honestly where is the fun in not being one, then you’ll adore the idea of immersing in the loveliness and bonhomie of A Sesame Street Christmas. First published in by Golden Books in 1982 with a delightful story of the Muppets Continue Reading
Christmas in July #1: Book review of Twelve Nights by Andrew Zurcher
There is something deliciously wonderful about subsuming yourself in any book that takes places at Christmas, even if like Andrew Zurcher’s debut novel, Twelve Nights, it is more situational than thematic. There might be little that is innately festive in Zurcher’s lustrously-novel but that is in fact it’s greatest Continue Reading
You’re a curmudgeonly one Mr Grinch? (poster + trailer)
SNAPSHOT For their eighth fully animated feature, Illumination and Universal Pictures present The Grinch, based on Dr. Seuss’ beloved holiday classic. The Grinch tells the story of a cynical grump who goes on a mission to steal Christmas, only to have his heart changed by a young girl’s generous Continue Reading