For many TV or streaming viewers, seeing the finished show is enough; there’s no need to peek behind the curtain and see what led to their fully-formed, and hopefully, entertaining creation. But there are those of us, and I count myself among them, who like to find out what was Continue Reading
Star Trek Discovery: “Such Sweet Sorrow Part 2” (S2, E14 review)
SPOILERS AHEAD … AND A WHOLE WORLD OF EPIC PAIN AND INSPIRATION … Hang onto your hats, people, for in the finale of Star Trek: Discovery season 2, we are going into sentience-saving battle! That much we knew after last week’s brilliantly-told first instalment of the two-part finale but watching Continue Reading
Not quite Disney princesses but Mickey Mouse and the Simpsons now have a lot more in common
Nothing says warm and family-friendly like The Simpsons right? They’re practically neighbours to all that is pure and wholesome, and well, Disney-esque; OK possibly not, but with Disney’s acquisition of 21st Century Fox done and dusted, with Tinkerbell’s glitter dust naturally, they do now share the same owner as Buzz Continue Reading
Easter festival #2: Yogi the Easter Bear
Yogi Bear, as we all know thanks to his constant recitation of the self-ascribed fact, is “smarter than the average bear.” But Yogi, who first made his appearance as an extra on The Huckleberry Hound Show in 1958, is not always as smart as he claims to be, at least Continue Reading
Easter festival #2: Easter Parade
Love has a great many homes in popular culture – chart-topping songs, poems, TV dramas and sitcoms, books of all genres; honestly, we could happily go on and on and on, so romantically omnipresent is love wherever you turn. But perhaps its most natural home, and the one in which Continue Reading
Friendship is a trip: Wine Country explores friends, wine and weekends away
SNAPSHOTIn honor of Rebecca’s (Rachel Dratch) 50th birthday, Abby (Amy Poehler) plans a scenic Napa getaway with their best, longtime friends. Workaholic Catherine (Ana Gasteyer), post-op Val (Paula Pell), homebody Jenny (Emily Spivey), and weary mom Naomi (Maya Rudolph) are equally sold on the chance to relax and reconnect. Yet Continue Reading
Are things going to get better? Oscar the Grouch and Stephen Colbert sure hope so …
SNAPSHOTStephen plays the optimist to Oscar the Grouch, author of The Pursuit of Grouchiness, in a catchy new song called “Things Are Going To Get Better (Before They Get Worse)”. (synopsis via Laughing Squid) I don’t think you’d find many people who’d disagree with you if you stood up and Continue Reading
Easter festival #1: It’s the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown
You have to hand it to Linus (Stephen Shea) – in the face of all evidence to the contrary, he continues to believe, and believe with a capital “B”, even when sceptics such as Sally mock him gently, and let’s be fair, not-so-gently. For him Halloween, and the arrival of Continue Reading
Road to Eurovision 2019: Week 4 – Albania, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Croatia, Denmark
What is the Eurovision Song Contest? Started way back in 1956 as a way of drawing a fractured Europe back together with the healing power of music, the Eurovision Song Contest, or Concours Eurovision de la Chanson – the contest is telecast in both English and French – is open to Continue Reading
Book review: The Woman at 1,000 Degrees by Hallgrímur Helgason (translated by Brian FitzGibbon)
One of the most troubling aspects of getting older must be the way you suddenly become invisible to those around you as an actual person who has had a rich and varied life, or really, any kind of life at all. You don’t have to be old yourself to watch Continue Reading