Ah space, the final vacation frontier. Who wouldn’t want to get away to all those wide open spaces, those endless starlit nights, those plants teeming with fun and adventure. (For the purposes of this giddily happy intergalactic holiday post, let’s pretend that things like Alien xenomorphs and Imperial Stromtroopers aren’t Continue Reading
Re-heating the popcorn: The 10 movies I loved most in 2015
I really should live in a cinema. One also equipped with wall-to-wall bookcases, a Sonos sound system and a TV that broadcasts cable, free-to-air and streaming services, but a cinema nonetheless. Not because of my ever-growing popcorn and choc top addiction – this is probably not the place to discuss Continue Reading
Merry pop culture Christmas to all … and to all a good movie-watching, TV-bingeing, music-listening, book-reading night
It’s Christmas time again and that means, as you well know, that it’s some time for festive pop culture fun. Actually, pop culture fun is a year round things and I’d like to take this opportunity to thank you for sticking around and reading the many posts hat have Continue Reading
Love Actually and the touching deleted scenes that never made it into the film
Love, Actually is deservedly one of those films that makes an appearance every Christmas come what may. Featuring eight interwoven couples whose own stories come with humour and special poignant meaning, the festive rom-com by Richard Curtis, is a touching reminder that everyone has a story, and that what Continue Reading
Movie review: Suffragette
Humanity, by and large, has a very short memory. In no time at all, rights won with blood, sweat and tears, and a wilful and necessary disregard of the established order, are seen as near ubiquitous and entirely natural. While that is good in one sense, and reflects how Continue Reading
On 12th day of Christmas … I hung 5 pop culture ornaments on my tree
It will not surprise you to learn that I am a pop culture addict. It’s most obviously evident in this blog, but my great love for TV and movies, (and of course books and music) and the characters that inhabit them makes its presence felt in all sorts of Continue Reading
Movie review: Joy
Next to Christianity and Manifest Destiny, the other great religion of the United States has always been the American Dream, the idea that anyone from any background can come to America and make it big. It’s empowered generations of newly-arrived migrants, and even people who have been in the Continue Reading
On 11th day of Christmas … I read Hester & Harriet by Hilary Spiers
Hester & Harriet look like they’re on track for another bog standard Christmas at The Laurels, the small cottage the two widowed sisters share in a small, reasonably uneventful English village. Invited to cousin George’s home where they will endure his wife Isabelle’s ghastly cooking and their insufferably insolent Continue Reading
7 movie trailers! Fantastic Beasts, Star Trek Beyond, Ice Age Collision, Monster Hunt + more
Yes 7 trailers! 7 gloriously big and small, blockbuster-y, and not, trailers for you to delight in, get excited by and wish the movie was opening tomorrow by. Trailers are the windows to a movie’s soul – well they are if the marketing department behind them is any good and Continue Reading
On 10th day of Christmas … I listened to “It’s a Holiday Soul Party” by Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings
With a rousing 1 … 2 … 3 … 4 … 5 … 6 … 7 … 8!, Sharon Jones and The Dap Kings live up to their self-titled mission to start a Holiday Soul Party. Kicking off with “8 Days of Hannukah” which brings a bluesy chilled vibe Continue Reading