(courtesy IMP Awards) Give a genre enough time in the pop culture sun and it will inevitably find itself weighed down with tropes and cliches in abundance which it is expected will be presented and accounted in every story that falls within its grasp. You can’t escape it – as Continue Reading
Eight dates … eight moments … eight chances to fall in love … Two Years Later drops trailer
(courtesy First Showing) SNAPSHOTWhen their work commute is interrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic shutdowns, Emily and Ryan (starring Phoebe Tonkin & Brenton Thwaites) reunite two years later after a series of brief flirtatious interactions. Ryan proposes an idea – to go on a series of eight dates to decide if Continue Reading
Latest releases May book review: Side Character Energy by Olivia Tolich
(courtesy Text Publishing) Have you ever been rolling along in life, thinking everything is okay and then woken up one day to realise you’re actually a bit player in your own life? In other words, if there were awards for your life, and why the hell shouldn’t there be, you’d Continue Reading
Movie review: Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu
(courtesy IMP Awards) You have to feel a certain amount of sympathy for anyone connected to a major franchise who is trying to steer it through the viciously opinionated waters of today’s digital age. Everyone seems to have an idea about what should, and even more emphatically what shouldn’t happen Continue Reading
Latest releases May book review: Henry Goes Bush by Wayne Marshall
(courtesy Pan Macmillan Australia) There are certain figures who are so intrinsic to a country’s modern identity that you automatically assume you know everything is about them. But as a fantastically imaginative and thoroughly clever new novel, Henry Goes Bush by Wayen Marshall, makes clear, that’s not always so. The Continue Reading
Sometimes the universe leaves you a message: Voicemails for Isabelle trailer
(courtesy IMP Awards) SNAPSHOTVoicemails for Isabelle charts an unexpected romance between Jill (Zoey Deutch) & Wes (Nick Robinson). After her sister Isabelle (Ciara Bravo) dies, Jill copes by continuing to leave her new voicemails. About everything from her boss Chef Bastien’s (Nick Offerman) insufferable antics to how heartbroken she is Continue Reading
The short and the short of it: motherhood in the spotlight in Pixar artist’s Mother’s Nature
(courtesy First Showing (c) Pixar) SNAPSHOTMother’s Nature is a series of vignettes with a playful twist on what it means to be a mom, whether you’re a turtle, parrot or anything in between. Directed by Valerie LaPointe and Produced by Claire Munzer and Paige Johnstone. (courtesy YouTube (c) Pixar) This Continue Reading
Book review: Yeah the Boys by Holden Sheppard
Figuring out who you are is one of the most monumental, and yes, challenging parts of growing up. It’s messy, it’s three steps back to one step forward, or at least it feels that way, and it rarely makes as much sense as we want it to; but if that’s Continue Reading
Movie review: Amrum
(courtesy IMDb) Coming to a crossroads, especially an unexpected one, where you have to deal with the fact that something you believed in is no longer worth supporting or is not even remotely what you once believed it to be, is always a jarringly existential moment. It can absolutely knock Continue Reading
A world of magic awaits … Wildwood drops a sumptuously evocative first teaser trailer
(courtesy YouTube (c) LAIKA Studios) SNAPSHOTStep inside Laika’s Wildwood, where a powerful golden eagle commands the skies and magic takes flight. Wildwood – based on Colin Meloy’s illustrated book series – will see Prue McKeel leave behind her home of Portland, Oregon, venturing into Wildwood on a dark quest to Continue Reading