(courtesy IMP Awards) SNAPSHOT“Academy Award winner Brad Bird, the visionary director of The Incredibles, Ratatouille, and The Iron Giant, brings you a whole new world to investigate…” Set within Metropia, a gigantic city in an alternate future as seen from 1939, private eye Raymond Gunn is drawn into a case Continue Reading
Comics review: All Hands on Deck by Will Henry (Wallace the Brave collection #6)
(courtesy Simon & Schuster Australia) For years, I thought that no other comic strip could ever come close to the dizzying heights of Peanuts and Calvin and Hobbes, two wildly imaginative, clever, emotionally insightful, heartfelt and beautifully drawn strips which reflected the pinnacle of what this artform can be. And Continue Reading
Andrew’s birthday month book review: As We Fall Through Time by Claire North
(courtesy Hachette Australia) Love stories, the really big, epic, sweeping, grand and all-heart consuming ones, are by their very nature things of immense scope and emotion. How can they not be? They are stories of people finding themselves in another person, finding home and an unassailable sense of place, and Continue Reading
Have you made good use of your whiskers? First full trailer for Pixar’s Gatto asks us all the big feline questions
(courtesy First Showing) SNAPSHOTIn Gatto, after years of maneuvering the canal-ridden, superstitious city of Venice, Italy, Nero (voiced by Mark Ruffalo) begins to question whether he’s lived the right lives. Indebted to Rocco (voiced by Laurence Fishburne), the local feline mobster boss, Nero finds himself in a quandary and is Continue Reading
Festive the short and the short of it review: Make the holidays magic with The Invisible Horse
(courtesy Disney+) SNAPSHOTJust when Jack begins to think he’s too old for Christmas, he ends up befriending an invisible creature that reminds him of what makes Christmas so magical. The short follows Jack and his unlikely companion on a journey to rediscover the magic of the holidays. [Disney synopsis] The Continue Reading
Still on thin ice: Thoughts on North of North S2
(courtesy Netflix) Figuring who you really are, and what you actually want out of life, is no easy thing. Oh, we are promised it is; 21st century self-help/wellness orthodoxy tomes and TV programs and speakers sell self actualisation like it’s as easy as walking into a supermarket and buy a Continue Reading
Graphic novel review: Ember and the Grand Metamorphosis (Ember 2) by Jason Pamment
(courtesy Allen & Unwin) There is a sublime and deeply reassuring joy in listening to your inner child and reading some of the sorts of luminously lovely but groundedly honest stories that made reading when you were a kid such an endlessly rewarding pleasure. That’s why I don’t even remotely Continue Reading
Andrew’s birthday month book review: The Sunflower Boys by Sam Wachman
(courtesy Harper Collins Publishers) We all know how powerful storytelling can be. But it’s storytelling that shines an often uncomfortable spotlight on real world events that really has the capacity to hit home, and hit home hard. Case in point is The Sunflower Boys by Sam Wachman which takes you Continue Reading
30th anniversary movie review: Muppet Treasure Island #AndyBirthdayMonth
(courtesy IMP Awards) Those fond of the idiom there being nothing certain in life but death and taxes have clearly never sat down to watch a Muppet movie in its 30th anniversary year to discover it is just as fresh, sweet and funny as it was when you first saw Continue Reading
Andrew’s birthday month book review: As You Wake, Break the Shell by Becky Chambers
(courtesy Hachette Australia) One of the great gifts of sci-fi as a genre, and it has many, is its ability to take big existential issues and frame them in ways that makes them approachable, dealable and maybe even solvable. Life is a lot, we all know that, but thinking about Continue Reading