Film, TV & Book Reviews

Finding an audience is by far the hardest thing a film can achieve these days. There is a deluge of content on TV and cinema and breaking through the clutter, ...

Did you know what makes an excellent plant fertilizer? Corpses, apparently. Elmer, an assassin leading a generally mundane life as a gardener, knows all about it. In the Netflix show ...

By Philippa Tracy I was hooked before I opened the book. I read a review in which the writer said that if she owned a book shop, she would, “hand-sell ...

Asterix and Obelix: The Big Fight OK. This is a bit of cheating, as this one premieres on April 30, but I couldn’t help myself! I adore Asterix and Obelix ...

A new series airing on Sigma TV has rightly captured the attention of viewers. Corazón Guerrero, a soap opera of Mexican origin, weaves a compelling narrative of broken families, ...

First impressions matter, which is why you really can’t trust anyone who tells you never to judge a book by its cover (these people will have made a lot ...

When her closest friend gets involved in a series of unfortunate events it leads to her death. Charlie Cale is a casino cocktail waitress with a special gift, where she ...

It is so clearly understood as to be barely worth saying that parenthood changes your life. And yet, every truism needs to be true, and every truth can be profoundly ...

Everyone’s timeline this week has been flooded with a sickening abomination, a twisted evil that was let loose upon the world to devour what was once good and pure. ...

Many may be familiar with the name Exploding Kittens from the popular game. But although I haven’t actually played the game (it just graces the coffee table as a ‘...

People are enamoured with filmmaking. Not just the final product but the whole process behind it. They like their peek behind the curtain. I know this because over the past ...

By Philippa Tracy Gail Baines is the narrator in Anne Tyler’s latest novel Three Days in June. She is 61 and an assistant head teacher at a private girls’ school ...

Single at 40. Now, what? In the case of Vicky, the protagonist of Netflix’s show Envidiosa (Envious) she is fed up with seeing her friends get married before her. Though ...

There’s a moment in Gliff where its narrator, a child named Briar, reflects upon reading a dictionary that ‘there was such a thing as a family of words… all ...

If you have any sort of social media presence, you have been bombarded with comments and posts about the gripping Netflix drama Adolescence, the story of 13-year-old Jamie, a British ...

By Morgan West Adventure in the outback? This is no Crocodile Dundee. But in its own way, Darby and Joan is just as good – especially if you like a twisty ...

I like romantic comedies. I like crime fiction. I like novels that expose the misogyny and gender imbalances that still run through western ‘developed’ societies. And I like anything that ...

Fire up your brain implants, issue commands to your holographic other-self and be prepared to be dropped into a horrific technological dystopia! Black Mirror, the British sci-fi anthology TV series ...

In a sea of streaming options, Cassandra rises above the noise. This German-language thriller on Netflix is an atmospheric blend of sci-fi, horror and family drama that will keep you ...

By Philippa Tracy Love After Love is also the title of a poem by Nobel Prize-winning writer Derek Walcott. It is a poem about recovering from heartbreak and finding happiness ...

How often has this happened to you? You turn on Netflix, hoping for something to watch to pass the time, and you are instantly flooded with suggestions and content you ...

Described as heartbreaking, unsettling and inspired, Netflix’s new limited series Toxic Town is based on a true story of a clutch of children born in England with physical deformities, ...

Another debut novel by a successful poet, and another opportunity to repeat my now truistic standpoint that one really can’t go wrong in turning the opening page by one ...

Björn works for an unappreciative law firm and his clients are equally ungrateful mafia bosses. As his family life goes down the drain, he can either wave it goodbye ...