Happy New Year's (+ Favorite posts and other things from 2018)

Happy New Year's everyone!

Like I did last year, I thought it would be fun to list the things I enjoyed from 2018.



                       Favorite posts I enjoyed writing from 2018:

                           The Tag That Must Not Be Named 

   Why Choosing Actors and Actresses to "Play" Your Characters Helps You See Them Better

Wattys and Camp NaNoWrimo July 2018 project: The Mystery of The Body Thief (+ 100th post!)

If My Characters Lived in Modern Times

Spooky Books to Read During Fall

Story Ideas I have floating through my head that I want to write sometime

Different Ways to Talk to Your Characters

  Favorite movies from 2018: 

There are many movies I enjoyed seeing this year and I had many favorites,                                          but here are a few. (I had many many favorite movies from 2018, 

but if I included all of them, it would make the post really really long.) 


                                                       The Incredibles 2 

                                           

(Image from wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incredibles_2#/media/File:The_Incredibles_2.jpg) 

The sequel to the Incredibles was awesome.                                                         



                                                                Labyrinth 

                                

(Image from Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labyrinth_(film)#/media/File:Labyrinth_ver2.jpg) 

              This is the first time I watched the movie in 2018, and I quite enjoyed it, 
            and the songs from it are awesome!
  
                        Fantastic Beasts and Where to find them (2016)

                               

(Image from wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantastic_Beasts_and_Where_to_Find_Them_(film)#/media/File:Fantastic_Beasts_and_Where_to_Find_Them_poster.png)

                 Though this movie was not released in 2018 I watched it for the first time this year
                and enjoyed it. And the beasts in the movie were so cute.


                   The Phantom of the Opera (2004) 

(Image from Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Phantom_of_the_Opera_(2004_film)#/media/File:Poto2.jpg)

This was the first time I saw this movie this year, and I enjoyed watching it. I also enjoyed the costumes, the sets, and the singing.
            You can read my movie review here 


                                                favorite books from 2018:

                                 Frankenstein by Merry Shelley
                                 Beren and Luthien by J.R.R Tolkien
                                 Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux
                                 Matilda's Secret (a Girl For All Time book)
                                 Splendors and Glooms by Laura Amy Schlitz
                                 A Drowned Maiden's Hair by Laura Amy Schlitz
                                  Peril at King's Creek  by Elizabeth McDavid Jones
                                  Labyrinth Coronation by Simon Spurrier


                                   favorite music from 2018: 


                                                         October by Lena Stone 

You can also listen to it here 

One of my favorite artists released a song called October in 2018,

which I really like and have listened to even when it is not October. 

Jabberwocky performed by Erutan

 

You can also listen to it here 

One of my favorite singers, Erutan, began singing again in 2018, 

which is wonderful since I was worried that she would never sing again. 

Tarts performed by Erutan 

You can also listen to it here

This is also a favorite song of mine that she made in 2018. 

She is actually planning on making an Alice in Wonderland themed album which will be awesome. 

Left of Center by Suzanne Vega 

You can also listen to it here 

I found out about a singer in 2018, called Suzanne Vega, 

and I like the style of her music. (Though her music was not released in 2018)

Warmer in the Winter by Lindsey Stirling 

 

You can also listen to it here 

I really enjoy this Lindsey Stirling song. Also it is so neat that the music video 

had to be filmed all in one take without breaks. 

Think of Me from Phantom of the Opera

 

You can also listen to it here 

This is one of the first songs I heard from Phantom of the Opera. 

Main titles- Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them 

You can also listen to it here 

I loved the whole soundtrack from Fantastic Beasts, 

but I thought that this song sounded very mysterious. 

Smoke and Mirrors by Kalie Shorr 

You can also listen to it here 

Though this is one of Kalie's older songs. I recently found out about it, 

and it has become one of my favorites of hers. 

(Also it kind of reminds me of my character Lady Annabelle.) 

Sidewalk Someday by Chloe Gilligan 

You can also listen to it here 

I really enjoyed this new song. 

                                Other:  

In 2018 I found out about a YouTube channel that talked about getting dressed in certain time periods.  

Getting dressed in 1816- Mary Shelley 

You can also watch it here

At the time I watched this I had been reading Frankenstein. 

Getting Dressed in 1665 Delft

 

You can also watch it here

This was one of the first videos of theirs that I watched.

Getting Dressed- Dickensian Christmas (1853)

You can also watch it here

I managed to get there in time when this premiered and watched it then. 

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What are some of your favorite things from 2018? 

Love, 

Quinley 

Introducing some Characters: Holiday themed Characters

Happy Holidays everyone! :) 

To celebrate the holidays I thought I should introduce some holiday themed characters (and bring back the Introducing Some Characters series):

                                         The Holiday Fairy 

                 She shows up in a story from last year. Representing all the winter holidays, she spreads joy and cheer to everyone who celebrates them. Though her job can be very tiring she manages to find time to do it. (The holidays that are represented on her outfit are Christmas, Hanukah, and Kwanzaa.)

                  Mistletoe (AKA Niamh)

                  

                                 The Christmas elf???? 

What is an elf who is skilled in archery and fencing doing working in the north pole? 

No one is sure, not even the fairies who work with the Christmas elves, but even though her skills are different from the other elves, she manages to wrap the presents and make them for the children in the most surprising and awesome ways. She also gets very excited about the holidays, but unfortunately at some times she is prone to get nervous about attacks from monsters and is on alert at all times, and to be safe she keeps daggers in her socks.  

     Alyssa the Reindeer Trainer 

Training Santa's reindeer is one of the hardest jobs, and only a fairy who is purest in heart can do it. That's why Alyssa was asked to train them. When she ended up getting the job, her wings were turned magically into beautiful and colorful wings. She dearly loves animals. It is natural for a fairy to love them, but she has been attracted to reindeer the most, and has always wanted to see Rudolph's red nose glow. To train the reindeers how to fly she uses special fairy dust. 

     Glorfundor 

Though he doesn't work as a Christmas elf he lives with Mistletoe (Niamh) and is one of the very few elves who isn't a Christmas elf. He goes on quests around the north pole, is a very quiet person and rarely talks about his adventures. 

         

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Which character is your favorite? 

Love,
Quinley 

                           

                    

Movie Review: The Phantom of The Opera (2004)

This movie was very fun to watch especially since I knew most of the songs in it. (Such as Think of Me, All I Ask of You, and Phantom of The Opera.) I do compare the movie to the book in the movie review.

This movie is rated: PG-13 

Thoughts about the plot (and accuracy to the book)
**This may contain spoilers for the original book and the movie: read with caution**  

The movie opened with an auction, which I have to say was a pretty neat way to start the story.
In the book the story opens with people investigating what happened at the opera, and the movie did an interesting twist and went back and forth between the present (which was in black and white) and the past (which was in color).

Another change to the original story is that Christine did not pass out on stage after singing Think of Me (in the book she sang a different song). As a result Raoul didn't show up on stage to ask if she remembered him (since he was the boy who caught her scarf when she was little).
Instead he came to her dressing room and talked to her.  To me it felt kinder to the character Raoul to do that, rather than to have Christine laugh at him, because she "doesn't" remember him. Both versions of the scene managed to communicate Raoul's and Christine's relationship. The audience in both could see that they truly loved each other. I believe both scenes effectively illustrated that Christine was protecting Raoul from the Phantom. 

Compared to the book, however, the movie is not a mystery. It immediately shows what happened to Christine Daaé, you actually know her story as the movie progresses, there is a kind of mystery when she walks through a mirror (which is revealed cleverly to be a stage mirror). And in the movie the audience sees the Phantom's lair, which is revealed much earlier in the movie than it is in the book. In a way the movie is retelling the story from the point of view of Christine (in the book the story is told by Raoul).

The movie is a musical, which slightly changes the story of The Phantom of The Opera, so it was not entirely true to the book. One scene that stood out to me which was particularly different was the moment when the chandelier was supposed to fall when the diva started croaking. They did have it fall at the end, but they had a different reason why it had to fall. Another important difference was the murder of Joesph Bouquet, which they moved later in the movie after the song, Poor Fool He Makes Me Laugh. 

As for the Phantom (also known as Erik), I felt that he was a hard character to feel sorry for in both versions. Since he murdered people in cold blood, wouldn't let Christine out of his sight, wouldn't let her do anything like getting married or be with other men. (Which is what happened in the book.)
He proved himself to be cold hearted, and if he didn't get what he wanted he would lash out at the stage hands, singers, and Raoul. Though one thing I found neat was that the movie actually talked about his past. Erik's past is also talked about in the book from the Persian's point of view, he talks about Erik being displayed in fairs and to royalty as "the living corpse." Erik also mentions that his own mother would not kiss him because he was so ugly.

I enjoyed the added information in the movie about how Erik actually got to the opera, it was definitely worth having in the movie. As for the "romance" of Christine and Erik (which isn't really a romance, it's more of him trying to stalk and control her) there wasn't really a lot of it in the movie, at all. At points she did try to runaway from him, and there are several lines where she states she is afraid of him such as in the song, Why Have You Brought Me Here? / Raoul I've Been There, which shows that she doesn't want to be controlled by Erik anymore. The only "romance" that there is between Christine and Erik is the scene in, the Point of No Return, where she does kiss Erik. However, she does this to help with Raoul's plan to defeat the Phantom (Raoul does seem a litte shocked that she would do that, however, there are two reasons for his shock: It is the Victorian time period, so it could scar Christine's reputation to kiss a man she isn't married to (however, she did also kiss Raoul, so perhaps that proves that Christine doesn't care about what society thinks of her), and Raoul probably didn't think she would go as far with their plan as to kiss the Phantom). Perhaps Christine felt sorry for the Phantom. Another thing that distinguished the Phantom's relationship with Christine from Raoul's, was that Erik would give her a rose with a black ribbon tied around it, while Raoul gave Christine a ring. Raoul, being a gentleman, would have had enough money to buy a ring, while the Phantom didn't have any money and he can only get Christine a rose (although he then takes the ring that Raoul gave her, and gives to her as "present" from himself). In the movie Christine drops the rose, while in the book she loses the ring in the book. It is an interesting choice, because  she doesn't panic when she drops the rose, but in the book she panics when she loses the ring.

One cool thing that I remember that the Phantom had in his lair, was a miniature version of the Opera House, that he had set up for certain acts of the opera Christine was singing (mostly the ones with Christine in them). Nearing the end of the movie, I thought it was neat, that Raoul was in a group with some of the other characters thinking of a plan to stop the Phantom, while in the book he is just with one other person.

Nearing the end point of the movie when they had the chandelier fall, it causes a fire, which didn't happen in the book.  In the book the chandelier falls, and kills someone and doesn't cause a fire. The whole sequence of the fire was very stressful. I won't give out the details of it entirely, but there was a character missing from this sequence, the Persian, who accompanies Raoul in the book when he is trying to rescue Christine. One interesting thing in the movie was that there was no torture chamber in that scene, which was described in the book as being forest-like, though I suppose the place where Raoul managed to find himself after trying to run after the Phantom is somewhat like the torture chamber, however, it appears much earlier and during the Masquerade scene.

As for the ending, it is sad. It shows Christine's grave years after Raoul's and Christine's marriage. That she seemed to die early, was the saddest part of the movie I thought. But one of the most interesting parts of that scene was that a rose with a black ribbon tied around it was left at her grave...which might mean that the Phantom is still alive. However, I am not going to connect Christine's death with the musical, Love Never Dies, or suggest that the Phantom may still be alive. Even though this movie is a musical based on a book, I see it as a stand alone story. 




The Scenery and Costumes 

The Costumes: the costumes in this movie were awesome,
especially Raoul's and Christine's.

(image from Rotten Tomatoes, https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/phantom_of_the_opera#&gid=1&pid=h-3270) 

This dress I have to say is one of my most favorite dresses that shows up in the film.

(image from Rotten Tomatoes, https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/phantom_of_the_opera#&gid=1&pid=h-23274 )

Raoul's outfit looks so comfortable.

(image from Rotten Tomatoes, https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/phantom_of_the_opera#&gid=1&pid=h-28900)

                     I love Christine's dress, and Raoul's jacket in this scene from the movie.

(image from Rotten Tomatoes https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/phantom_of_the_opera#&gid=1&pid=h-36642) 

(I'm not very fond of the Phantom's clothes, though the fact that he has two interchangeable masks is kind of cool.) However, I do love the ruffles on Christine's dress.

As for the scenery in the opera house, it was very well done (it probably took them a long time to make it). 

The Music 

The music from this movie definitely had an operatic feel to it, which added to its awesomeness. Here are some of my favorite songs from the movie (in no particular order): 



                                                       Think of Me 

                                         You can also listen to it here 
                                      I like the elements of opera music they have in this song 
                                      (though it's not in Italian). 

                                   
                                       That's All I Ask of You 

You can also listen to it here 

I love Christine's and Raoul's duet. 

Phantom of the Opera 

                                      You can also listen to it here
                                     I knew this song, even before I found the movie
                                (or the musical) and I thought it was interesting.


                                                              Overture 

  You can also listen to it here

Even though this just instrumental (and you can't exactly sing along to it), 

this is one of my favorite songs from the movie. 

Overall rating for this movie: 

Despite some inaccurate scenes, the movie was awesome.
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Have you seen this movie? If you have what did you think of it? 

Love,
Quinley