Movie Reviews

The State of the Writer: 5/6/18

/ The Shameful Narcissist / 8 Comments

<–The State of the Writer: 4/22/18          The State of the Writer: 5/20/18–>

A biweekly post updated every Sunday discussing my current writing projects and any completed the prior two weeks.

Finished Projects: 4

Tags: 10 Things That Make Life Worth Living – 4/24/18
Awards: Liebster Award #4 – 5/3/18
Tags: The Writer’s Tag – 5/3/18
Book Reviews: The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau – 5/5/18

Two tags and one award out of the way means I can check three things off of that combined list.  The book review took so much longer than I anticipated, and I now want to do a book to movie comparison.

Project: Story
Title: The Broken Rose
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Type: Fanfiction (FFVII) Novel
Current Word Count: 261,419
Prior Word Count: 261,491
Word Difference: -72
Status: Revising
Progress: Third edit of Chapter 3

Black and white drawing of Aeris/Aerith

No source available

I might be done this revision sooner than anticipated.  I was trying to remember why the hell I’d decided to do it anyway, and thankfully I was smart enough to leave myself a checklist of what I wanted to update.  It seems as though there were portions of the beginning I wanted to change for better accuracy.  This leads me to believe the chapters after 4 may not really need an update, though I am finding I’m doing more refined editing as I go through.  which is never a bad thing.  I’m hoping I can convince the perfectionist side of myself that I don’t need to go over the first 10 chapters (again) with a fine-toothed comb, but she’s a stubborn bitch, so I hope she can be persuaded.

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Question of the Week: 7/24/16

/ The Shameful Narcissist / 4 Comments

<–Question of the Week: 7/17/16          Question of the Week: 7/31/16–>

The Question of the Week is posted every Sunday and will consist of a question followed by my answer and explanation to the same.  Some questions will only require a simple answer that could potentially be followed by an explanation.  Many questions will be writer oriented, but not all.  Everyone is encouraged to answer in the comments and discussions/follow up questions are more than welcome!

What’s your favorite movie genre?

This is a question I don’t really have an answer for since my favorite movies are across multiple genres.  I love a good story, and good stories are not genre bound.

It would probably be easier to give some of my favorite movies and see what genres they encompass.  For many years I considered Constantine my favorite movie.

Constantine

It’s still up there, but I have so many favorites that I can’t just considering one movie the One (…just realized this is hilarious because of Keanu Reeves).  I of course love Advent Children as a side effect of loving/being obsessed with Final Fantasy VII,

Advent Children

and many other animated movies have my heart.  Pixar’s Ratatouille I can claim as a favorite: my favorite Pixar movie,

Ratatouille

and I’m a bit torn between which (just) Disney movie I love more: Frozen or Big Hero 6.

Frozen & BH6 Collage

I still think I lean slightly towards Frozen because sisterly power and female representation, but they both made me cry.

Then there are the Marvel movies (which is also Disney let’s not forget lol).  I love all of the Phase One films, though oddly Thor is probably my least favorite.  It’s not a bad movie, but I prefer Thor: The Dark World, and of course I love Avengers for various reasons.

Various reasons

Though, like Big Hero 6 and Frozen, I don’t know if I could decide between it and Guardians of the Galaxy. 

Guardians of the Galaxy

Avengers has the indisputable Big Damn Hero’s, but Guardians (which I’ve reviewed) speaks to universal and ubiquitous pain no matter where you might be in the universe.

So looking at this list, I’d say I like dramas with sci-fi and/or fantasy elements.

What’s your favorite movie genre?  Is it more of a mixed bag like mine or you can definite pinpoint one specifically?

I look forward to your answers in the comments!

<–Question of the Week: 7/17/16          Question of the Week: 7/31/16–>

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The Element of Surprise – Musings on Death and Betrayal in Various Media of Storytelling

/ The Shameful Narcissist / 3 Comments

I consider myself to be a skeptic and a cynic (along with holding the lofty title of Shameful Narcissist), but I still secretly carry an ember of gullibility in my heart. The former means it is quite hard to surprise me, where the latter can still light my way to delightful shock. In real life I abhor surprises, as I always wish to be prepared for any contingency, but in the world of fantasy and fiction I revel in it.

Here I give you the times I was surprised by a story in the various types of media I have consumed. I’m just going to use the one paragon example in each medium I present. Obviously as I am showcasing times I was shocked by a narrative, there are spoilers galore for everything mentioned/tagged in this post.  I’ll still throw up an official warning and give anyone who needs it time to skedaddle.

***UNMARKED SPOILERS FOR FROZEN, ASOIAF/GOT, FFVII AND HARRY POTTER***

 

 

 

 

Film
Frozen

I had no idea how they were going to resolve the fact that the heroine had two love interests (more on how you take care of that particular paradigm in the next entry. At least Hans gets to live…even if he might not deserve it.) Throughout the entire movie he gave no overt displays of devious ambition, but like any well told story, they were most certainly there. The fact that he always wears gloves (conceal don’t feel…) and only takes them off once after he reveals his true nature to Anna in the heartbreaking scene used above, and them almost immediately puts them back on while declaring “I’m the hero that’s going to save Arendelle” to once again don the mask and hide his true nature, but the movie had been giving hints to it all along.

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Crimson Peak

/ The Shameful Narcissist / 2 Comments

*******Major spoilers will be marked.  There are some mild ones in analysis********

I’ll be honest up front; me and my fellow fangirl Amanda (who writes for Nerd-Base) really only saw this because our fictional husband (one of our many, not all the same) Tom Hiddleston was in it.  You may remember him from a little film called Avengers where he played the sexiest God of Mischief ever, Loki.

Seriously, who could forget this?

We planned this six months in advance and went yesterday.  Neither of us had any idea what the movie was even about.  We just knew it was Tom looking sexy and dark doing dark, sexy things.  I knew it was directed by Guillermo del Toro who has also done such fantastic films as Hellboy I and II, Pan’s Labyrinth, and Pacific Rim, which I don’t detest as much as some.  While I generally like movies with more depth, PR gave you exactly what you’d expect from a story about robots fighting giant monsters, and it had Idris Elba who’s fantastic.  Going back to the flick at hand, I knew regardless of anything else, the cinematography would be amazing, because del Toro does nothing involved with that by halves.

Del Toro’s skill with color scheme and vibrancy is unrivaled

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