Things are really behind the last month so we’re going to be doing a double month wrap-up for Reality Show Round-up! Its also because I haven’t been watching a lot of variety shows lately and trying to catch up on some dramas so this segment is a little more quiet than usual.
Queer Eye (Season 6, 2021)
Season 6 returned in 2021 providing the positive breather in the middle of the pandemic as their production also got shut down during the recording of the first episode. I’m a big fan of Queer Eye on Netflix and its great to watch the Fab Five start as it started more along the lines of a makeover show but has now become a lot more than that because Karamo isn’t the only person who shares on culture and general mindset as the whole group has something to share depending on who they are working with.
Set in Texas this time, they pick an incredible ensemble of heroes. Its probably one of my favorite seasons because I liked 90% of the heroes they chose because these people really have some big hearts and great stories to tell in how they are using their own way to support their community and/or the inner struggles that they need to work through. I honestly can’t really decide which episode I love more but I’m always a big fan of the following episodes:
Episode 1: Showdown at the Broken Spoke
Episode 3: No More Bull
Episode 5: Craw-Zaddy
Episode 7: Snow White of Central Texas
Episode 8: Gimme Shelter
Episode 9: A Legend in the Baking
Queer Eye (Season 8, 2024)
Kicking off 2024 at the end of January on Netflix is Queer Eye Season 8 which offered a continuation in New Orleans with six episodes featuring an array of “heroes” of everyday people who was nominated for one reason or another to help them move forward in life in a better way. New Orleans has been an interesting area and Season 7 did introduce some interesting people that had their makeovers from different walks of life and needed different help.
This season structures around a little bit of the same which looks at a family man in need of resparking the romance in his relationship, a KISS fan, a clarinet virtuoso, a deaf athletics director, a former nun and a grieving chef. Queer Eye episodes at this point have managed to create some touching moments and even educational for their viewers. There’s always something to learn from each of these people and usually helps create positivity and confidence in life. While as a whole, I don’t personally feel some of these stories to be as strong as say Season 6, there are some pretty good ones this season as well with The Sweet Life and The Flying Nun being the two that really stands out in my opinion.
The Grand Tour: Sand Job (2024)
While my husband remains a devoted fan to The Grand Tour since Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond moved their trio to Amazon Prime, the most recent release earlier this year The Sand Job set as a driving challenge through Mauritania, is my first time in over a decade to sit down and watch a complete episode. Not surprising that it still has a lot of the comedic elements that this group manages to have especially with the silliness and recklessness of some of the decisions. Being the penultimate show for The Grand Tour with these three, The Sand Job offers another exotic location and another trio of cheap modified race cars selected by the trio here to take on this long, arduous journey. The part of the joy of these challenges is not only the trials and tribulations they go through on the journey as each of their cars break down, but also the challenges thrown at them and the sometimes outrageous ways they decide to choose to solve it. As outrageous as it is, its part of the entertainment from these three as they engage in their shenanigans.
The Sand Job offers a very one-sided element issues in terms of car issues however the environment is fairly exotic so it also has its own set of unknowns and there are some moments where they all get into some fun stuff. I’m not sure if its just getting into one of these episodes after so many years but at times, this feels like a road trip travel show but just taking a more mechanical angle. The Sand Job is an entertaining episode and the dynamic of the trio still remains after so many years. I suppose its time to go back and catch up on the previous Grand Tour episodes and get some more laughs.
I’m not going to lie, reading really didn’t happen too much in February. While I do want to read The Book and the Sword, the fact that my toddler now requires a different bedtime story time style has limited what I read. Instead, we’re cycling through a lot of the easier children’s books. I’ve read about 10 times of 2 Chinese books per day because he just loves it and then bedtime revolves around a mish mash of other books that I’ve already mentioned before. I’m hoping with less work during my downtime, I will be able to actually pick up a book to read. A part of that will be made easier once I do another more realistic reorganization of my storage space so that I can sort through my books a little easier.
Already Tomorrow in Hong Kong (2015 rewatch, Review)
While everyone’s preparing for the Academy Awards and catching up with viewings, I’m surprised to actually review my February list and see that I watched one winner and one nominee with The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Past Lives respectively. Both of which are really great films in their own way. As I truck along with the Oh My Horror Challenge and falling behind with the actual reviews, I’ve seen some pretty great movies this month which is making my first time watches list a little more respectable. All the short films on Netflix directed by Wes Anderson are pretty great. I finally watched the 1999 The Mummy which I’ve actually never seen before and absolutely loved it. Love and Monsters is an underrated film that is also incredible. As for a movie that grew on me more and more as I thought about it, that would be Past Lives.
TV
Indulgence (染指, 2024)
Junji Ito Maniac: Japanese Tales of the Macabre (Season 1, 2023)
Currently binging: Asia Super Young, Memories Beyond Horizon S2, Till The End of the Moon
I honestly don’t even know where to start for TV series. I had a lot of stuff to take care of so of course that meant a significant focus on the Gilmore Girls rewatch. I tried out one of the short dramas Indulgence, which are basically 10 minute episodes each on Youku. The best way to describe it would be best compared to reading trashy romance novels. The production value is not the great, the story has some old-fashioned plot points and the acting is below average for the most part but I can see why some people do enjoy these dramas.
We finished Junji Ito Maniac: Japanese Tales of the Macabre and much like any anthology short film series, it has some that work better than others. I’ve never read any of Junji Ito’s horror manga but if this is even just dipping your toe into his mind, its absolutely wild. Some of these stories really go off the left field and some are pretty unique and others are simply terrifying. Like nightmare-inducing terrifying because I did end up getting nightmares when I first started the series.
Finally, for some shorter episodes, I don’t usually watch The Grand Tour but I did sit down for the latest season/episode The Sand Job which was a lot of fun. I also caught the 8 episode Youku series Justice in the Dark adapted from a novel Silent Reading by Priest. The series ended with so many loose ends but had some a great world building and concept that I ended up buying the novel series since it doesn’t seem like any sequel is in the works.
GAMES
Currently playing: Somerville, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy, I Love Hue
As expected, gaming took a similar hit to books. I actually ended up continuing on I Love Hue which is a relaxing mobile puzzle game where you have to rearrange colors according to the gradient level. Its one that I’ve been playing on and off over the years but still like to go back to every once in a while.
As you can see, February was not a whole lot going on. I had a few personal things that happened which I don’t plan to discuss. Things like dentist appointments and financial planning, fun grown-up things, right? I do have a big dental work coming up which will cost a bit of money so yay, I guess. Anyways, positive vibes here only even if I’m so tired, I don’t even have the energy to write as much as I used to. I will address all that in this segment and some little changes.
Baby Update
Triple V is growing and learning new things every day. February had a lot of things from figuring out how to drink from a sippy cup with a valve to starting to move towards drinking independently from a sippy cup for his snacks and meals. We’re working towards getting rid of the actual baby bottles so he can drink on his own. He’s still figuring out how to tilt the bottle when its the sippy cup without a valve. Work in progress, right? He also finally started baby babble and is continuing his teething journey. At the same time, we’re in the lovely 8 month sleep regression as of recently so its just waking up and doing some babbles or trying to get himself on all fours sometimes. Nighttime baby monitor sometimes can be pretty cute and funny despite feeling so tired. We are currently starting up a second cold thanks to some wonderful cold weather that we got but definitely not as worse as what we caught at the beginning of the year.
New Monthly Segment
While I’m not writing a lot lately, I’ve been still watching a lot of random stuff and its starting to dawn on me that I’m going to temporary need to change things a little around here to keep up a decent production. Although January and February lull is usually fairly normal around here, its been incredibly low and I’m not too happy about it since this is an outlet for myself that I really do love. With that said, I think the best course of action are monthly segments, they have a rounding up effect for the things I’ve seen but don’t really feel I have enough for an entire post dedicated to that one thing and lately, its about anything that I can put in the background and take care of my child or just relax after his bedtime or when its time with the husband, nothing too violent. All that basically leads to a lot of reality/competition/variety TV.
The new segment for each month is going to be a Reality TV Roundup which will include all the stuff I watch which involves real people in whatever context it may be and focusing mostly on Netflix and Chinese shows. Obviously, I’m starting a tad late so you will see the January roundup very soon and then after that it will be released on some time during the second weekend of each month. Music Obsessions releases the first weekend so we’ll spread it out a little.
Not sure who it will interest but I think it’ll be a nice change of pace for myself and will be a lot of fun.
Valentine’s Marathon, Upcoming Podcast Release and the forgotten Blogiversary
My brain’s apparently gone to mush and there’s been a lot of things that I simply forgot. The first being that January 17th was my blogiversary and I didn’t even mention it last month because like I said, I forgot. It just slipped my mind. The original plan was to get the all-new podcast up for then but plans have changed and I need a little more times in lieu of this wonderful baby phase I mentioned above to the next month, preferably before my birthday as a little gift to myself for starting up an individual podcast project.
Another thing I mentioned was Valentine’s Marathon and while I had a pretty good plan down, I just didn’t really feel like watching romantic films and ended up watching one Taiwan romance drama instead. BUT, I will talk about that more in the next section!
WHAT’S UP
BOOKS
Mr. Happy
Thomas’ Snowsuit
The Lost Dinosaur Bone
Just Some Lost Treasure
Mortimer
The Berenstain Bears’ Trouble at School
Something Good
Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too
Angela’s Airplane
Mickey Mouse and the Best Neighbor Contest
The Berenstain Bears and the Slumber Party
101 Dalmatians
Donald and His Friends
Currently reading: Broken Darkness
Suffice to say that my main reading has been with Triple V and traverses a lot of books from when I was a kid with the Mr. Men series, Robert Munsch, Lil Critters and Berenstain Bears along with some Disney books. A lot of great memories as I read them to him since he doesn’t really understand any of it but he is starting to get interested in what I say when I’m talking and my facial expressions and actions.
For myself, I am working through Broken Darkness which is a reading commitment that I need to get done. I had wanted to get it done for end of this month but best plans and all, right?
Probably one of the lowest output in movie watching in a long time and involved a lot of rewatches but everything was pretty good and a lot of fun, other than Great White which dropped half of its stars from my first time watch rating. Hidden Blade drove a lot of traffic on Twitter and the blog which makes me happy since it was a screener and the movie is really good on all elements. I’ve always wanted to watch A Trip To The Moon and caught that before it left MUBI (which I have until early April). Dr. Jason Leong’s new standout comedy is a real hoot. It was so much fun and had a lot of good laughs. F9 and Decision to Leave’s review is in the making but both stand on very different levels: one is just entertaining and the other probably deserves a second viewing to really grasp all the small nuances and details that Park Chan-wook likes to do.
Definitely thinking about an Asian month soon since I have a lot of films on MUBI, Netflix and Shudder to get through. I’m probably going to try and make that happy.
TV
Drunken to Love You (Netflix: Love You 醉後决定愛上你, 2011)
Currently binging: Who’s The Murderer S8, Memories Beyond Horizon S1, Night in The Greater Bay S2, The Last of Us
A lot of TV watching on my front as well as I dive once again for probably the fifth time into Gilmore Girls. Its my stress-free and fun TV binge. Between this and a lot of reality TV, this is where I am. Of course, I did get in a romance dose with a 2011 Taiwan romance drama that I had never seen. There was almost a decade that I didn’t watch a lot of Asian anything and now its about catching up to what I can get my hands on when I see it around. I did manage to binge Lockwood & Co. which I enjoyed immensely and can’t wait for hopefully a Season 2 seeing as it kind of ends on a cliffhanger but I do also plan on getting to reading the books. Seeing as I already announced the Reality TV Roundup segment, I’m going to leave the whole chat about the reality TV on the backburner plus a bunch of these are mostly silly stuff, the only one that I enjoyed a ton was The Mole although 28 Days Haunted was pretty decent even if the last one of the season overturned all the effort of making it not staged. Either way, more on that later on.
Currently playing: The Gunk, Disney Dreamlight Valley
Steam Next Fest happened so I caught up with a few demos. Some of them were really great especially Planet of Lana which was exceptional and definitely right up my alley. The other one would be Mika and the Witch’s Mountain which I also ended up backing on Kickstarter because it looked so great. Plus a game inspired by Kiki’s Delivery Service seems like something I would have thought existed already but finally someone’s doing something about it. I’ve been pretty much working through the Google Play Pass games since I have it for 3 months on a 90% discount so its pretty sweet. As much as people think mobile games are dumb, there’s some pretty good ones and one of them is Alt-Frequencies. I’m working on a review for Game Warp but I am thinking of checking out their previous game which I own but haven’t played yet. I’m moving through Game Pass with a similar mentality except chasing after games before they leave the service. This month of course was Far: Changing Tides which I describe as Journey but operating a ship. Its pretty great as well, we have a recording lined up for Game Warp so you can look forward to that if you follow the podcast.
A few games currently playing but I’m probably going to put them aside for the next batch of games leaving. Yes, I said batch. Not sure where I’ll find the time but I’m definitely going to try my best to finish Paradise Killer and give Guardians of the Galaxy a whirl to see whether I want to work on that one as well.
That’s it for this month’s Adventures/Updates and What’s Up! What have you been reading/watching/binging/playing?
If you hadn’t caught my mid-June announcement/update, you can find that HERE.
The biggest event of June which has consumed most of the month is that: I had a BABY BOY!
I’ve been kind of a bit hush hush on the whole thing on the blog and just dropping little hints about the nursery and such in the adventures post since the beginning of the year. Obviously, if no one read it then they probably never quite realized it was a thing in my life. It also explained the lesser amounts of posts in the past 8 months or so since the first trimester was just a fatigue filled sleep fest. I wanted to sleep all the time. With that said, I couldn’t complain a lot since I had a pretty smooth pregnancy with no cravings, almost no nausea or food aversions except for fish and nothing came back bad in any of the tests and checkups.
Where things started to go wrong was the actual birthing process where things got a little scary for a moment and didn’t go as planned resulting in a C-section. However, everything is so far so good and as I sit here recovering and the husband and I are on our maternity/parental leave , its been quite a journey for the past 2 weeks or so with a newborn. The surgery meant that I basically can’t do a whole lot of stuff except for caring for the baby without having a lot of discomfort. Luckily things are getting better day by day.
If you take a look at the announcement/update post, basically things will remain fairly slow for at least the next month or two. However, my other projects with my fantastic co-host who is holding down the fort and our hard work in creating a huge backlog in our production means those projects are still going out. If you ever want to hear some podcasts, Movies and Tea is currently in its Quentin Tarantino season and Game Warp is also having scatters of reviews and non-E3 2022 coverage.
To be fair, I haven’t had a vacation from work in the past 3 years (partially pandemic- related) so I’m taking the leave to relax a little and enjoy my time with my newborn, we nicknamed him Triple V so if I mention him again, may be under that name from now on.
Basically June’s adventures was half the month waiting to birth the baby and the second half is taking care of the baby. Its crazy how fast time goes by.
What’s Up – June 2022
Books
Currently reading: The Woman in Cabin 10
Recently started up The Woman in Cabin 10. Literally one chapter in so I will talk about it more next month. Maybe by then, I will have finished it.
Cyber Hell: Exposing An Internet Horror (2022, Review)
Hellboy (2019)
Constantine (2005 rewatch)
The Tale of Princess Kaguya (2013)
Profile (2018)
Adrift (2018)
Sitting at home for maternity leave for the entire June gave time to catch on some movie watching (among many other things) especially before our baby arrived. I was able to catch up on some titles I hadn’t seen before. As usual, highlighted titles are the ones I personally recommend. Reviews are on the way for some of these. Special mention goes to 2007’s Rogue which was a ton of fun for a creature feature and Profile, a Screenlife title which I thought worked really well also. Much like Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark which was a fun little kids horror adaptation.
Currently binging: Day Breakers 暗夜行者, Nightflyers, Infinity and Beyond聲生不息, Love The Way You Are 愛情應該有的樣子, The Great Canadian Baking Show (Season 5)
With a ton of TV binges in the works right now from the past month, here we are. We started Nightflyers which was good but I had to stop as we hit a part of the series which triggered the pregnant me a little so we took a pause on that. Chinese variety shows were my jam with Infinity and Beyond taking the lead bringing back a ton of Cantopop nostalgia. Finished up Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and got back into Riverdale and now Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa seems to be haunting me as I look around and its just shows that he is working or worked on. Having never seen even one episode of Iron Chef, the Netflix version was so much fun. Highly recommend if you like cooking competition shows. Finally we finally caught up with The Umbrella Academy with the third season recently being released, no better time than now, right?
Currently playing: Backbone, Lost Words: Beyond the Page
Gaming finally picks up again! Beginning of June saw the non-E3 2022 happen as Game Warp covered some out of our highlights from various showcases that peaked our interest. It also brought along Steam Fest which meant a lot of demos for upcoming indie games to check out. The two I played were How To Say Goodbye and Paper Trail. Both were pretty decent concepts although Paper Trail has a bit of the Gorogoa vibe except with paper as the item of manipulation, which I absolutely adored.
I am mostly catching up with Game Pass titles at this point. Last Stop left Game Pass at the end of June so I played it through. My first game review in eons is on the Game Warp blog if you wanted to check it out. I am focusing on smaller games and less brain involving ones so its why I put Backbone aside and started up a simpler word-based platformer Lost Words, which I had tried the demo before. About halfway through the game as this post goes up.
That’s it for this Adventures and What’s Up for June 2022! What have you been up to?
Cast: Kiernan Shipka, Ross Lynch, Lucy Davis, Chance Perdomo, Michelle Gomez, Jaz Sinclair, Tati Gabrielle, Richard Coyle, Miranda Otto, Lachlan Watson, Adeline Rudolph, Abigail Cowen, Gavin Leatherwood
As her 16th birthday nears, Sabrina must choose between the witch world of her family and the human world of her friends. Based on the Archie comic. – IMDB
Being yet again wildly behind on most Netflix series, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina finally made its start as I work through the Netflix back catalogue. Being fans of Archie comics and originally meant as a spinoff of the show but no longer exactly the case, despite the mention of Riverdale in some occasions of the show in dialogue, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina starts off in its Part 1 setting up the stage from the get-go as Sabrina enters into her 16th birthday and has to decide whether she will be following her witch side or mortal side. Of course, she chooses neither, making her life split in half as she fulfills both sides of her obligations. With threats popping up from various locations and her human emotional side taking over her to protect her friends as some unknown manipulating forces also affect her situation as a whole, the show revolves around various topics in this world set in Greendale which has both the witch/warlock network but also the mortal network coming into play as Sabrina tries to strike a balance and starts to realize that maybe its not quite so easy to do that.
The first part lays out its foundation for everything and usually for these sort of teen shows are aimed to build up the scenario, the world and the characters. For the most part, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina does a decent job. From start to the finish, all 11 episodes do contribute to crafting this dark world of Sabrina both on the mortal and magical side. Sabrina’s life takes a turn as it gets affected from her family to friends to love, making clear those divisions but also the things that makes her unique as a “half breed”. On a storyline level, it manages to keep it rather good but of course, with its fair share of teenage angst added into the mix as it brings up themes of bullying and gender much like the darker side has its own set of issues from the patriarchy and more older beliefs of the darker world at hand. There are some odd frustrating moments here and there especially since Sabrina’s character, as she shifts between the worlds, becomes rather annoying at parts but its all part of the character building as her character does solidify, much like the other ones, by the end of Part 1.
Perhaps one of the more head-scratching elements of the show is the visuals that the production or perhaps post-production decides to take as the show in almost the entirety has this blurry hue that soaks in the background. Its uncertain whether its meant to give the show the visual uniqueness or to create the separation of the two worlds, however as much as for some scenes, it does it some favors, in others, it is quite a nuisance to be present all the time and maybe even taking away the effectiveness it could have it wasn’t present most (if not all) of the the time. The revamped style of Sabrina the Teenage Witch to this version of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (much like Archie versus Riverdale) is already a darker and more graphic version so it almost feels unnecessary to try to push more of it onto its viewers. Sure, it is quite noticeable and gives it that unique feeling but when its the whole show that uses this, it eventually fades into the background and loses its meaning or purpose (if it had any in the first place other than just as a visual aesthetic).
Overall, Part 1 of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is a pretty fun ride. As a teen show, it still keeps a lot of the expected elements of teenage angst in the mortal world but still mirrors itself well into the magical world as she enters into The Academy of Unseen Arts. There are still the little cliques and the contrast of the values from each side, much like the contrast of the two worlds where the mortal emphasized the light/good element and is what the normal person would use in terms of lingo but the other side, the witch/warlock side is all about embodying the darkness which swaps things around turning things around. Its a pretty interesting world to dive into by the end even if there are some rather frustrating parts here and there but the show does keep things pretty constant with its conflicts and dilemma that surrounds Sabrina constantly.
Cast: Tom Holland, Mark Wahlberg, Antonio Banderas, Sophia Ali, Tati Gabrielle, Steven Waddington
Street-smart Nathan Drake is recruited by seasoned treasure hunter Victor “Sully” Sullivan to recover a fortune amassed by Ferdinand Magellan, and lost 500 years ago by the House of Moncada. – IMDB
Based on the Uncharted video game franchise developed by Naughty Dog, the film is set with a young Nathan Drake on his first recruit with Sully for some treasure hunting action as they try to use their wits and Drake’s know-how to finish up what his brother Sam started before his disappearance while outrunning a Moncada heir and his highly paid team. There are two ways to look at this film: the first would be in the accuracy and efficacy of its adaptation to the games itself and the other way would be for the normal movie-goer who doesn’t have any or little knowledge of the game and treats this as a straight-forward action adventure treasure hunt film. Luckily, I fall a little in between these as the game follows one of the later games which I am not as familiar with but also have a decent knowledge of these main characters, Nathan Drake and Sully so I will try to touch on both of these angles.
Looking at this from its adaptation angle, perhaps the biggest discussion amongst gamers would be whether Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg are suitably as Nathan Drake and Sully respectively. In that sense, its the biggest issue with the film perhaps as this element works better on the star power for the normal movie goer than them feeling like these two characters from the video game. Whether from the idea of appearance, even if they put Drake in the game’s outfit, or the idea that their personalities match with that of the game, some dialogue does match up but it still lacks a little something that these characters’ bring in the game, giving them a very different feeling. If there was a character that felt very similar to its video game version, that would be Chloe Frazer portrayed by Sophia Ali and still, it lacks a bit of sass. However, the film does work with a very straight-forward plot, while this might be a let-down for something expecting more, it is pretty entertaining overall and adds in certain cinematic cues and cameo that links back to the game whether its the Naughty Dog sticker on the suitcase or a Nolan North cameo appearance along with the CGI camera pan through certain puzzle elements which bring in those game parallel.
With that said, looking at this from purely an action adventure film, there is no doubt that this feels generic from a plot angle but then the point remains on how much expectation was put into it based on the trailer versus the normal context of these types of films. Uncharted is an entertaining movie experience. It has some over the top CGI which is almost reminiscent of the Fast and Furious movies (and you probably already know what scene I’m referring to) but also has the element of the banter between Drake and Sully which can be fun at times even if it revolves mostly around how much trust they can put into each other. The villain here is a bit two fold as you have Antonio Banderas as Moncada but also Tati Gabrielle as Jo Braddock who is more dangerous as she is more than just a rich man with a bunch of minions. The action pieces are pretty fun and the adventure and puzzle element is done rather well also especially when you get into the big finale with a change in setting from the big city to the vast open seas.
Overall, Uncharted might not be quite the video game adaptation that people want especially from the angle of its main characters Drake and Sully mostly since they are missing a bit of the pizzazz these video game characters however if talking about the plot itself, while generic for an action-adventure film but it actually does match up to the game well enough. Movies like these truly depend on what you expect out of them. For myself, there are some flaws in terms of casting choices from the video gamer side however as a popcorn flick, the entertainment level is still a good time.
*Uncharted is currently available on digital on April 26th and on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray and DVD on May 10th*
Welcome to this month’s wrap up for What’s Up & Adventures for April 2022.
April is always a crazy month work-wise and adding in a lot of the current situation, its been a lot more bonkers as well. Hence the later than usual recap post. While adventures is a little lacking, we have been getting things together in general. Lets take a quick look at some fast updates before we jump into the much more interesting Wha’ts Up portion.
New Season – Movies and Tea Podcast
While I am still working through the reblogs for the previous season, Movies and Tea blog and our podcast platform everywhere is already updating the new season of the podcast as we go through our Quentin Tarantino season. For myself, its a whole new adventure since its almost three quarters first time watches.
You can check it out over at the blog HERE or on most podcast platforms.
Baby Things and Preparation
I have really held off on talking a whole lot about the pregnancy since my little not so hidden announcement at the beginning of the year or last month’s office move/nursery setup. As the nursery starts shaping up and my due date is a little over a month away and the last stretch of preparation shows up, its fine time to talk about something probably not so important but something I always thought was a somewhat memorable moment if and when I had a baby and its buying the first pair of shoes.
Not to mention, one of April’s highlights was going for the second ultrasound as the first one had a minor little abnormality which was all normal in this one. All around good news so far plus seeing the much bigger baby then was a pretty touching moment.
Still relatively on track with reading as I try to use the commute to the office to read as much as I can. The Girl on the Train is a pretty decent read. I do hope to watch the adaptations at some point.
As for the currently reading selection, Nevernight has a world building which is pretty extensive but there are some elements that I am finding a little annoying. I am still fairly early in the book so I don’t want to make any judgments quite yet especially since beginning of books are my usual hurdle.
Movies are still going relatively strong this month. Even the writing is pretty on track as well. The movie reviewing writing slump is slowly going away. With that said, this month was full of fun film discoveries from all genres. Nothing really disappointed too much except one or two. The interactive film You Vs The Wild: Out Cold was kind of a snoozefest but these things are never too long so it helps fill up some time when I couldn’t decide what to watch next. As for recommendations for this month, Knives Out, The Mitchells vs. The Machines and The Invisible. If you don’t mind a massive trigger warning and gut-wrenching gorefest, The Sadness is a decent choice as well.
Currently watching: Yes I Do (Season 3), Who’s The Murderer (Season 7), Gypsy, Falling in Love With a Scientist, Infinity and Beyond
Looking at the TV list, it sure feels like eons ago that I finished Another Me at the first half of the month. Probably because the TV series had a lot of issues for the most part and hit a whole new level of melodrama that started bothering me. The ending did kind of redeem itself a little though. The film version which I have yet to see did get lots of praise so I will hopefully watch it at some point.
With that said, Archive 81 is a cliffhanger ending and cancelled Netflix series which is somewhat of a pity since it is pretty good. Netflix did add Falling Into Your Smile which is a Chinese drama that I had my eye on last year but its from a channel which geo-locked the series when I wanted to watch it. Highly recommend. This might just be the series for me to get back into some form of TV binge for the Chinese dramas since I am so behind on it.
Games
Erica
Football Game
A light gaming month to say the least. Both of these games were fairly short in content. Erica is an FMV game which is basically an interactive film with 4 endings running at around 2 hours per run. Considering that I didn’t do the run again and did some research and think the ending I got was the good one, I just left it at that. The second game, Football Game is a short point and click game which is a little bit laborous with little favors and tasks which all comes down to a deeper story for the thriller as it came to a rather vague but depressing ending. I will try to get a review up for these two over at Game Warp but its a daunting since game reviews have fallen into the abyss for myself.
Cute Kitty Pic
That’s it for this Adventures and What’s Up for April 2022. Hope you enjoyed! Let me know if you’ve been up to some exciting stuff.
Welcome to the 7th Annual Ultimate Decades Blogathon hosted by myself and Drew’s Movie Reviews.
Following last year’s suit in the new blogathon style, the Ultimate Decades Blogathon continues on with our numeric progress as we celebrate our favorite movies released in a year ending in “2”. That means you can pick any movie from 1922, 1932, 1942, 1952, 1962, 1972, 1982, 1992, 2002, 2012 and if are super on your game and have already watched some new releases worth talking about, feel free to talk about something from 2022. As usual, we allow for doubles in selections to keep it easier for everyone and see what movies stood out for you in any of those years.
To help with your movie choices from any of these years, here’s a list of the releases from each of the years mentioned above:
Any movie released in a year ending in “2” is a valid choice. They are not limited to those in the list above as I’m not quite sure if those cover foreign film choices but that is always an option as well.
You can choose to do more than one review. Just let us know in advance.
The reviews will be posted to our blogs so make sure to submit it to us (if you plan on posting on your blog as well, let us know so that we give you the release date so that you can pair it with our release schedule).
Submission Deadline: February 13th (if you need more time, let us know in advance and we can absolutely work it out)
Blogathon starts on February 21st
Email submissions to kim.tranquildreams@gmail.com and/or Drew at drewt510@gmail.com. Please notify us in the comments below or by email if you plan on participating.
You can tag us and help us promote using #UltimateDecadesBlogathon
Welcome all to join! You can be from any platform since your review will be posted on our blogs. We look forward to your choices and submissions. Feel free to use the banner above to show off your participation. If you know anyone that would be interested in joining, please help us spread the word. The more the merrier!
Fun fact about me: I’m a huge fan of Lindsay Lohan when she was a young actress even up to her teenage roles, probably ends around Mean Girls. I remember that I have no idea how I landed on watching The Parent Trap when I was young but it was long enough ago for me to not really remember too much of it. This was a pretty fresh watch. However, I’m big on these twin movies. I still love It Takes Two to absolute bits. After a month of horror, its high time for some more family fun sort of movies. I was saying that it was teen comedies but I think the correct term of it is family features mostly in November. Sometimes, we just gotta take it easy especially when my mind is in high panic phase or at least it will be soon if it hasn’t already.
Let’s check it out!
The Parent Trap (1998)
Director: Nancy Meyers
Cast: Lindsay Lohan, Dennis Quaid, Natasha Richardson, Elaine Hendrix, Lisa Ann Walter, Simon Kunz
Identical twins Annie and Hallie, separated at birth and each raised by one of their biological parents later they discover each other for the first time at summer camp and make a plan to bring their wayward parents back together.- IMDB
The best way to start this write-up is to first say that I haven’t watched the original The Parent Trap so I’m taking this one as a standalone, which it should be, even if it is a remake. The Parent Trap is kind of your cliche family movie. In many ways, I prefer It Takes Two over it if we were to compare, especially since there are many similarities between the two and I like the Olsen twins a tad more than a double of Lindsay Lohan. However, she does do a great job especially realizing that at a young age, she could do the British accent and the normal, plus there was some pretty fun parts. The Parent Trap isn’t a long movie either and carries some pretty entertaining times.
First of all, the cast is pretty good. Playing the father is Dennis Quaid who I do enjoy watching from time to time. Oddly, most of them are family films, except for Vantage Point. However, the fun isn’t exactly with these two adults meeting again and rekindling their love in a few days and putting all differences aside. The over the top character of Meredith, makes for some funny moments especially when she reacts quite funnily and as annoying as this character would be in real life, it offers a comedic element. My favorite character, other than Lindsay Lohans, have to go to the characters Chessy and Martin (portrayed by Lisa Ann Walter and Simon Kunz respectively) because they play the father’s sister and the butler on the mom’s side and was the adults pulling the strings and they were just hilarious together.
The Parent Trap does have some fun characters and that really elevate the movie quite a bit. The very young Lindsay Lohan is remarkable and cute. Probably one of the extremely shining moments of this rather cliche movie. In fact, having two Lindsay Lohans here shows the diversity of her acting. She doesn’t come off as bratty either. In fact, we actually can see the innocence of the two little girls here who really are hidden in the dark about having a twin and then not really understanding what made their parents fall apart but having that immense desire to put them back together since they are single still. Life (and love) is more complicated than that but the simplicity of Hallie and Annie does make for many fun moments.
Most family movies work with a formula, and The Parent Trap is no different. However, it is surprisingly entertaining and has lots of great moments. Lindsay Lohan, Dennis Quaid, and the other cast are all having fun with their respective roles and giving us some cool characters. In that end, that is what matters, right? Lots of movies are formulaic, especially with the amount of sequels and remakes that we get in one year nowadays, but the feeling we get out of some of these family movies carry weight. The Parent Trap is a at many times not only fun but has its fair share of heartwarming moments as well.
Have you seen The Parent Trap? How about the original? How do they compare?
Halloween has arrived for us at Game Warp. We know that the traditional horror games whether they are classics or indies, are always a popular choice. Look at me, I took the opportunity to start Until Dawn. Granted, I am not done yet. However, we decided to be more family-friendly and did Costume Quest 2, the sequel to 2010’s Costume Quest.
We only knew the basics going in but a game with collecting candies and kids in costumes sounded like the perfect fun we needed especially after our creepy Playdead double feature last month.
What is Costume Quest 2? And what is it all about? It is a cartoon RPG quest game about young siblings, Wren and Reynold who realize that the evil dentist, Dr. Orel White is concocting an horrible plan to eliminate Halloween. They head back into the past to try to figure out why Dr. White turned that way and then ends up in a dystopian future where its already happened. It is up to them, their friends and a ton of costumes to help them on this journey. There are main quests and optional side quests to discover along with various places to go through from past to future.
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Thanks for watching! Hope you enjoyed! We at Game Warp wish you all a Happy Halloween! 🙂
P.S. I will be running a Twitch stream a few times this weekend to continue Until Dawn!
Or maybe play Spooky’s Jumpscare Mansion and maybe a few other horror games!
Tranquil Dreams 