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by Moviefan
Halloween in Stoneybrook: Claudia and The Phantom Phone Calls (The Baby-Sitters Club # 2)
October 5, 2023 in Blogs
There is an urban legend that goes the call is coming from inside the house while a babysitter is taking care of her charge asking if she has checked on the children from a creepy voice. The phone call startles her and she calls the cop and she is told the call is coming from inside the house.
Creepy phone calls are a staple of horror and they can be traced back (heh) to this infamous urban legend. My favorite slasher franchise is built around the killer calling their prey.
The second book in The Baby-Sitters Club book focuses on the idea of creepy phone calls while one of the girls is babysitting. What’s so fascinating is I first really got into the BSC via the Netflix series and while this book was adapted, it was a rather loose adaption that had to be updated for the modern audience and the graphic novel adaptions skipped this book entirely, perhaps finding it too difficult to update for the modern audience. This video goes into more detail about how Netflix’s BSC show couldn’t adapt this book.
by Moviefan
Halloween With Barbie: The Secret of Creepington Castle (Barbie Halloween Special # 1)
October 4, 2023 in Blogs
Thanks to the excellent movie by Greta Gerwig, Barbie has had quite a year and I can speak from personal experience that the movie has brought in new fans such as myself. That’s why I wanted to look at something Barbie-related for the holiday. I’ve been binging the Barbie shows on Netflix and Barbie Dreamhouse Adventures does include a Halloween episode. Still, if you remember I said I wouldn’t be reviewing anything film or television-related this year due to the strikes. I understand that the animation guidelines are a bit different, but I think this is the best option. Ah well, perhaps next year.
It’s a cute episode focusing on Barbie’s youngest sister Chelsea thinking Barbie and her friends had been turned into vampires.
Since I decided not to review anything film or tv related, I searched for Barbie Halloween books and I remembered thanks to Longbox of the Damned that there were Barbie comics put out by Marvel.
I won’t be looking at the Barbie comics featured there. Perhaps in the future but the two stories I’ll be looking at are listed as Barbie Halloween Special Vol. 1 and Vol. 2. These stories are rather short but that’s okay.
by Moviefan
A Look at Disney’s Halloween Library: Long Live The Pumpkin Queen
October 3, 2023 in A Look at Disney, Blogs
All this month for Halloween, I’ll be taking a look at books that fit the month of October. An interesting trend in recent years from Disney is to release literary follow-ups to movies that’d be perfect for this time of year. We’ve seen it with the Hocus Pocus book sequel, there is a Sleepy Hollow follow-up and today’s entry is a follow-up to one of the most beloved Halloween/Holiday movies, The Nightmare Before Christmas
In a way, I get it as Hocus Pocus, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and especially The Nightmare Before Christmas are what people think of when they think of Disney Halloween. I love Hocus Pocus myself and FYI the book sequel is a gazillion times better than the movie sequel but I’m biased because of gay witches.
I’d love a Halloweentown follow-up as that was heavy in my rotation around this month. When it comes to Nightmare though, Disney has nearly milked this cow dry. The book we are looking at isn’t even the first follow-up as there have been manga follow-ups and a video game sequel.
Again I get it and we are starting to see a similar trajectory with Hocus Pocus between the book sequel, the movie sequel and the girls having a stage show at Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween whereas Oogie Boogie has a whole event named for him at California Adventure and Nightmare takes over Haunted Mansion this time of year at Disneyland.
It’s funny as I used to hate this movie and I think a big part of it came from the over-saturation of it everywhere. Just think back to early 2000’s Hot Topic as they had so much Nightmare merchandise, it felt inescapable but a few years ago after bonding with my sister at Disney World, I kinda got it as it’s her favorite Disney movie, I don’t mind it nowadays but it’s not my favorite or anything like I said I’m more a Hocus Pocus/Halloweentown person but it’s not a bad movie.
by Moviefan
On The Halloween Case with Nancy Drew: The Halloween Hoax (Nancy Drew and The Clue Crew # 9)
October 2, 2023 in Blogs
Today I kick off my Halloween reviews and I am pretty excited about this, however there’ll be a significant difference this year due to the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, I will not be covering anything from film or television, so most of the reviews this year will be on books. Starting with this Nancy Drew book and something I hope you pick up with these particular reviews is the books age up as we are dealing with books aimed at the youngest Nancy fans first.
Nancy Drew and The Clue Crew is an elementary-level series that reimagines Nancy and her friends as eight-year-olds at River Heights Elementary. Think of those shows that were popular in the eighties a la Muppet Babies. Now apparently this is a rebooted series that replaced a similar series called Nancy Drew Notebooks
I can’t speak to that series as I’m more familiar with the classic books and the Diaries, the latter of which are my favorite Nancy Drew books. However, it is pretty exciting to find a Nancy Drew book set at Halloween. Let’s crack the case open.
by Moviefan
A Look at Disney: Villains Profile: The Scarlet Witch
February 24, 2023 in A Look at Disney, Blogs
In many ways, I feel I’ve saved the most tragic example of a Fallen Hero for last. Wanda Maximoff is my favorite character from the MCU. And I do understand that some of her fans can be a bit obsessive but I find her to be an interesting study of how we let grief consume us and how we act in those times. As I’ll discuss below, she is a broken woman, and as someone who has felt broken find her relatable. It’s similar to why I like shows such as Next to Normal as it again deals with a character that feels broken and as though the world is against you.
There was a time when I felt constantly broken and like the world was out to get me and nothing was ever good enough. That’s Wanda to a tee. I’ll admit I’ve never read any of Wanda’s appearances in the comics, this is all I knew.
And to be honest, it wasn’t until WandaVision that I came to love Wanda as much as I do now. This might be one of the heavier entries in this series.
Actor
Elizabeth Olsen
I didn’t know it when Elizabeth Olsen debuted in the MCU but I had already seen her in some stuff growing up. As a kid, I was a fan of her sisters, Mary-Kate and Ashley and a young Lizzie Olsen had been featured in some of their music videos.
Yeah, I may have to go into more detail about this in a future blog but I was obsessed with The Olsen Twins as a kid and I’m pretty sure, they were my introduction to mysteries.
I had the VHS tapes, the books, and an admittedly not-very-good Gameboy Color game, but I loved this stuff. Elizabeth Olsen had gone on record saying that she doesn’t remember filming anything for her sisters, which is fair as she was super little here much like the twins when they started on Full House. Something else I want to touch upon is why I do think Elizabeth Olsen is a better actor than her sisters, I’m not exactly sure that it’s fair to compare her to her sisters as she is a full-grown adult taking on heavier roles whereas her sisters were mostly given sitcom and tween movie roles. Two very different styles of acting are required for what they are doing plus Mary-Kate and Ashley have stepped away from the limelight and are good for them whereas, with Elizabeth, you can see that she truly enjoys acting and it comes through in how she plays Wanda. She makes you ache for Wanda whenever she is onscreen.
by Moviefan
A Look at Disney: Villains Profile: Princess Audrey
February 17, 2023 in A Look at Disney, Blogs
Preface: I am never going to review the Descendant’s sequels on this blog. I just wouldn’t feel right reviewing them after Cameron Boyce’s passing. Boyce much like myself was epileptic and he sadly passed away while having a seizure. He was only 20 when he passed away and dying while having a seizure is one of the scariest things in the world I’d feel like an ass if I made fun of something he was in and I feel the fans of this movie should be allowed to enjoy something he was in without someone shitting over it.
That said, I am more than okay with looking at the villains in the series and this is an interesting case here as we are looking at a character that is a child of a Disney Princess and we have a role reversal where the daughter of a princess becomes the villain and the daughter of a villain is a hero. Descendants is a franchise that was riding the high of the then-popular trend of taking iconic characters and placing them in a high school setting. Think stuff like Monster High, Equestria Girls, or the franchise that this was compared to when it was first announced.
It does make sense that this franchise would be compared to Ever After High as they both involve children of fairy tale characters in a high school setting. While it is true that there are other series such as The School for Good and Evil that follow this premise, there is one other reason I think it is more likely to be compared to Ever After High.
I may not be completely on point with this comparison but I think Descendants having a doll line is something that brought about a lot of comparisons to Ever After High. While I may not be a doll collector, this line of thinking does make sense to me as I do believe these two lines as mentioned share plenty of similarities.
Now, that this introduction is out of the way, let’s get started.
by Moviefan
A Look at Disney: Villains Profile: Chancellor Esteban
February 10, 2023 in A Look at Disney, Blogs
As I continue my look at Fallen Heroes, we come across yet another exciting subcategory, what I refer to as the reluctant villain. I.E. a villain that doesn’t want to be a villain. Now Google conflates this with the idea of anti-villain. An anti-villain is defined as
a character with heroic goals, personality traits, and/or virtues who is ultimately the villain. Their desired ends are mostly good, but their means of getting there range from evil to undesirable.
And while I could see how these two could overlap, I’m not sure that works with the type of villain that I am looking at today. People mistakenly believe someone such as Killmonger to be an anti-villain when no, I can’t go there but I think someone more like Karli from The Falcom and the Winter Solider might better fit that alignment.
Again, please understand me, you can see where both these people are coming from but they are still villains and even using that label for Karli might be a stretch. But I truly believe that does not work for the villain I am looking at today, Esteban is again what I would refer to as a reluctant villain. He doesn’t want to be a villain but is forced into this role due to past actions I thought he had already paid dearly for. And throughout his whole time as a villain, he wants to make amends for what he did but his family will not hear him out. In my view, this makes him a tragic figure, and again, this is why I refer to him as a reluctant villain, not an anti-villain.
by Moviefan
A Look at Disney: Villains Profile: Cassandra
February 3, 2023 in A Look at Disney, Blogs
Today on my birthday, I’m kicking off a new series of Villains Profiles.
As I delve deeper into various types of villains, I’ve decided to look at a category of villains that has always fascinated me, the Fallen Hero. Starting with Cassandra from Rapunzel’s Tangled Adventure is the type of villain that falls under the trope of a Fallen Hero. To explain what a Fallen Hero is, we can look at this definition:
As the name implies, the Fallen Hero used to be a hero before doing a Face–Heel Turn. They may even have been an Ideal Hero or another equally optimistic archetype, up until the moment when they suffered something bad enough for them to lose all faith in good and idealism, be it the loss of a loved one, too many good deeds coming back to bite them hard, betrayal by someone they trusted the most, too much distrust from those who should have been allies,
I have looked at a Fallen Hero once before and funnily enough, it was from the first season of Tangled being the character of Varian.
With Cassandra, this is interesting because we spent the first two seasons of Rapunzel’s Tangled Adventure with Cass as one of Rapunzel’s closest allies. Still, at the end of the second season finale, Cassandra turns on Rapunzel stealing the moonstone that the characters had been going after all season.
Many fans have taken issue with this heel turn and said that Cassandra seems to act out of character as a villain after how we saw her as an ally in the first two seasons. I agree with this to an extent and it’s also hard not to overlook how the show repeated having a friend/ally of Rapunzel turn on her as they pulled this same stunt in season one with Varian in the season one mid-finale, Queen for a Day as I mentioned.
I love Varian and he is my favorite Tangled: The Series character I do agree that his reason for turning on Rapunzel made more sense considering he turned to Rapunzel for help saving his father but that help never came. Why did Cassandra turn on Rapunzel? It’s a combination of feeling as though she has been in the shadows of Rapunzel for far too long, oh and she finds out Mother Gothel is her biological mother.
Yeah, I have a lot of thoughts on this. I don’t exactly think tying Cassandra into the villain of the Tangled movie wasn’t the most excellent idea. I get the idea that she feels as though Rapunzel has stolen her life and is grieving the life she never had. But there are a few issues with this because as Rapunzel attempts to point out to Cassandra, she didn’t have a choice in being kidnapped.
I understand that this season wanted to focus more on the relationship between Rapunzel and Cassandra and that is seen in how one of the episodes is titled A Tale of Two Sisters but I still think the Captain should have been more active.
by Moviefan
The Sign (An Original Story by Timothy Murphy)
November 16, 2022 in Blogs
Ariel had started singing lessons with Mr. Francois. She was in love with it as he was a world renowned musician that got his start in New Orleans. She practiced with him for two hours on Monday and Thursday. It was nice for her to have sometime away from her older sisters. Though she always invited Rachel and Blaire come watch her rehearse, Rachel always refused.
Ariel was always curious why Rachel never wanted to come. Every time, she asked Rachel would say “Oh, I have to help my mom with crochet”. Which Ariel was puzzled by Rachel wasn’t very good with a needle. She asked her again and was told, “I’m helping Cassie finish a puzzle”. This seemed more believable but Ariel was still hurt that one of her best friends didn’t seem to have any interest in something that meant the world to her. She was always supportive whenever Rachel displayed a new art piece, so why wasn’t her best friend being there for her?
*********************************************************************
“You wanna tell me why you keep ignoring Ariel every time she invites you to watch her sing?” Cassie asked her younger sister as her coming up with excuses was getting quite old.
Rachel didn’t really want to but she figured it’d be best to get this out of the way as she grabbed her stuffed cat, Dinah.
“I don’t like it there. Not in a way that it feels unfamiliar or unclean when I go grocery shopping with mom at Walmart…” Rachel started to explain before being cut off by her sister.
“What do you mean you don’t like it there? You love listening to Ariel sing and you’re missing out on time with your best friend”. Cassie said in a state of confusion.
“Okay, maybe saying I don’t like it there isn’t the right thing to say. It’s more like I don’t feel welcomed there. Do you remember earlier in the year when a bully filmed one of my seizures?”
Cassie was worried when her little sister brought that day up as it was one of the worst days of Rachel’s life and considering how many seizures her little sister used to have in one day, that’s saying a lot.
“Did someone make fun of your epilepsy?” Cassie asked fuming ready to punch whoever mocked Rachel.
“No, no, it’s not that. Well, not really. The reason I don’t feel welcomed there is because of a sign. It’s hard to put into words but it makes me feel small and weak”. Rachel was saying holding her composure.
Cassie was starting to get an idea of where this was going. She had never bought into the sticks and stones mantra, that the school taught her at Rachel’s age. She knew words could be triggering and she wasn’t quite ready to tell her sister about words she had heard caused her to enter a spiral of depression. She was wondering what was the sign that was so bad but didn’t want to pressure her little sister to say anything if she wasn’t ready.
“You don’t have to tell me why this sign bothers you, if you don’t want to”. Cassie reassured Rachel but no, Rachel felt she had to tell someone and she was always told to tell an adult when something was bugging her. Okay, her sister was sixteen but that was close enough in the eyes of this twelve-year-old.
“It’s a stupid sign that says being stupid doesn’t equal being disabled. Or something like that, I don’t know. I just know I hate it and every time I looked at it when trying to watch Ariel sing made me feel as though I was shrinking in my chair”.
Cassie was starting to get it, she knew how hard the world was and how much worse it treated disabled people. So for her sister to see that being disabled must’ve felt like a million bricks had fallen on the young girl’s soul.
“Oh Rachel, I’m so sorry. I can see how you’d hate that. Looking at the sign must’ve been awful. But why haven’t you told Ariel how you feel?” Cassie asked, though she already knew the answer.
“I don’t want to ruin something she loves by telling her teacher has something so hurtful in his classroom”. Rachel said a little sad but also clearly confused about what she should do.
“It’s your call on what you want to do but don’t you think she deserves to know how you’re feeling. I’m not saying you have to confront Mr. Francois as I wouldn’t expect you to but perhaps if you honest with Ariel, you’d hurt a little less”.
Rachel wondered about what her sister was saying and part of her knew Cassie was right. And what seemed to be a miracle of fate, the phone started to ring and it was Ariel was on the other end.
*********************************************************************
“Hi, Ariel could we talk about that sign?”.
by Moviefan
A Look at Disney: Villains Profile: Rapunzel Tremaine (Once Upon A Time Season Seven)
November 14, 2022 in A Look at Disney, Blogs
Content Warning: This blog includes discussions of sexual assault and rape.
Once Upon A Time is no stranger to adaptional villainy as I have discussed in the past and an offshoot of this is character mashups, i.e. taking two characters and combining them into one. One of the earliest examples is making a Genie, the Magic Mirror.
In my opinion, the best example is the reveal that Peter Pan is the Pied Piper.
These two character mashups made sense but the one I am looking at today left me scratching my head and somewhat angry. Anyone who has followed my blog for quite some time knows that I am a huge fan of Rapunzel, she isn’t just my favorite Disney Princess, she’s also my favorite Disney character. I had always wanted her to appear on Once Upon A Time and well, she did in a flashback story mostly as a passive character for Prince Charming to learn that he can be a good father.
I should have been happy with what I got as the final season introduced new takes on characters we had seen before including Rapunzel but we don’t learn that she’s Rapunzel as we first meet her as Lady Tremaine, pictured here: my reaction.
I tried to convince myself that this evil Rapunzel had nothing to do with my favorite movie but then the Floating Lights show up as a plot point.
This would have been exciting if Rapunzel wasn’t a villain. Before I get to the usual categories, I would like to bring up how gross I find this decision. Lady Tremaine is an abusive mother figure and Rapunzel is a victim of another abusive mother figure.
There are so many things wrong with making Rapunzel and Lady Tremaine, the same character. On a surface level, this feels like an insult to Tangled fans that had been hoping to see elements of that movie brought into the show. Going beyond that, turning Rapunzel into an abusive mother figure just feels like a gross misunderstanding of the character. Yes, the OUAT characters aren’t a direct one-for-one adaption (except maybe the Frozen characters) and changes will be made but if you are going to pull from a movie that people like, I would hope that you would treat it with a modicum of respect.
by Moviefan
A Look at Disney: Villains Profile: Drizella (Once Upon A Time Season Seven)
November 11, 2022 in A Look at Disney, Blogs
The final season of Once Upon A Time had a villain problem. Not counting side villains such as Dr. Facilier and The Candy Killer, so many villains seemingly acted as the main villain throughout the season.
The show led you to believe Lady Tremaine was going to be the season’s main villain (and I’ll have a lot to say about her in the final entry of this series). Then you thought it was going to be Drizella and it was for a while until she left in the fifteenth episode of the season. And then you were led to think it was Mother Gothel but she was killed right before the series finale and we were left with an alternate universe version of Rumpelstiltskin. The show decided to fall back on a villain for the final that fans had been tired of seeing as a villain at this point.
The biggest problem with the final season story-wise is that it was attempting to be a reboot season and mirror the arc of the first season with a child convincing their cursed parent that they are related to fairy tale characters and true love’s kiss will break the curse. There are a few problems with this by the time of season 7, Once had shifted into doing an A and a B arc. Which were easier to break down, for example, in season 3, 3A was the Neverland arc whilst 3B was the Oz arc.
And seeing as most seasons of OUAT consisted of 22 episodes, that was eleven episodes per arc which made those arcs flow better and feel tighter. But season seven decided to dabble into doing a full season arc which I repeat hadn’t truly been done since the first season. Another factor that hurt the show’s final season is the loss of so many main actors, such as you lost Jennifer Morrison (Emma), Ginnifer Goodwin (Snow White), David/Charming (Josh Dallas), and Belle (Emilie de Ravin). Losing Emma was the biggest blow as she was the main character for six seasons and the person the audience was tuned to care about the most. And top of that, the show decided to move out of its central location of Storybrooke to a new neighborhood in Seattle known as Hyperion Heights. It’s no wonder that so many fans didn’t even bother with the final season and considered season six the true final season as so many people we cared about are no longer on the show. Also, the season six finale had a perfect ending shot and it’s called The Final Battle for goodness sake.
All the characters we care about sitting at a table having dinner after vanquishing the ultimate evil would be a perfect note to end on as we get to watch them have a quiet moment and know that they’ll be okay but nope, there was one more unneeded season on the way. I know I’ve spent a lot of time harping on this and haven’t gotten to the subject of today’s blog yet but I had to get this out of my system. So, let’s start our look at OUAT’s take on Drizella.
by Moviefan
A Look at Disney: Villains Profile: Lady Tremaine (Once Upon A Time Season One and Season Six)
November 10, 2022 in A Look at Disney, Blogs
We have now hit an interesting area in our look at live-action Cinderella villains series as I enter back into the world of Once Upon A Time villains. The next three villains I’m looking at all come from this show and this’ll close out the event. On that note, a couple of caveats of what I decided not to cover, the first being Stockard Channing’s character from the movie, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister as that movie is next to impossible to find. The next is Anatasia from the Once Upon a Time in Wonderland spinoff as the creators played coy with whether or not, she was Cinderella’s stepsister and as we will see when I look at the Stepsisters here, they don’t even use those names until we meet new versions of the characters in the final season. And lastly, the Descendants version of Lady Tremaine as there is truly nothing to say about that version of the character as she is only in one scene.
