Friday, November 30, 2018

Autumn 2018 To-Do List Wrap-Up

Tomorrow is December 1st.  Time to pull the plug on my autumnal to-do list :-)  Let's see how I did!

~ Read Jane of Austin by Hillary Manton Lodge Check!  My review is here.


~ Read 5 other books from my TBR shelves Check!  I read SEVEN others off my TBR shelves:



~ Read 3 books for my Classics Club list Check!  I read four:



~ Read 3 books from the library Check!  I read five:

A Song Unheard by Roseanna M. White
Wonder by R. J. Palacio
The Bronte Sisters by Catherine Reef
Night School by Lee Child
Marilla of Green Gables by Sarah McCoy


~ Watch 5 movies from my TBW shelves Check!  I watched Rough Magic (1995), Spaceballs (1987), The Huntsman: Winter's War (2016), Red Mountain (1951), and I finished season 2 of Leverage (2009-2010).  Yes, the last is not a movie, but it takes up space on my TBW shelves, so it counts.  Of those, I liked Winter's War, Red Mountain, and Leverage enough to keep.

~ Go see the 2011 Jane Eyre with a bunch of friends Check!  It was super fun :-)  We have a new theater not too far away that holds these "afternoon tea" events once a month -- basically, they show a period drama and feed you tea and treats that are themed around the movie.  I've been to three of them now, and I am firmly addicted.

~ Go see Crazy Rich Asians Check!  It was amusing, but I didn't love it.

~ Go see First Man Fail :-(

~ Go see Bad Times at the El Royale Fail :-(  I went to visit my parents right when both this and First Man came out, and I flew over two different weekends, which meant I couldn't see movies on those weekends, and I totally missed them.  I'm so bummed.

~ Go see Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald Check!  You can read my initial thoughts on it here.

~ Get together with some blogging friends again, somewhere, somehow Fail.  Maybe after Christmas.

~ Make copycat Frankenmouth hot buttered noodles Check!  We made them for an Oktoberfest gathering we hosted back at the end of September (yeah, I know -- but it's totally a thing.  You celebrate Oktoberfest in September if you're good Germans, and I'm half a good German, so hey), and they were FABULOUS.

~ Make apple crisp muffins Fail :-(  I did print the recipe out, but that's it.

~ Take our kids camping in the Shenandoah Valley Check!  And we all survived.  No one got eaten by a bear.  I did mess my knee up again, though.  Grr.


~ Order photos Fail :-(

~ Start writing the first draft of my next book Check!  I'm more than a chapter in, and I love it.  I don't have a good title for it yet, but it's a retelling of Snow White set in the 1870s during a wagon train.

~ Run down to Colonial Williamsburg at least once  CHECK!  I went THREE TIMES!  It was basically the perfect autumn.


All in all, it was a charming autumn.  I'm particularly pleased that I got so much reading done, because it was also a busy season.  But I did NOT let my reading fall by the wayside! 

I'll post my winter goals soon.  How was your autumn?

(All pictures taken by me.  Many got posted on my Instagram account.)

Thursday, November 29, 2018

NaNoWriMo 2018 Wrap-Up

So, I'm done with Nano for the year.

You might remember that in my pre-Nano post, I talked about my goal of starting my next fairy tale retelling, a western version of Snow White set during the 1870s.  What I didn't really say there was that I wasn't aiming for a full 50K this year -- Cowboy says I get too grumpy when I do a full Nano, so for the last few years, I've set smaller goals for myself instead.  This year, I wanted to hit 15K, and I also had the goal of writing a western short story that's a follow-up to Cloaked.  And start my Snow White story, which still needs a good title.

Anyway, I did that!  I wrote TWO whole short stories, one a western and one... not.  I'll let you know when those are available, cuz they're both going to be free.  And I'm more than a chapter into my Snow White book.  Yay!

The NaNoWriMo site lets you set your own goals to track now, so I made a goal of 15K and tracked it all month.  Here's what it looked like:


Yes, there were quite a few days where I didn't write anything.  Mostly that's weekends you see with no forward progress.  But I wrote on fifteen days and I hit my goal, and I'm calling it a win :-)


How about you?  Did you do NaNoWriMo this year?  How are you doing?

Wednesday, November 21, 2018

"Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald" (2018) -- Initial Thoughts


You may recall that I really loved Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016).  In fact, I named it my #1 favorite new-to-me film of that year (though now I love Rogue One better, but that's neither here nor there).

So yes, my hopes were high.  Manageably high, I thought, but high.  With Jude Law coming aboard as Dumbledore and the promise of a lot more Johnny Depp, plus reunited with four characters I've grown to love after watching the first movie many times, what could go wrong?

Um, so things did go wrong.  I'm not saying I hated it, and in fact, I want to go see it again.  I'm going to read the screenplay as soon as I finish the book I'm currently on.  BUT.  This movie has problems.  Mainly, the picture above is the problem.  How many people are in that photo?  Sixteen?  Yeah, sixteen.  How many of those were in the first movie?  Six.

SIX.

Ten new characters.  Well, really nine, because we already know and love Dumbledore from the Harry Potter books.  But still.  NINE NEW CHARACTERS, people.  Nine out of sixteen.  That's way too many new people for me to have to invest in, while still keeping me invested in the four (fine, five, counting Dumbledore) I already loved.  It's just not going to happen. 

And it didn't.  I couldn't emotionally invest in the film because I never had time to.

(SPOILAGE FROM HERE ON OUT, both minor and major.  YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.) 

The new characters who were actually interesting, namely Nagini (Claudia Kim) and Theseus Scamander (Callum Turner), got almost no screen time until the end, when I was suddenly told to care about their sadness?  And the new character who got lots of backstory, namely Leta Lestrange (Zoe Kravitz), I never cared about because the writing was there, but the acting just wasn't.  Everyone else in this film was doing everything they could with their limited screen time, and she had all kinds of time to be interesting, but never was.

As for Jacob (Dan Fogler), he still stole every scene he came anywhere near.  But he was barely part of the film.  His "I always wanted to GO here!" was basically my favorite moment in the whole thing.  Queenie (Alison Sudol) got sidelined to the point where her character arc didn't make sense -- she's afraid she's going mad, and afraid of losing Jacob?  Those are two FASCINATING things to dig into, and... we never dug.  She just got moved from point A to point B and we never delved into why and how and all the juicy emotions we should be dealing with there.  Plus, in the first film, Queenie was this beautiful, surprising blend of flibbertigibbit and street-savvy.  Where did that go???

Newt (Eddie Redmayne) fared little better.  He's got some pretty juicy emotions to deal with himself, like how does he feel about the girl he loved in school getting engaged to his brother?  And then sacrificing herself for them both?  Redmayne shows us a lot just through good acting, but we should have had time to see him process this.  Instead it's bop from one action piece to the next and one plot moment to the next with no time for the characters or us to process anything. 

Poor Tina (Katherine Waterston) was barely in this movie.  I'm very angry about this.  Tina's a super-cool, fresh, unique female character, and she was handed a "play the jealous female" storyline and left there.  I hate this.  I wanted to see Tina being quirky and curious and passionate like she was in the first movie, and instead, she's almost ignored.

There were very few fantastic beasts, especially compared to the first movie.  And the titular crimes of Grindelwald were what exactly?  He kills a bunch of wizards at the end.  He has his henchmen kill some people so he can steal their house.  He uses polyjuice potion to switch places with his guard, and his guard's tongue got cut out/mutilated in the process.  He throws a little monster thing off a flying coach for being too needy.  Those aren't the kinds of crimes that get you a movie title, usually.  I guess you could add lying and manipulating to them, but still.  He wasn't all that much of a Big Bad, just Johnny Depp creeping it up whenever he managed to get a moment of screentime.

So.  Um.  Yeah.  It's not that I disliked this movie, honest.  It's just that it very much frustrated and disapointed me with its lack of focus, bloated cast, and lack of emotional content.  Rowling can do better; these filmmakers can do better; doggone it, live up to your potential, people!

Monday, November 19, 2018

"Giant" (1956)

I have a deep love for fish-out-of water stories.  This is probably because I often feel out-of-place myself, and have throughout my life.  Being a Christian, a conservative Lutheran, homeschooled,  a writer, a stay-at-home mom, a homeschool parent, loving classic books, loving old movies -- there always seems to be something about me that separates me from many of the people I come into contact with.

And because I'm pretty shy, that makes it hard to know quite how to deal with a lot of social situations.  I'm always the different one.  I'm always a little out-of-step.

Anyway, I think that sense of oddballness is probably what makes me love fish-out-of-water stories.  And that love is a big part of why Giant has been a favorite of mine basically all my life.  It contains layer after layer of stories about people who are out of place, out of step, out of their element.  Watching them navigate worlds where they don't fit in has helped me do the same.  Some of them learn to swim in their new world, and some... don't.  I've learned from all of them!

Giant begins with Jordan "Bic" Benedict (Rock Hudson), a wealthy Texas rancher, visiting a New England farm to buy an expensive horse from a gentleman farmer (Paul Fix).  Bic is broad, bulky, and feels somewhat out of place in this genteel, refined Eastern setting.  Hudson expertly conveys the feeling of a bewildered bull in a shop full of eggshell teacups.  He's gentlemanly and polite to a fault, but he doesn't really feel at ease.


Much of his unease stems from the gentleman's daughter Leslie (Elizabeth Taylor), who is vivacious, bitingly witty, and fearless.  She ditches the British gent she'd intended to marry (Rod Taylor) without a qualm and pursues Bic Benedict so ruthlessly he's married to her before he can catch his breath.


But Bic isn't going to live in New England.  You can't take a Texan out of Texas for long.  (And if I was a Texan, you can bet that's where I'd stay too.  This movie is a huge part of why I adore the state, to be honest.)  Bic and Leslie take a liesurely train trip back to Texas by way of a honeymoon, and then it's Leslie's turn to be out of her element.

Bic lives in a gigantic house in the center of his gigantic ranch.  (This is a real set on location, not a matte painting.  The exterior is just a facade, though.  Interiors were shot elsewhere.)


His unmarried sister Luz (Mercedes McCambridge) runs the house with martial efficiency.  She's direct, bossy, and proud -- a mirror image of Leslie, all rough edges where Leslie is refined, the cowgirl opposite of the socialite.  She goes out of her way to show this eastern debutante just how out-of-place she is in the rowdy world of Texas.


At first, Leslie quails just a little.  She can't quite get a handle on how to fit in.


But then her inner ramrod straightens, and she turns herself into, as she terms it, a "tough Texian" through sheer willpower.  She's more than a match for her sister-in-law, and soon it's Luz who doesn't fit into this new world that Leslie is creating at the ranch.


Luz resents this so much, she brutalizes the horse Bic bought from Leslie's father, a horse Leslie loves dearly.  The horse (and through it, Leslie) triumphs, and Luz pays for her unwillingness to change with her life.


Leslie does not settle into the world of Texas, however.  She sets about creating her own version of it.  She befriends Jett Rink (James Dean), a poor ranch hand that Bic treats like trash, but whom Luz left a few acres in her will.  She takes an interest in the poor Hispanic workers who live on the ranch's fringes.


Leslie makes her own place in her new world, bending a little to fit it, but also bending it to fit herself.  She and Bic continue to clash over this periodically, but their differences in personality and lifestyle help each other more than they hurt.

Meanwhile, Jett Rink discovers oil on the little buffalo wallow that Luz bequeathed him.  He becomes rich overnight, entering a new world of his own.  The world of power and money and influence.  While Bic and Leslie raise their family, he raises oil rig after oil rig, eventually becoming wealthier than the Benedicts.


But money doesn't buy Jett happiness.  He longs for Leslie, the one person besides Luz who has ever shown him real kindness.  She's been gentle and sweet to him, no more friendly than she is to the other workers on the ranch, but to him, that's reason enough to put her on a pedestal.  Unable to ever attain his perfect woman, Jett becomes an alcoholic, lonely and sardonic, never fitting in with all the people from "old money" who still see him as white trash in a nice suit.  He can never have Leslie, but he sees in her daughter Luz (Carroll Baker) a version of Leslie he might be able to attain. 

Young Luz is as savvy as the aunt she was named for, and while she's polite to Jett Rink, she pities him, and he can't stand to be pitied.  Jett never finds a way to acclimate himself to the new world he moves in, and he crashes spectacularly as a result, metaphorically and literally.

Bic and Leslie's world changes as well.  Their other daughter, Judy (Fran Bennett), marries a small, modern rancher (Earl Holliman) and abandons the big home of her youth for a smaller world, telling her father that "big stuff is old stuff."  Their son, Jordan Benedict III (Dennis Hopper), becomes a doctor, not a rancher.  He marries a Hispanic woman named Juana (Elsa Cardenas), who must navigate the world of rich white people who look down at her, even refusing to serve her in the same hair salon as her mother-in-law Leslie.

Bic opposes the marriage at first, but ends up accepting that the world has changed around him and begins to figure out who he is within this modern Texas.  In my favorite scene of the whole film, he takes on a bigoted white man who insults Juana and her son, Jordan Benedict IV.  Though Bic loses the fist fight, he gains a sense of who he is.

The movie ends with Bic and Leslie, grey-haired, but not mellowed, babysitting their two grandchildren.  Leslie confides in Bic that he has never been more her hero than when he fought for Juana's honor, even though he lost.  Bic stares at her and says, "If I live to be ninety, I'm never going to figure you out."  Maybe not, but both he and Leslie have figured out who they are and how they fit in their world, which is what all fish-out-of-water must do to survive.

(I apologize for the screencaps abruptly ending midway through this post.  My DVD suddenly quit working, or my computer did -- I'm not sure which.  I'll try to add more photos later when I can get them.)


This has been my entry for the Rock Hudson Blogathon hosted by In the Good Old Days of Classic Hollywood and Love Letters to Old Hollywood.  Follow either of the links in the previous sentence to read more entries into this blogathon!  Don't forget to check my sidebar to see what other blogathons I'll be participating in soon, including the one I'm co-hosting :-)

Sunday, November 11, 2018

"A Bear Named Winnie" (2004)

One hundred years ago today, the guns fell silent all across Europe.  The Great War, which we now call WWI, had come to an end at last.

To mark the occasion, I'm reviewing a book set during WWI on The Edge of the Precipice, and I'm reviewing a true story of WWI here.

I don't know about you, but Winnie-the-Pooh was a big part of my childhood.  Mostly, I watched the Disney movie The Many Adventures of Winnie-the-Pooh (1977), but my mom also read some of the original A. A. Milne stories to us once in a while.  I didn't actually learn anything about the creation of those stories until I was an adult, and even then, I just knew that Milne based them on his son's playthings.  And that his son named his toy bear after a real bear in the London Zoo.  I never wondered where this bear came from, or why it was named Winnie.

However, my friend Eva recommended the movie A Bear Named Winnie (2004) to me one day because she knew I'm a fan of Michael Fassbender.  Even then, it took me like six months to get around to watching it after I'd added it to my Amazon Prime Instant Video watchlist.  (It's still free on Prime right now.)  Well, silly me, because this movie is so good!  It tells the true story of how a bear from Canada ends up in the London Zoo, where she is adored by multitudes of sticky-fingered children.

When a Canadian troop train stops in a small town for refreshments and fuel, Lieutenant Harry Coleburn (Michael Fassbender) hops off to stretch his legs.  A member of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps, he displays his way with animals by calming a spooked horse. 


In the process, he accidentally finds an orphaned bear cub, buys it because he can't bear the fact that its going to be killed.


Coleburn charms his superiors into accepting the bear as a mascot for the regiment.  They name her Winnipeg, Winnie for short, and off they all go to training camp.


At camp, the soldiers love Winnie and her cute-little-animal shenanigans, but Colonel Barret (Gil Bellows) disapproves. 


He's supposed to be turning these veterinarians into soldiers, you see, and he thinks that Winnie is a distraction.  He's not wrong.  But she's such a sweet distraction! 


The whole first hour of the film is full of scenes of her romping about, climbing trees, eating honey, making messes, and giving Harry Coleburn slobbery bear kisses all over his face.


In fact, the most remarkable thing about this film, I think, is how very comfortable Michael Fassbender is with having a bear cub climb all over him. 


I don't know if Fassbender is an "animal person" or not, but I think he has to be on some level, because he really does look very natural with all the animals he interacts with here. 


Especially the bears (IIRC, bear siblings play the young Winnie, and then a totally different adult bear plays her as an adult), but the horses too.


The storytelling is a little bumpy -- the first two-thirds of the film are devoted to Coleburn and his pals having fun while training in Canada, and then smuggling Winnie over to Europe.  There's also this whole thing with his commanding officer (David Suchet) having some kind of mental problems borne of dwelling on past war glory and experiences. 


The first time I watched it, I thought that was really superfluous, but now I see that it sort of predicts what Harry Coleburn himself will later experience, and shows that war can damage a person's mind as well as their body.  So I get what they're trying to say there, even though I still think it could be handled a little more deftly.


Only the last thirty minutes have much to do with the war at all, and they also feel a bit rushed.  In particular, the last section, (SPOILER ALERT) with Coleburn suffering from shell-shock and being rehabilitated by Winnie coming to visit really needed to be much longer.  I so wish they would have delved more into that, but this is somewhat aimed at kids, so I suppose the filmmakers didn't want to dwell too much on the troubles of traumatized soldiers.  (END SPOILER ALERT)


Still, it's a sweet, heart-warming story that's lovingly told, and I enjoyed it so much, I now have a DVD copy so I can keep watching it even if it stops being free on Amazon Prime sometime in the future.  So please don't think that this is not an enjoyable, watchable movie!  Because it definitely is, and I totally recommend it.  Not only is Fassbender ultra-watchable in it, the bear is adorable, and Stephen Fry pops up at the beginning and end as a zookeeper who doesn't like kids, which makes me laugh.


Is this movie family friendly?  Basically, yes.  There's no significant blood or gore in the war scenes, though dead characters are shown, and one character gets killed just off-screen.  There are also injured and dead horses.  A mentally unstable man brandishes a rifle and puts lots of people in danger.  Drinking is shown, as well as gambling.  And there are two or three minor curse words.  I would let my 8- and 11-year-olds watch it, but it's still a bit much for my 6-year-old.

Friday, November 09, 2018

The 10-Day Movie Challenge

Ten days ago, a friend nominated me for the 10-day Movie Challenge on Facebook. Every day, I had to select an image from a film that has impacted me in some way, present it without a single explanation, and nominate somebody else to take the challenge.

I finished the challenge today, but it was HARD!!!  Why?  Because I couldn't talk about the images!  When I share about movies that have affected me in some way, I want to use words.  I want to explain.  And I couldn't.

Well, ha ha ha, this right here is MY blog where I make the rules, and so I'm going to share all ten pictures here too and talk about WHY I chose them and HOW these movies have impacted me.  SO THERE.
Day One


That's Richard Burton in Hamlet (1964).  It's a little bit of a cheat because that wasn't technically a movie, it was a stage performance in NYC that got recorded and broadcast to theaters, but... I really love it, so I included it.  It's the first stage performance of Hamlet I ever saw, albeit on film and not live, and it made such an impact on me!  (I'll be reviewing this for a blogathon next month, btw.)

Day Two


It's the schwarma stinger at the end of The Avengers (2012).  Which still doesn't fail to crack me up.  I've seen The Avengers in the theater more times than any other  movie -- I'm up to seven viewings now, and I still adore it.  Three of those were in its initial run, one was when they brought it back for Labor Day weekend that year, one was for a Thorsday Marathon, one was when it was paired with Age of Ultron for a double feature, and one was when they brought it back earlier this year for the ten-year anniversary of the MCU.  Would go again in a heartbeat if it showed up at some theater nearby this evening.  Man, this movie taught me so much about how to weave a story together!  Plus, of course, it introduced me to Thor.  In fact, it was my introduction to the MCU as a whole!

Day Three


This is Alan Ladd in Whispering Smith (1948), aka the movie that made me start falling for Ladd.  Look at those beautiful, soulful eyes!  His character in it, Luke Smith, is proooooobably my favorite Ladd character, even though this is not my favorite of his movies.  He's so honorable, loyal, brave, and kind.  Everything I look for in a character, really.

Day Four


Slow West (2015) is one of those movies that gets inside you, and the more you think about it, the better you like it.  It's a phenomenal bit of modern western filmmaking, and Michael Fassbender's performance in it is one of his finest.  Weird, quirky movie that has been inspiring me in so many ways since the first time I saw it.

Day Five


Ahhhhhhhhhh, 3:10 to Yuma (1957).  It's one of those movies I didn't like at all when I saw it as a teen, and now I adore it.  I'm running into more and more of those lately.  It's a fabulous bit of cowboy noir, lean and strong, and so achingly beautiful with its deep shadows everywhere.

Day Six


The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014) gave me Bard the Bowman (Luke Evans), my Middle-earth ME character.  I shall love it forever.  I once drove through an ice storm to get one last viewing of it onscreen, it's that important to me.

Day Seven


I bought Blackboard Jungle (1955) on VHS when I was a teen because it was Vic Morrow's first film.  Surprise, surprise, I fell in love with Sidney Poitier and Glenn Ford in it instead.  Though I AM blown away by Vic's performance as well -- but he's playing the Bad Guy, and I just have a really hard time liking Bad Guys.

Day Eight


The Greatest Showman (2017) filled my winter with joy.  My kids love it, I love it, we sing the songs constantly -- it's just such an uplifting, inspiring film! 

Day Nine


The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) gave me Dana Andrews.  And, more importantly, gave Dana Andrews to my best friend.  Together, we fangirled over him for years and years.  And this movie is just one of the most amazing movies I've ever seen.  Of all the movies in this post, this is the only one I would label a MUST WATCH.  Everyone should watch it.

Day Ten


Emma (1996) convinced me that I liked Jane Austen's stories when I was a teen.  I have watched it countless times, I listen to the soundtrack frequently, and it's one of the few movies that I actually like better than the book that inspired it.  (GASP!  It's true, though.)  Also, this was the first movie I saw Gwyneth Paltrow in, and the first one I saw Ewan McGregor in!  I've become such a fan of both of them.

THERE.  Now I've gotten to say my words about these ten movies.  I feel better now.

Thursday, November 01, 2018

Announcing the Robots in Film Blogathon!


Oh yes, you read that correctly.  Quiggy of The Midnite Drive-In and I are co-hosting another blogathon, this time one dedicated to robots!  Robots in movies, robots on TV -- if they're robots and they were filmed, they're fair game.


As usual, I have gone quite mad with the blogathon buttons.  I wanted there to be plenty for you to choose from!


As you can tell from the buttons, this blogathon will run January 25-27, 2019.  You can sign up on this post, or over at The Midnite Drive-In.  Either one will work!


Because there are SO MANY robots in movies and TV shows, we're demanding that there be no duplicate entries.  However!  It's totally fine with us if one person wants to do an overview of a series that has robots, like a Star Trek series or a film franchise, and then another person wants to do a more focused post on one particular show or film, or even on one specific robot.


If you need ideas for what to write about, I hope these buttons will give you some.  I really had so much fun making them and had to finally stop myself and say, "Nine is more than enough, Hamlette.  Four would probably have been sufficient."  Um, yeah.


Anyway, please join us in celebrating all the creative, imaginative ways robots have been portrayed on film over the years!


Together, we can make this one of the very best, biggest, boldest blogathons yet.  And if we don't, well, we can always take a page from Marvin's book and lie facedown in the dirt.  It's a very effective way of being wretched, you know.


Below is the official roster!  Comment here or on Quiggy's post, and we'll add you to it.  PLEASE give us a link to your blog so we can include that in our roster.  Thanks!



The List

+ The Midnite Drive-In -- Overview of Twilight Zone robots AND review of anime Ghost in the Shell (1995)
+ Hamlette's Soliloquy -- Review of I, Robot (2004)
+ Angelman's Place -- Robots in the original Star Wars trilogy
+ Coffee, Classics, and Craziness -- Gort in The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
+ Sidewalk Crossings -- Wall-E (2008) and Silent Running (1971)
+ Caftan Woman -- Hymie in "Anatomy of a Lover" from Get Smart
+ Movies Meet Their Match -- Robots (2005)
+ Reel Weegie Midget Reviews -- Ex Machina (2015)
+ It Came from the Man Cave -- Interstellar (2014)
+ Silver Screen Classics -- The Invisible Boy (1957)
+ In the Good Old Days of Classic Hollywood -- Bicentennial Man (1999)
+ Taking Up Room -- Short Circuit (1986)
+ Movierob -- Real Steel (2011), Battlestar Gallactica miniseries (2003), and CHOMPS (1979)
+ John V's Eclectic Avenue -- The Questor Tapes (1974)
+ Speakeasy -- Chopping Mall (1986)
+ Moon in Gemini -- Lost in Space (2018)
+ The Stop Button -- Icarus XB 1 (1963)
+ Critica Retro -- Tales of Hoffman (1916)
+ Imagination's Edge -- Optimus Prime and the Transformers from the films (2007-2018)