All weekend long, we're celebrating movie remakes and sequels! Check back here for updates to the list of entries, as I'll be updating it periodically.
...revealing my thoughts about movies, writing, and life to the audience...
Friday, January 09, 2026
The Film. Release. Repeat. Blogathon has arrived!
Welcome to the Film. Release. Repeat. Blogathon, hosted by myself and Jim (Quiggy) over at The Midnite Drive-In!
Friday, January 02, 2026
Announcing We Love Fairy Tales Week
If you love fairy tales -- by which I mean anything and everything from the original fairy tales from long ago to the latest retellings -- then you are in luck! Because I am gearing up to host my annual "We Love XYZ" blog party in February, and this year's theme is Fairy Tales!
All sorts of blog posts are welcome, from fairy tale book and movie reviews, to lists of your favorite fairy tales or favorite retellings, musings on what themes draw you to specific fairy tales, or anything else you can dream up that has to do with fairy tales!
Because this is a blog party and not a blogathon, there is no limit to how many people can write about the same subject. If we have fourteen reviews of Cinderella (2015), nobody is going to complain!
Join me February 9-14 as we celebrate all things fairy tale related! As usual, I will provide a party tag, a giveaway with themed prizes, and some party games. I also plan to do at least one post on my book blog, The Edge of the Precipice.
Everything else is up to you! And you can start by nabbing one of these party buttons and displaying it on your own blog with a link back to this post so others can join the fun.
The one real rule is that, since this is a party and open to people of all ages, your posts must be:
- celebratory (no fairy tale bashing!)
- appropriate for all ages
That does NOT mean you can't be critical of things within a movie or book you're reviewing. It also doesn't mean you can only review G-rated movies or books. It just means your posts should overall be positive about fairy tales and be appropriate for readers of all ages.
That means you don't absolutely have to sign up ahead of time for this party. However, it's always nice to have an idea of how many people will be participating. So if you do know you want to attend this party and have an idea of what you plan to contribute, let me know in a comment and I'll add you to the roster!
List of Participants
+ Hamlette's Soliloquy -- party tag, game, giveaway
+ The Edge of the Precipice -- roundup of fairy tale retelling book reviews
+ Revealed in Time -- reviews of The Swan Princess (1994) and Beauty and the Beast (2014 -- originally La belle et la bête)
+ Movies Meet Their Match -- review of Jack the Giant Slayer (2013)
+ With Joy for the Work -- a review of either Disney's Descendents or the Tinkerbell film series or Rise of the Guardians (2012)
+ Inkling Corner -- discussion of the fairy tale The Handless Maiden
+ Postcards from the Bookstore -- favorite fairy tale retellings
+ Sam the Library Mouse -- reviews of Cress and Winter by Marissa Meyer
+ 18 Cinema Lane -- review of Brigadoon (1954)
+ The Midnite Drive-In -- appreciation post about Captain Hook portrayals
+ RealWeegieMidget Reviews -- love songs from Donkey Skin (1970), Enchanted (2007), and The Slipper and the Rose (1976)
+ YOU!
Thursday, January 01, 2026
My Ten Favorite New-to-Me Movies of 2025
It's that time of year again! Time to sift through the movies I watched over the past year and figure out just which ones I liked best.
I really like that my list this year has movies spanning 97 years. It's a pretty fun mix of genres too -- not shocking, as I am an eclectic and omnivorous movie watcher.
Anyway, here's my list!
1. Conagher (1991) A rough-mannered cowboy (Sam Elliot) keeps crossing paths with a homesteader (Katherine Ross) and her adopted children, often helping them out of some difficulty or other, all while insisting he's going to be leaving the area any day now, he's totally not sticking around to look after her and figure out if her missing husband is ever coming back, nope, he's totally disinterested...
2. The List of Adrian Messenger (1963) A former military intelligence officer (George C. Scott) is asked to investigate a list of people, but before he can, the man who made the list dies mysteriously. And then people on the list start to die, too. What can the connection be? Why do so many of these people have very peculiar faces? How many ways can you disguise Kirk Douglas? SO many questions! Also, I've never found George C. Scott particularly attractive, but maybe I've just been watching the wrong movies...
3. Desperate Journey (1942) A WWII British bomber crew (Errol Flynn, Ronald Reagan, Alan Hale, Arthur Kennedy, Ronald Sinclair) survive a crash landing behind enemy lines and daringly attempt to sneak their way back to Allied territory. This movie gallops along, flinging our heroes from one tense and worrisome situation to another, but somehow never feels rushed. Instead, it feels like an exciting series of adventures, each one making us more and more invested in the characters.
4. Glass Onion (2022) Quirky and laconic detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) attends a house party thrown by a gazillionaire (Edward Norton) on a private island during the Covid-19 shutdowns. People die. Blanc figures out how and why. There are twists on twists on twists, one of which I loved so much, it bumped this much higher on my list than it would have been otherwise. This is the first movie I've seen that deliberately included the Covid-19 shutdowns in the storyline, complete with the face masks and the social distancing and the special rules for rich people, which was pretty interesting. Because I don't have Netflix, I only got to see this because our local theater showed it on the big screen for a couple of days. So happy that they did!
5. Salty O'Rourke (1945) A gambler (Alan Ladd) needs to pay off a debt fast, so he buys a race horse and hires a jockey and does some dubious paperwork shuffling and falls in love with a school teacher (Gail Russell) and makes a lot of other bad decisions, but it all works out okay because this is a comedy. I especially loved the sidekick played by William Demarest, of whom I grow and more fond with every movie I see him in.
6. The Invisible Man (1933) A scientist (Claude Rains) turns himself invisible and slowly goes mad. This movie makes no secret of the fact that the special effects are the main star of the film, and I am absolutely here for them.
7. The Pirates of Penzance (1983) A band of jolly pirates (but are they?) led by a Pirate King (Kevin Kline) bids farewell (but do they?) to their apprentice (Rex Smith) when he comes of age (but does he?) and decides he will stop being a pirate and become a law-abiding citizen (but will he?). Absolute madcap delightfulness from beginning to end, in the best Gilbert-and-Sullivan-but-make-it-1980s-instead style imaginable.
8. Kim (1950) A British soldier's orphaned son Kim (Dean Stockwell) passes as a native of India to spy for the British, aided and mentored by the mysterious Mahbub Ali (Errol Flynn). It's based on the Rudyard Kipling classic, but streamlined, and with a lot more for Errol Flynn to do than his character was granted page time for in the book.
9. Libeled Lady (1936) A rich young thing (Myrna Loy) is libeled by a newspaper, and the editor (Spencer Tracy) responsible for running the libelous story cooks up a doozy of a plot to convince her not to sue the paper. It involves his fiancée (Jean Harlow) and a slick-talking writer (William Powell), a sham marriage, and all the screwball hijinks the screenwriters could dream up and toss at the characters. I will probably enjoy this a lot more the second time I watch it, but I only just watched it for the first time a few days ago and haven't had time for a second viewing. Still, it wound up on this list, which means I did like it more than most screwball comedies...
10. The Gold Rush (1925) A hapless but plucky prospector (Charlie Chaplin) tries to find gold in Alaska, but mostly finds problems and trouble and a lot of snow. We saw this in the theater with my brother and his family, and it was the first silent film my niece and nephew had ever seen. (My own kids had seen a couple before that, but years ago.) It took them all about ten minutes to get used to the storytelling style, and then they all had a rollicking good time enjoying all of Chaplin's hijinks. And, as a bonus, we all went to Alaska about a month later, and my nephew was able to relate historical things we saw regarding the actual Alaskan Gold Rush to things he saw in this movie. I love it when fiction can bring real history to life for people that way!
Well, that's my list! Have you seen any of these? Did you make a list of favorite films you watched in 2025 too? Please share!
I've been collecting my top ten new-to-me movies in posts like this for twelve years now. You can find all of them at the bottom of this page.
Thursday, December 25, 2025
Merry Christmas!
It's Christmas! I hope you've had a lovely day -- I definitely have! We went to church this morning, then spent the afternoon doing our own version of Jolabokaflod by all drinking hot chocolate and reading books. My husband lit a fire in the fireplace when the sun went down, which made it even more cozy!
Tonight, we'll be watching The Thin Man (1934) before bedtime.
Merry Christmas!
Friday, November 28, 2025
Announcing the Film. Release. Repeat. Blogathon!
Jim/Quiggy of The Midnite Drive-In and I are gearing up to co-host our first event of 2026! We're very excited to bring you the Film. Release. Repeat Blogathon. This is a blogathon dedicated to sequels and remakes, those movies that came about because some Hollywood executive somewhere figured if one movie was good, why not have two? Or four? Or more?
Obviously, sometimes remakes are just as good as the original that inspired them. Sometimes, they're better. And sometimes... well, sometimes, they're a cheap cash grab, and we all know it. And the same goes for sequels! Sometimes, a movie is well-suited to creating a franchise, and sometimes it should have been left to stand on its own.
There are soooooo many ways you can join this blogathon! You can review a movie a remake. You can compare a movie and its remake. You can review one or more movies in a series. Is it a remake or sequel that improves on the original film? Is it a remake or sequel that no one should ever have even considered making? Is it one great film in an otherwise lackluster franchise, or the one dud in a stellar series? The possibilities are very wide open.
Here are a few guidelines that Jim and I have set up:
1. One person per movie... but that only means we don't want two reviews of Rocky III -- someone else can review Rocky II, and a third blogger could do a post comparing all the Rocky movies or rating them from best to worst, etc.
2. Please limit yourself to two entries for this blogathon. We love enthusiasm, but we'd rather not have one or two bloggers take over the whole show.
3. Once you settle on what you want to contribute, leave it in a comment either on this post or Jim's announcement post so we can add you and your choice to the roster.
4. Try to use one of the blogathon banners in this post on your own blog to promote the event so others can join the fun.
Any questions? Ask in the comments!
The Roster
+ The Midnite Drive-in: reviews of The Thing (1982) [remake] and Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989) [sequel]
+ Hamlette's Soliloquy: review of You've Got Mail (1998) [remake]
+ Nitrate Glow: review of You Can't Run Away from It (1956) [remake]
+ Cinematic Scribblings: review of Carmen's Innocent Love (1952) [sequel]
+ Angelman's Place: review of A Star is Born (1976) comparing to other versions [remake]
+ Classic Film and TV Corner: reviews of The End of the Affair (1955) and The End of the Affair (1999) [remake]
+ Realweegiemidget Reviews: review of Beyond the Poseidon Adventure (1979) [sequel]
+ Movies Meet Their Match: top ten sequels
+ Critica Retro: review of Gidget Goes Hawaiian (1961) [sequel]
+ Hoofers and Honeys: comparison of The Mummy (1932) and The Mummy (1999) [remake]
+ The Wonderful World of Cinema: review of Cape Fear (1991) [remake]
+ Silver Screenings: reviews of Blondie (1938) and Blondie Meets the Boss (1939) [sequel]
+ 18 Cinema Lane: review of Lovey: A Circle of Children Part II (1978) [sequel]
+ YOU!
Wednesday, November 26, 2025
Don't Miss the Black Friday Book Sale!
Are you ready for the most wonderful time of the year? It's nearly time for the Black Friday Book Sale! The time when a couple hundred indie authors (including me) put some or all of their Kindle books on sale for $.99 or FREE! From Black Friday through Cyber Monday, you can stuff your Kindle full of amazing indie books at ridiculously low prices.
I'm marking all six of my Once Upon a Western books down to 99 cents. Same goes for A Noble Companion. And all the authors of Follow the Lonesome Trail agreed to lower its price to 99 cents for the weekend as well!
This price drop is part of the massive indie book sale showcased at blackfridaybooksale.com, a site run by the wonderfully organized Perry Elizabeth Kirkpatrick. My books are mainly in the Historical Fiction section, except for A Noble Companion, which is in the fantasy section. A lot of other books in the Cornerstone Series (which ANC is part of) are part of this sale too.
All of the books included on that sale site are clean, which means they do not contain smut, the violence is non-gory, and any cussing is kept to a below-PG-13 level. There are a couple hundred authors involved in this, which means hundreds and hundreds of ebooks available at their lowest price possible!
It looks like the price for my books has already dropped even though it isn't Black Friday, so if you want to go shopping a little early, go right ahead ;-)
Friday, November 21, 2025
I am on a Podcast!
Aren't I cool and trendy and all that jazz? I am the guest on a podcast! It's a podcast that Northwestern Publishing House started back in 2024 that revolves around conversations with some of the authors whose books they either publish or carry. The intention is to have those authors share insights, discuss faith-related topics, and generally chat about common questions we all have during our lives. I am the first fiction author they've featured, which I am taking as a pretty big compliment (whether they meant it as one or not -- I might be the guinea pig, lol).
You can listen to my episode right here any time you want! I talk about how fiction stories can be more than mere entertainment, but can help us grow in our faith, apply lessons and truths to our own lives, and help adults and young people connect with fun and meaningful conversations.
If you give it a listen, I'd love it if you pop back over here and drop me a comment with your thoughts on the podcast discussion!
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