The Best Movies Of 2019!

Howdy!

For our last post of the week, I will be discussing my favorite movies of 2019!

Since I didn’t do my “Movies I Want To See” series last year, I wasn’t really keeping up with the newer movies but I was okay with it. What I did instead was I basically made a vow to make time in my day (or night) to watch something in my DVR folder or on Netflix. This was probably the smartest thing I did, because I ended up checking out a lot of films in the meantime. I even tried to make this post a little easier because I used Pinterest to keep track of everything I watched throughout the year.

The Hours (2002)

I think this was the most important film I watched at the beginning of the year. It was a story about three women in their different time periods, but it circled around their lives at the time they are reading Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. So, you have Nicole Kidman starring as Virginia Woolf. The time is 1923, and she is in the process of writing the book but you learn that she has had series of breakdowns and attempted suicide in the past. The next character is Laura, played by Julianne Moore and the year is 1965. She is a mother, who is very unhappy. And finally, there’s Meryl Steep, who is Clarissa and we are back in the present which is 2001. She is a bisexual woman, who tries to keep an eye on her former partner Richard and meets his mother after his death by suicide.

It was a heartbreaking movie that I both loved and hated, because at the time I watched it, I was very depressed and since I have had contemplated suicide in the past, it hit me deeply. After I finished it, I literally got out my notebook and wrote in it about how I was feeling and mostly I was full of anger on my situation in life. I cried and cried, but I let myself cry it out and I’m glad I did that because once I was done, I suddenly felt better about everything. I was no longer sad about my life. If anything, it helped me move on. I don’t know if I kept that entry or not, I think I got rid of it around October.

Descendants 3 (2019)

I was really surprised that not only did I watched this movie, but I loved it! A part of me was conflicted at first because I was watching it to honor Cameron Boyce and the other part I was curious to see what the song was during the promos! After the first song and dance routine was over, I instantly got comfortable on my bed and watched the whole thing in one sitting!

If you have not checked out the films, it is about the descendants of our beloved Disney characters, but there’s a catch as the good characters live in Auradon. They have their magical powers and basically live in a place of luxury, whereas the villains all live on a island that takes away their magical powers and isolates them away. At the time of this film, the original descendants of Maleficent, The Evil Queen from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Jabar, and Cruella Di Vill go back to the island and chose four kids to come to be educated and live with their mentors on Auradon.

I am a sucker when it comes to musicals. Disney musicals use to really get me when I was younger, but I kind of thought I was too old to enjoy them again. It was shocking how quick that thought flew away after I heard “Queen Of Mean” sung by Sleeping Beauty’s daughter Prince Aubrey (Sarah Jeffrey). I’m not going to even hide the fact that after I heard for the first time, I rewind the whole song over so I could learn the lyrics on my closed captions! I learned it within a day or so; the same thing happened with “Night Falls” too!

Chaplin (1992)

This one was probably the best I had seen in a long time! I am familiar with the story of actor Charlie Chaplin, but I was not expecting to enjoy seeing Robert Downey Jr. playing him. I was so worried that I would be picturing Tony Stark the whole time, but thankfully I didn’t. He completely took over the man and his iconic role as the “Tramp” to the point where you thought you were seeing the real Mr. Chaplin on your television screen!

The film is all about Charlie Chaplin’s life, starting while he is exiled in Switzerland after being accused of being a communist. He is met with his biographer to discuss what he wants to put in his book. So, we are taken through some things from his young life with his older half brother Sidney and their mother, who had psychotic breakdowns to what led him to create his own production studio and finally the point he meets his wife and love of his life: Oona O’Neil.

It was such a good film! I wasn’t able to watch it in one sitting like I wanted, but it never really left me, I was haunted by the previous scenes so I kept telling myself to go back and once it was over, I was really bummed but wanted to recommend it to anyone who would listen honestly!

For Sama (2019)

I don’t know what drew me to watch this documentary but I did, and I’m happy that happened because it was hauntingly beautiful!

PBS was airing this on “Frontline” one night and I just felt complied to check it out. It made my heart ache for everyone in Syria. It made me think of a friend I had that lived/lives there, and the reason why I said “lived” is because it’s been around four years since I have heard from her. She use to tweet about her father dying and she was having to move with her family, and it just didn’t seem real until I watched this and I began to think of her again and wonder where she was or did she make it out alive?

This film was recorded in a range of two or three years. The title “For Sama” is in dedication to the filmmaker’s daughter Sama, who was born at the height of the civil war in Syria. Sama’s mother is Waad Al-Kaeb, she married a doctor that treated people who were hurt prior and during the bombings in Aleppo. The whole film is in Arabic but English subtitles are provided at the bottom of the screen. You could hear and feel every emotion like pride for their home, worry that they wouldn’t make it, horror to seeing everyday people, children included with various injuries from the aftermath of the bombings and the love in the tone of her voice. It does get pretty graphic but it was real. When you hear about bombings on the news on TV, I feel like for most people (myself included) can switch off their minds to how a bomb that dropped to the ground, on top of homes, that the innocent escaped in time. You will see children die and be born within five minutes of each other.

Detroit (2017)

It was so surprising that it took me two years to finally watch this film. I remember the day I was going through the new movie trailers on YouTube and then coming across this one. I am a lover of real life situations being played out on film. I would rather spend the rest of my days watching them because then I would never forget about our history as human beings. Not everyone has the best intentions for others, much less themselves and I think it is the perfect way to describe the situation of this movie.

Detroit is a story of a time where there was a lot of violence towards the African-Americans and the police department of the 1960’s; there is injustice among the community and everything has hit a breaking point. You are introduced to a group of people who are staying at a hotel and somebody starts shooting at the police as a joke, and since tensions are already high and everybody feels threatened, things get very out of control and the consequences were awful. They could have been better, hell, even prevented as nobody should have been killed in a way these people were and then you realize that even though the times have changed, history has a way of repeating itself over and over again.

I am finally done with this post, but if you’d like to see what else I watched in 2019, you should go check out my Pinterest board. I hope you have enjoyed this post and have a great weekend!

August Playlist

Howdy!

I told myself that if I didn’t get anything done this week that I would at least this post ready instead, but I have been feeling great in my legs that I actually left this one for last!

This past month has had a lot of music, both new and old favorites. I even dedicated a full week to just reggaeton music. I actually figured out something pretty interesting (well I thought it was interesting!) while in the mist of this mini adventure.

If you.don’t know by now, I love a large amount of different music, but what I’ve found in the last six years or so, is that I don’t really categorize it by genres, more like where the artist is based out of, they’re nationality. I slowly started to remember why I went that way and it happened when I wasn’t listening to as much rap music I always thought I was, but something kind of drastic occurred at the end of 2008 that I just decided to separate myself from the genre entirely. However, a part of me didn’t want to leave completely because I grew up listening to the genre as a child.

In the meantime, I found reggaeton and I used the fact that none of the artists I listened spoke in English to fall deeper into the genre and began to appreciate the beat thus would help me later in life for creating a bigger love of all genres whether or not I can understand the languages or not. This summer I have been even more interested into the music I’ve been hearing coming out of Mexico, Puerto Rico and Colombia. Maybe I’ll even highlight some of my favorites in the annual Summer Playlist coming in a couple of weeks.

For now, you get a mixture of the Top 20 songs I listened this August. Hope you enjoy them!

My Turn Now by Hidden Citizens
Bad Bitch by Bebe Rexha featuring Ty Dolla $ign
Mother’s Daughter by Miley Cyrus
Heavy Is The Weight by Memphis May Fire featuring Andy Mineo
The Fall by Banks
Say My Name by David Guetta featuring Bebe Rexha & J Balvin
Banana by Anitta featuring Becky G
If U Seek Amy by Britney Spears
The Violence by Asking Alexandria
True Friends by Bring Me The Horizon
Loco Contigo by DJ Snake featuring J Balvin & Tyga
Queen Of Mean by Sarah Jeffrey
China by Anuel AA feat. Ozuna, Daddy Yankee, J Balvin & Karol G
What A Girl Wants by Christina Aguilera
What’s My Name by China Anne McClain
Don’t Call Me Up by Mabel
Move Shake Hide by Marmozets
Crawl Back In by Dead By Sunrise
Runaway by Sebastien Yatra featuring Jonas Brothers, Natti Natasha & Daddy Yankee
Kill This Love by Blackpink

I am really missing my Spotify mostly because I miss doing my music reviews on here. I used to have good size amount of stuff to talk about in a month and now I feel like I am scraping the bottom of the barrel. I have thought about opening my blog back up to artists and bands again, because at least that would keep me active on here but I don’t know if it would help me out as much either.

If you’re an artist or band with new music out on YouTube and would like some free promotion, please let me know and maybe you can be featured on my blog! You can contact me at: gotmeghan.blog@gmail.com with your information. Let’s work something out that helps both of us out a little. 🙂

What were you listening in the month of August? Any favorites?

Album Review: “Singular: Act I” by Sabrina Carpenter

After I did the Little Mix review last week, I wondered how many other albums I missed and wanted to talk about on here. So I have found two more albums, this one and another that came out in December that I will be sharing my thoughts on hopefully next week! First, we are going to talk about my increasing love for Sabrina Carpenter. I know the last name Carpenter is fairly infamous in the music industry, but I don’t think Sabrina has any relations to them. Sabrina is an actress along with being a singer. She’s worked on the Disney Channel on shows like, “Austin & Ally,” “Girl Meets World,” and finally “Adventures In Babysitting.”

I’ve been focused on her singing career than her acting, and it was purely by accident. I caught the end of her song “Thumbs” on the radio and thought it wasn’t bad and within a week later I heard another one called, “Why” and it was just continuous, because the final song I heard in 2018 was “Lost Love” with the EDM group Lost Kings. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed all of the tracks, so when I saw that she had released a new album back in November, I was like “I need to check this out right now!” So, if you’d like to join me on this little adventure, you’re more than welcome to it.

The first song is “Almost Love” and I liked the cute popping in the beginning. The “cute” factor never really leaves the beat at all, and I think it makes it a bit annoying. A part of me hates it, but yet I’ve heard it so much lately that I’ve been dancing and humming to it, so it’s a good dance-pop song but has some little things that irritate me. We move on to “Paris” and I will be honest, I thought she had redone The Chainsmokers’s single of “Paris” but after I listened to it, I realized I was wrong but I like it anyways. I like the seductive beat and tone of her voice. I think it gives the message a needed edge. I really enjoy it!

Third is “Hold Tight” featuring Uhmeer. I’ve never heard of this person, but I am always open to new artists! This has a R&B sound to it too, which is strange because the album has been said to prominently be pop/EDM. It’s much slower, has a strong sexy vibe going on but I actually like it! I think Uhmeer’s deep voice is a good contrast to Sabrina’s sweet voice. It just added to the “feel good” vibe that was already going on. Next was “Sue Me” and we’re back on the pop train again. Unfortunately, I didn’t really like this one. It seemed really dull compared to the previous tracks. I didn’t even dance to it after the first verse was over and yes, that’s usually my sign that it’s a good song, but there was nothing with this. So, we move on to “Prfct” which is the word: Perfect, but without the vowels. The only reason why I say that out loud because I was so confused writing it out in my notepad. It was one of those days for me! Anyways, this beat is nice and easy. To me, it’s more sensual than the other way around, but I really like it.

We’re heading to the last three songs of the record. The sixth track is “Bad Time” and this only had Sabrina’s voice in the beginning, so it’s a slow start to the beat itself, but when it does appear it’s a nice real pop sound. I was a bit on the fence about it. I liked the sound, but thought it was a bit overwhelming to really hear the lyrics of the song. That is my only complaint with it. “Mona Lisa” is on now and I thought the moment it started, I thought it was a bit unique. I thought it has 00’s bubblegum pop sound to it. It reminded me of Jessica Simpson and Christina Aguilera! Honestly, it was refreshing and it actually became one of my favorites of the bunch! And finally the last song is “Diamonds Are Forever” and I really liked this one too. I thought she kind of sounded like another artist I heard recently: Elley Duhe. This has a sensual beat, but she sings it with such sass that it really makes you like it. At least, it did that for me!

Apparently I had some strong expectations to this effort than I thought I did because a part of me felt a bit let down by it. I was on the fence for about half of the tracks on this record and only had one real favorite out of the whole thing. That’s not like me to be like this, so I’m hoping when she releases Act 2 later this year, it’ll be a little bit better!

Have you listened to Sabrina Carpenter’s new album yet? What did you think of it? Do you love it or hate it?

6 Halloween Movies For Kids!

Howdy!

Since I’m not able to decorate pumpkins this year, I had to come up with another Halloween-y post for you guys and I thought collecting a bunch of movies that you either have seen at different parts of your life or not at all. For this list, I decided to talk about what is kid-friendly, it might be movies you remember watching with your parents or at a sleepover with your cousins or friends growing up. I tried to board out my search of different movies and I really like the lineup I have so far, and I hope you enjoy them as well!

The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

The first time I ever watched this movie was in seventh grade, weirdly enough three days before we went on Christmas break. There are not very many movies that can pass being two holiday movie lists, but this is one! Unfortunately, I didn’t want to watch it and was very happy to be sitting in the back of the room. It wasn’t until about three years later that I finally watched it on my own and I actually kind of enjoyed it.

I think this is a good, fun movie for young kids to watch because they will love the characters, but be careful they do show the Bogeyman and other monsters in the closet and under the bed, so there’s that part to watch out for the younger kids!

Halloweentown (1998)

I love Halloweentown! However, like TNBC I did not want to watch this when it aired on the Disney Channel one October night at a friend’s house. I wasn’t the bravest of kids in my age as you can see, but my sister and her friend stayed up and watched it. You’re never going to believe this, but I actually fell asleep before it even started, so at one point of time, I could fall asleep on cue apparently!

So what changed? I think I was always haunted by the fact that I couldn’t watch it back then that once I got into high school I was like, “you have to suck it up” and it’s been one of my favorite Disney Channel franchises, and my favorite one being Halloweentown High. The last one isn’t really the best because they replace Kimberly J. Brown to Sara Paxton. Nonetheless, the films are good and they’re not really dark, some of the costumes are a little “scary” for some young kids, but other than that it’s a Disney so your child should (grow to) like it very much.

Alvin and The Chipmunks: Meet The Wolfman (2000)

When I decided that I wanted to write this post, this was actually the first movie that popped into my head. I remember watching this as a kid with my sister, who would have been in preschool at the time. We rarely watched Alvin and The Chipmunks and honestly I haven’t seen any of the sequals of the newer films, so the fact that this made the cut is interesting for me. I try to watch it whenever it’s on, even if I miss the majority of it!

If you’re looking for a cartoon-ish, Halloween movie for your children to watch, I’d definitely recommend this because this is generally adorable then spooky. If you didn’t love the Chipmunks, especially Theodore, you will after watching this film.

Mom’s Got A Date With A Vampire (2000)

This is another favorite of mine, that unlike the first two movies I talked about, this was easier to get into and maybe it was because Charles Shaughnessy was in it! You have to understand that when this came on, I was busy watching Full House, Mad About You, Family Matters, and The Nanny with my mother almost every other day with a bowl of potato chips for an afternoon snack when we came home from school! I don’t remember watching Sabrina the Teenage Witch so this is how I fell in love with Caroline Rhea for the first time.

You can find this on Disney Channel too! It likes to creep up on me sometimes, because there will be times where it’s easy to find but then they don’t play it at all and that part really sucks! It is a nice Halloween movie for kids, Charles is somewhat spooky but it’s mostly because of his accent and hair!

Twitches (2005)

I literally almost forgot about this one! It does help if you make sure you have the right amount of movies that it says on your banner before saying you’re done for the day! Anyways, Twitches is such a good movie, I’d say it’s a safe movie that discusses witches in general, but what I really enjoyed about it was seeing real twins Tia and Tamara Mowry play separated after birth sisters that are indeed witches. However, the real part I loved about it were Karsh and Ilena, they are absolutely hilarious and really bring the comic relief to this movie.

This movie has some dark tones in it, but I don’t think it’ll be that big of a deal for someone over the age of seven, but that’s only my opinion! I think kids will enjoy the fantasy and magic being shown between the characters, and will hopefully see through the character Thantos’s scary demeanor.

Hotel Transylvania (2012)

Are you surprised to see a recent release on my list? I actually had a hard time finding movies that I had seen that would work for this, and HT was the only one that fit the bill. I actually enjoyed this film, unfortunately I have yet to watch the other two and I do want to see them, because I really like the cast who are voicing these characters: Adam Sandler, Selena Gomez, Kevin James, and David Spade just to name a few.

This film is really nice, it’s not too scary for kids, it could actually help children understand to never to assume the worst out of people. I actually like this direction of the story of Count Dracula, they made the character slightly approachable whereas how they will probably learn of the real story of him, so right now this is family friendly enough right now!

So now we’re finished with the first list! I had lots of fun telling kind of embarrassing stories of my childhood on my blog again.. Oh, just wait until we get to the adult post, you’ll probably be laughing at me while reading it. I originally had seven on this, but I realized that I had two movies that I haven’t really seen a whole lot, so I figured it would be easier to talk about ones that I have watched and liked throughout the years instead. Before I go, I wanted to list a couple of TV shows for kids that have a sort of a spooky flare: Goosebumps, Are You Afraid Of The Dark? and Aaahh!!! Real Monsters.

What are your thoughts of the movies above? Which one is your favorite?

 

Top 5 Best Disney Sequels

Hello, I’ve decided to do another version of my favorite movies. Since the best franchises post was such a big hit with everybody, I got this next idea from one of my viewers and the comment she left on the post. I am a HUGE Disney fan, we all know this or at least we should know it by now. For those of you who didn’t know, well beware of the content of this post. How many Disney movies have you watched? I’ll count both animated and ones from Disney Channel. I think I’ve crossed the 35-40 mark. I don’t think it’s over 100 but who knows. Everybody has at least good or favorite Disney sequel, so what is yours?

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1.) Halloweentown High

Yup, since I mentioned them on the franchises post, I shouldn’t have to list the movies on here, but Disney did create them. Halloweentown is one of my favorite original Disney Channel movie series of all-time. That’s saying a lot considering I grew up on a lot of Disney Channel and Nickelodeon when I was a kid. The first movie came out in early 90’s and the last one came out in 2006, I remember waiting all week long for the premiere of it and when I saw that they had replaced the actresses that played Marnie Piper, I was crushed! I had grown to love Kimberly J. Brown and seeing Sara Paxton in brown hair was a bad idea. She does not rock being a brunette! We saw less of Debbie Reynolds in that film as well, which was also another let down. My favorite sequel though is Halloweentown High. That was another premiere night that I remember staying up all night for and it was totally worth it. It was less freaky then Kalbar’s Revenge, that one was just too much for me to handle. Halloweentown High made me LOVE Halloween but I also started to think that I was one of the characters of the movies because of my disability. Now I can watch the movies with ease and joy! 

2.) The Cheetah Girls: One World

In all honesty, I love all of the Cheetah Girls movies about the same, but I don’t think I would keep them in the same order. I loved One World the most out of the first two movies. I have been interested in flashbacks and movies going to different places and using it as a direction of the storyline. I think Cheetah Girls 2 was the right choice as far as destination, because as a lover to the first I thought Luc was from France, not Spain. The international music festival was a good choice to make and to make all of the girls go there. It wasn’t too cheesy and surprisingly I liked more characters in that movie than I did in the first, but the third movie, I was wondering when Raven would leave the group. At that time Adrienne, Sabrina, and Kiely all performed the songs live and came out with different singles throughout their time between the first and last films. I can safely say that One World gave me the want and need to visit India one day. I literally fell in love with India and Bollywood dancing during that one to two hour movie. I’m not going to lie, as much I missed Raven, I was happy that the other girls were amazing and I hope Disney Channel plays it again soon because I have the first two movies in my DVR but not this one.

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3.) The Little Mermaid 2

Yup, this is going to surprise a lot of people. I was never a fan of the first Little Mermaid. Not the songs or the plot. I loved Sebastian and Founder but that was basically it. I wasn’t much into the whole myth of mermaids back then like most kids were, no that didn’t happen until I was in my twenties and I watched the Animal Planet special. Anyways, since I wasn’t that big of a fan of the first movie, you’d think I’d basically hate the second movie too right? Nope. I ended up loving it more than the first and I don’t understand why because it generally has the same plot, but it’s all backwards. I mean, Ariel wanted her feet and legs but yet her daughter wanted fins and breathe underwater, both were willing to do anything to get what they wanted even trusted evil sisters before the ending of the movie. I think another reason why I liked the second one so much was because I got to see Prince Eric again. I had a weird animated crush on him when I was a kid, sadly I have to say it never went away either.

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4.) The Lion King 2: Simba’s Pride

It’s another movie I liked better than the original. Now I’m not saying that I hated it like I did to the movie above, but if you were to have choose between the first and third movies, I’d say this movie. I thought it was adorable to give Simba and Nala a daughter, but like others before me have always wondered. What happened to the cub at the end of the first movie go to? If you’ve seen the second film you know that it starts out like the first Lion King movie. The song is different but it keeps the same theme throughout the beginning induction. I thought Kiara was a strong character as her own. If it wasn’t a love story and a real person, I’d use her as a role model. She was definitely different from cub Simba. She did not want to be a princess or a queen someday. Kovu was a very lost cause, she had your sympathy for him as a cub being used by his mother to get to Simba and ultimately losing that battle.

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5.) Pocahontas II: Journey To A New World

Now I’ll be honest with you, I think the only reason why I love this movie so much is because I have a memory still stored in my head that contains this movie in someway. When I was little, my sister and I were addicted to Disney movies but when this movie came out on videotape (its weird saying that!) and I remember it was my birthday and my parent’s friends came over to the house and they had two older daughters, they gave me the movie as well, which was fine because if I remember right we used their tape than ours and I don’t remember why. We kept using it until our cat Oliver threw up all over it and our Spirit movie. It was a sad, sad day for my sister and I. I loved both movies so much and I still do. When I found out that majority of the plot between Pocahontus and John Rolfe was real and the stuff around it wasn’t, well most was, I was very surprised. I loved this movie but I missed Grandmother Willow a LOT in this one too, but the songs were still the best of the whole thing and that works well for me.