The Nine Lives of Chloe King Review

"The Nine Lives Of Chloe King" was the very first ABC Family show I ever watched. The story, based off the book of the same name, revolves around Chloe King, a teenager like any other. However, on her 16 birthday she starts getting catlike powers. Oh, and she falls off the Coit Tower and dies...and then she comes back to life! Chloe discovers that she's a Mai, a half-god, half-human descendants of the Egyptian cat goddess, Bastet. There's an evil organization called The Order who want the Mai dead. But Chloe is the Uniter, who is destined to bring peace between the Mai and the humans.

When I first saw "The Nine Lives If Chloe King, it had already been cancelled, so I had to go watch it on YouTube. I was thoroughly entertained after the first episode, and after the series was cancelled I was very disappointed. It was a pretty good show, and it really shouldn't have been cancelled-espeically after it left off as a cliffhanger.

Of course, it had its flaws like every show. And, since this post is an overview of it, I'll list the good things and bad things in this show.

One thing I absolutely loved about TNLOCK was the Mai storyline. After Greek mythology, Egyptian is my favorite. I loved the whole cat/human species that Chloe and her friends are, and I love the whole plot of her being the "Chosen One" to bring peace to the Mai. I especially loved The Order, because they think the Mai are dangerous species (one reason could be because they can't kiss humans without paralyzing/killing them). They were interesting villains who didn't seem purely evil.

I also loved the acting. It was really good. Skylar Sammuels surprised me when I saw her as Chloe; she was okay when she played the "Gigi" character in "Wizards of Waverly Place", but she just blew me away in this series. She could be fun, she could be sweet, she could cry...she was wonderful. The other actors are, too, but Chloe just stuck out to me because I didn't know how good Skylar was.

One of the biggest flaws in the show, however, was the romantic storyline. I don't mind love triangles too much (there was one between this guy named Brian, Chloe, and a Mai named Alek), but I don't like how it was the main focus of the story. Even the promos promoted the love story. It just takes away from the cool plot about the Mai, you know?

I also wasn't really big on the love triangle, either. I mean, it was interesting to an extent, but I'm not really into Brian and even Alek got on my nerves at times. Aside from his dad being in The Order, Brian was completely boring and a totally Gary-Stu. I do like how he was nice to Chloe, though, so that was nice, and his whole family history is really interesting (they're all involved with the Mai and Order somehow). Alek was a jerk sometimes, being hostile to humans, and got jealous easily, but I do love how he was protective of Chloe. Plus, he was funny and had way more personality than Brian. Too bad Chloe liked Brian more.

But aside from that, I loved the show. They had some awesome fight scenes (which is saying something, as I'm not usually into them), the acting was great as I had said, and I loved the whole Mai plot. I also loved Chloe's character, because she was so selfless and willing to help people-plus, she had her awesome moments in fighting and joked around a lot. I also loved Amy and Paul as Chloe's "sidekicks", so to speak (Paul is more of the comic-book geek than Amy, but she still helps her). I also loved Jasmine (another Mai and friend/protector of Chloe), and Valentina was interesting as well. And Chloe's relationship with her Mom-plus her mysterious history with her dad-was also enthralling.

I still hate how they cancelled the show. It ended with a  major cliffhanger; Jasmine and Valentia were shot with poisonous darts, some Mai working for the Order (Zane) told Alek he was his brother, Chloe got a call from her dad to meet with her, Brian kissed her and was supposedly dead (he could've been paralyzed), Brian's dad's assistant found out she was the Uniter and shot her, Brian's dad also was gonna make a deal with Chloe's mom (he's still unaware that she's the Uniter)...just SO many cliffhanging endings that it mad me furious that they ended it that way.

But I do understand how the ratings weren't as good (wish that wasn't the case) so ABC Family had to tank it. But I just wish they hadn't ended at a cliffhanger, or at least had resolved it (even if it was just one episode). But the show was good when it was running, and I'm glad ABC Family made it. I guess I'll just have to read the books or fan fictions to see what could have happened next…

Pirates of The Caribbean Review

The Curse of The Black Pearl film may have been the only Pirates of The Caribbean film I've seen so far, but I thoroughly enjoyed it, so much that it quickly made it to one of my favorite films list. Although I haven't seen the other films, I've read summaries for the others and saw part of Dead Man's Chest, I think I know enough about the series to give an overview on it :)

First off, I must explain why I loved COTBP so much. I'm not a big fan of pirates, but this one was just so different than what I've seen of other pirates. I wouldn't say the script is incredibly unique, but it does have a sort of intrigue that pulls you in. In the beginning, it looks like a tale of romance between Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann, whom can't be together because of social differences. After Elizabeth is captured, Will must turn to the infamous Captain Jack Sparrow (yes, he's always referred to as "Capt. Jack", or else he'll have a problem with you ;) to help save her. Seems pretty simple, right?

Except it's not. Because it turns out that the pirates who stole Elizabeth have been struck by a curse that forces them to turn into creepy skeletons in the moonlight, and they're undead. Oh yeah, and they need the blood of a Turner (like Will) in order to break the curse.

I love the whole adventure aspect of the film. Now, I like many genres, but adventure has always been my favorite. You can combine so many different genres inside--action, romance, drama, suspense, comedy--and all of these combined make a very exciting ride.

For me, though, Pirates wouldn't have been as great without its wonderful cast. Jack I'm sorry, *Captain* Jack Sparrow) is just awesome in so many that it's hard to describe him. Elizabeth is an awesome girl whom acts like a dignified royal but can kick your butt if she needs to. And even though Will isn't my favorite, he's got that noble hero thing going on, and he has his moments of shining, just like everyone else.

I'll get more in-depth into this in another article addressing my favorite characters, but the reason I love Jack so much is because he's just cool.  He's got so much swagger. The way he carries himself, so confidentially, is what makes him such an appealing character. And you can never trust his loyalties (they're always changing), so that makes him interesting as well. And well, Jack is just funny. Seriously, if you look up funny moments from POTC, I can tell you without a doubt Jack will be included in most of them :)

Elizabeth is really cool to me because of her independence. I love how spirited she is and how she's not afraid to speak her mind. I'm not a very passive person, so I always appreciate seeing others who are as strong-willled as I am (not to mention fiery ;) Oh, and unlike most of the leading ladies in films, Elizabeth isn't some damsel-in-distress. She negotiated her capture with the big baddy, Barbossa. And she can kick some major butt, which I always admire ;)

Will, while not up to the level of Jack and Elizabeth to me, is awesome in his own way. He's the good, noble hero who isn't exactly confident, at least in the first film, but his heart is in the right place. I am a bit of a romantic, but I really liked his love story with Elizabeth. Oh, and Will's whole backstory with his father being a pirate is also interesting. I love seeing heroes question their loyalty and who they are, because it makes them all the more interesting and fleshed out :)

Unfortunately, as much as I loved the first film, I can't say the same about the others. Even though I haven't seen all of Dead Man's Chest and beyond, I can't say I was intrigued from reading the summaries on Wikipedia :P

The story, I will admit, was a bit complicated in the first film. Elizabeth and Will's romance, Jack's solo story, the pirates and the curse...it's a bit of a handful. But it's okay with me, because the writers and directors pulled it off very well.

But I can't say the same about Dead Man's Chest or At World's E d. The reason I stopped watching it was because 1) the story was getting more confusing and hard to follow and 2) it was way too long for my liking (I think it's almost 3 hours? :O)

The story in DMC seemed to get more confusing, as I mentioned. Jack appears to owe a blood debt to Davy Jones, and he needs Will to help him, I think. And Will discovers that his dad is alive, but he's undead or something? It was just too confusing for me to keep up with. I still don't understand the whole blood debt thing. I'm sure it's not impossible, but I just think it could have been done in a more coherent way. And I don't understand why the film has to be 3 hours or so long. It felt like it was dragging on, unfortunately :/

And the same can be said about AWE. Jack is dead, or undead, I think, because, I think, he was sold to some ship or something, and Elizabeth and Will have to save him. I don't remember exactly, which just shows to me how confusing the plot has gotten. I know they had the whole undead deal in the first film, but here it just seems to feel more muddled. And, like DMC, I don't understand why the film is so long. I would think that it would start to drag on after awhile (that's how I felt about DMC).

As for On Stranger Tides, I missed that Will and Elizabeth weren't in end. It just became all about Jack. Now I love Jack, but I think he'd be better as the rogue character whom has his own little story but crosses over with the main leads. Not that Jack can't carry a film on his own, but by doing so it seemed like DMD was pushing Will and Elizabeth from their leading roles, and I loved all the main characters in POTC :/

But, nevertheless, I loved the first film. It was flawed, yes, but very adventurous, cool, and just plain fun. It made me reconsider my preconceived idea that pirates weren't that interesting. Also, the main characters are all fabulous, and, to me, having interesting characters is what makes a story of any kind great. So, if I ever get to watching the rest of the films and don't like it as much, I can always look to the characters for enjoyment--especially Jack ;)

Sketches by Elara Dorne

*Bad Wolf intensifies*

 This is my first (successful) attempt at drawing Rose Tyler, or as I like to think of her in this picture the Bad Wolf. It took lots of tweaking and shading but I eventually got everything generally the way I wanted. Her eyes are the best part of the picture in my opinion. Couldn't get the mouth just right, the way I wanted it to look like. In the original picture Rose had her mouth open slightly. Blah, I hate drawing teeth. But in the end it turned out okay with that intense face.

The second sketch is one of Padme, but it is a little harder to tell which character she is suppose to be. Padme's hair is always so beautiful and cool even if some of the hair styles are a little weird. Her eyes eyes are less round in real life but it sort of turned out this way. Got the reflection in her eyes though and her eye brows are actually like that. And so is her nose. All in all I pretty much like this sketch.

                signing off

Thor Review

I was not very familiar with "Thor" until 2011; before then, I just knew he was some god from some mythology. But after I watched the film and "The Avengers", I became more familiar and interested with the character. While "Thor" wasn't my favorite film, it was surprisingly good. I must admit that I was disappointed in the second film, but overall I love the Thor universe, which is probably my favorite solo MCU universe :)

The thing that Marvel did right with the story was modernizing the Norse mythology. For instance, the characters are not gods, but aliens who were worshiped due to their enormous powers. They also live in  somewhat old-fashioned way and talk like people used to in Old English, but the setting is also modern. It's like an urban mixed with Middle Ages.

And then there's the mythology itself. After Greek and Egyptian mythology, I am interested in the Norse myths. I'm always fascinated with the idea of these extremely flawed "gods", who really just seem like powerful beings, and their conflicts. Too be honest, though, I only got interested in Norse mythology because of this film. That's how good it was.

One of the biggest reasons I like this film is because of the character of Loki. There's a reason he's so popular on Tumblr, why he has so many fangirls: he's the most interesting character of the series. He's not the hero, he can play the villain, but he's not just purely evil. There's a reason behind his malevolence  Loki doesn't feel loved by his father, Odin, and is jealous of his brother Thor and thinks that Odin favors him. He is attention-seeking, but only because he's truly insecure, feels unloved by the one and only man who raised him, who feels as if he's being overshadowed by his brother.

Of course, I don't know if Loki's awesomeness could have been established without the genius acting of Tom Hiddleson. He plays Loki so well, with his touch of evilness yet vulnerability. Tom is just awesome in so many different forms. Seriously, he's one of my favorite actors. The dude has swag written over his face.

Okay, now that I'm done fangirling over Loki and Thor itself, I'll talk about my dislikes of the film, and just places where I felt like there could have been improvement:

The biggest problem with Thor was the shortness of the film. Thor appears to be a jerk at the beginning of the film, but after a little while he turns nice all of a sudden. There's no character development; it happens way too fast. The whole film is supposed to be about Thor learning to be a good leader, but I never feel it happen. It doesn't feel believable how he becomes selfless all of a sudden.

Besides Loki, none of the other characters felt as fleshed-out to me Odin is fine, I suppose, but Thor's friends, The Warriors Three, barely get any screen-time. I know it's about Thor, but they seemed really cool and fun. I wished I had gotten to know them better, even if it was only a little more screen-time.

And then there was Jane. I think Natalie Portman is a good actress, but her character doesn't have much development at all. Jane seems so interested in Thor, but I can't understand why. She seems like a very capable woman and smart scientist, but she somehow crumbles at the sight of Thor. Thor is jerk to her at the very beginning, but she seems very unfazed by this. And when he suddenly turns nice, she doesn't really make any comments on his previous behavior.

Jane is also Thor's love interest, but we barely see them together. I don't believe that they are so in love near the end of the film because they don't get time to know each other. They don't seem to have a lot of chemistry, which could just be the actors, but it's hard to tell.

I did like the first film better than the second one, though. The love story between Jane and Thor feels more forced in this one than the other one. It's two years since the first movie and Jane appears to be moping over Thor since he left in the first film. Considering the time they spent together (which I reckon wasn't very long), I don't see how him leaving would make her that depressed (of course he's Chris Hemsworth, but that's another story ;). When Jane does reunite with Thor, too, they don't spend much time together, at least on-screen (this is probably due to the little time run the film has), so I'm not feeling the emotion as much.

Speaking of Jane, I really didn't like how they portrayed her in this film. She gets possessed by the Eether, which is magical energy that Malekith wants to get his hands on, and from thereon the film is about saving Jane/stopping Malekith from getting to her. Jane gets sidestepped to the damsel-in-distress role—perhaps it's the feminist in me, but I'm getting tired of the damsel-in-distress trope. Jane basically is used as a plot device, and this causes her not to have much character development

Also, the villain, Malekith, is no Loki. Not that I expected him to be, but I really think they could have focused on him more. He barely did anything in the film. I don't mind if the villain is hiding behind the shadows (The Emperor was notorious for doing this in the "Star Wars" saga, not to mention the main antagonist of "Iron Man 3" did this as well). However, if they are, I want to see them pulling the strings on the people they put on the front line, becoming a "puppeteer", so to speak. Malekith didn't do this, and the fore I didn't find him interesting nor very threatening. His idea on making the world dark, too, I found flimsy. It's not really explained why he wants this and puts him into the Standard-Villain-Wants-To-Cause-Destruction-Just-Because category. I just wished they had spent more time developing his character.

This is more of a minor issue, but the attempt at a love triangle involving Jane-Thor-Sif suddenly gets dropped, which, I think, was again the fault of the film's short time run. We first see Odin implying to Thor that he should be with Sif, then Sif showing signs of liking Thor, and later on, Sif gives Jane a look while passing by. But that's it. Nothing else happens. I can't say I'm one for love triangles, but I don't see the point of making one if it's going to be dropped. Like I said earlier, though, this probably has to do with the fact that the film is too short for all of the story lines it's trying to fit in.

I don't like how they changed Odin in the film, too. In the first one he was pretty harsh, but I could see that he genuinely cared for his sons, wanted the best for both of them, and wanted to teach Thor to become a better king than the arrogant prince he was. But in The Dark World, Odin turns into a jerk himself, frustrated with Thor's fascination of Earth, feeling as if he belongs only on Asgard, refusing to help Jane once she's possessed by the Eether, and I think he actually uses her as bait to capture Malekith (of course, he was mad by them--I won't say why because that would involve spoilers--but it was still pretty rude). He just felt out of place, different than the Odin I saw in the first film, and I didn't like it.

I really did enjoy the "Thor" film, don't get me wrong, but it defiantly had its flaws. I think the writers/directors were afraid how the public would react to "Thor", given that he wasn't very known before, so they made it shorter. But I wish it had been longer. It had so much potential, and, while it wasn't bad, it really could have been better. It left something to be desired, you know? But I still enjoy the film series. I already want to go visit Asgard, and you can betcha I'm watching the third film :) And even if it's not my favorite film series ever, it's entertaining, and let''s face it: we all want to shut off our brain every now and then and kick back and watch a classic tale of heroes vs. the advisory :)