Showing posts with label Rodger's and Hammerstein's Cinderella. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rodger's and Hammerstein's Cinderella. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Top 10 characters of all time

What makes a good story? Great characters. Characters we're drawn to. Characters that we relate to, or characters we wish to be. Here are my top 10 favorite characters. Again, this is my opinion, so if you don't like what you see, go bitch to your mom or something.

10. SPEEDY/ROY HARPER

Speedy is so far my favorite superhero sidekick. He was raised by Navajo Indians, and became a master archer.  My favorite storylines involving speedy is the time he became a Heroin addict, and the time he lost his arm. Speedy for the most part is a tragic character, but he's got great friends to help him through it. And like most superheroes, he's unrealistically good looking.


9. GREEN LANTERN/HAL JORDAN


At one point in time, I was obsessed with Hal Jordan. For a brief moment, he was my favorite superhero, but then the movie came out, and I remembered Superman will always be my number one guy. But I will always have a soft spot for Green Lantern. Anyways, Hal Jordan is the second Green Lantern, and arguably the best. I know that Hal is kind of lame compared to the black John Stewart and the gay Allan Scott, but Hal Jordan is my favorite Green Lantern. Either him, or the talking squirrel.

8. CINDERELLA



I loves me a good Fairy Tale, and the best Fairy Tale ever is Cinderella, the story that has it's own version in every single country. Cinderella is many things. She's black, she's white. She's good, she's bad. She's light, she's dark. She's g rated movie, she's XXX movie. She's feminist, she's old fashioned. And how could she be so many things at once? Because there's so many versions of her story. You can make Cinderella whatever you want her to be. Don't like the time she leaves the ball? make it 3 AM. Don't like the rushed romance? Make her independent and not want to marry the prince. A great character is one you can make up.

7.  PHOEBE BUFFAY



Phoebe Buffay is my favorite character from Friends. Most people like Chandler or Rachel, but not me. I love me some Phoebe. She's a a character I don't see in most sitcoms these days. Hey, How I Met Your Mother. Where's your loony eccentric friend character? Don't have one? How about you, Big Bang Theory? No? Just a group of nerds and one hot girl? All, right. Your missing out, I guess. Anyways, Phoebe's backstory is this. When she was a little girl, her mom killed herself, and her stepdad went to prison, so Phoebe had to live in the streets, unlike her twin sister Ursula, who was probably put in a foster home. After a disappointing childhood and some tough teenaged years, Ursula found a road to Aroma therapy and became roommates with Monica, who's brother is Ross, who is in love with Rachel.  Across the street from them is Joey, who is roommates with Chandler, who will soon marry Monica. Yeah, it's all a big circle.  One interesting thing is Actress Lisa Kudrow was doing two sitcoms at the time. She was starring in Friends, and played a side character in Mad About You, two NBC shows that were next to each other on the time block. So, the show writers decided to make the two characters twin sisters. And that's how Phoebe and Ursula became twin sisters.  

6. HANNA MARIN



Filling out 6 spot is another ditzy blonde. Hanna Marin from ABC Family's only good show, Pretty Little Liars. Hanna is the funniest, and saddest character in the show and books. In her early teens, her mom and dad got a divorce, causing her to eat her feelings out. She gained several pounds, and her "friend" Alison Dilaurentis coined the nickname "Hefty Hanna" When the girls were young, Hanna was often the butt of Ali's every joke. But when Ali disappeared, she became friends with a girl Ali used to bully and became the school's popular girl. She lost some pounds and gained some confidence. What I like about Hanna is that she's the funny girl of the group. She's always the one who says the funny zingers and one liners.

5. SPYRO THE DRAGON



Do I like Skylanders? Yes. Do I like Spyro's "not main character" role in Skylanders? No. Do I hate Spyro's new messed up, disgusting, ugly design? It's debatable. Do I love Spyro and all of the Spyro games, even the bad ones? Hell yeah!!! Spyro is my favorite video game character ever. Period. If I had to save one video game franchise in an ocean full of overrated Pokemon games and stupid, violent M rated games, I'd choose Spyro the Dragon. We can all learn a lesson from Spyro. Spyro is a tiny dragon, yet manages to save an entire race of dragons. He's also got a really cool dragonfly sidekick called Sparx, who is the best video game sidekick ever. So hopefully someday, I will see a Spyro video game similar to the old one.

4. SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS



Spongebob is my childhood Idol. I grew up on Spongebob, and when I have kids, they will too. What I love about Spongebob is that no matter what, he's an Optimist. Even though he has a horrible job and a nasty next door neighbor, he looks at it like a blessing. I'd kill myself before I become a loser who permanently works at a restaurant, but Spongebob sees it as the best job ever. The best Spongebob episodes are always the ones that came out in the early 2000's. The new ones kinda suck, and seems like it was made for the brain dead generation of the 2010's. The main reason is that after the first Spongebob movie, The original crew left and was replaced by a new set of writers. Probably a bad idea. But no matter what,  Spongebob is cartoon royalty.

3. GODZILLA



Godzilla, like Spongebob was only good in the beginning. the movies that came afterwards range from bad to mediocre. But aside from that, Godzilla, King of the Monsters is one of my favorite classic monster movies, and Godzilla, is my favorite giant monster ever. What I love about him is that he's a cautionary tale of Nuclear destruction. Godzilla was once a deep sea cave dwelling dinosaur of a certain species, but concentrated levels of Nuclear radiation mutated him into a atomic ray breathing behemoth. Godzilla is also a tragic character. In the beginning, Godzilla is an animal deformed by a human creation, and in the ending, He's destroyed by another human made weapon. It shows how humans can really ruin the life of another species. Now that's deep.

2. RAPUNZEL



I have been in love with the Rapunzel Fairy Tale for a long time. I love it so much, I remember the time I first read it. Cinderella might be the best fairy tale, but Rapunzel is the one I hold dearest to my heart. And then when Disney made Tangled, I only loved her more. In Tangled, Rapunzel is spiced up a bit, turning her from a Damsel in distress into a quirky, rebellious teenager.  When Rapunzel was a baby, she was a princess. Her hair is golden blonde because of a magic flower her mother drank to heal herself. But the witch who was previously using it kidnaps her and places her in a high tower hidden inside a valley. As she gets older, she gets more rebellious and fascinated by the outside world, especially the mysterious floating lights that appear on her birthday every year.

1. SUPERMAN





So, I sleep in a bunk bed. I sleep in the bottom bunk, and the one who occupies the top bunk is a life sized Superman doll I got for Christmas. That's how much I love the Man of Steel, and I mean Superman. Not the movie. That movie sucked. Superman will always be my favorite. In an ocean full of Batmans and Avengers, The big fish I caught has an S-shield on it. I've watched every single Superman movie, watched Superman: The Animated Series, and bought Super Scribblenauts for Superman's sake. What I like about Superman is how he truly is alone. Now, anyone can be Batman or Spider-man, but Superman isn't someone you can be, he's someone you could only dream to be. And unlike Batman, who claims he works alone, when he has a dozen sidekicks, Superman truly is alone. Aside from Supergirl and Superdog, Kal-El is by himself. Another thing I like about Supes is that he doesn't wear a mask, so that people can see he's just one of them, instead of being shrouded by mystery, like all the superhero movies that came out in the early 2000's. Superman truly is my favorite superhero and character of all time.

Tuesday, July 14, 2015

Top 10 Cinderella Stories




What is it about a poor girl losing her shoe at a ball that's intrigued us for so many years? Cinderella is hands down the most popular fairy tale of all time. Sorry, super feminists. You can't change that. Like most fairy tales, I can't remember a time where I didn't know the story.  I have a theory that because we've read these fairy tales for so long, our children our just built with them in their brains before they're even born. Even the kids who didn't grow up with Disney knows the Cinderella fairy tale, and there are a lot of those stories. Almost every country has they're own version, and I'm here to rank the ten best Cinderella variations from books, movies, TV and others.


10. THE GLASS SLIPPER



The Glass Slipper is my least favorite version of the Cinderella Story. It's not bad or anything. It just didn't do anything for me. But one thing I did like about it is Leslie Caron's Cinderella. In this retelling, Cinderella is a very mucky looking servant girl living with her stepmother and two stepsisters who are known as the two most beautiful girls in the village, and it's bad enough that they treat her bad, but the entire village also looks down on her due to her filthy exterior. The only one who treats her nicely is the hermit woman who lives in the forest and the prince himself, making their romance much more believable.

9. YEH-SHEN: A CINDERELLA STORY FROM CHINA



Perhaps the first Cinderella Story EVER! Yeh-Shen tells the story of a girl who is a slave to her stepmother and Stepsister. Her only friend is a talking goldfish who lives in a nearby pond. Yeh-Shen's stepmother, being the cunt she is, catches the fish, kills him and gives Yeh-Shen the bones just for the sake of being an evil stepmother. Afterwards, it's revealed that the fish's bones are magic and give Yeh-Shen a beautiful dress and a pair of golden shoes to wear to a festival that her stepmother has forbidden her from going.

8. THE ROUGH FACED GIRL



This Cinderella Story comes from the Native Americans. A weak willed man has a wife and two stepdaughters who are cruel to his real daughter, like the original. The only difference is that where the original stepsisters make her sleep next to the fireplace, in this one, the stepsisters make her sleep on the fireplace, resulting in her rough skin.

7. INTO THE WOODS



Into the Woods is a musical consisting of the popular Grimm fairy tales. One of them is the Grimm's take on Perrault's classic Cinderella story. This Cinderella is a self aware maiden who's not completely sure she wants to be with the prince.

6. RAGS



Rags is like A Cinderella Story set in New York with a male lead. There's not much male Cinderella stories out there, but this one is a good one. Keke Palmer plays the gender swapped Prince charming to Max Schneider's Cinderella. And Drake Bell plays the Fairy Godmother character.

5. EVER AFTER: A CINDERELLA STORY



All right. Here we go. A Cinderella Story with a Feminist twist. When I first saw Ever After, I did not like it, mostly because I was a kid watching a Cinderella story with no magic, fairy godmother or Pumpkin coach. But now that I'm older, I really appreciate this movie. Instead of taking place in a kingdom far, far away. It takes place in renaissance era France. Drew Barrymore's Danielle still has the prince and the glass slippers, but this time, she is a strong, intelligent Cinderella. And instead of a Fairy Godmother, she has Leonardo Da Vinci.

4. A CINDERELLA STORY




Confession time. I Love A Cinderella Story. I really do. It's one of my favorite movies. I don't know what about it really attracts me, but if it's ever on TV, I will watch it. Hillary Duff is our Cinderella in this movie, and her Prince charming is the star football player. They meet on a chat room and are both attracted with each other because of their desires to go to Princeton.

3. RODGER'S + HAMMERSTEIN'S CINDERELLA




Rodger's and Hammerstein's Cinderella first began as a TV musical starring Julie Andrews. It was so popular that it spawned two other TV musicals. One starring Lesley Ann Warren in 1965, and one starring Brandi in Whitney Houston's critically acclaimed version in 1997. Finally, in 2013, this TV musical finally made it's home in Broadway, receiving a modern twist, but keeping all that Fairy Tale goodness in tact. In this version, Cinderella and the Prince are not the all perfect cardboard cut outs that they usually are. Cinderella is adventurous and funny, while the prince is kind of a dork who has a lot of girl problems. The Fairy Godmother actually makes sense in this one, in which she is disguised as a crazy beggar woman who has a long friendship with Ella, and only gives her the glass slippers because she was the only one who was generous to her.

2. WALT DISNEY'S CINDERELLA



Ah, the classic Cinderella! The one most of us are familiar with. This version is the one that cemented all those Cinderella tropes into the eye of the public. Blue ballgown, Glass slippers, ugly stepsisters, etc. It's also Disney's best classic fairy tale ever. Snow White and Sleeping Beauty? Pu-lease! Every girl fantasizes about going to a ball in a beautiful ballgown. Not cleaning up after midgets or talking a really long nap. This movie also introduced us to the scariest version of the Wicked Stepmother, named Lady Tremaine. In most versions, she's as cartoony as her daughters. But here, this woman is straight up evil.

1. CINDERELLA (2015)



Disney's recent live action remake of Cinderella is the best in my opinion, because it uses the previous versions of the Cinderella tale as inspiration and incorporates what was good in them into this movie, resulting in almost perfection. One other thing I really liked are the leads. Lily James' Cinderella doesn't know how to fight, but that doesn't make her weak. Her strength comes from within. And Richard Madden's too perfect Prince charming is a Frankenstein of all good qualities a man should have. Cinderella's dress might be blue, but Prince Kit's eyes are even bluer. The costumes and sets are so good it's ridiculous. Instead of CGI-ing it to death like what they did with Maleficent and Alice in Wonderland, the sets really makes you feel that you're in a fairy tale world, and If This movie doesn't win best costume and set design at the Oscars, I will flip every table in Illinois.