Any Good Movies or DVDs? July 2018 Onward....

[campy]

I borrowed a DVD of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King from the library today.

[campy]

I borrowed a DVD of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King from the library today.

I finally got around to watching this today. Not bad, but I doubt I'll ever feel the need to watch again. And I certainly won't bother with the 3 Hobbit films and the TV prequel series.

[campy]

Currently watching Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl on the big screen.

[jeriddian]

Recently watched Puss-N-Boots with my step mohter recently. I make a habot of bringing over some food and some DVD's, mostly animated films, on the weekends to cheer her up and visit. Her memory is going and all she does is sit in the house for the most part.

[campy]

I watched Top Gun: Maverick and Creed III on the plane yesterday.

[jeriddian]

Saw a cute movies on Netflix called Over The Moon. Very sweet family movie.

[jeriddian]

In the past, I've often remarked upon and recommended a French animated series called Les aventures de Ladybug et Chat Noir. In English, Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir. It is primarily done in French and then translated to other languages (Surprisingly Korean, Portuguese, and then English) and is usually aired in these other countries and Europe before it comes to the United States. That changed in recent years when Disney+ negotiated a deal with ZagToons, the company that owns the series, to show it on the Disney+ channel as well as Disney Now. The show is scheduled to have seven seasons, of which Seaon Five has just concluded in which the major villain of the series (who used several names: Hawkmoth, Scarlet Moth, Monarch) was finally defeated. There are great similarities between this show and Kim Possible. In both, the central character is a heroine with elevated abilities/superpowers who fights evil villains and saves the world. The difference here is that while KP is in a typical American High School, this series is very much French in character, well inveiled with French culture and faithful to it, which to me is a refeshing change. The storyline, character development, episodes, are superb and are an equal, if not better than KP itself. Of course, it has a clear advantage over KP, being 20 years down the line and able to make use of much better animation techniques and computer CGI. Nonetheless, it has become as dear to me as much as KP is.

One of the difficulties, of course, is the translation from French to English, which is not that accurate, though it does get the gist of the dialogue. You will also note that many of the characters use very high pitch squeaky voices which apparently European audiences find cute, but tends to be jarring to American ears. But past these minor differences, there is a richness to the scipt and storyline that goes into much more depth than KP ever did. Of course, KP was never intended to go as far as this series did in terms of depth of story, but still the fact that this series did is a major quality which supports the brilliance of the show, so much so that it is seen by more teenagers and adults than the 4-10 year old kids it was intended to entertain.

Now the problem with someone not familiar with the series is trying to go through 5 seasons to catch up (131 episodes), which if you wish to do, I recommend it. However, if you are not familair with the series, there is an alternative. The director and CEO/Composer of the series, as they have planned for several years, made a stand alone movie. It is an origin story which is completely diffferent from the series, as if it's an alternate universe. Most of the main tenets of the series do not exist in this movie. It is a completely different take which bears some similarity to the series in certain aspects. It is also a musical, which the series does not try to do, although there are a couple of songs sung in certain episodes (which I do not think are too good actually, and were not composed by the movie's composer).

The movie just opened on Netflix. If you are not familiar with the series, but have an interest, this is a good way to find out about it. The animation is absolutely magnificent! The movie plot is a little on the trite side, which was necessitated by the relative short 105 minute length, but fits the musical format well. The music seemed a little simplistic at first until I really listened to it, and I could finally see the genius of the composer's (Jeremy Zag) work in usage of the themes from the original series and his original songs which even though they use "ice cream" chord structure (think 'Heart and Soul' on the piano), are so well developed in their melodies and orchestration to be maginificent in my view.

It truly is a maginficent piece of work and I recommend it highly. it gives a great introduction to the series. it is on Netflix called Ladybug and Cat Noir: The Movie.