Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Soundtrack

Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secrets

Here’s another book soundtrack for you all. I’ve been rereading Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, and with that I’ve thought of making a little soundtrack from my music collection.

Black Dove by #ToriAmos

(🎧 “They don’t know that you’ve already lived on the other side of the Galaxy” 🎧) Such a magical song. Love Tori Amos too. 💗

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#DeadSouls by #NineInchNails

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TCM 31 Days of Oscar – Bell, Book and Candle

TCM 31 Days of Oscar

I’ve challenged myself to watch a movie every day from Turner Classic Movie channel’s 31 Days of Oscar. I’ll be focusing on the movies I haven’t watched yet, with maybe just a few movies I’ve already seen.

Here is my 20th day and movie of my challenge to TCM’s 31 Days of Oscar.

Bell, Book and Candle

7.5 out of 10 Stars

1958 Comedy film. Starring Kim Novak, James Stewart, Jack Lemmon, Ernie Kovacs, Elsa Lanchester, Janice Rule and Hermione Gingold.

The 360° Game: starts off with Picnic starring Kim Novak, and she was in Bell, Book and Candle with James Stewart who was in the next film, The Naked Spur.

And the Oscar did not go to… nominations in two categories: Best Art Direction (Cary Odell and Louis Diage); and Best Costume Design (Jean Louis).

Short Synopsis: A witch’s (Kim Novak) warlock brother (Jack Lemmon) helps a San Francisco publisher (James Stewart) break a love spell.

A note before I start watching this. And why I chose this movie… James Stewart (“The film is considered Stewart’s last as a romantic lead.” – Wikipedia) and Jack Lemmon – I like both those actors. And I’m in the mood for a comedy.

My Thoughts: Oh this was a cute flick. Jack Lemmon brought his comic humor along just nicely. And James Stewart played it good at being a normal guy with just enough of a special spark to have a witch wonder what it’s like to love him. And that’s the story, along with some mischief and other unplanned events. James Stewart described the witch and warlock’s club, The Zodiac as more of a Halloween party than one for Christmas. This movie is set during Christmastime, but I think it’s good enough to watch any time.

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The Play by Play Thoughts…

0:00 It’s Christmas. And Gillian Holroyd and her African and Oceanic Primitive Art shop.

0:03 “Look, there’s that man upstairs.” Gil’s cat’s name is Pyewacket and Wikipedia cast list shows that that’s the cat’s real name too. Cute cat. It looks like it’s going to be playing matchmaker in this movie. James Stewart plays Shep Henderson, the man that lives upstairs. He’s engaged and thankfully Gil doesn’t like taking other women’s men. But yet, I still don’t know if I should warn James to runaway from these people or not. James Stewart does look older here too.

This is Halloween 2015

Everybody hail to the Pumpkin King.

Happy Halloween.

Lately it seems to me that I’ve been watching 4 movies every Halloween: Harry Potter and the Scorcerer’s , Addams Family and The Nightmare Before Christmas. And of course, It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown. So here’s a little review for those movies.

Sunday Times

This past weekend has been a relaxing one. A little too relaxing maybe because I’ve accidentally over slept a little today.

I was able to read a little of my books, but also procrastinated from that and read some of the LA Sunday’s Times. And now thanks to that, I’ve got another book on my To-Be-Read list. The article that I liked was called “Distinctly Spellbinding: The infamous Salem trials and modern witchcraft make for fascinating subjects by Elizabeth Hand. A book review for The Witches by Stacy Schiff and Witches of America by Alex Mar. It was a good review, but a little too long and too much in detail of the books. It felt like I read one of those Cliff-Notes books. Though, if I were to go ahead and read Schiff’s book, then some of the summary topic points will be better explained.

LA Times

And ya, I still read the physical newspapers. 🙂

Night Watch

Night Watch (Russian: Ночной дозор, Nochnoy Dozor) by Sergei Lukyanenko 5★♥
(World of Watches: book 1 of 5)

1998 Russian Science Fiction/ Fantasy book translated to English. Anton Gorodetsky is a Light One Magician and a “Watchman” (supernatural’s police force) of the Night Watch. His first person point of view was good. There is a past tense tone but I felt that didn’t take away the suspense. The story of good vs bad of the Others, and Anton worrying about Destiny and his love Svetlana Nazarova. And as all science fiction books have, this book deals with a lot of politics.

I’ve seen both the movies (Night and Day Watch). It’s been a while so some of it I have forgotten. But what I did remember helped visualize what the “Twilight” (the in-between world of supernatural and humans). I’ll be watching the movies again soon when I’ve read the other 5 books.

This books was also added as my favorite and a recommendation.

The Movies: my favorites in this genre also

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling 5★♥♥♥ Review: September 2014

Reread on kindle w/ iTunes audio. Own all the hard/ paperback books and audio on iTunes, borrowed it on kindle this time around for the tenth or something reread.

Jim Dale seems to be the only person I can tolerate to listen to in regards to adults attempting to speak like a child or teenager. They either get the tone wrong, or something in a way that I wouldn’t have done if I had just read it myself. The case of Jim Dale and the Harry Potter books, most of the time he’s spot on to what I would’ve imagined the characters sounding like.

I am a Harry Potter fan. Go Gryffindor. But I didn’t become a fan until 2003. My youngest sister was a fan first and I just thought it was for young kids. Nope. I ended up buying a European edition of the 4th book from a grown man who was in the Marines (I was in the Navy). It’s just one of those under-dog storylines that captivated a lot of people on my ship in my Navy days. So I was never embarrassed to be seen reading the books in public.

And watching the movies as well as reading them have been a family thing. My younger cousins are now reading and watching the movies. And in the near future, my sister told my 4 year old niece that maybe I’ll read them to her.

So I think I’ve become more accustomed to watching the movies as of late. Rereading the Deathly Hallows, I’ve found that I have forgotten about some parts. Mostly little things. And this book will always be my most favorite of the series. It really shows the strength of all the characters. Even Mrs. Wesley. I really loved the part with her and Belatrix fighting it out. And the fact that Harry was not the only one that killed off the Horcrux pieces. Let alone fought against Voldermort. And there is certainly a lot more symbolism in this book than the others I think.

And yes there is a lot of fantasy in this. The fact that these people are all wizards speaks that. And though I might think (along with a lot of other of my family and friends), that this book is both universal and ageless, it’s still a Young Adult book. But it’s still my favorite.

The Movie, not sure if this was the first time the film makers split 1 book into 2 movies. But Harry Potter has made it popular in this century IMHO.