The beginning of the year has been pretty crazy. I’m not sure why I expected otherwise as I’m pretty much back into the normal routine of working. With that said, there’s been a lot of delays on the monthly posts which I’m trying to stay on top of but not really getting anything done. While I can’t change a lot of the other posts without it being too bulky, I’ve decided to do the Reality TV Round-Up posts every two months now as I don’t watch as many variety shows or documentaries to have enough to talk about. Its already been the case for the first Reality TV Roundup post this year and it will continue with that.
With that out of the way, let’s get the show on the road with a very late What’s Up for March round-up! And yes, there is no books section because I haven’t really finished anything or started anything new other than cycling through my child’s books and re-reading a lot of them.
March viewings was primarily dominated by the one month Crave subscription I took for a Movies and Tea viewing. Looking back at March, some of these films feel like a long time away however there were some impressive offerings on Crave with an Awkwafina voice acting fix with The Bad Guys, a slightly awkward but entertaining Joy Ride, an outstanding alien invasion with Nope, a well-executed look at a true story adaptation with She Said, a stylistic offering with Door Mouse, a gripping cyber found footage with Missing, a truffle pig chase road trip with Nicolas Cage in Pig, a great action piece with John Wick: Chapter 4 and a fairly creepy offering with Cobweb and finally catching up with an overnight wandering in Vienna with Before Sunrise. Let’s not forget a musical adventure with Wonka.
Of course, it wasn’t only Crave that had some fun offerings although those titles really did stand out quite a bit. Tampopo was a fun foodie trip into ramen which has definitely become more impressive as I think back to it. Netflix’s new film in March Damsel starring Millie Bobby Brown had some issues but overall was pretty fun as well. However, the surprising find was definitely our first time into Paranormal Activity franchise with the first two films were sufficiently creepy. Those last few have reviews that will come out soon.
Currently watching: Memories Beyond Horizon S2, Run For Time S4, Is It Cake? S3
As my Gilmore Girls rewatch comes to an end in March, I’ve been trying to work in more Youku viewings with the last month of the streaming service subscription and I have to say that I picked two decent TV series to wrap it up. I still have a few more series on my radar from the service that I will probably sub again when the second season of Asia Super Young comes around.
Closer to You Season 2 is a fun series but the change in the female lead does impact the feelings toward it. While she did a great job, the first season definitely had a lot more going for it however for something angled around time travel, it worked for the most part and threw some decent curveballs at the end.
As for Till The End of the Moon, I’ve been a big fan of Leo Luo since last year with Light Chaser Rescue so I’ve been intrigued by his series and he does a great job here, much like Bai Lu which I can understand her popularity. Its a fairly typical fantasy romance drama full of heartache and breakups and tears and it also has kind of a time travel element as well but the chemistry and the execution is really great and it ended up growing on me especially the development of Leo Luo’s character.
GAMES
Season: A Letter to the Future (demo)
Currently playing: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy
Not a whole lot of gaming in general recently as I make a little bit of progress in the Ace Attorney as I edge to the end but not really finding time to actually finish it. A lot of the same expected in April as work takes over more so not a lot of time for gaming. However, I did get around to checking out a demo sitting in my archive since the last Steam Fest and in true forgetful nature, I can’t remember when that was so its probably been at least a month or two. The game is available already so it was just for fun to see whether its worth adding to my wishlist and its pretty fun as it adds in a biking element and definitely a more relaxing sort of game as the character goes through the story finding elements and taking photos to the story. That’s been my type of game lately.
We’re incredibly late with this one so expect the April What’s Up to be in about a week or so. I need to catch up with the other monthly segments that hasn’t been done the past month.
Losing track of time is honestly the theme of 2024 so that’s why this month’s music obsessions is coming at the end of the month instead of the beginning. However, we’re here with another Taiwanese singer as we dive into our next one. While I wanted to alternate between male and female singers, I ended up listening to a lot of this singer recently out of spontaneity so we’re just rolling with it. This month’s focus is….Leehom Wang! He is a singer that I happen to have a lot of their physical albums, probably the most out of the Taiwanese singers that I like.
Born in New York, Leehom Wang made his debut in 1995 when he was offered a contract by BMG after participating in a talent competition. However, his eventual success brought him into Decca Records and finally Sony Music Entertainment before releasing his best selling album, his fifth one Revolution that brought the breakthrough in his music career. As he worked through a career of best-selling albums and truly finding his fame in the early 2000s when he entered into the actor career in a few Hong Kong films.
Leehom Wang’s is known for his R&B and Hip-Hop style that fuses with traditional Chinese music. Its one of the stand-out elements of his music style that makes his music so unique in this area especially since he does also dabble in a lot of different styles as well from ballads to dance-pop to rock music. However, his traditional Chinese music fusioned R&B and Hip-Hop songs are the ones that do stand-out a lot as it was branded as China Wind music known as “chinked-out” and establishing himself as an influential and important artist in Chinese music. This eventually brings out some of my favorite albums starting with Shangri-La (2004) and Heroes of Earth (2005).
Being a musician with talents in multiple instruments like violin, piano, guitar and drums, its what gives Leehom Wang and his music a lot of variety and dives into a variety of style to keep things always feeling fresh. While his later albums after the “chinked-out” albums didn’t seem to get the same traction, his album Change Me dove back into the older styles of music paying tribute to 1930s Shanghai and Broadway while promoting an environmental awareness and global warming message.
Being not too current on the news for artists, my research has shown that due to his divorce issues, Leehom Wang has temporarily quit the entertainment business a few years ago. I’m not on top of the allegations and what happened so I’m not going to go into this. The Music Obsessions post is solely to share music that I love and Leehom Wang is an artist that has contributed a lot in this sense.
I’m not going to lie, reading really didn’t happen too much in February. While I do want to read The Book and the Sword, the fact that my toddler now requires a different bedtime story time style has limited what I read. Instead, we’re cycling through a lot of the easier children’s books. I’ve read about 10 times of 2 Chinese books per day because he just loves it and then bedtime revolves around a mish mash of other books that I’ve already mentioned before. I’m hoping with less work during my downtime, I will be able to actually pick up a book to read. A part of that will be made easier once I do another more realistic reorganization of my storage space so that I can sort through my books a little easier.
Already Tomorrow in Hong Kong (2015 rewatch, Review)
While everyone’s preparing for the Academy Awards and catching up with viewings, I’m surprised to actually review my February list and see that I watched one winner and one nominee with The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Past Lives respectively. Both of which are really great films in their own way. As I truck along with the Oh My Horror Challenge and falling behind with the actual reviews, I’ve seen some pretty great movies this month which is making my first time watches list a little more respectable. All the short films on Netflix directed by Wes Anderson are pretty great. I finally watched the 1999 The Mummy which I’ve actually never seen before and absolutely loved it. Love and Monsters is an underrated film that is also incredible. As for a movie that grew on me more and more as I thought about it, that would be Past Lives.
TV
Indulgence (染指, 2024)
Junji Ito Maniac: Japanese Tales of the Macabre (Season 1, 2023)
Currently binging: Asia Super Young, Memories Beyond Horizon S2, Till The End of the Moon
I honestly don’t even know where to start for TV series. I had a lot of stuff to take care of so of course that meant a significant focus on the Gilmore Girls rewatch. I tried out one of the short dramas Indulgence, which are basically 10 minute episodes each on Youku. The best way to describe it would be best compared to reading trashy romance novels. The production value is not the great, the story has some old-fashioned plot points and the acting is below average for the most part but I can see why some people do enjoy these dramas.
We finished Junji Ito Maniac: Japanese Tales of the Macabre and much like any anthology short film series, it has some that work better than others. I’ve never read any of Junji Ito’s horror manga but if this is even just dipping your toe into his mind, its absolutely wild. Some of these stories really go off the left field and some are pretty unique and others are simply terrifying. Like nightmare-inducing terrifying because I did end up getting nightmares when I first started the series.
Finally, for some shorter episodes, I don’t usually watch The Grand Tour but I did sit down for the latest season/episode The Sand Job which was a lot of fun. I also caught the 8 episode Youku series Justice in the Dark adapted from a novel Silent Reading by Priest. The series ended with so many loose ends but had some a great world building and concept that I ended up buying the novel series since it doesn’t seem like any sequel is in the works.
GAMES
Currently playing: Somerville, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy, I Love Hue
As expected, gaming took a similar hit to books. I actually ended up continuing on I Love Hue which is a relaxing mobile puzzle game where you have to rearrange colors according to the gradient level. Its one that I’ve been playing on and off over the years but still like to go back to every once in a while.
Film Logged: 168 (there’s 10 TV series logged in here) Hours Watched: 485 Hours Most Watched Actor: Bill Murray Most Watched Director: Wes Anderson Top Rated 2023 Films: Hidden Love (TV series), Once Upon a Studio, Sly Most Watched Week of 2023: 11 Films on Week 45 (Nov 6-12) Most Watched Day of 2023: Monday Most Watched Theme: Emotional and captivating fantasy storytelling Most Watched Nanogenre: Horror, Twist, Death
Honestly, I’m pretty impressed with how Letterboxd has gotten pretty detailed with the other statistics other than the most watched actor and director which, due to Movies and Tea, its usually pretty easy to guess who those two will be and I guessed this year’s with no hesitation.
WHAT’S UP
Books
Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain
Currently reading: Boy: Tales of Childhood, The Book and the Sword
I can’t even remember when I started the book but it has to about 3 months to finish Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain. If you’ve only seen any of the adaptations, I’d say to try to look this book up because it is such a treat. The version I had included two short stories originally published in 1961: Blade-dance of the Two Lovers and White Horse Neighs in the Western Wind which were also pretty fun to read as well. Its not quite as well structured and executed as Fox Volant but Blade-dance had some fun ensemble of characters while White Horse dragged a little but had some interesting twists. I will eventually get the actual review up once I catch up with all the writing that’s fallen behind in 2024.
I’ve worked really hard to keep up with movie reviews this month and I think it really shows some promise (even though this post is coming out incredibly delayed from usual). January was a great month for movie-watching. Not sure the actual movie quality was really good but I did get around to catching up with the rest of the film series for Hunger Games before it left Netflix and joined the Oh My Horror Challenge so its boosted up the film count and helped explore some interesting horror genres/subgenres.
My recommendations this month aren’t too plentiful but Asteroid City, Prisoners and Wolf Pack from my first time watches are definitely the stand-outs. While Puppet Master, Body Parts and Miss Shampoo had their fun parts, the first two also had some really weird moments that I’m not sure I’m totally behind and the last one is solely because I’m not a fan of the comedy style so some of the jokes really didn’t land well for me and while it was meant to be cringe-y over the top romance, some of it just felt really uncomfortable.
Currently watching: Asia Super Young, Singing With Legends S5, Justice in the Dark, Junji Ito Maniac: Japanese Tales of the Macabre
While TV series kind of took a backseat at the beginning of the month and it was somewhat of a deliberate choice since I wanted to get back to writing movie reviews. The focus this month other than another Gilmore Girls run because its the best overtime companion was the new season Queer Eye and working through some of the Youku subscription which has some fun stuff and more Hong Kong series even if I just watched Dead Ringer which was relatively decent if not a little predictable and some weird acting but ruined it with a very lazy ending and then went through the Sabrina Zhuang series with Mountains and Oceans which I had some mixed feelings about throughout but it had a silent attack on me and caught me off-guard a few times and turned out to be pretty good but not quite as good as Closer To You which probably isn’t as good as a similar time travel series premise like Shining For One Thing but its a lot more fun.
Games
Currently playing: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
Gaming really took stumble in January which usually happens because I’m just really busy with work. It doesn’t change even if I’m part-time because the workload just diminished in proportion for the most part. I did work through a a little bit more of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney but I’m at the episode 5 which is also the last and hardest one of the game. I’ve always had issues with this episode and with my crappy memory and its been probably the longest stretch between replays for this game, I basically remember the plot but can’t remember how to solve a lot of the stuff so its a new experience overall.
I apologize for the delay for this post but February wrap-up should be coming up relatively on time! I have a few other posts to catch up on before we get there but I’m working on it!
I know, I know, its not January anymore and its even time to get the February 2024 out but its been a bit of a roller coaster to start the year and somehow the monthly segments are falling behind. With that said, its tradition here (or at least as long as I’ve been using Spotify for music) to use the January segment to share my Spotify Wrapped. Full transparency that it was only at the end of the year that I got into a deal for Spotify Premium so for the most part, these songs was by random and I didn’t skip over. Still, I can’t say I disagree on why these landed on the list since they are frequently played when I use Spotify.
Taiwanese artists focus starts next post which should be coming up once I get around to all the delayed posts.
Lets start with some fun Spotify stats:
Top Genres: Movie Tunes, Mandopop, Cantopop, Show Tunes, Chinese Hip Hop
Listened for 10, 204 minutes with 164 minutes on June 21st (makes sense since I was doing a long drive on vacation)
Listened to 475 artists
Top Artist: Max LL (Thanks to using the Spiritfarer soundtrack to wind down with my toddler before bedtime)
Top Podcast: I Am All In With Scott Patterson (its the only podcast I listened to….)
Style: Vampire aka listening to emotional, atmospheric music more than most
And now for the countdown of the Top 5 songs…
5. 舊日回憶的山丘 (OT:Time Capsule No Oka)- Joey Yung
Released in 2002 from album Something About You, one of the earlier albums from Joey Yung, its one of the songs that has tuck with me over the years which I like a lot but I honestly think doesn’t get enough love. I don’t even remember when I heard it, probably from one of her concert compilations. During research for this, I actually realized that its original is Time Capsule No Oka by Maki Yano.
You can check out my Music Obsessions focus on Joey Yung HERE.
4. You’re Welcome – Dwayne Johnson
While we’re not big Moana fans at home other than my toddler’s attachment to the plush Pu’a, the pig in Moana, my husband’s a big fan of You’re Welcome so we always listen to the whole thing whenever it randomly pops up. I’m guessing that’s why its on the list. It is a fun time. Probably should revisit Moana at some point.
3. Love, Maybe – MeloMance
This is the surprise of the list considering K-pop didn’t even make it on my top genres but somehow I listened to this one a whole lot. I honestly didn’t but Spotify seemed to like it and I listened to it a lot after I finished watching Business Proposal. I do like MeloMance and making a note to look up more of their songs.
2. School Song (from “Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical”)
Roald Dahl’s Matilda The Musical almost made it on my Top 10 Film Discoveries of 2023. It was one that I watched a lot last January when it first landed on Netflix. I loved the songs a ton and even searched up the actual musical versions. The film is really fun and all the dance choereography was so on point. It was honestly a toss up between School Song or Revolting Children making the list here since I listened to those two songs a lot at the beginning of the year.
1. 快樂王子 Happy Prince- Pong Nan 藍奕邦
Talking about underrated artists, Pong Nan is the one that I honestly don’t hear a whole lot of people talk about but I really like his songs. His music is really unique and the lyrics are well-written. It tells an emotion and/or a story really well. I love three of his songs Knowing Oneself, June and this song, Happy Prince, a whole lot. While I’m not so current on his newer music, these songs are my go-to. I’m actually a little surprised that its my top song. I honestly thought one of the Max LL songs would make it but its a pleasant surprise.
Youtube Music 2023 Recap
Since I’m late to the party for the January recap, I wanted to share the Youtube 2023 Recap as well for some more fun music! It feels like the first year Youtube’s done something like this for individual users and these one are pretty interesting picks. A lot of these ones have to do with either appeal to my toddler or performances that I loved.
My toddler loves Tengger’s voice. I’m not sure why. Its why he loves when I put on anything with his voice. This cover is so unique though. One of the faves of last year for sure and I always listen to when I’m having a bad day.
That’s it for January 2024 recap! Sorry for the delay! Feburary recap will be coming very soon! I’m still having an internal debate as to what artist to start.
Happy New Year everyone!! 2024 is already here. Honestly, I’m not sure how 2023 went by so fast but I almost always feel that way the last few years. A new year means some new plans and some new goals. While the last two years hasn’t exactly panned out extremely well or even achieved much of the actual goals, I’m hoping that as things seemingly are finding some type of rhythm that I’ll be able to implement blogging (and other things) more regularly into my life. It will probably never be like before but at least work up to gradually hit 2 to 3 posts a week would really be nice.
BOOKS
Goodreads Reading Challenge 2024: 30 books
Considering last year, I did 41 books consisting of some small toddler books and some children novels and did get a couple of full length novels done, I’m going to set a very ambitious goal of 30 books. This time, it consists of finishing the Roald Dahl collection I bought from Costco which has 5 more books, the last book of The Summer I Turned Pretty trilogy as well as the City of Ember books 2 to 4. I am almost done the Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain and do want to work on some more Chinese Classics that I own to mix things up. Last year’s books I had set out to read didn’t happen at all but hopefully this year will be a little better in that sense. The funny thing is that I did some tidying and ended up misplacing my Kindle for the good part of the year then I never came across it again so hopefully I find it again and I’ll get back to some ebooks again but I already have it set up on my phone as well so its really no excuse at this point.
MOVIES
I touched upon this a little in the year-end wrap-up post HERE. After the most abundant posting phase of this month in October, I’ve concluded that it seems that I’m much more comfortable doing single post reviews nowadays than collecting a double feature. That’s not to say that I won’t do compilation posts especially if I go through a series of films that garner the treatment. Talking about marathons though, I’ve decided that I have to let go of some of the marathons as it just doesn’t seem feasible to do anymore especially for the holidays which is mostly a bunch of films that I don’t really want to watch. With that said, the mildly successful Halloween marathon in 2023 is getting me hopeful that I can actually keep up with the February romance especially since I have A LOT of romance films sitting in my backlog to watch .
With a toddler, its also hard to go to catch new releases and with some financial budgeting last year into this year, my main focus will be on streaming services specifically Netflix, Amazon Prime and Paramount Plus (they had a sweet 50% off annual subscription deal in December). Disney Plus might pop up if they have a deal for Disney Day or whatnot. Who knows, right?
Movies and Tea Podcast remains a heavy focus in the film category but I will start working on those lists posts that I’ve been meaning to do since we started 10 seasons ago (more than a 100 episodes now!). I’ll be reviving the Sunday Lists probably in one format or another. We have some exciting episodes in production right now that will follow the current Hayao Miyazaki season. Follow us on our Movies and Tea blog or whichever podcast platform you enjoy.
TV & Tranquil Dreams Podcast
As some of you have noticed, I’ve actually been more active with writing TV binges this year than movies. To be fair, I’ve been planning the switch to podcast for the Chinese Language dramas for over a year if not two years. While no actual episodes have come out, I’ve actually set up a lot of what I need and all that remains is to find time to record and edit which is where I’m struggling the most to do. With that said, TV binges will continue for everything else but Chinese language dramas but this year, I will launch the podcast, probably by March latest since real life work gets a little hectic in the first two months of the year.
In terms of TV though, I will keep doing the monthly recap of Reality TV & Documentary shows. I really enjoyed adding that segment in and it also helps to talk about some of the variety shows that I love watching and its a big part of what I watch during the year.
MONTHLY SEGMENTS
With the previous lead-up, monthly segments are now in 3 parts.
First weekend of the month is Music Obsessions. Last year, I changed my concept and started doing a deep dive into sharing one Cantopop artist per post. This year, we’re going the same path with a focus each month on a different artist but it will be my other music love, Taiwanese Pop which I think I basically know who to talk about already and opens the door for some artists that I like but want to dig further into their music.
Second weekend of the month is Reality TV Round-Up which is as the title says a round-up of the previous month’s reality and variety TV shows I completed including documentary series. Note the series part and not the documentary films (although I might move onto to do that as well if I feel the new trend if back to making documentary films and they are worth discussing).
Finally, end of the month is the What’s Up post. I’m hesitating on whether to keep the Adventures post since there honestly isn’t enough to keep that going other than my Toddler updates which is something of a personal diary for myself at this point. Let’s say for now that we’re just doing What’s Up and any announcements and updates will be listed there as well. It will open up the opportunity to go back to doing individual posts on whatever hiking or restaurant that I go to if I’d like.
OTHER PROJECTS
Avenue of Daydreams (HIATUS)
I’m honestly not sure if anyone is still on Avenue of Daydreams as I still get some visits every once in a while. While I want to keep that one going, it seems easier to just do it on Instagram at this point. Its something I’m still working on. For not, the hiatus over there will still be in effect. I have to choose how to use my time and right now, I lose my phone 5 times a day in my own house so taking pictures almost seems like an afterthought for most days. Do keep an eye out on Instagram though, I probably will update over there if I end up taking some fun pictures.
Game Warp Podcast
While Game Warp isn’t exactly in hiatus, its definitely been a tad slow. The goal is to get more written game reviews on the blog as I work through my Steam backlog. If you haven’t been over there, we have a lot of podcast backlog as well as written reviews, you can find it HERE.
PERSONAL GOALS
The scary personal goals come up and I’ve been thinking about this a lot since every year I’ve basically been wanting to do the same thing but this year, I want to be able to touch back to the things that once brought me joy and I think still would if I had the time to do it.
Workout: I’m trying to work up to being able to do some consistent workout sessions over the week, something doable like 2 to 3 times would probably do me a world of difference. I did it sporadically back in November and early December but somehow its fallen out of schedule.
Streaming: The annual goal that I never achieve because I just haven’t found the right timing. Finger crossed that I’m able to do it even if I do shorter sessions in the beginning. It would help with the working through Steam backlog situation.
Cooking & Baking: I’m not going to lie that I’ve been living off some pretty basic meal ideas when its just me and my toddler which involves a lot of blanche and air fryer cooking but I remember the days when I’d be excited to try out new recipes and bake sweet and I’ve basically given up most of it except for the random few times during the year.
FINAL NOTE
There you have it, the goals and plans for the upcoming year. There’s a lot of constant change in life and yet, this whole maternity leave and being a stay at home mom (at least partially since I do work at home but less hours than pre-toddler days) has really helped me connect with myself. Blogging is not my main focus right now but I am going to try my best to keep it up as its something that I still enjoy doing. With that said, that’s it for this upcoming plans! I don’t think I’m being too ambitious but only time will tell!
Welcome to the final post of Adventures & What’s Up. Past years I would usually just split the post but with an 18 month toddler running around, I can only find time to do things in very small naptime and bedtime windows so splitting it seems like an ambitious feat. I haven’t done opening paragraphs for these posts in a while but I felt this one deserved a little “warning”. Sit tight, this is going to be a long one as we dive into some little December Adventures, What’s Up and straight into all kinds of year-end wrap-ups!
ADVENTURES
Toddler Update
Triple V reached his 18 month milestone. This milestone was pretty great because he also achieved a lot including the wonderful teething of his first molar which took a while but also brought on some rough nights. Pair that with his 18 month vaccinations and its been quite a wild ride in emotions. We’re definitely seeing him understand more and repeat a few more words so that he can express himself better. His second Christmas was also a quiet one where we changed up our original Christmas plans especially since our snowstorm hit us early in the month and there wasn’t a lot of snow (even as this post goes up). Its been rainy more than anything. Triple V is starting to find his security toys with an attachment to a plush monkey. Other than the general worry of whether he is eating enough since he’s running around all the time, Triple V seems to be doing alright.
Holidays + Boxing Day Haul (not really)
December was pretty crazy overall. Between kitchen renovations and Christmas set-up, its really been hectic and tiring with a little toddler running all over the place and starting to pull tantrums. I can feel those terrible twos approaching every single day. This month has a snowstorm that knocked out power for a little bit and broke a third of our tree, hangout with my friends and tried out a restaurant and then there’s the holidays which I talked a bit about before. The main star was Triple V who got most of the gifts as we gifted ourselves the kitchen renovations and my mom got all of us something. Triple V came out with something to read, play and clothes.
As for Boxing Day Haul (which I honestly forgot about until I reviewed my last year’s post), there wasn’t a whole lot:
Amazon: Diapers and Lotion
Steam: The Great Attorney Chronicles, Underground Blossom, Crime O Clock
Uniqlo: 2 pairs of pants
WHAT’S UP
Books
Mon Amour Pour Toujour
Joyeux Noel, mon tout-petit!
The Kissing Hand
Where The Wild Things Are
Currently reading: Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain
I tried so hard to finish Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain before the new year but I’m about 100 pages away at the second short story included in the novel. The actual story itself is finished though which is pretty fun. As you can see, my reading still consists a lot of reading to my toddler. We picked up a few little books here and there which were fun to read. He’s a big fan of the Caroline Jayne Church illustrations especially for I Love You Through and Through and Ten Tiny Toes which we’ve been reading over and over again and learning body parts, etc.
Movies
The Great Mouse Detective (rewatch 1986)
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)
How The Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966 rewatch, Review)
Disney Classic Holiday Stories (2005 rewatch)
Gremlins (1984 rewatch)
Spontaneous (2020)
Sorcerer (1977)
Bullet Train (2022)
Aguirre, The Wrath of God (1972)
Reptile (2023)
Its been a pretty great month of movie watching even if its been a relatively bad month (make that a year) of writing up reviews. I am thinking up a new structure to keep myself more motivated but honestly, motivation has nothing to do with it. I’ll talk more about that in the upcoming plans in the next few days. If I were to put in recommendations for this month, I would honestly recommend everything except Aguirre, the Wrath of God, because its just not my genre of film. I watched it for a Movies and Tea podcast related episode which should be going up very soon. Reptile was decent but was a little predictable as it seemed to give some hints that gave away what they were trying to build up to for the finale reveal, however it reminded me how great of an actor Benicio del Toro is and how I should really be watching more of his films.
With that said, there were some great films here like Bullet Train which was just the ultimate joyride and probably the most fun I’ve had watching a film this year much like Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness and Thor: Love and Thunder which reminded me how this new phase might be an excuse to bring together a bunch of characters and properties but is also a lot of fun, something I haven’t really felt for MCU films for a long time. Then there’s some underrate Pixar films released during the pandemic that I felt was overlooked like Onward and Luca. Finally, we can’t end this year without at least talking a little bit about the new Indiana Jones film, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny which was a fantastic ride back into Indiana Jones thrills. At the same time, catching up with Spontaneous really puts Brian Duffield on my map as a director to look out for since he is basically 2 for 2 in his directed films (and that’s not even talking about the film he has written that I’m also a fan of).
TV
Light Chaser Rescue (追光者, 2022)
My Life With The Walter Boys (Season 1, 2023)
Here We Meet Again (三分野, 2023)
Time Flies and You Are Here (雁归西窗月, 2021)
Sweet Home (Season 2, 2023)
Currently watching: Singing With Legends S5, Asia Super Young, A Date With the Future
I’m currently in a mad dash to finish A Date With the Future before my WeTV sub ends in 2 days or something. I wish the TV series was less soapy so it would be more bingeable but I chose to watch it over something else so the completionist in me wants to see if it can redeem itself. In the currently watching though, I’m really enjoying Asia Super Young since I honestly missed these idol competition shows. Its like a one stop shop to see the potential of the young talent in the industry and see what type of international boy group they put together. Its still the beginning so there’s still a lot of time before any opinions are form. I do say that the break its taken over the last 3 years or so has given time for some talented young men to pop up. As usual, Yuehua’s trainees are wiping the floor and rightfully so but there’s always some dark horse that pops up during the season so I’m interested to see what will happen.
With that said, I finished a few series this month trying to catch up on some series. Light Chaser Rescue and Here We Meet Again (yes, I’m a fan of Janice Wu) was really great. The former is exceptional because its more unique but Here We Meet Again has some great chemistry and comedy. Sweet Home Season 2 also landed and the review will go up soon but while I started out slightly disappointed at the beginning 2 episodes or so, it really does find its footing when the scope of the film turns back to what its so good at building, the world and the people. They already have Season 3 greenlit so it does end on a cliffhanger.
Games
Currently playing: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, Geometry Dash, Crime O Clock
I’ve been replaying Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney on the PC remake in the trilogy and almost done the first game as I’m in the middle of the last case. Its always such a joy to play especially since its been a few years since I’ve revisited it. I guess its a month of revisiting games as I dove back into Geometry Dash also to get some fun music. I actually went back because I remembered seeing that there would be a 2.0 update in November but it didn’t seem to happen yet. The game is still a ton of fun and the music is great so I’m honestly pretty happy about finding the reason to jump back in even if I have 500 games in backlog to play instead of replaying games but I guess that’s how life works. On that same point, I also ended up checking out a demo of Crime O Clock which has a great concept as they add a little story and time mechanics to the hidden objects genre in a clever way.
2023 YEAR- END WRAP-UP
There’s no doubt that 2023 was kind of ridiculous. There’s been a lot of changes in many ways. A great portion is a growing toddler demands a whole new routine every few months, if not more frequent, making it hard to really commit to a lot other than sleeping since I guess I’ve only got myself to blame for setting his sleep schedule so that he constantly wakes up early and rarely sleeps in (sleeping in means until 7am instead of 6 or earlier). I honestly didn’t achieve a whole lot of my goals but a lot of the set-up work is all done and just waiting for the perfect timing to get things moving along. As usual, no blog stats this year but still, the normal breakdown of totals.
Total Films Watched: 158 films – 33 rewatches – 9 short films
Total Books Read: 41 books (majority children’s books)
Total TV series: 75 seasons binged (13 rewatches) The breakdown: – Hong Kong: 2 – Taiwan: 2 – Documentary: 3 – Korean + Korean Reality: 6 – Chinese Variety Shows: 8 – Mainland China: 14 – American Reality (consider English language): 15 – American/English-Language: 25
While I should’ve put the video game discoveries over on Game Warp, I feel like it fits the general recap here as well so here we are. Overall, this year was pretty clear-cut for everything as there were a lot of really great films and movies but also a lot of pretty average ones which divided itself well. I’ve been gradually cutting a lot of things out so there are certain decreases and changes over the past year that caused a lot of the shifts. It all dials down to lesser time to do everything. I am slowly getting back to delegating time for reading, gaming, films and TV in the last month or so and that makes it feel promising for the coming year!
A quick look before we wrap up 2023 as I always set some goals at the beginning of the year in my Upcoming Plans post (2024’s is right around the corner):
Goodreads Reading Challenge: 30 books surpassed at 41 books which had a mix of children’s storybooks and novels as well as one or two normal novels. However, part of my goal wasn’t reached as I had wanted to read through Hercule Poirot novels and did not read even one.
Tranquil Dreams Podcast launch: Did not happen! (but…I’m all officially set)
Personal Goals: partially achieved as I did start doing more lengthy walks in the summer and recently did a little bit of bodyweight training. Its pretty sporadic so still work in progress. Streaming did not happen but I’m officially set up again to start that off once I can get some evenings without sporadic toddler wake-ups then it will be ready to go.
I missed New Year’s Eve launch for this post so Happy New Year everyone! Remember to come back for the Upcoming Plans in a day or two! Have fun!
Born to veteran actor Patrick Tse, Nicholas Tse entered the music scene at 16 years old and was signed onto EEG Music in 1997. He went on to have a raise in popularity in the following years, releasing an album a year. In 1999, he received an award for No Choice To Leave at the 1999 Jade Solid Gold Top 10 Awards and followed his success in 2000 with the song Viva which to date is his more popular song, leading him to be a A-list singer.
While Nicholas Tse’s popularity took a dive due in the mid-2000s due to various incidents, there was a change in his style in his music as he truly embraces a personal style in his later albums which is very distinctive. At the same time, he also moves to establish himself as an actor and martial artist, learning from Sammo Hung and stunts from Jackie Chan. As he fades away from the musical scene in terms of releases and turned his focus to the Mainland China market, he is still renowned for his musical achievements as he was a judge on Sing!China (aka The Chinese Voice) for 2 seasons but now focuses on his new branding as Chef Nic.
Despite everything, its fitting that I end this year of Cantopop dive with one of my favorite singers and one that I still respect a whole lot because based on the songs I’ve chosen to share, its great to see a singer come into his own. I know, I can’t deny that Nicholas Tse is a good looking man but his talent is also undeniable.
壞習慣 Bad Habits (1997)
無聲仿有聲 (1998)
潛龍勿用 (2001)
400 GIG (1999)
不是定理 (2000)
愛最大 feat 24 Herbs (2015)
That’s it for this Music Obsessions! Last music obsessions of this year and while I wanted to share my Spotify Wrapped and Youtube Wrapped, I will do all the wrap-up at the end of this month or beginning of next month. Also, I’m going to step into some Taiwanese music next year but I will revisit Cantopop at one point.
Welcome to this month’s Music Obsessions! As I sat around trying really hard to narrow down which singer to focus on. I finally decided to work on one that I’ve been singing a lot to my toddler lately that he’s been a huge fan of: George Lam.
Originally starting his music career as lead singer in a band “Jade”, he went solo in 1976 and launched his first English album and followed with his first Cantonese album two years later. However, his recognition came in 1980 when two of his songs won that year’s Top Ten Chinese Gold Song Awards (which is a very popular avenue in the Hong Kong industry of selecting the best songs of the year). Due to his younger years studying in UK and living in USA, his exposure to a variety of genres influences his music to also have that same diversity and in many cases, unique vision in his music before certain musical trends hit the Hong Kong scene.
George Lam is respected for his contribution to music, much like Alan Tam who I highlighted earlier this year. Its been almost five decades that George Lam has been in the Chinese and Cantonese music scene and until today, a lot of his music still is played and recognized and appreciated by listeners of all ages. With 5 decades of music, despite having a big pause after the early 90s, he still has a lot of classics and this doesn’t even touch a lot of his best songs.
Thanksgiving (in Canada) was the big event this month as well as our 8th wedding anniversary which happens to usually be about the same time. While we forgot to take a picture of the actual Thanksgiving dinner which had an oven-roasted turkey, roasted delicata & butternut squash and mash potatoes, we did end up eating the turkey for two more days, one of them was the day after making a “hot chicken” but with turkey. Delicious meal courtesy of my husband.
Toddler Update
October was an eventful month for development as Triple V got to 16 months which just meant that he suddenly is having all these development leaps from suddenly getting on his feet on day to walk slowly to progressing incredibly fast by the end of the month. As part of the follow-up for the previous months’ curve drop, we finally got the dietician appointment which was overall pretty good as the dietician told us that he was having a good variety and balance in his diet and gave us some tips on how to efficiently work on hunger and body weight as he is pretty active throughout the day and gave some recipes for making yogurt melts and puree melts. Other than that, the big event was Halloween where you can see he dressed up a cute little panda. It was a pretty cold and he isn’t supposed to eat any candy so we didn’t partake in any trick or treating but did go out for an evening walk in costume to check out the neighbor and join into the fun. Although he was more focused on his own walking than anything else, it was a nice evening out.
Halloween Marathon
Talking about Halloween, we need to recap the Halloween Marathon which has been fully updated on its page HERE. We only got 8 movies reviewed even though I did have a few other ones watched but never got around to getting those reviews out. There will probably a gradual release of horror reviews especially since my intention to catch up on the The Conjuring films and finishing the Final Destination series as well as Tremors films are still on my to-do list. One of my lesser yielding technically but in reality, I did prep a bit just the writing was a little slower.
WHAT’S UP
Books
Currently reading: Flying Volant of Snowy Mountain
Suffice to say that nothing too exciting is happening in terms of reading as I bounce between bedtime reading of Flying Volant of Snowy Mountain to re-reading a lot of bedtime stories to my toddler. On top of that, October is full of other everyday life commitments so it became hard to work on anything more book-related. As we near the end of the year and re-evaluate, probably reading will take a turn back to how it was next year. However, I haven’t read a whole lot of Jin Yong wuxia novels but seen a lot of movie and TV adaptations. Flying Volant of Snowy Mountain is one that I had a seen a TV adaptation back in the late 90s or early 2000s but really liked the plot so here we are.
This month is full of Halloween marathon and Disney Plus movie picks mostly because I got the Disney Plus 3 months deal so now I’m working through a lot of the nostalgia, Pixar and Wes Anderson films as well as the new horror picks that made it on the catalogue right in time for October’s horror month. On top of that, I even managed to get a Thai creature feature screener review up as well as well as a bunch of 90s horror films and their sequels. At this point, it seems like working through franchises I’ve left on the original films is a big theme in this current phase.
In terms of recommendations from this month, Final Destination, No One Will Save You and the rewatch of Wynken, Blynken & Nod was definitely highlights. The Royal Tenenbaums stood out from the Wes Anderson catalogue so far and I’d recommend that as well.
TV
Michelle Wolf: It’s Great To Be Here (2023)
You Are My Glory (你是我的荣耀, 2021)
The Oath of Love (余生, 请多指教, 2022)
The Fall of the House of Usher (2023)
Currently binging: Let’s Fall In Love S3, Call Me By Fire S3, Singing With Legends S5, Crush Over 2023, Light Chaser Rescue, American Ninja Warrior S13, The Midnight Club
As the year approaches its end, my WeTV streaming service is ending at the end of the year so I’ve been working through some of the C-dramas that has been on my watchlist. The service is a bit pricey in comparison so for now, I have no intention of renewing so working hard on getting through a few more series. However, the two that I’ve caught up with were pretty good. There’s a very healthy and positive message from the stories and focuses a lot on reality and the balance of work, life and self-improvement. Its a pretty nice overall. Not quite one of the best of the year for me but still delivered some good times. Not being frustrated at c-dramas in general is a pretty big win usually.
As for Netflix, I’m always there for Mike Flanagan’s new series. Last year, I didn’t get around to Midnight Club but this year, I wasn’t going to miss out on The Fall of the House of Usher which was so good that I suddenly have an urge to brush up on my Edgar Allan Poe literature which I know the basics of but never have dived very deep into it other than the little bits in College English class. Its also gave us the push to start up The Midnight Club. Reviews for those coming up soon.
Games
Trek of Yomi (incomplete)
Currently playing: Forza Horizon 5, The Legend of Tianding, A Short Hike
There’s been a good bit of gaming lately as I’m about to work on the backlog and unsubscribe from PC Game Pass for a while however with a lot of the games I intended to play on the leaving list, I had to give those a quick look to see how I felt about them. Trek of Yomi is the only one here as completed mostly because the combat is more than I could handle as parrying is one of those gaming things I don’t have down and eventually even the casual mode was a little too much so while the story and the game was like playing a samurai movie, I’m listing it as incomplete because I can’t beat it.
Forza Horizon 5 is still the gaming playground I go to for a little fun everything once in a while. I did also check out Legend of Tianding which is a really fun game and a nice tribute to 2D action platformer games much like the 10 minutes that I played of A Short Hike which had a lot of elements I like in games for their fun, colorful and relaxing feeling.
Tranquil Dreams 