Blogathon Reminder: Ultimate Decades Blogathon 2022 – One Week Left!

Hey everyone! Happy Monday!

Hope 2022 has been great for everyone so far! This is just a friendly reminder that the Ultimate Decades Blogathon 2022 submission deadline is just around the corner in one week before February 14th. Remember that if you do want to participate or just have seen this and need a little more time, just give us a shout and we can work something out. You can reach out to myself at kim.tranquildreams@gmail.com or Drew at drewt510@gmail.com .

You can find all the info and guidelines and contact info to us in case you missed the announcement post, you can find all the details HERE.

We can’t wait to receive your submissions and see what movies you chose!

What’s Up & Adventures – January 2022

Welcome to 2022’s first adventures post and its all new and shiny. If you missed the 2022 Upcoming Plans post, this year I’m trying out combining the What’s Up and Adventures. With the current state this month of Montreal, Adventures are rather thin although I’m going on a completely new journey internally and physically so that’s something. With that said, Adventures to begin and then we’ll wrap up with the What’s Up at the end for a monthly round-up of the books, films, games and TV that I checked out.

Letterboxd Year in Review

Films Logged: 219
Hours Watched: 472
Most Watched Actor: Samuel L. Jackson
Most Watched Director: Quentin Tarantino

Letterboxd Year in Review always arrives later than the year-end recap so here’s a quick overview of some of the stats there.

Booster Shot

Booster shot is done! It went much smoother than the second dose to my surprise. I was pretty happy about it though since it meant that I could still do some stuff during the weekend as I recuperated. Not much to say there. I just had a little pain in my upper arm and that’s about it.

11th Blogiversary

Its been 11 years of blogging with this blog! There’s been lots of ups and down in life and also a lot of changes in content and more projects coming and going. I had some plans for the blogiversary that kind of fell apart. There’s just a whole lot to be thankful for and really happy with how I’ve built this space even if sometimes it feels like blogging is a lot less popular and the familiar bloggers are slowly less and less everyday. Either way, I’m excited for this new year. Lots of fun stuff coming up that I’m just having a hard time getting off the ground mostly because of work deadlines and lots of overtime but that’s slightly better now so hopefully you will be seeing more frequency on the posting front!

What’s Up- January 2022

Welcome to the new style for the What’s Up as it pairs with the Adventures post! This time around I will leave most of the actual opinions to the reviews themselves which will be released within a month of completion for the most part. Might be a slow start yet again due to work schedule for this month however everything’s partially written. I usually do highlights as well for this section to share what I think stood out to me. In this new one, the titles will be in bold for those that I particularly feel is worth your time.

Books: Nothing yet. Books in transition to a new shelf.

Films:

• The Birds (1963)
• 6 Years (2015, Review)
• All The Bright Places (2020, Review)
• Howl’s Moving Castle (rewatch, 2004)
• Booksmart (2019, Review)
• Carrie Pilby (2016, Review)
• Kingdom of the Spiders (1977)
• Poupelle of Chimney Town (2021, Review)
• Alligator (1980)
• Dude (2018, Review)
• Every Day (2018, Review)
• The F*ck-It List (2020)
• Aziz Ansari: Nightclub Comedian (2022)

TV:

• Light The Night (華燈初上, Part 1&2)
• Voir (Season 1, 2021)
• I Know What You Did Last Summer (Season 1, 2021) Review
• Love At Night (夜色暗涌時, 2021)
• The Silent Sea (Season 1, 2021)
• Deadly Class (Season 1, 2018)
• Too Hot To Handle (Season 3, 2022)
• The Wheel of Time (Season 1, 2021)
• The World of Fantasy (靈域, 2021)
• Hellbound (Season 1, 2021)

Currently binging: Shining For One Thing (一閃一閃亮星星, 2022)

Games: Currently playing: Genesis Noir

Cute Kitty Pic

That’s it for this Adventures and What’s Up recap!
Hope you enjoyed it!
What have you been up to?

Announcement: Ultimate Decades Blogathon 2022!

Welcome to the 7th Annual Ultimate Decades Blogathon hosted by myself and Drew’s Movie Reviews.

Following last year’s suit in the new blogathon style, the Ultimate Decades Blogathon continues on with our numeric progress as we celebrate our favorite movies released in a year ending in “2”. That means you can pick any movie from 1922, 1932, 1942, 1952, 1962, 1972, 1982, 1992, 2002, 2012 and if are super on your game and have already watched some new releases worth talking about, feel free to talk about something from 2022. As usual, we allow for doubles in selections to keep it easier for everyone and see what movies stood out for you in any of those years.

To help with your movie choices from any of these years, here’s a list of the releases from each of the years mentioned above:

• 1922
• 1932
• 1942
• 1952
• 1962
• 1972
• 1982
• 1992
• 2002
• 2012

The details of this blogathon:

• Any movie released in a year ending in “2” is a valid choice. They are not limited to those in the list above as I’m not quite sure if those cover foreign film choices but that is always an option as well.
• You can choose to do more than one review. Just let us know in advance.
• The reviews will be posted to our blogs so make sure to submit it to us (if you plan on posting on your blog as well, let us know so that we give you the release date so that you can pair it with our release schedule).
• Submission Deadline: February 13th (if you need more time, let us know in advance and we can absolutely work it out)
• Blogathon starts on February 21st
• Email submissions to kim.tranquildreams@gmail.com and/or Drew at drewt510@gmail.com. Please notify us in the comments below or by email if you plan on participating.
• You can tag us and help us promote using #UltimateDecadesBlogathon

Welcome all to join! You can be from any platform since your review will be posted on our blogs. We look forward to your choices and submissions. Feel free to use the banner above to show off your participation. If you know anyone that would be interested in joining, please help us spread the word. The more the merrier!

2022 Upcoming Plans!

Its 2022! After spending an entire year in the pandemic last year, life has definitely changed from watching new releases to just real life in general. Routine and everything has definitely taken a shift. Its the new year and we can only hope that we will hopefully escape the pandemic in some form in the coming year.

With all that said, yesterday we wrapped up with a 2021 overview and today is to share what to expect in 2022. Not a whole lot of change in general but for those new to the blog, it will give a general guideline of what to expect. I will try my best to achieve the majority of it but some things may not actually pan out. Its just how life works in general. If 2021 has taught me anything, its to just let things flow.

Enough of that and let’s move on to the actual plans!

BOOKS

Goodreads Reading Challenge 2022: 15 books

Last year was a massive fail in terms of reading. So I’ve basically opted to half the goal from last year. This goal feels overall attainable. One book or so a month seems pretty doable in general. I recently did a clean-up of my books and the goal is to go through the physical TBR books sitting on my bookshelves.

MOVIES

Movies will be basically the same thing as this year. I truly don’t believe new theatrical releases are in the horizon in terms of actual theatre visits so I’m going to focus on Netflix, Shudder and Digital rentals for most new releases. At the same time, this year’s big change is to take a year off of festival coverage. I will talk briefly about some life changes below as we get into some personal plans.

• Focus on Double Features format
• New releases or screeners get single reviews
• Marathons:
  • February- Valentine Romance
  • October – Horror
  • December – Holidays
• Ultimate Decades Blogathon: annual blogathon that I co-host is back and announcement post will be coming in a few weeks
• Movies and Tea Podcast: podcast that I co-host will simultaneously be shared here as we dive into more director filmography and themed seasons

TV

All TV binges this year will focus on Netflix content for the greater part.

Where will the Chinese-language dramas that I consume go? That’s in the next section below!

TRANQUIL DREAMS PODCAST

After a few months of hiatus, the podcast will be making a return. This time, I’m going back to the original concept of what I had initially wanted to do with the podcast: Chinese-Language Dramas!

The podcast still needs some structural elements to be finalized but I will be covering Chinese-Language Dramas. What does that mean? Mainland Chinese, Taiwan and Hong Kong TV dramas. The main focus will be those accessible on streaming services since they are becoming more and more available on Netflix alone and I feel like it doesn’t get talked about enough since there are a few gems in general.

I am debating to have a Chinese and English version but that’s a whole other discussion which I’m not sure I’m ready to commit to quite yet in terms of time and editing alone. I do also have another idea for moving the once Sunday lists here as a monthly podcast segment but its a little more work so still under consideration.

MONTHLY SEGMENTS

Mostly the same:

• Music Obsessions: first weekend of every month
• Adventures & What’s Up: combined together at month-end

PARTIAL REVIVAL: BAKING THROUGH DISNEY & STUDIO GHIBLI

Look, Baking Through Disney is behind us. There’s no point in dwelling on something that probably won’t happen at this point. I bake desserts pretty much once a year. I’m not saying that it won’t happen again since I have been having the thought lately (due to some upcoming changes) but it won’t be happening in a good part of this year. However, I’m going through a bit of a burnout on horror films which makes the movie portion for horror marathon a big maybe whether I will do it by October or not. Maybe I will be out of it but other factors come into play (also something mentioned later in this post).

With all that said, I’ve been missing animated films and think its a great time to jump back into it so I do want to review Disney films preferably in the order of the ones I have access to or can rent (unless Disney+ has another cheap subscription month), very much like how the original project was structured minus the baking and creativity part. With that, I do also want to go through the Studio Ghibli films seeing as they are mostly available on Netflix right now. Perfect timing and all.

PERSONAL LIFE GOALS (AND A LITTLE UPDATE)

Most of the blog stuff is pretty much updated above so we will do some quick personal life goals. Last year’s workout goal in general worked at its best during the summer. This year is a little bit more different.

Let’s start with the update and real life news/update that may create the biggest change for my life and blog. I’m pregnant and due in a few months so anything in the second half of 2022 will be a big unknown at this point. With that said, the life goals will be very much oriented towards this new change.

• Eat healthier: For obvious reasons, this is already underway. I am in the process of boosting calcium since lactose intolerance doesn’t exactly help in that department. Along with that, also boosting fruit consumption since I was very bad at that last year.
• Streaming Once A Week: After that one stream last year in March, I’ve been thinking of streaming regularly for a while but never really had the right timing. So, I thought I’d take baby steps and set in one stream every weekend. I will probably do an official announcement once I finally take the step to start it up.
• Set Up the Nursery & New Office: The news above basically means I’m working on clearing out my current office to transform into the nursery. I mean, this is a gradual to-do list. There’s a general plan right now so this kind of links to the above goal since I do want to transition to the new office area in the house before streaming. Less hassle that way.

FINAL GENERAL NOTE FOR THE BLOG

I’ve been slowing down on writing this past year. A lot contributed to it. With the new changes in life, I don’t foresee writing frequency increasing and I don’t want to stress over it. The goal is to get a post up every 2 to 3 days. Plus, after a decade of blogging, I do want to jump into some new projects hence the solo podcast with this new structure and also streaming. Maybe when those things happen, I will also want to write more. It will take time for a new routine to build in so some of the newer things will be lesser frequency. Either way, I am going to maintain the quality instead of quantity.

2022 will hopefully be a great year despite the craziness in reality!
Happy New Year and Wishing Everyone All the Best!

Do you all have some new projects? Feel free to share it in the comments!

My December 2021 Adventures + Overview of the Year

After an entire year of pandemic (and ongoing from the previous year), we’ve finally reached the end of 2021. Its a tad wild and yet 2021 went by incredibly fast despite all the sitting at home, watching TV, playing games, and finding other ways from our own homes to connect with friends. Of course, the blog is not about that and while here took a little slowdown in the last few months mostly for personal IRL reasons, I still think it was very much needed. With that said, a little look at some simple activities in December. We will end with an overview of 2021: some simple numbers, and top 10 lists. You know, this is the normal deal on the last day of the year.

Christmas Decorations

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Kim (@tranquildreams)

Christmas in Old Montreal

My Christmas Tree

Beyond Monet

Before things started getting worse in Montreal, we managed to make it to the Beyond Monet exhibit. Monet art is something that means a lot to me as art is something is what reminds me of my childhood with my father. With that said, this exhibit was quite the show as its a 360 wall of Monet art that flips through the details of each collection while pairing it with classical music (in majority, there was some opera as well).

OVERVIEW OF 2021

Its the end of 2021 and with that, its time for some quick numbers! First of all, we are dropping blogging statistics this year because its really not something that was top on my list this year. However, let’s focus back on the content that was consumed.

• Total films watched: 215 movies
• Total books read: 9 books
• Total TV series binged: 69 seasons

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Kim (@tranquildreams)

Top 10 First Time Watches

1. Hand Rolled Cigarette
2. Vicious Fun
3. Dreams On Fire
4. The Final Girls
5. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
6. Inglourious Basterds
7. Better Days
8. The Dressmaker
9. Hello! Tapir
10. Beyond The Infinite Two Minutes

Top 10 TV series

1. Flourish in Time
2. Baking Impossible
3. Our Secret
4. Squid Game
5. Moonlight
6. Lost In Space (Season 1-3)
7. Love Crossed
8. A Murderous Affair in Horizon Tower
9. Use For Our Talent
10. Sweet Home

Overall, 2021 was a decrease in content in general for film watching in general. The actually movie watching for 2021 releases was all focused on what was accessible on streaming services or online. Some of which is still waiting to be written up. Less posts written, less movies watched, a new podcast (which is currently in hiatus for rebuild), more TV watching (I believe since I didn’t track it last year), an unbelievable backlog of movies and TV series to write up reviews and a whole lot less books read is where I’m at as we approach this year-end. However, its been a crazy year in real life so I think all things aside, its amazing that things are still running the way it is.

Drop by tomorrow to see the 2022 upcoming plans post!
There’s some little changes and announcements!

My November Adventures 2021!

Wow! November is already done! Some things wrapped up and the final film festival coverage wrapped up for this year already. A lot of little preparations went up and some more thinking started for next year’s plans. Basically a month with a few things that are too early to talk about but still a few overviews to work on.

Halloween Marathon Extended Done!

Last month, I made the executive decision to extend the Halloween marathon. Suffice to say that the big part of it was a fail however, it did give it a chance to align with the final film festival coverage of the year which had a few horror titles to add in. With that said, the next marathon is just around the corner so let’s hope that it goes better than this one.

Still, for those interested in the Halloween horror marathon list, its been updated on the menu already right HERE.

Blood In The Snow Film Festival

Blood in the Snow Film Festival was the final film festival coverage for us. There’s nothing else after this for the rest of the year as we head into the holidays and a lot of other housekeeping and year-end round-ups start up. The remote coverage for their on location film festival portion was pretty nice. I covered all the full-length features and due to time constraints didn’t get around to any of the short films. If you checked out the Halloween marathon link above than its essentially the same in part. However here are the films covered from my favorite to the least enjoyable:

• Vicious Fun
• The Chamber of Terror
• The Family
• Motherly
• Woodland Grey
• Peppergrass
• Flee The Light
• Funhouse

Restaurant: 1930 Shanghai

After craving some soup-filled dumplings aka Xiao Long Bao for an entire month, I finally got to go try out this restaurant on location. I’ve only had them last year takeout. It was still great but the travel time does take away from the fresh hot element. I forgot to take pictures of the pan-fried dumplings but they were all pretty good. I do think that the pan-fried combination of chicken and cabbage wasn’t too great and the juicy sweet pork dumplings were a tad on the too sweet side and preferred the classic soup-filled dumplings and the pan-fried leek, pork and shrimp ones. These two were very delicious.

Announcement: Holidays Marathon

December is here and with that the holidays marathon. A little change this year due to the simple lack of material tp cover at the current moment that I am interested in and some other year end stuff to deal with so will probably start the 10th which gives it two weeks and possibly run further into before new year’s if there is suddenly more films to cover.

The Coming Plans Update (follow-up from last month…)

Last month, I had mentioned the possibility of talking more about my current predicament that is causing the whole lower frequency in posting, etc. However, after some thought, I wanted to talk about for the new year with my new plans. Give it another month to settle down and have some better routine before I talk about it. However, with that said, this so-called new routine is breaking in fairly well. It doesn’t reflect too much in the posting as I am still getting back into the groove but its definitely looking up. Either way, we will see in the coming month. But boy do I have some news for the New Year. Since let’s face it, December round-up is mostly year-end overview things and holiday stuff.

That’s it for the November adventures!
Not exactly any adventures to talk about but its kind of nice to get some stuff out of the way.
How has your November been?

My March Adventures!

Welcome to the March Adventures! March is a big month. Not so much for work (such a rare thing to say over here) in the beginning until the pandemic was announced and things took a flipside and changed the working situation and the general routine.  Not quite the way I expected my husband and I to turn a year older but hey, what can you do, right? On a happier note, as a lot of us have shifted our lives at home, I’m 34 today and celebrating in the beautiful confines of my home, still employed and healthy! In the state of things right now, its important to be grateful and appreciative for the things that we have!

Ultimate 2010s Blogathon Done!

Early March wrapped up the Ultimate 2010s Blogthon that I co-host with Drew’s Movie Reviews as we celebrated with our fantastic guest reviewers their favorite/most significant 2010s movies. You can find all the entries HERE.

Day Off

I had a day off in early March after a 10.5 days work week to recuperate. The husband also had that day off so we ended up going to do some shopping since I needed to upgrade my skincare routine. You can see the new purchases. I had a birthday discount card so it was alright. We also had a lovely lunch at La Belle et la Boeuf eating some burgers.

Little did we know how things were going downhill after this date outing.

Kavala & Boulangerie Ange

Right before we had all the social distancing orders from the government, I did manage to have a few last hurrahs with friends.

The first was checking out the new bakery at a new condo district called Boulangerie Ange. We did pick up some bread, croissants and baguette while trying out their breakfast combo. Its pretty good and would definitely be something to check out later on when things get back to normal.

We also managed to squeeze in another restaurant hangout with our Battle of Ingredients crew at a Greek tavern called Kavala. I was going to do a post on it but have decided to postpone it as its not like restaurants are currently open (other than takeout and delivery). Either way, it was a delicious place but I’ll talk more about it afterwards. On that note, Battle of Ingredients is, of course, on hold until further notice when things get back to normal.

Work Changes & New Routine

After a week of nerve-wracking public commute to work with all kinds of preventative measures in the bus and sanitization and home cleaning, my boss figured out a way to let me work from home. Although, above is only immediate needs for the week or so and I do have to pop back into the office every week or so to grab new documents and drop off work done, its been a fairly quick adaptation to working at home although its somewhat changed my routine as I’ve needed to add in time for doing things I’d usually use for reading and walking to work as workout. Still, I can’t complain as I still have a job as we’re considered essential services when the province lockdown came into effect. As of writing this post, I have already gone back to pick up another crateful of documents to work on as we’ve outlined the goals for the next few weeks.

New Routines and Plans 

View this post on Instagram

Gettin back into some #baking and back to the basics with making #chewy #chocolatechip #cookies . #sweets #chocolatechipcookies #snacks #dessert #chocolate #chewycookies #homebaking #homemade

A post shared by Kim (@tranquildreams) on Mar 29, 2020 at 6:21pm PDT

In lieu of the current state of events, I have already talked about new routines. While I’ve been trying my best to keep up with setting a new routine, mostly with better chore management during the week. I’m slowly finding more time to get in the other projects. You should be seeing more baking related posts (yes, Baking Through Disney should show up after a few little basic baking to get myself back on track to make sure I’m still good with the basics and organization. At the same time, I have an huge amount of backlog of double features and TV binges to write as well as a lot of  book commitments and blog tours to work on over the next little while. Content should be back on track as I know the last 2 weeks or so have been a little all over the place.

At the same time, Elwood and I have been working hard on getting ahead with both Game Warp and Movies and Tea podcast recording so remember to check out our wrap up for Season 3 as we look at Ang Lee and then our After Hours and Shark Week. You can check out Movies and Tea HERE and Game Warp HERE. More podcasts and written reviews/posts will coming up from myself at least as I start finding time to wrap up a few of them. In terms of gaming, I might actually start streaming soon as I kind of made a deal with myself that if I had the ability to work from home and had more time that I’d start doing that..just deciding on the game to stream right now.

Cute Kitty Pic

That’s it for the March Adventures!

I’m going to assume right now that if things stay the way they are, I will have to be a little more creative with the April Adventures as its less adventures in the going out but more what I’ve been up to at home. I have some buried project ideas and whatnot that I want to find time to do so we will see.

On that note, feel free to share what you have been up to? Have you been confined to your homes as well?

My Weekly Adventures: The 8th Blogiversary

This weekly adventures is a tad later than usual…because of the big event that Tranquil Dreams is 8!!

It all fits perfectly because I didn’t have much that happened other than working on some personal matters that I don’t prefer to share here. On top of that, its a whole lot of overtime at work and you all don’t want to hear about that just as much as I don’t want to talk about it, I’d presume. Then there’s the obvious issue of being sick which I had mentioned briefly on a What’s Up. So all in all, not a ton of fun activities in the last two weeks.

 

Normally, I have the habit of an annual vlog to celebrate the blogiversary but let’s just say that the plans fell through because I forgot I had to film and ran out of time. I have to say that it might be for the better. Before we move onto the more Weekly Adventures bit, let me write a little on celebrating the blogiversary today.

For one, its a massive thank you to everyone who has stopped by here, liked a post and the other bloggers and podcasters that I’ve worked with. Its pretty fantastic to think that I’ve been doing this for eight years and that now its part of my daily life and the content has grown and changed as well. Its also been a journey where I’ve learned a lot not only in finding my writing style and simply writing better but also the fact that without here, I wouldn’t have learned video editing and audio editing and learned how to be a part of podcast co-host and co-host a blogathon as well. At the same time, I never thought that I’d get the opportunity to cover festivals and review screeners and all that fun stuff. All in all, a HUGE THANK YOU to everyone whether you drop by today or later on or before this post existed.

This past week was a nice little work up to this because I had one announcement and one little decision in the making which is the only Weekly Adventures worthy parts…

Ultimate 2000s Blogathon Announcement

In case you missed it, Drew and I announced out Ultimate 2000s Blogathon on Monday. Sign up and submissions are open for 3 weeks. We are looking forward to it all. Its the 4th year that we are doing what we have called the Ultimate Decades Blogathon this time of year and the 2000s has such great movies that we are looking forward to what picks show up.

If you missed the announcement, you can find it HERE.

To Come: Videos, Vlogs, Discussions and more

Ever since I stopped doing What’s Up videos, I’ve been pondering this video business for a while. To be honest, I’ve been thinking about this even during that phase. Doing every other week seems to be hard to keep up with mostly because it just falls out of routine and seems a bit redundant. So I decided to do a monthly What’s Up roundup sort of thing. At least thats the idea for now. The goal is to eventually get something much more entertaining like discussions or compare and contrasts on movies and adaptations or their remakes or reboots or sequels. Something that I like to talk about preferably so it can really be anything. I might do audio and just do clips in the background more than myself showing up in the videos.

I still have some decisions to make but I think its a nice way to liven up the Youtube channel a little and do some extracurricular video editing practice. I did think about doing like a podcast style as well or maybe just doing an audio version as well.

All in all…

We’re 8 after all! I’m looking forward to changing things around and a part of me wants to go back to where it all started with a bigger focus on food and baking which I honestly miss a lot. I miss the days that I watched a lot of Chinese and Taiwanese TV series and Hong Kong movies and I guess its the years that its been here that I’m not as afraid to take those risks so I’ll slowly get that going as well. Its been on my mind for a few years now and I never figured out how to integrate it so I’m going to just go for it once I find the right structure and angle.

That’s it for this special Weekly Adventures!
Thanks to everyone for being a part of this journey!
Being here for 8 years means that I’ve seen many bloggers come and go.
As for myself, I see myself going further a little longer 🙂

What’s Up 2018?

Hello everyone!

I’ve sat around most of today just resting up and getting back energy from the NYE festivities at our place and doing little cleaning up and such. Its been really fun. Of course, I did promise a 2018 look ahead. Call it resolutions or plans or whatever you’d like. There’s not going to be a ton of change this year however, I’m trying to set some solid goals and keep them going. Let’s call it just updates for all the sections of this blog.

Twitter update

I’ve wanted to change my crappy Twitter handle for years instead of the horrible tranquildr3ams. Emphasis on the 3 instead of the e. It reflects how old I am and what generation I grew up in, I think. With that said, it also looks super bad now especially I’m trying to at least seem slightly legit and get press passes and such. So here we are…after seeing that TranquilDreams and Tranquil_Dreams was taken, I ended up just doing TranquilDreams_

New Twitter Handle: @TranquilDreams_

Everything should be updated so there shouldn’t be a ton of confusion.

Blog Plans

Lets start with the blog plans for 2018. We’re looking at Movies, Books, TV Binge, Baking for the main categories and then the Weekly Adventures category will be its own little thing.

MOVIES

As of starting this year, I’m missing reviews for Wonder Woman, Kong: Skull Island, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and 47 Meters Down. Those will be going up shortly over the next week as I rid the backlog of reviews that need to be posted.

Movie reviews do the absolute worst on the blog as a first impact post however some reviews do have views in the long term. I keep them here because I truly do enjoy watching films and sharing my thoughts on them. Plus, Fantasia Festival reviews do well and I love covering indie films a whole lot. Creative new ideas from these great artists and creators are something I truly appreciate. With that said, I have refrained from reviewing Hong Kong films which most of my cinema roots stem from in the last few years because no one actually reads them. They just are for my own enjoyment. Seeing as this category has so many other talented writers reviewing the American cinema, I’m probably going to dial it down a notch and do more foreign cinema with a heavier focus on catching up with Hong Kong cinema. I miss it so much and maybe it’ll help introduce something new to those of you who are interesting in international cinema. If not, at least I’ll enjoy it thoroughly myself.

With that said, I’ll still review everything I watch and if you’d like, join me on Letterboxd to see how I rate movies since I don’t share ratings here. My username is TranquilDreams.

BOOKS

I fell short of the Goodreads challenge in 2017 on a technicality. However, I can’t remember if I did change my original goal. I might have done it halfway through the year. Regardless, this year’s Goodreads Reading Challenge is at 25 books. I decided to set it a tad lower because I want to jump back into The Classics Adventures. With that said, I’m picking up right where I left off at the end of 2015.

This year, I’m going to work on:

• Northanger Abbey (to finish the Jane Austen novels)
• Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass
• Jules Verne novels
• Anne of Green Gables (hopefully) and/or Emily of New Moon
• Finish reading IT (the break was way too long)

Of course, I’ve grown a profound love for graphic novels and comics along with trying to get some more ebooks off my Kindle. It’ll be a nice mix of stuff but it should be fun. Currently, I have Josie and the Pussycats and a novella to share the review for which will be coming up next before I start the new endeavors.

TV BINGE

TV Binge finally got its own section. I change the structure on how I review these ones with every single series and hopefully this year I’ll settle on a way that I’m happy with. We have more than enough sitting in backlog to get written up: Gilmore Girls Seasons 5 to 7 + A Year in Life, Ultimate Beastmaster Season 2, Stranger Things Season 2 are the priority to wrap up. Aside from that, this year, I’ll try to actually dive more in foreign as well to cover Taiwanese series as well as Hong Kong TV series that I’ve bought for years and never actually got around to watching until this past week off from work.

Of course, for your viewing pleasure, I also have some TV series I want to catch up with:

• Hemlock Grove Season 3 (Final)
• The 100 (catch-up)
• Grey’s Anatomy (catch-up)
• The Vampire Diaries (up to finale)

Some series that I’ve never actually watched and always get told to watch:

• Hannibal
• Supernatural
• Black Mirror

A Series of Unfortuante Events will get its Season 2 on March 30th so I’m pretty excited about that. 3% also has Season 2 coming up this year as well. Lots of stuff to look forward to.

BAKING

Suffice to say that cooking and baking has truly taken a backseat and it was replaced by Goodfood recap which I have a lot of fun sharing with you all. If you ever see a recipe that you like, don’t hesitate to ask me for it. I’d love to share the link with you. If you are a fellow Canadian and have access to the service and want to try it out, I have free meal vouchers that I can send you so you can give it a go. Just drop me a comment or an email with your email and I’ll get that sent over to you.

I’ve been thinking a lot of cooking more and getting back into the baking groove. People say third times the charm, right? So lets do this again. I’m set on getting this project done even if it takes 10 years. We’re doing the Baking Through Disney goal again. If you are new here, you can check out the page HERE. The progress has been nothing short of sad and pathetic. Don’t you worry! I figured out the Fantasia and the Dumbo baking now and I’m  not going to change my mind. I’ll free up time and get the motivation and we’re going to get it done. I’m going to start watching more of the movies so that at least we have the movie reviews going up to see how Disney progressed while I ponder away on making delicious desserts.

MISCELLANEOUS

• Music Obsessions: no change, remains on the first weekend of the month
• Sunday Lists: every other Sunday will have a faves or best to worst list
• Game Warp Podcast: Updates for only featured reviews. I urge you to subscribe to the channel for other reviews or like our Facebook page
• Unboxing: Meowbox is the only one still active on a quarterly basis.

Big Change in Setup: My Weekly Adventures has the biggest change. I’ve pondered for a while about this. I used to post gaming related stuff on the Tranquil Dreams Youtube channel. With my increased love of video editing, I’m planning to revive the channel. I’m still trying to get that movie-related project going however I’m not really happy with the angle I chose so I’ve been thinking about it more. Unboxing only still Meowbox so thats going to be very minimal. With that said, I might start doing some vlogs for the Weekly Adventures. Who knows, the blogs always been about adventure so we’ll see where thats going to go.

Personal Life

This is getting super lengthy! This year’s personal goal:

• Be more organized
• Less procrastination
• Eat Healthier & Get back into a workout regime

That’s what’s up for 2018!
Some vague goals but I’m keeping things attainable!
What do you think? What are your goals/resolutions (if its your thing)?

Reminder: Ultimate 90s Blogathon!

Happy Monday, my lovelies!

Have you all recovered from Superbowl excitement or disappointment depending on who you were cheering for?

I’m here to remind everyone that there is 1 MORE WEEK till the due date of the Ultimate 90s Blogathon reviews to us. If you haven’t signed up, you are still welcome to join us. The more the merrier! For all the information, you can find it HERE on our announcement post. In short, its all about your favorite 90s movies or what 90s movies made the decade for you memorable or symbolizes the decade the best. You can chime in on your participation in the comments but send us your 90s choice by email so that it’ll stay a surprise until the review goes up.

The due date for the reviews to be sent to us is February 13th.  However, we do know that everyone is busy so if you do need an extension, just email us. The blogathon officially starts on February 20th.

If you’d like to participate or have a review for us or any other questions, email me at kim.tranquildreams@gmail.com or Drew at drewt510@gmail.com .

We’re looking forward to everyone’s reviews! 🙂