My January Adventures

Welcome friends! January is behind us now! It was so busy that it almost felt like a blink of an eye and it was gone. Montreal is in lockdown and ongoing curfew but the whole being busy actually made this whole thing not very bothersome either except for some appointments that needed to be swapped around. This January was probably the least post that I’ve ever posted for the month despite all the craziness at work. This month’s adventures isn’t exactly anything exciting, just a few little updates!

Tranquil Dreams Podcast

Perhaps one of the biggest announcements for here is the launching of the podcast for this blog called Tranquil Dreams Podcast. I know, creative, right? Either way, at the current time, there’s three episodes uploaded for the What’s Up 2021 segment. If you haven’t listened to it yet, you can listen it to it on various platforms. I will be doing more diverse content once things slow down a little bit more at work (probably in mid-February or beginning of March).

With that said, I do invite you to go check it out. Its available on these platforms:

Anchor
Google Podcasts
Spotify
Breaker
Pocket Casts
RadioPublic

You can also access the podcasts posts on the right side of the blog.

Letterboxd Year in Review

Letterboxed Year in Review came in after the New Year and I thought that it would be fun to share it here as I usually do it with the year-end wrap-up post. Most of it is pretty expected except for the most watched actor who I actually had to look up.

• 267 Films Logged
• 423 Hours Watched
• Most Watched Director: David Fincher (I have watched 100% of David Fincher films)
• Most Watched Actor: Richmond Arquette
• Highly Rated 2020 Films: The Haunting of Bly Manor, Red Post on Escher Street, The Oak Room

Announcement: Ultimate Decades Blogathon

Drew over at Drew’s Movie Reviews and myself announced the 6th Ultimate Decades Blogathon! We’ve love to get as many people to participate as possible! Plus, we changed the structure so it’ll be a fun time. If you haven’t seen the announcement post, head over and check it out HERE!

Valentine’s Marathon

We’re a bit behind with the Valentine’s Marathon but its still happening this year! The current rundown is to get some TV binges and some romance films lined up. I might not go the typical romantic comedy film path so may wander into more romantic drama depending on what I find on Netflix. However, the highlight will probably be getting in a review of To All The Boys 3 when it is released on Netflix. At the same time, I might do something special for the marathon, maybe some baking or a podcast special.

Workout Update

From now on, I’m going to start tracking a very general list of workout for each week as a nod to the workout goal that I set at the beginning of the year. Its a tad slow and work got in the way in the last week. At least its some progress.

• Week 1: 2 Workouts (cardio and arm workout)
• Week 2: Cycling (on machine, 5km)
• Week 3: Shovelling & Walking
• Week 4: Nothing (working a lot so only exercise..walking and chores)

Cute Kitty Pic

That’s it for the January Adventures!
Nothing too exciting but a bunch of new things and announcements!

Double Feature: Dawn of the Dead (1978) & Dawn of the Dead (2004)

Halloween marathon continues as we move onto the next pairing of the next movie of the Living Dead franchise, Dawn of the Dead matched up with the 2004 remake that also happens to be one of my favorite zombie movies (but surprisingly, I’ve never written a review for it).

Let’s check it out!

Dawn of the Dead (1978)

Director (and writer): George A. Romero

Cast: David Emge, Ken Foree, Scott H. Reiniger, Gaylen Ross, David Crawford, David Early, Richard France

Following an ever-growing epidemic of zombies that have risen from the dead, two Philadelphia S.W.A.T. team members, a traffic reporter, and his television executive girlfriend seek refuge in a secluded shopping mall. – IMDB

Set in a shopping mall with four people barricading themselves in a hidden nook of the building while being in the more optimal position of being somewhere that can support their needs for the time-being, Dawn of the Dead is a fairly straight-forward movie of people with different skill sets stuck together with an escape helicopter on the roof ready to leave if anything happens.

With movies like this with small cast and one setting, its really a big reliance of giving space to set up both the location and the characters while of course, learning more about the zombies in this world. In terms of the location, the mall is pretty well laid out. There is a lot more exploring of the key locations they frequent both at the beginning when they first get there and the end when a group of raiders come crashing in and the aftermath of how to escape this now unsafe space.

The characters quickly drop from four to three which spans for a decent part of the movie. Considering the small group, its expected that it doesn’t drop too fast. The three characters, while diverse in their skills and they do build a bonding together and a way to function together, its a fairly slow part of the movie as they live in the mundane routine of being trapped together. At the same time, they are caught in the situation of the girlfriend character being pregnant but also trying to help with what she can to not be the typical damsel in distress. These three characters are okay to watch. Perhaps the least intriguing parts is the middle bit when they are together and it gets a little slow. Not to mention the group of motorcycle raiders comes crashing in and is led by a cameo role by Tom Savini.

The first movie gave an introduction that the zombies are slow and came back from the dead. In this one, its still a bit of the same except highlighting the spread of the zombie apocalypse. Perhaps the ending is where the key point is that links to the next movie a little bit (as an afterthought of watching Day of the Dead, that I will talk about soon).

Dawn of the Dead (2004)

Director: Zack Snyder

Cast: Sarah Polley, Ving Rhames, Jake Weber, Mekhi Phifer, Ty Burrell, Michael Kelly, Kevin Zegers, Michael Barry, Lindy Booth, Jayne Eastwood, Boyd Banks, Inna Korobkina, R.D. Reid, Kim Poirier

A nurse, a policeman, a young married couple, a salesman and other survivors of a worldwide plague that is producing aggressive, flesh-eating zombies, take refuge in a mega Midwestern shopping mall. – IMDB

Dawn of the Dead remake is one of the few movies that I enjoy in Zack Snyder’s filmography. Its not that I dislike it so much as I’m just not a big fan of a good portion of his latest work with DC movies. But that’s a discussion for another day (maybe if Movies and Tea ever does a season on Zack Synder). As a full length feature film debut, Snyder shows some great potential. The remake takes some similar choices such as its setting and also having a pregnant woman in the group however, that about stops since it then proceeds with a great choice of having a bigger cast of characters. It amends the slow pace of the first film. Of course, the arguing point of having more characters is that these people will have less depth and a varying amount of time spent with them but then on the upside, gives more bodies to be lost when the time comes. In reality, zombie movies work a lot like shark movies in that aspect, right?

The array of characters actually does give a lot of room for more relationships to bond and some standout characters to pop up. Sarah Polley as the main female character Ana is really great as she is rather tough right from the start to the end and she forms a connection with Michael (Jake Weber) who is a quiet and resourceful character that seems to have some story behind him as well. One of the more fun times is the slice of joy that Ving Rhames’ character Kenneth finds as he befriends a man across the parking lot that runs the gun shop. With security guards and people of different backgrounds and priorities in mind, this group eventually faces the same issue of having to find a way to exit which leads them to a credit scene that shows their escape and what happens.

Watching the original and then watching the remake again actually makes for a great appreciation since the script itself as well as some of the supporting roles give a nod to the original. Whether its having Tom Savini also pop up in the role as the country sheriff as well as one of the main characters in the original, Ken Foree pops up as a Televangelist role saying the same line that he did in the original “When there’s no more room in Hell, the dead will walk the Earth”. I may have forgotten some of the other things but noticing these little elements adds a lot to this film in general.

That’s it for this double feature!
Have you seen Dawn of the Dead (original, remake or both)? Thoughts?

Halloween Double Feature: The Purge: Anarchy (2014) & The Purge: Election Year (2016)

Due to some changes, the second double feature got changed and I ended up moving up The Purge franchises second and third film, The Purge: Anarchy and The Purge: Election Year, which has been a long overdue revisit to the franchise after watching the first film years ago. I liked The Purge relatively a lot but was a little skeptical on how sequels would work with it so lets see how these two sequels did *crossing my fingers that we are are getting closer to horror territory*.

The Purge: Anarchy (2014)

Director (and writer): James DeMonaco

Cast: Frank Grillo, Carmen Ejogo, Zach Gilford, Kiele Sanchez, Zoe Soul, Jack Conley, Michael Kenneth Williams, LaKeith Stanfield

Three groups of people intertwine and are left stranded in the streets on Purge Night, trying to survive the chaos and violence that occurs. – IMDB

Arugably not as star-studded as the first movie The Purge (review) with Ethan Hawke and Lena Headey, The Purge: Anarchy actually doesn’t have quite the same type of home invasion horror but rather changes into a downtown street level type of Purge as a few groups of people end up in the streets during the Purge night and ends up being saved by Sergeant, played by Frank Grillo. While it still have the chase element, the horror elements are rather less however retaining the Los Angeles location from the first movie.

The Purge: Anarchy is actually quite slow overall. There is action going on but it always feels like the pacing isn’t particularly great. Taking it to the streets is a good idea as that is where the danger is and makes the scope bigger onto the people and citizen and the different elements on a societal levels. It gives a depth to The Purge tradition and structure. That’s the part that does work for The Purge: Anarchy and makes this sequel work more.

Another big plus for The Purge: Anarchy definitely goes to Frank Grillo who lead a lot of this film as Sergeant who ends up taking care of the  two families that he ends up helping out while having his own agenda. Its a character that definitely was appreciated in this whole thing as it pulled together the human elements as well as the action elements which is great because he ends up also being there in the next film of The Purge franchise. Is it very horror scary? Not really, its more of the action thriller drama sort of deal with some horror in terms of being chased and hunted down.

The Purge: Election Year (2016)

Director (and writer): James DeMonaco

Cast: Frank Grillo, Elizabeth Mitchell, Mykelti Williamson, Joseph Julian Soria, Betty  Gabriel, Terry Serpico, Edwin Hodge, Kyle Secor

Former Police Sergeant Barnes becomes head of security for Senator Charlie Roan, a Presidential candidate targeted for death on Purge night due to her vow to eliminate the Purge. – IMDB

The Purge: Election Year takes another angle of the near-future world of where it takes place. This time showing the political angle of the this era as The Purge for the first time has no limits on who can be killed during The Purge, opening it up to the political figures as well. Taking it to another level of this world which adds some more depth from where the franchise has gone. Another link here is Frank Grillo, which reappears giving this a timeline of 2 years later from The Purge: Anarchy (and at one point refers to it) and now doing security detail for the opposition party leader, Charlie Roan.

The Purge: Election Year has a lot more horror as it shows a lot more “purging” moments around the city which has everything from beheading to hanging to lit up cars to crazy young adults and all kinds of things bloody. It adds to jumpscares and amplifies the whole purging experience (which the previous film lacked, in my opinion). At the same time, it also manages to balance out the action elements in the chase as they try to protect Charlie Roan from being caught by the opposing parties and the New Founding Fathers. It shows more of the unwritten rules during Purge Night as well as the secret organizations that are also against the Purge and the different goals they have. Most of all, now its about weapons and such with lots of gun fights and the likes but Frank Grillo also gets to show off some hand to hand combat and its a different pacing but adds to the variety of action here.

The downfall of The Purge: Election Year are some very disposable and annoying characters added in, like the over the top performances from the opposing guy which is a minister and seems like he’s a crazy person by the end. It was a bit over, just like the lit up car with the young girls, specifically the character of Kimmy which was just ridiculously over the top, out of her mind and got rather annoying. The crazy is supposed to be scary but I’m not quite sure it had that effect. Luckily, they do balance these smaller characters with some pretty good main characters from Charlie Roan (played by Elizabeth Mitchel) and Leo (Frank Grillo) paired with some fantastic characters that they meet from deli owner Joe Dixon (Mykelti Williamson) who does a great team with Leo and was one of the best performances here along with his employee, Marcos (Joseph Julian Soria) who also added and the badass lady nicknamed Pequena Muerte, Laney Rucker who is also really great.

Overall, The Purge: Election Year does a good job. It still goes through a lot of the same motions of how these films are structured but the story does elevate itself each time a little more to give more depth from different angles and learn more about the society. This film kind of wraps up this whole Purge business so when the chance presents itself, its time to go back to the next film which is the prequel The First Purge of how it all started.

Halloween Double Feature #2 is done!
Are you a The Purge franchise fan? Thoughts? Which is your favorite film from this franchise?

My Weekly Adventures: Announcement Time!

Hey! A late post going up today! I had to insist on this going up today because I do have an announcement here, which if you are familiar here, you’ll have an idea of what happens in February.

Life’s pretty routine when it comes to the beginning of the year. January is a crazy month in general so I don’t have as much time to do a lot of stuff outside of work and home. I also have some personal stuff that’s been lingering in the background that I have to settle (well…follow-up at this point). Either way, enough of this serious stuff but not a whole lot to talk about in this weekly adventures.

Snow Storm

Winter took a while to get here but it finally did. We got a snow day of maybe 20cm or something. I don’t remember anymore but then it turned around a few days after with some lovely ice rain and such turn it into a slippery ice rink and then massive puddles because the city didn’t get the snow cleared fast enough.

View this post on Instagram

Well. Thats nice. After conquering skating rink (aka icy roads), we head for a few lakes (giant deep puddles of mush and water). It is an adventure to a bus stop this morning. Fellow montrealers and others in surrounding area, be safe on the roads today if you have to go. #montreal #suburbs #icyroads #badroadconditions #giantpuddles

A post shared by Kim (@tranquildreams) on Jan 24, 2019 at 4:59am PST

Ultimate 2000s Blogathon

So, we’ve been attacking everyone with announcements and reminders but I’d like to share for anyone who is interested to share their fave 2000s film in a form of review (or some other format that we can discuss). You can find all the details HERE.

Yokato Yokabai

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Not even a snowstorm can stop us from going to getting a nice bowl of #ramen at @yokatoyokabai . #food #mtl #montreal #japaneseramen #comfortfood #warmbowlofgoodness #delicious #porkbelly #lotusroot

A post shared by Kim (@tranquildreams) on Jan 20, 2019 at 1:11pm PST

As I mention the snow storm above, the crazy people in us decided to go get ramen as per our last year’s journey with my good friend. This adventure took us to another ramen place which we’re having debates whether we like it between than the other place. I think this place is better because I like the sides. Of course, this also sparked my first time pushing a car because it got stuck. Luckily, my husband and I had a passerby that hopped in to help us both push which was the extra strength that we needed to get out. All around a memorable day, I’d say.

Montreal DemoNight 2019

A few nights ago was Montreal DemoNight 2019. I was swamped with work and overtiming like a crazy person but luckily they did stream it so I was still able to watch it. There are quite a few games that look incredibly interesting. I don’t have much to talk about right now but I’ll leave it for the recap. I’m usually more efficient but the recap will be out some time over the weekend over on the Game Warp blog.

Announcement: Valentine’s Marathon

And we’re here again. Valentine’s Marathon starts tomorrow! This time I’m going to be a bit more ambitious and do a little Netflix Alphabet Valentine’s Marathon in the form of double features. I couldn’t think about a feature franchise (since I didn’t finish last year’s) and I wanted to get through my neverending Netflix list so this seems like a super awesome idea. If things go well, I’ll get double features everyday from Feb 1st to 14 but lets be realistic that it won’t happen whether its not being about to catch up with watching movies that fast or writing up fast enough while having other stuff going on on the blog since I won’t just do movies, of course. So we’ll see how things go.

As this post goes up, I’ve already watched A-D films so hey, who knows, right? 😉

Cute Kitty Pic

That’s all for this Weekly Adventures!
Hopefully next time, there will be more to talk about!

My Weekly Adventures: Christmas Is Just Around the Corner

November has come to an end. That was a quick and really busy month. Suffice to say, some projects and goals and that endless to-do list had its ups and downs. Its just how it is. The first part is accepting and being okay with it all. Not to mention, everything in general was kind of overwhelming so mentally, not in such a great spot. Its probably telling me something but I’m not going to discuss that because there are a lot of things on my mind right now as 2018 heads into its last month and I’m thinking a lot about 2019.

Blood in the Snow Festival (BITS 2018)

First time tackling remote coverage is definitely a pretty good experience. Unlike physically being at the festival, remote coverage is all about time management and working with embargos and getting things done in a timely fashion because there is nothing pushing physically to be done and its all more superficial. Blog technicalities aside, its also the first time working on Blood in the Snow Festival and it had a lot of interesting and intriguing movies to offer. Nothing that was disappointing but some were average and some were amazing. It had different genres and covered Canadian films which I love to dive into. Its only a few days long which is a much lighter festival but its a pity to not be on the spot to see all the industry panels and everything they have to offer. The variety of content alone makes it an interesting one to be present in person for.

With that said, all the movies have been reviewed:

• Altered Skin
• Alive
• Hammer of the Gods
• Montreal Dead End
• Deadsight
• The Hoard
• Fugue

With that said, a festival page under movies for Blood in the Snow Festival has been created now so you can find all the reviews HERE.

Black Friday

Black Friday was pretty calm this year. I didn’t go out with a huge intention of spending a lot so I found some deals that I thought were worth it to fill some of the needs and stuff. A few purchases were surprises but nothing that broke the piggy bank too much.

You can see the haul post HERE.

Christmas Decorations

Christmas is in full effect at our house. I only showed the new little bits of our place and the Christmas tree. I might have a little Christmas decorations thing in December but then its not a big change anyways.

NaNoWriMo

The week after I decided to do NaNoWriMo, things pretty much went downhill. After BITS 2018 came onto my radar and work got hectic and whatnot, that was it. I never expected to finish it in the first place but I had to put it aside if I wanted to at least have some normal sleeping schedule. Either way, I might actually work on that during the year afterwards. I have some nice ideas for my fanfic. I’ve never written one and sponataneity wasn’t really working. Either way, not feeling too bad about it. Something had to be give and this was the choice I had to make.

Next year though, I do want to get back to it and get some planning done beforehand.

Announcement: Christmas/Holiday Marathon

We head into December tomorrow. Like the last few years, I’m going to be doing a little holidays and Christmas marathon of sorts. I’m going to see if I can find some holiday themed books to end the year while probably go through some films on Netflix. Its slim pickings and mostly Hallmark type films but I’ll make do with what I can. This will be the official announcement for the marathon.

Some titles  considered right now:

• The Princess Switch
• The Holiday Calendar
• Bad Santa
• The Night Before
• A Christmas Prince 2 (I saw that its supposed to be released in December)
• Nailed It! Holiday (also coming out in December)
• The Christmas Chronicles
• El Camino Christmas

Thats it for this Weekly Adventures!
What have you been up to?

My Weekly Adventures: When Work Takes Over…Again & The Game Plan (for the rest of 2018)

Welcome to the next weekly adventures. Maybe I should call this non-adventures? I’m not sure much happened other than myself sitting around watching TV, cleaning or going nuts over work, work and more work at the office and at home or multitasking a lot. So, let me think back about what to talk about  and whether something interesting happened over the last two weeks and hopefully this post won’t be a complete disaster….

Battle of Ingredients

Battle of Ingredients is back on track now. We also went back to our indoors non-BBQ format. This time we had the star of the show that Phoebe took care of with our friend’s winter melon. As for myself, I went the normal route and did something much more simple trying out a new spice for the chicken dish and then made some fall appropriate dessert. This time, we went into a true collab format and Phoebe tested out her recipe-writing skills.

You can head over and check out the post HERE.

Movies and Tea – Season 2: Guillermo Del Toro

Season 2 for Movies and Tea has officially started. I know that I just posted this yesterday as part of the Halloween Marathon. I have been so proud of this project that I just can’t help to share it in case anyone missed it yesterday. This season, we’re checking out Guillermo Del Toro’s films. For myself, Del Toro got on my radar after Pan’s Labyrinth but how were his films before that one? That is my journey in this Movies and Tea season. Of course, we kick off with his debut directorial feature, Cronos.

As a final shoutout, we are looking for guests this season. Drop me an email at kim.tranquildreams@gmail.com with which of Del Toro’s films you want to talk about and we’ll see if we can work something out.

Halloween Marathon 2018

Halloween Marathon 2018 is done and over with. A lot of films I had planned didn’t happen but still, I still managed to get a few things watched and some new series as well. I’m actually quite pleased with how it turned out especially since there was a mix of reviews and not just movies. Its how I would prefer to do this. If you missed any of it, the Halloween marathon page is updated. You can find it HERE.

NaNoWriMo 2018 – Best of Luck to Participants

As a participant of NaNoWriMo, I always take some time to encourage all of you participating in the month-long grind to get a first draft of a novel written for a grand total of 50,000 words. While I do have an idea that I want to write about, I have decided to not write one. I’m still on the fence so who knows, maybe I’ll still jump in later on. I mean, I have pulled off a homerun week of 30,000 one year so its still possible. However, my plan is to edit a novel that I wrote during NaNoWriMo. Not for publishing, just so that I can get one of these done completely. I know I say it every year but I’ll figure out some way to stuff it into my overloaded schedule as it is. Either way, for you courageous challengers, best of luck! Just remember, that you can do it. Stay on track and remember that editing is the after process. Just keep on writing and 50,000 words will come to you or even more. 🙂

What’s Coming Up – Game Plan

2018 hasn’t exactly gone the way I had anticipated. As some of you have seen, I’ve kind of slowed down operations overall on all the projects this past month (if not the past few months). Reason being that I just wasn’t motivated and it felt like so much other personal life things were weighing down on me that I was just exhausted. In fact, if you look at all the stuff I’ve watched versus how many of those still need to be written, its endless. In terms of movies, I’m relatively on track especially since I do a lot of double features but TV binges are just way behind so much that I’ve started rewatching some of the series in order to do the binge post.

With that said, the new year is in two months. December usually goes out to holiday films. I probably will need some twist to it unless I watch a lot of Hallmark movies. It really depends what Netflix has to offer so I’ll talk about it later. November has that added task mentioned above to edit one of my past novels from NaNoWriMo. I have probably 4 or 5 written. With that said, 2019 means not only that the blogiversary is coming up in mid January but also what changes to be made come the new year. Its been on my mind for a while now since I can’t do everything and keep up with my two other podcasts. Something has to give and its where its getting me in a little bit of an unsure phase of whether its because I just lacked motivation this year that things fell behind or if I had better time management that it would have worked out with the current system.

Anyways, not much of a game plan but the goal is to get a lot of those TV binges and Double Features movie reviews out over the next two months to try to catch up. I’m getting back a lot of the writing motivation so hopefully all the projects will be up and running now. Movies and Tea already is in Season 2 as mentioned before so that is already a positive start!

Cute Kitty Pic

Halloween 2018: The Babysitter (2017)

The first movie to kick off the Halloween month is Netflix Original’s The Babysitter!

The Babysitter (2017)

Director: McG

Cast: Judah Lewis, Samara Weaving, Robbie Amell, Hana Mae Lee, Bella Thorne, Emily Alyn Lind, Andrew Bachelor, Doug Haley

The events of one evening take an unexpected turn for the worst for a young boy trying to spy on his babysitter. – IMDB

Its undeniable that we’ve seen this formula quite a bit in the last few years. Rewind back to something like Better Watch Out (review) or this year’s Knuckleball (review), both having their individual twist on the “Home Alone” set in a horror concept. Except this one adds in one more twist that makes it a much bloodier affair while also keeping in the horror comedy subgenre. Netflix Originals have been iffy at best if we look back at the averages, but then I’ve only watched the romance and teen stuff so perhaps horror fares a little better. The Babysitter may have its flaws but it still is a satisfying comedic, over the top, horror affair. Hear me out!

First of all, if you haven’t seen Samara Weaving in Mayhem (review), then you need to add it to your to-watch pile pronto! That movie proves that she can take the bad-ass chick role in an exceptional way and add in some humor in the process. Its actually one of the reasons that I decided to watch The Babysitter. And being the leading lady here, lethal as heck may I add, she does a stellar job. In fact, she is one of the top reasons that The Babysitter is worth the watch. Not to mention, you need to take a look at the boy here played by Judah Lewis who also has some great tricks written for his character up his sleeve. We see him toughen up throughout the film and get over the obvious crush that he has over his hot babysitter. Aside from these two main leads, Samara Weaving’s character Bee takes on a high school crew consisting of some very familiar faces. The first being the constant Netflix appearing face, Bella Thorne playing a cheerleader who honestly plays a very weird and rather insignificant role for the most part. There is also Hana Mae Lee who plays the odd chick, similar vibes to her role in the Pitch Perfect movies. I do like her odd and awkward style. She falls really well into this role so it works with the balance of these characters. The last familiar face is Robbie Amell who is in so many things now including The Duff (review) who plays the tough and psychotic bad boy. There’s a charm to Robbie Amell that makes what he does work although I do have to say, he is lucky that this is a horror comedy which makes it easy to not take him seriously because that’s how his character is meant to be.

I’m a big fan of this concept of horror. The Home Alone twist and the confined and limited space as a film setting. At the same time, it adds in some over the top elements as well as a little bit of blood and violence and tension. To be fair, this movie did pull off some decent tension for the most part of it. It goes a little off rails at the end and the only thing I disliked about it was how they chose to end it. To avoid any spoilers here, let’s just say, horror movies like to do that and I hate it because most of the time, its unnecessary. Is The Babysitter an exceptional film? It probably isn’t. Many compare it as the lesser version of Green Room. I’ve never seen Green Room but that is on the watch list this month. Keep an eye out for my thoughts on that.

That’s it for the kick-off film. 
The Babysitter is a horror comedy so a nice way to break into the horror month.
There will be some more intense horror as we move along, that I can promise you.

Have you seen The Babysitter? Thoughts?

Announcement: Halloween Marathon 2018 Officially Begins!

The 2018 Halloween Marathon is upon us. It definitely came by quickly enough.

Halloween Marathon has been always an exciting month in the year over here. This year’s horror movies have been quite limited so its going to be an adventure to work on getting rid of some of the movies in My List on Netflix as well as some movies on our shelves that we’ve bought but never seen. We are in the phase of decluttering and trading in our films is one of the phases we are working on. I do have a lot of horror movies to catch up on and with the Netflix October movie releases and other bits here and there with books and hopefully some cooking as well, its going to be a ton of stuff happening and with a decent variety if things go as planned.

Reviews currently being scheduled and writing in progress:

• The Babysitter (2017)
• Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2017)
• Shadowhunters: The Mortal Instruments (Season 1 & 2)

Some of my top picks:

MOVIES

• Annihilation
• The Babadook (because it seems like I’m the only person in the universe that hasn’t seen it yet)
• Bone Tomahawk
• Green Room
• Gantz: 0
• The Visit
• What We Do in the Shadows
• Sharknado: The 4th Awakens
• Sharknado 5: Global Swarming

TV SERIES (These picks are priority because I want to wrap up the show as they are already done)

• Scream Queens (Season 2)
• Hemlock Grove (Season 3)
• Ash vs Evil Dead (Season 2)

The Maybe List (if I’m in a mood and none of the top picks fit my liking or I want to watch a dumb horror):

• The Forest
• It Comes at Night
• Anaconda
• Mother!
• Mama
• The Open House
• Winchester

Obviously, the list above is all subject to change and its on what I decide to pick. However, I’m open to any suggestions! If there’s any movie that you want me to review on this list, just leave it in the comments or tweet or email or whatnot and I’ll make sure to bump up the priority. 

Also, as I mentioned before, books will be included in there. I’ve currently started one already so we will be having 2 or 3 hopefully pop up over the month.

On top of the normal programming from movies definitely making it in and others in consideration above, Elwood and I are kicking off Movies & Tea Podcast’s season 2 with our look at Guillermo Del Toro’s directorial effort. With that said, there is a lot of horror movies coming out from there. I’d say that we might get through a movie or two in October if things go as it did in the first season of the show.

Before I wrap this announcements and start the Halloween Marathon out of the gates here, I do want to say that I have a last minute decision of attending the Festival du Nouveau Cinema in Montreal so I’ll be covering up to 10 films there. However, none of those films will be horror, or at least from what I think. So, there will be other things going on here. If the marathon takes a little slide in the background, the second half of October will be in full force. You just need to be patient with me as I work through real life, festival coverage and Halloween marathon.

That’s it for this morning’s announcement! 
We officially start tomorrow morning with a movie review! 🙂

Are you doing anything special for Halloween on or off the blog? Leave a comment and a link to your blog so others can go check it out!

My Weekly Adventures: Its Here Again… Announcements

Welcome to the next Adventures post. I shouldn’t use Weekly adventures but we’ll keep it like that for now since I can’t figure out a better name. These past 2 weeks didn’t feel particularly like it was busy but when I thought back, a decent amount of small things happened and it was really tiring.

Its October right around the corner so of course, that also means that we have an important announcement (and another one as well). If you saw my tweet then you might already know what I’m talking about.

Let’s get started!

Hiking: Reserve Naturelle des Montagnes Vertes

Keep this one short and sweet. We finally got back out to hiking. Everyone’s health seems to be okay again. We have some little things that happened after the hike but still, it was a good one. I’ve already did a post on it so you can check that out HERE.

Hangout with High School Friends

Last weekend, we had a little get together with some high school crew to see one of our friend’s baby. I probably talked about the baby shower back in October last year or something. I can’t remember right now. Either way, we had a little food and some tarts and chatted the afternoon away. It was great! Plus, her little one is so adorable.

Montreal Oasis Marathon 2018

Last weekend was the Montreal Rock & Roll Series Oasis Marathon 2018. It had a move from the more eastern side of Montreal to downtown near Chinatown area. They shifted the event earlier as well. Suffice to say that, the pick up package and the picking up bags after the marathon left a lot to be desire in terms of organization but the race itself was great. It started off in Rene Levesque which is one of the main arteries in downtown. There was little firework moments for each coral’s start. Plus, the location made finding a place to sit down good especially since its kind of my turf. So it made the whole event for my being there to pick up my friend easy, especially when the temperature dropped that morning drastically so I had my scarf and hat for winter with me in the morning.

Setting Up New Social Media

A little side note and I guess a follow-up from the What’s Up segment (unless I edited it out and forgot then it would make no sense and be slightly embarrassing), I decided to continue on my research into the China social media world and actually signed up for a Weibo account. Its pretty much a Facebook/Twitter mesh but since Chinese characters are a word in itself, its satisfies the microblogging corner of the market. I’m not great at writing Chinese but I do recognize words so typing it is actually a good practice. Consider it a social experiment or whatnot, but I have an account now so I’ll be checking it out. If you have an account also, give me a shout. Its lonely to trek new territory alone.

Moon Festival

Moon Festival came around last Monday. I had dinner with my mom. After some debate, as her kitchen renovations continue, we decided to stay in to eat since the restaurant we wanted to go to was closed on Mondays. One of her friends dropped by to have dinner with us as well. Delicious as always and we had moon cakes and everything.

Halloween Marathon 2018

Official announcement tomorrow! Keep your eyes posted! Short and sweet announcement, right?

Festival du Nouveau Cinema

On that note, I got press just a few days ago for Festival du Nouveau Cinema, which is a festival that has been running for a long time but I’ve never been to. It usually hits the busy and event hiatus that I take for my own sanity. This year, a fellow Montreal blogger DM’ed me on Twitter and gave me a heads up to check it out and since I’ve been in the Weibo world and checking out movie reviewers and saw one of their movies being listed as this year’s top 5 Chinese movies, I wanted to go. So yay, that is happening. Not sure how its going to fit into the whole schedule but I’ll talk about that more very soon. I’ll have a post for my picks in a day or two.

Cute Kitty Pic

That’s it for this adventures! 
What have you been up to?

My Weekly Adventures: DreamHack and Family Time!

Its been a fairly quiet two weeks. Not a ton has happened. Well, one big event happened as you will see unless you follow me on Facebook or Instagram, I did do a quick share over there and here since I was working on Game Warp coverage mostly and vanished last weekend except for Game Warp Instagram and Facebook. Either way, its been fairly uneventful in some ways but that isn’t a bad thing since we’ll be heading into some gardening stuff soon and will be busy with that once the weather cools down.

Let’s go ahead!

 15K Marathon Boucherville (as a spectator)

Labor Day weekend, also was the Boucherville 15km marathon. Last year, my friend also participated in it and lets just say, I spent most of the time sitting back at the car reading because it was pouring rain. Its good for the whole cooling down during running but not so good for admiring the area it is held in, which is what I do as my friend’s running support. This year was very different. They started the morning okay and it got fairly hot by the end of the 15km. The marathon starts at the side of a river so its quite scenic as well. If you all don’t know, I love being around water so after the run started, I actually walked a little along the waterway before heading back to do some reading in the park. Nice relaxing morning 🙂

Childhood Memories

View this post on Instagram

The things we find when we help #declutter the #childhood #home. I even found my chewed up #sippycup. #memories #kidthings #cute #bowls #disney #lionking #childhoodmemories

A post shared by Kim (@tranquildreams) on Sep 3, 2018 at 3:38pm PDT

You know I’m digging for material when I’m using Instagram posts. BUT…my mom has been renovating her kitchen and because of that we had to empty out all of her cupboards and well, we aren’t particularly tall ladies so there was some little nostalgic treasures that I never knew that my mom kept. Not sure why, since we both have a hoarder mentality at times. I’m working hard to not do that anymore but then I don’t throw things out, I just don’t buy new stuff as much. Either way, those things in the photo were all stuff I used when I was a kid. Maybe up to 10 years old or something I still used the Lion King cup. I think the surprising find was my sippy cup.

DreamHack Montreal 2018

The big event of this Weekly Adventures has to go to DreamHack Montreal. I was swamped at work and swamped with Game Warp work. You can guess which I enjoyed and had more fun doing even if it was a pretty tiring event since it is also set in a further venue and well, Montreal is like roadwork galore phase right now so its hard to commute anywhere without taking more time than usual. I managed to get there in the Day 1 Friday evening with my husband and his nephew.

Day 2 and 3 was solo coverage for myself. It was pretty much a 9 hour day or something where I went to finish up the indie game zone coverage by playing some more games there. Also went to watch some e-sports and caught the cosplay competition. There was also a gaming triathlon and all that good stuff. I’m putting together a post and a video for it soon. Its late but I actually took a lot of footage so I’m sorting it out. Almost done 🙂

In-Laws Anniversary Dinner

My in-laws just celebrated (a week or so ago) their 45th wedding anniversary. A big deal for sure! My sister-in-law suggested and organized to have us all go downtown for a night out at Les Enfants Terribles on the top of the Place Ville Marie complex. It its just one floor (I think) under the observatory level so there is an outdoor terrace to see the Montreal night view. We had a fairly later dinner time so I had to eat before since I have stomach issues frequently, I don’t mess with eating time too much. So my mom and me ended up sharing a main meal together and we all had a cocktails. I’ll be doing a restaurant post here in a few days as well. So we’ll only touch on it briefly here.

Cute Kitty Pic

That’s it for this Adventures recap!
Its been a pretty quiet time. Family, gaming and calmer days..it feels good 🙂

What have you been up to?