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A pop queen on her throne
Unless you were living under a rock any time between 2012 and present day, you know at least one Carly Rae Jepsen song, and that song is “Call Me Maybe.” If your Carly Rae knowledge stops there, we’re here to correct that for you, because you haven’t even scratched the surface of the pop perfection that is our Canadian Queen, CRJ.
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The first Harry Potter book was released in 1997, and just a couple of years before that, in 1995, Philip Pullman gave us the first installment of the His Dark Materials trilogy: The Golden Compass. I devoured both of these series with great enthusiasm, and they obviously both still hold a sacred place in my heart. My Harry Potter fanaticism was bolstered by the movies, which are by no means perfect but are still fun to watch.
The film adaptation of The Golden Compass? Not so much. The movie was pretty boring and devoid of the spirit of its source material, and unsurprisingly, the next two books were never made into films after the first one bombed. I soon gave up hope that there would ever be an adaptation of His Dark Materials that would be anywhere close to worthwhile.
And then… November 2019 came around and brought us the promise of a gorgeous and thoughtful HBO series starring James McAvoy, Dafne Keen, Ruth Wilson, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Andrew Scott, and like, a ton of other cool people? I knew what I had to do. I had to recap it.
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It’s been a while since I’ve checked in on my progress in reading the Wheel of Time Series by Robert Jordan. I started reading the series over a year ago—I admit for entirely sentimental reasons. I’ve never been a huge fan of swords and sorcery high fantasy—Lord of the Rings is one of my most hated books and movies—but Todd read The Wheel of Time when he was a kid and loved it. When he reread it in college to prepare for the end of the series, he still loved it. Sometimes, when you love someone, you want to know what made them the person you love today. I needed to know what young Todd was reading all the way back when.
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BSG #34: Troubled Baby / Freshwater with Leah Rachel von Essen
Join the #BookSquad and special guest Leah Rachel von Essen for our #bookpisode about Akwaeke Emezi’s debut novel, Freshwater. We talk about the novel’s unique, nonlinear narrative structure, mental illness, the spirit world, gender and trauma. Then we get into some listener feedback on Circe and Nine Perfect Strangers and tell you about all of the great recaps, reviews and series on the #BookSquadBlog. Go to the movies and join us on November 18 for our next #othersode about Doctor Sleep, and read along for our next #bookpisode on American Spy by Lauren Wilkinson on December 2!
Click through for summary, table of contents, and show notes!
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Last week on Survivor: Island of the Idols, the tribes swapped up, leaving the new Vokai divided evenly 4-4, and the new Lairo divided 5-3 in favor of Vokai. Seemingly, this switch offered Lairo a chance to get out of their losing streak, but they were not able to capitalize, and ultimately Tom was sent packing. Will Lairo lose again? Or will Vokai be forced to draw rocks? You can only know if you read the rest of this recap, coming up now!
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We’ve covered 10 scary movies. We’ve attended a wedding gone terribly wrong. We’ve ghost hunted. We’ve hunted a killer clown. We were trapped in a Sharon Tate nightmare. We ventured into a sinkhole somewhere in Ireland. We got to hear some really excellent cello performances. We got to see Sally Draper get possessed by a demon. We swam with killer gators. We partied with zombies. And finally, we’re finding out the exact time of our deaths.
It has all led up to this moment: Countdown. A great title for the final movie in our 10 week countdown to Halloween. We’ve made it.
But was this a good movie?
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Here at BSG headquarters, we have decided to engage in an act of communal self care and NOT recap the fourth season of Riverdale. We know that this is a huge disappointment to all five of the people who actually watch the show in real time and not when the entire season drops on Netflix over the summer, and we’re sorry. Of course, you know we can’t quit cold turkey, so here’s the plan: we will do three blog posts for Riverdale’s fourth season. This, the first, is our “season preview,” if you will. We’ve watched the first three episodes and have recorded our thoughts and predictions based on what’s gone down so far. We’ll check in again during the mid-season hiatus, and then we’ll post after the finale to see how everything stacks up and how truly unpredictable this show is.
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Season 10 spoilers to follow.
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Last week, the Lairo tribe decided that a potential showmance was more dangerous than basically anything else, and since on one wanted to vote out anyone, it seems, Chelsea was voted out. What will happen this week? Who will be voted out next? There is only one way to find out, so let’s get to the episode!
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Kelli and Emily are at it again, going to the theater and coming here to share our reviews and make you very, very jealous of the cool stuff we’ve seen. This time, we’re talking about Moulin Rouge, the broadway musical based on the 2001 Baz Luhrman movie of the same name. Spoilers for both the movie and the play to follow, but like, dang, if you haven’t seen this movie yet, what are you doing?
Emily: Moulin Rouge is my favorite movie of all time. So when they FINALLY got around to making a musical, which first premiered on July 10, 2018 at the Emerson Colonial Theatre in Boston, I knew I WAS DESTINED to see it. Then it came to New York, and that’s when I knew I would have to drag my theater buddy Kelli along. Kelli is not as obsessed with Moulin Rouge as I am, but she was game anyway. Now here we are, one play and one rewatch of the movie later, ready to discuss this thing. So let’s get into it. Kelli, you saw this movie a super long time ago, and you didn’t really remember it going into the play, so how was that for you?
Read moremade with love by emily, kelli, mary, and susan. <3 thanks to Katelyn Elaine Photography for our group photos.