RWBY be a Gem (sorta?)

Any Roosterteeth fans out there?
Does Roosterteeth even HAVE  fandom?
*hears shouts of the roosterteeth fandom* Ah, there you guys are.
How many of you non-roosterteethers know what I'm talking about?
*chirping crickets*
As I thought. Okay, first an explanation of Roosterteeth is in order.
(Keep in mind that I didn't know anything about Roosterteeth prior to this post, besides the fact that they made RWBY.)
Apparently, they're an entertainment company that works out of California. They've made a bunch of other webseries like Red vs. Blue and A Simple Walk Through Mordor.
That's all that I could wrestle out of the wikipedia page. I'm sorry.......
Anyway, let's talk about RWBY now.
So RWBY is this CG cartoon made by these Roosterteeth people. It's about a girl named Ruby Rose, who wants to become a huntress. In this world, there are demons and monsters that run around and hurt people, so there are hunters/huntresses to keep people safe. They use magical weapons that run on this fancy stuff called dust.
Of course, to become a hunter/huntress, you have to go to school. Ruby is accepted into Beacon Academy (the best hunter school EVER), along with her sister Yang. On their very first day, all the new students are sorted into teams. Ruby is on a team with a girl named Weiss (the heiress to the biggest dust company ever), a girl named Blake (a book worm) and Yang. Together, they make team RWBY.

From left to right, Ruby, Weiss, Blake, Yang
Picture from: www.dek-d.com

There are other students at the school such as Jaune Arc, Nora Valkyrie, and Pyrrah Nikos (and others) that become friends with these girls.
Of course theres more to the story than just school. Outside the school, a war is brewing. There is a group called the White Fang, that is made up of people that have animal traits. You know, cat ears, monkey tails, etc. These people (Faunus) have long been discriminated against by regular people. In the past, the White Fang have peacefully protested this discrimination, with no violence involved. But in the past few years, the White Fang have changed, and become a violent terrorist group. The girls have constant encounters with the White Fang, and have to fight to stop them.

So I'd heard a lot about Roosterteeth before I'd seen this series. My friend Bailey was freaking out about this show, and wouldn't stop talking about it until she got someone to watch it. Since I'm weak, that someone ended up being me. Besides, there were only sixteen episodes. It couldn't be that bad, right?
It wasn't actually. I finished the series in a day, and it was very fun. There weren't any traumatizing feels or anything, so it spared my soul at least.
I'm going to admit, I was a bit underwhelmed by the animation. In the show, there are some AMAZING fight sequences. Seriously, in the first episode alone there is a great fight between Galinda Goodwitch and this other lady, and it's the freaking coolest thing ever.
But besides the fights, they were lacking a bit. The character's movements were jerky, or they had confusing body language. They had strange angles in a lot of unnecessary places (though that might just be artistic choice or something). Now, I get that there were complications with this type of animation.
The way they animate this (at least I'm pretty sure they do it this way) is that they get these special suits on the actors, and put them in front of a green screen. The actors do the motions of their character, and later the skin of the character is put over the suit, so it looks like the character was doing it. Then the background and sound effects and stuff is put in, and VOILA! You have an animation thingy.
You'd think that the gestures and stuff wouldn't be a problem since they do it like this. But apparently it is. *shrug*
The story was a little dry too. There wasn't a ton going on in most of the episodes. It was a one story plot, which I don't think is complex enough nowadays. They'd move from one story to the next, rarely even hinting at other storylines.
Something I REALLY liked about the show was the music. Seriously, the theme song is amazing! Here's the grooveshark thing for it so you can listen to it. The background music is also really pretty, and each character's song is excellent.
So, I guess I'd give this a 6/10. I like it, I really do, but it has some flaws. However, they do get some elbow room since this is only the first season, and they have yet to figure it out.
You should make an opinion for yourself! This goes to the first episode. Go watch it. Have some fun.
Bye!

From: rwby.wikia.com

Frozen.......just like the entire stinking country.

If you live anywhere north of New Mexico, then you've most likely been hit with this random snowstorm. For most of you, you're probably griping about how it's ridiculous that you have to walk to school in -2 degree weather or how your car is snowed in and you can't make it to work.
I mean, we're griping about that where I am too. We aren't weird or anything. But for us there's a silver lining, since I live in a tourism town that depends on winter for it's entire economy (or at least I think that's how it works).
Anyway, that vaguely relates to Disney's new movie, Frozen.
My friend Maddie had been flipping out about this movie for the past week, after she'd seen it with her church youth group. She wanted to see it again and I hadn't seen it for the first time yet, so we went to go see it on Saturday.

Opening Clip....thingy:
So you know how Disney always makes a short film at the beginning of each of their animation movies? Lately, they've been these amazing works of art that sort of just leave you in awe. Remember Paperman? That short at the end of Wreck-It-Ralph? Ya, that won an OSCAR. An OSCAR FOR PETE'S SAKE. And what about that umbrella short from the beginning of Monster's University? That clip made me ship TWO UMBRELLAS. ONLY DISNEY CAN MAKE YOU SHIP UMBRELLAS.

From: www.indiewire.com

The short for Frozen was "Get a Horse" which is sort of a spoof of old Micky cartoons. It starts out all run of the mill. Micky and Minnie are having fun and singing with their barnyard friends, and then BAM! Pete kidnaps Minnie and Micky has to go save her.
But there's a twist.
You see, dear readers.
Disney broke the fourth wall.
Pete pushes Micky OUT OF THE SCREEN.
It's a lot like Epic Mickey, now that I think about it.
It's no Paperman, but it's very creative.

Plot:
Brace yourself for spoilers from this point on. Or you could just see the movie before you read it. That'd work too.
Okay, so the story centers around two sisters, Elsa and Anna. They're princesses (naturally) of the kingdom of Arendelle. Elsa is apparently a special snowflake (heh), because she has ice powers for some reason that never got explained. One night, when they're really little, Elsa and Anna are playing around with Elsa's powers, and Elsa accidentally hits Anna in the head with an ice blast. Anna's brain is frozen or something, and their parents take her to be healed by trolls.
Actually, apparently trolls are a big part of scandinavian folklore, which I guess is why they're in the movie.
Anyway, Anna's healed by the troll, and then Elsa is warned that if she hits anyone in the heart with her powers, they will be frozen and turned to ice. He also warns her about how the people of Arendelle might not accept her powers if they get out of control. This results in the king and queen deciding to hide Elsa in the castle, and they also get the trolls to take away Anna's memories of Elsa's powers.
Because of Elsa's isolation, Anna is forced to stay in the castle too (for some reason). She and Elsa grow apart over the years, which totally stinks cus that means they were both pretty much alone for their entire childhoods.
Then the king and queen die.
Because they have to.
It's a Disney movie people.
How did you NOT see that coming?
When Elsa turns 18, she becomes queen of Arendelle, which is sort of a problem because her powers have been growing and she doesn't think she can control them.
Meanwhile, Anna meets Prince Hans, who's in town for the coronation, and they fall in love and get engaged almost immediately.
Elsa thinks this is a totally batshit idea and refuses to let it happen (you go Elsa).This results in a fight, where Elsa accidentally uses her powers, thus exposing her secret. As predicted, the town goes crazy, and Elsa has to run away. She swears to stay up in the mountains and no longer endanger her people. She builds an ice castle and makes a Snow Queen dress and it's a really awesome scene. However, she doesn't know that she accidentally set off eternal winter down in Arendelle, and the people are freezing to death.
Meanwhile Anna goes after her, enlisting the help of an ice-guy named Kristoff and his reindeer Sven. They meet a magical little snowman named Olaf that Elsa built who helps them get to Elsa's castle. Anna fails to convince Elsa to come back and stop winter, and accidentally gets hit with ice in the heart. Her and Kristoff leave Elsa and go to the trolls (who adopted Kristoff when he was little) so they can fix her heart. Unfortunatly, since it's the heart, the ice can only be removed by an act of true love.
Also meanwhile, Prince Hans has gone after Anna, and ends up at Elsa's castle. She attacks some soldiers in self defense, and almost gets crushed by an ice chandelier as a result of the fight. She's knocked unconcious, and is taken back to Arendelle by Hans and imprisoned.
Anna and Kristoff ride back to Arendelle so that Hans can kiss Anna in an act of true love. It's VERY urgent since she's freezing from the inside. She gets in the castle, Hans is in the room, everything seems like it's gonna work.
And then.
Hans is evil.
BAM! PLOT TWIST!
He's 13th in line for his own throne, so to have any chance of becoming king, he would have to marry into the throne. He leaves Anna to die, saying they were married already, and goes off to kill Elsa.
Elsa gets out of her cell, realizing what's happening, and starts to run away. Of course, then she learns that Anna is 'dead' and breaks down, leaving a gap for Hans to come and kill her.
Meanwhile, Anna is looking for Kristoff, as Olaf has just informed her that she is an idiot for not seeing that he's totally into her. She's nearly frozen, and then they find each other and there's a massive expanse of ice between them and Kristoff is running towards her with lips puckered....
and then she sees that Elsa is about to be killed by Hans,
And throws herself between them
and freezes.
But guess what?
It was an act of true love.
Of SISTERLY love.
She unfreezes, and the winter starts to melt.
Elsa realizes that love melts ice, and stops the winter.
And everyone lives happily ever after.
Except for Hans.
Who gets punched in the face.

Reaction to plot:
This might just because I'm older now, but it seems like this movie was written less.....carefully, than the other movies. I mean yes, it's still an excellent story with wonderful dialogue and this one blip I'm about to adress is very minor to what I'm sure will be or was your viewing experience.
But I guessed the plot twist.
Which isn't a good thing, for me at least.
When Hans was preposing, that's when I figured out something was fishy. Now this might just be because I'm getting better at plot devices, but normally I can't do that with a Disney movie. The fact that I was able to be pulled out of the story and think about this potential plot twist sorta bugs me.
But that's just me.

Songs:
As I am writing this, I am listening to Idnia Menzel sing "Let it Go", and it is beautiful.
The problem is that I might've been listening to it on loop since yesterday.
Which could mean that I have a problem. *sigh*
As usual, Disney has delivered with happy songs, heart-wrenching songs, and love songs. I enjoyed all of them......except for the love songs.
Anna sang one with Prince Hans, which seemed really unfitting for the situation, and was just sort of annoying. Then the trolls sang one about how Kristoff and Anna should get together, but it was all about how they needed to change for them to be together, which though meant well, I didn't really appreciate.

Characters:

Anna was a little annoying for my taste, but I still really liked her. She had really awesome qualities like independence, optimism, and honestly was just as awkward as everyone I know. Actually, the only part I didn't like about her was her neediness with Hans. Also she was just really adorable the whole time so that was good.

Elsa was what you think a queen would normally be like. Calm, cool, collected. Grace and poise and all that whoo-ha. But what I liked was her depth as a character. Underneath the cool exterior, there was a storm of emotions. Fear that she would hurt her people. Sadness about being locked away. Happiness, and hatred about her powers. I just really really liked her.

Kristoff was lovable  and adorable, and sweet, and funny, and oh-em-gee I want him to be real so I can go skiing with him or something.

I'm sort of conflicted about Olaf. I know that he's the comic relief, and that his entire purpose is to be silly, but he was just so STUPID. It was aggravating  And he didn't really have any redeeming qualities either. He just blurted out random stuff that didn't really flow with the story at all.

Hans was a dick. That's all there really is to say on the matter.

Animation:
Oh my globity goodness the animation is great in Disney movies. My friends hate going to animation movies with me, because I'm always poking them and freaking out about the detail of that character's hair or how that one thing is moving in the breeze. I don't really know why this fascinates me so much, but it does, and I cannot help it.

So, that's that I guess.
Sorry that there aren't any pictures, but I just didn't want to take the time to put in any.
Trust me, my next post will have a LOT.

The Sound of Music......I Liked The Movie Better

The Sound of Music was a huge part of my childhood.
It's my mom's favorite movie, and she bought the movie on tape when I was really little (or she might've stolen it from my great grandma. The memory is a little fuzzy). For almost my entire life Julie Andrews singing "raindrops on roses" has echoed through my house, and we've all accepted it as a regular thing that isn't slightly obsessive on my mom's part.
So of course, when my mom heard that NBC was doing a live show, she nearly had a heart attack from happiness.
Seriously, in the middle of science on Thursday she sent me a text that nearly got my phone taken away (but I was a total ninja and silenced my phone before Mrs. Z could place who's pocket the Doctor Who theme was coming from), that said I can't wait to watch the Sound of Music with all of you tonight! :). Bottom line, this was a big deal.
So Thursday night, we all sat down on the couch with our dinner and turned the t.v on. Actually, that was a lie. I was up in my room franticly trying to finish my homework so I could go down and watch with the rest of my family. I got down there when the nuns were singing "How do you solve a problem like Maria?"
For the next three hours, we watched the musical version of The Sound of Music, which none of us had seen before, and I must say......it was a little disappointing.

Mostly I had problems with the casting.

From: www.nydailynews.com

Now, it's impossible to top the embodiment talent that is Julie Andrews, and it's certainly difficult for any actress that plays Maria to follow in her footsteps. But look at this picture.
<- Do you believe for a second that Carrie Underwood is Maria? All I can see is someone with WAY too much foundation who thinks that wearing sorta Austrian clothes and putting her hair in that braid thing makes her Maria.
Her acting in this was pretty much DREADFUL, but I guess I can't blame her for that since she's a singer by trade. Speaking of that, she was excellent with the singing part. Though it wasn't Julie Andrews, she did a very good job with singing the songs with the right attitude (most of the time), and was very powerful.

From:www.buffalonews.com

So this guy is Stephen Moyer. He's apparently a big deal on True Blood and my mom was freaking out about it for some reason. He played Georg Von Trapp, and I was extremely underwhelmed. I don't really know why he got the part. When he was 'stern' it looked much more like he was about to throw up or something. Also he wasn't a very good singer. He managed, but he didn't preform.

From:mamamich-mjay.blogspot.com

Again, he had some big shoes to fill. I mean look at this.
Look at this gorgeousness that is mid 1960's Christopher Plumber. Seriously, he was my first fangirl crush at the ripe ol' age of 10 when I was first starting to realize that boys might not be incredibly disgusting.
Have you HEARD him sing 'Edelweiss'? Have you HEARD THAT SINGING VOICE!?
*swoons*

From: www.broadwayworld.com

I don't have many complaints about the kids.
Liesel was sort of bratty, but I guess all 16 year olds are.
Freidrick was the only one I genuinely didn't like, but he didn't do much so it was okay.
Louisia was okay. She was spunky and it worked.
Kurt was a big ball of cute. That's all there really is to say on the matter.
Brigita was hilarious and filled with sass. It was awesome.
Marta was adorable, but cutely annoying.
Gretel.....I want to say bad things, but I can't cus she was such a cutie. So I'll just grit my teeth and say she was fine.


All the minor characters seemed to be fine casting. I'm pretty sure they were the actual broadway people that did this sort of thing for a living, which would explain why they were so much better than the others.

I know that this was the musical version of the story, but being a girl that grew up on the movie, I was a little confused by the differences. I know all you theater buffs are flipping your tables right now and screaming about how the musical is so much better than the movie. But hey, I'm entitled to my opinion, especially since this is a REVIEW blog.
Besides some audio problems, the rest of the musical was great!
The costumes were very fashionable, and looked right for the era.
The sets were AMAZING. Seriously, these sets were beautiful with a capital b. They built a freaking FOREST for pete's sake! Here's a scene where you can get a grasp for it.
The choreography worked for the show, I think? I'm not a big dancer, or choreographer, so I don't really know about the art of dance.

In conclusion, this is one of those rare cases where I liked the movie better. Though I think that this musical was a great project, and it went well as a whole, it just didn't work for me.

I have no idea what I should make this post about.

Seriously, I have not a clue.
I saw Catching Fire last Saturday, but I don't want to review it because it's everywhere right now, and why would you read a review of Catching Fire by me when you could get lots of shorter and more convenient reviews from your friends?
Also, I haven't read the book since 6th grade, and I don't remember enough to do a decent comparison of the two.
I'm know that I should start doing book reviews on here, since I made a big deal about that in my introductory post. But I do book reviews for my school newspaper and by the time I get here, I'm too reviewed out to even look at a book.
I don't know. I just don't know what to do a post about.
Maybe you, my small but lovely readership, could help me?
I need ideas. I need suggestions for things to watch, for things to read. I need to know what YOU like and what you want me to like (or hate).
PLEASE GIVE SUGGESTIONS.

Huh, I guess I figured out what to make this post about :)