Movie Review: Barbie Fairytopia

Barbie Fairytopia is the fifth Barbie movie, and the first one to have a completely original story.  It's not based on any particular folktale, ballet, or anything else, just generic fae folk fun.  There is an evil sorceress, but this is the first movie where they didn't pay for a celebrity to voice the villain.  Shame.  In fact, they really limited how many voice actors they paid, half of them doubled up on roles.

Elina is a disabled fairy, who has no wings, and gets picked on, but she's the only one immune to the everyone with wings sickness the evil sorceress makes. 

Her best friend/pet? is Bibble, a blue puffball that speaks babytalk jibberish.  Bibble has a fanbase, but I'm not sure why.

There's no singing, and no real love interest, though the mermaid prince is a little creepy, but it's fine.  He's not in the movie long.

In the end, evil sorceress turns to confetti, and the queen of the fairies gives Elina magical prosthetic wings.  I dunno what kind of message that gives to disabled kids, but whatever, it's a Barbie movie, and they wanted the doll to have wings, obviously.

Was the movie good?  It wasn't bad, and I was entertained for an hour and 10 minutes, and now I'm inspired to make fairy costumes for my Barbies.  So yeah. 

Movie Review: Barbie in the Princess and the Pauper

Princess and the Pauper, one of the most well-known Barbie movies.  A retelling of the classic novel the Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain, but with girls and singing, and cats and shit.  I've never read Mark Twain's book, so I have no idea how close the movie holds to the original.  Probably more of a loose inspiration.

This is the first movie with a brunette Barbie, who gets to be the pauper.  The pauper looks pretty good for someone struggling with debt.  She has a pretty ballgown, and nice makeup.  She doesn't look poor.

Martin Short is the celebrity voice actor for the villain, Mr. Preminger.  He's worth his weight in gold in this film.  The villain doesn't have magic powers in this movie, but he's got tons of character.  And henchmen.

I think possibly the best part is the cat that acts like a dog.  Erica's love song to the cat dog is cute too.  Wow, King Dominic's singing voice sucks ass.  Julian's is much better.  

Okies, this movie is hella long, but the matching wedding dresses are cute.  The bloopers with the credits really made it worth it to stay one extra minute. Ooh, there's a sing along with the DVD, but I don't have the words memorized after one viewing.  Okay!  Final thoughts, worth the hype it gets.  Possibly my favorite so far.

Book Review: Hell's Most Incompetent Demon

Hell's Most Incompetent Demon is a fluffy gay romance by Silvana Falcon.  I read it on Kindle Unlimited, and liked it so much that I bought it digitally and in paperback!

Here's my eloquent review on Amazon: This was EXACTLY what I wanted! So freaking cute! So absolutely, completely cute! This is exactly what I look for in a book. Both main characters are so cute I'm dead. Read it on Kindle Unlimited, and liked it so much, I bought it to read again later. SO SWEET! I loved it and I can't wait for the next book in the series! 

A lovable human and a demon who can't do his job right fall in love.  That's it.  And it's perfect.  I can't wait for the next book in the series "The Wimpiest Vampire."  That's not scheduled to come out until New Years Eve though, so I will wait.  And it will be worth it.

Can I also point out this book has a nice cover?  It shows the two main characters, not just some photoshopped set of abs like 90% of the romance genre.  I'm so sick of seeing pictures of muscular abs... 

2025 Media Goals Progress Report 3

Okay, so Equestria Girls Summer didn't work.  I tried to do entirely too much, worked my ass off in the first month, and burned out in the second month.  I like what I did get done, but I need to slow the pace by double or something.  Since I feel lost and directionless now, I'm gonna recap my original goals for this year and see what can be salvaged for the last 5 months.

Movie Review: Barbie in Swan Lake (2003)

This movie is in dire need of a remaster.  The streamed version looked like an old jpeg, and the DVD was super pixelly.  It was difficult to keep my attention on the story.  And for some reason, half the dialogue was super quiet.

Unlike the Nutcracker, I don't know the original story of Swan Lake, so I have no idea how much of this movie is true to the original or made up to make Barbie look good.

The ballet dancing was mocap again, and that's always a plus.  the dance sequences were possibly the best parts.

The celebrity villain voice actor was Kelsey Grammer, and he's fine, but not my favorite.  He sounded too normal and not evil enough.  What I couldn't stand was Odile's voice.  That was too loud, and painful.  I guess her voice actor is famous too, but I still couldn't stand it.

The end was fine.  Another fairytale wedding with a guy who looks fine, I suppose.  I will say, Odette's dress is amazing, as it should be, and I mean better than the finale dresses from the first two movies.  I hope the next movie is easier to watch though.

Movie Review: Barbie as Rapunzel (2002)

The second Barbie movie is Barbie as Rapunzel.  They took many artistic liberties with the story, no one ever climbs up Rapunzel's hair except in a dream sequence.  There is some meta in that dream sequence though, because she dreams she's doll sized and Gothel waves her around like a doll!

The celebrity voice actress for this one is Anjelica Huston as Gothel.  She's amazing, of course. They really use all their budget on the villain, I swear.   

It was cute though!  Barbie/Rapunzel got a talking rabbit and a talking dragon with daddy issues and a prince.  She's gotten proposed to in both movies I think.  Happily ever afters every time.

Umm...  I dunno what else to say.  Barbie's dress is pretty? 

Movie Review: Barbie and the Nutcracker (2001)

I got stressed with Equestria Girls, and I got some new Barbies recently, so here we are, Barbie's first movie, Barbie and the Nutcracker.  It is not exactly the same as The Nutcracker.  They took some artistic liberties, added a rock monster, yeah.  They seem to have used motion capture for the dancing segments, but not for the entire movie.

One score, they managed to get Tim Curry for the Rat King, and Tim Curry is Tim Curry, so yeah.

Did I like it?  It was a slow start, but I at least watched it until the end, so there's that.  It was cute, and I'm bored, so it's fine.  I won't go buying this movie to have a hard copy or anything like that, but it's free on Youtube if you search, so yeah.  Will I watch this again around Christmas?  Maybe?  Aside from the mocapped dance scenes, the animation was pretty janky.  The music was all Nutcracker music, so it was fine.  

I'd pick it up from a bargain bin, you know?  It's bargain bin worthy.

Aura Kingdom Impact: launch week review

Aura Kingdom Impact is a new server for Aura Kingdom.  They added Impact to the name, but it's got lots of revisions over the old version they're still keeping up.  

One major change is they've cut out a bunch of story, less quest dialogue and fewer cutscenes.  I know most people skip them, but that doesn't mean you should remove them!  Also, now from levels 1 to 50, you teleport automatically to your quest objective.  No more auto running, you just blink from one place to the other.  Of course, after level 50, you have to pay cash to keep teleporting, or just run like you used to.  Another new thing, they're doing a collab with an orange cat that looks like Garfield, and making a big deal out of it, and I don't care.

I've been playing original Aura Kingdom for many years, so this new server and it's changes had to really wow me to get me to leave my old server, and it didn't.  I'd rather they just improve the server they had!  Oh well...