Little Talks

Aside from having my favourite cover in the whole series, The Kingmaker's Daughter  provides an alternate interpretation of many of the events in The White Queen , this time told by the young Anne Neville. Despite her opposition to Elizabeth, Anne was a character I liked (perhaps because of the tv show more than the other novel). She was not her daddy's chosen one or the court favourite, and she never expected to be queen, but she was strong and reasonable. Her fight was always quiet and solitary, yet she stood by her sister through all of the hardships that Lord Warwick forced upon them. She was loyal to her family no matter how they treated her. Anne was a pawn in everyone else's game and yet she remained steadfast in her belief that she could be more than the silly girl that others saw her as. Unfortunately, I'm not sure this portrayal of her totally did her justice. Yes, she was all of the things I just said. Yet she was also paranoid and easily persuaded, whic...

I grew up watching old Wonder Woman  reruns with my mom and my sister after school. I don't remember much besides the invisible plane (a plastic model with Barbie dolls inside, hanging in front of a cloud background) and Diana's rather obvious disguise, but I know that we always had fun watching together. So, of course, when the new Wonder Woman movie was announced my mom immediately made my sister and I promise that we would go see it together. The trailers looked very promising, but the awful experience of watching Batman v. Superman  had me worried. In the end, I was pleasantly surprised by the film. The plot was good; it had all of the right drama and intrigue, and made sure not to take itself too seriously. There were, as with all good movies, moments of comedy, romance, action, tension, and cinematic beauty. The classic good versus evil narrative structure that defines the superhero genre was used well, one might even say cleverly because the enemy remains faceless, in a...

The Lady of the Rivers is Philippa Gregory's most family-focused book in the Cousin's War series. Like the other installments, the story of Jacquetta Woodville is one of female empowerment and ambition. However, the role of love in this narrative is far more important than status and success. In most of the books, the women are mainly concerned with love, but there are questions raised through Gregory's telling as to whether these ladies were motivated by the potential of a royal status as well. Jacquetta, on the other hand, is a member of the French nobility who is married off to the brother of Henry V for her family's advantage. The deal works out well enough for her, yet she gives up her reputation and status to marry the love of her love, Richard Woodville, who was chamberlain to her first husband. Gregory interprets Jacquetta as a noblewoman who wanted nothing more than success for her children, love, and a peaceful life with her family. The number of Woodvill...

Approaching New Year's Eve, I had no specific resolutions in mind. I set a few simple goals for myself: spend more quiet time with God, make more time for friends, learn to be bolder, and live in a way that sets me apart so that others may know that I am a child of God. This past week I have read other people's resolutions and intentions. I've also done a lot of reflecting on my past year and what I want this year. What I have come to realize is that I don't want to set a goal for my life. My year should not be evaluated solely by my success or failure in achieving said goal. Rather, I would like to define my year with a phrase, a focus, a feeling: love. As human beings, the thing we crave most is love. I know that I am loved by those whom I love, but I want to work harder at building these relationships and demonstrating my love to others. I want to learn to be content without romantic love, but I also want to work harder at understanding what such love looks like prac...

The last instalment of the Pirates of the Caribbean  franchise was a bit of a full-circle moment in many ways, especially for my friends and me. "In what ways?" you might ask. Well, for one, my best friend introduced me to the franchise when we were 10 and we desperately wanted to become pirates. I attribute my longing for adventure to these movies. I distinctly remember that many of our birthday parties (especially my bff's) revolved around pirate themes, had pirate cakes, or consisted of our little group going to the theatre to see the latest Pirates  film. We went to see Dead Men Tell No Tales  as a spur-of-the-moment thing for my best friend's birthday this summer - and as we've been moving into new phases in our lives, it felt right that the franchise was also wrapping up. In terms of the movie itself, the original characters all returned, and their stories were finally happily resolved. The proper young girl in love with the adventurous young man of pirating...

[Warning: This post contains spoilers] The X-Men movies have never been, shall we say, well received. They are certainly not the worst superhero movies out there, and true Marvel fans enjoy them nonetheless. Logan felt quite different from the rest of the franchise. It was missing all of the hokieness of the originals, the team atmosphere of the later films, and the overall adventure of the franchise. Logan follows in the dystopian trend of the last few years, evoking something of a Mad Max idea. The social commentary provided by the dynamic between Xavier and Magneto is evidently missing from this film, but the exploration of a future in which mutants are being hunted and killed was something that I think the franchise needed (especially since Days of Future Past spent a lot of time in the past). For so long, these films have been asking us what it means to be different and where those who are different belong. But what would really happen if the world turned on them? Of cours...