#that's why the found family aspect of this series in specific in the shadowhunters universe hits so hard

[garvalhaminho]

i feel like, as weird as it may sound, at its core "the mortal instruments" is a story of abuse and what a family truly is

[amandaklwrites]

Movie Review: Practical Magic (1998)

Genre: Drama/Fantasy/Magical Realism

Rating: 10/10

Movie Review:

I love this movie. I think I somehow loved it even more the second time around. I love how that can even be possible.

Now, I will start out by saying that I had only watched this movie for the first time like two or three years ago, after reading the book. So, I never grew up with this movie, I never saw it growing up at all. I saw it as an adult. For someone who loves witchy things, I don’t know how this one escaped me for so long. It just never came about.

About a week or so ago, I was having a really rough time. I had just purchased this DVD at my work when I realized I personally didn’t own it. So, in some weird twist of my feelings, my mom and I watched it really late at night, the night before a storm rolled through. Which was pretty appropriate in my opinion.

And I loved it even more this time. It lifted my spirits, it brought me back to myself, it reminded me a lot of things of myself.

Like I said, I read the book before watching this movie that few years ago, and I did like the book a lot. But I think after reading Hoffman’s latest book, Magic Lessons, about their ancestor Maria Owens, and loving the shit out of it, I found even more of an appreciation for her other books (I’m planning to read the other books from this “world” really soon, so I’ll make some book reviews soon). So, I think that’s also why I loved this movie even more so now than I did before.

The top thing I love about this movie is the feeling of it. If you’ve seen this movie and love it, you’ll know what I mean. I like that it’s set in our own world, but it doesn’t have the feeling of urban fantasy (think Shadowhunters and such). It just feels like everyday life, but this family has some extra powers. They’re mystical, mysterious, but not evil. So, in some interesting way, it doesn’t make the movie feel out of place or fantastical. But that there could be that strange family that lives on the end of your street that everyone calls witches, and in fact, they are.

Then, I love the two main sisters. Sally and Gillian couldn’t be any more different. They’re the complete opposites. And they seem like typical series—they argue, they fight, but they love one another deeply. I think some of their deep connection comes from the shared trauma—they lost their father, and then their mother, and they were all that they had in the world. To me, if that wasn’t factored in, I don’t think they would be as close as they ended up being. I’m not saying that they wouldn’t have loved and cared about one another as much. But that their connection to each other wouldn’t have been the same. Yes, they had their aunts, but ultimately, they only had each other. They grew with one another through that sadness, through looking at the world in this specific lense. They protected one another even more ferociously because they understood one another and they didn’t want the other to be hurt. Though they didn’t get along all the time, and maybe Sally didn’t agree with Gillian’s decisions, she still rushed off to help her sister get away from an abusive bastard without a second thought. That is the bond of sisters, especially their sisterhood.

Personally, I like Sally. Not that I hate Gillian or anything. I like Gillian—I think she’s worldly, she’s different, she isn’t afraid to be who she is. But I think she also has insecurities for her to constantly be with these same men who aren’t… let’s say, they aren’t the greatest. And she had to know that Jimmy Angelov wasn’t the best guy, so why even bother? But that’s because she has her own personal issues and doesn’t think that great of herself (trust me, I read her like a book, because I have been very similar most of my life). At least with this rewatch recently, I connected with Sally WAY more. Her and I have similar personalities—though, I’m fine with being different, I would prefer to have powers than pretend to be “normal.” She’s a lot more analytical and grounded and serious about things, like me, and tries to keep on a certain path. She loses her husband and falls apart (I haven’t had this, but I feel like I would react the same). I think her character arc/personal journey was more of my thing nowadays. She had to let go of controlling everything, that not everything was “normal” or had to be a certain way. She had to let go of some things, to let the universe take its course and she should just enjoy it along the way. That feels more like me.

The other characters were great too. I think the aunts, Frances and Bridget were polar opposites as well (do you see the pattern of two sisters, that are quite different from one another—think of Sally and Gillian, the aunts, even Sally’s daughters). But they balanced one another out, and that was why they worked so well together—which is the case with Sally and Gillian. Dianne West and Stockard Channing played the sisters so effortlessly. Goran Višnjić as Jimmy Angelov was both sexy and disturbing, but he did it so well (too well, honestly), and I personally think he’s a fantastic actor from other stuff I’ve seen him in (any Timeless fans here???). I liked Aidan Quinn as the detective, Gary, and a love interest for Sally. Their personalities worked so well. OH! I nearly forgot! Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman were PERFECT in this movie! I love them both so much, especially everything I see Sandra in, and they were these characters. Not playing them, they just were.

(Fun movie fact that I learned: in the scene where Sally, Gillian and the aunts get drunk? They were drunk filming! They wanted to make it feel more real, so they all started drinking and the director started filming it all. I think that was such a nice touch).

I will say, I didn’t love the whole exorcism thing in the movie. I get the point of it for the movie, and it is Hollywood guys, plus it did make the story more “exciting” in that climax. And though I do agree that there can be malevolent energies that linger, but I don’t personally believe that there are evil spirits that want to take over bodies. But that’s my own personal beliefs, so I can’t speak for everyone. I just didn’t care for that, but it made for some good aspects in that scene.

At the heart of this movie, it’s about love. Which, honestly, is what every story in this world, whether fictional or real life is about. It’s about the sisters’ love for one another, it’s about how they love out in the world. Sally had loved and lost, and has to learn to love again, including herself. Gillian has to learn that some of what she feels isn’t love, and that love is kinder to you than she had been treating herself/letting happen. And they both get through it all with their love for one another. My god, that scene where Sally talks to Gillian to come back to them during the exorcism is so powerful and heartbreaking, and I cried watching it. That these two sisters love one another so much that Sally wasn’t going to let Gillian let go and leave this world because everything hurt (physically and emotionally and mentally, I think could be said here). Sally was the only one who would get Gillian through that moment, because she had to go through the similar thing with her loss. Even all the women showing up to help with the exorcism is a form of love (though, I did wonder why some of these women suddenly were okay with coming and helping, but it must connect back to what I had said). This was love and women coming together to help each other, to support one another, which I think the world needs more of. And this movie reflected it.

I love the feeling I get from watching this movie. I love the house they live in (why couldn’t it be real?!). Every time I watch this movie, it makes me wish I had a sister of my own, because though I have close friends or a friend that grew up with me like a little sister, I have never had this connection like Sally and Gillian had. I’m an only child, so no siblings at all. And though I know it can’t be pretty all the time (from what I have seen with friends who have siblings, and even things that happen in this movie), I always wanted someone to have my side like these two, someone I share blood with, that has literally seen every side of me. It’s beautiful to watch in this movie, especially in that scene when Gillian shows up to Sally during her grief and they just talk all night. That exactly is what I had always wanted. So this movie makes me feel wistful too while watching it.

It’s really a beautiful movie, that shows the darkness of the world and people, while delighting us with the magic as well. The magic of the world, the magic of fantastical nature, and the magic of love. Because though you may not be able to make a spoon stir your tea for you, there is magic all around. You just have to look for it.

This movie is one that has become a favorite and has a special place in my heart. It’s just wonderful and awe-inspiring.

[takaraphoenix]

Hi! What are your thoughts about OUAT.

That’s a complex, layered answer because my feelings for OUaT are very complex. The short of it is that, obsession and love level wise, this was my Shadowhunters before Shadowhunters existed as a show. I completely loved and adored this show, I watched every episode as soon as it came out, with a single-minded focus (as in: normally, when watching TV, I use the show as a background noise to my writing. There is only a select handful of TV shows that ever managed to get my full, undivided attention of me turning all else off to only focus on the show).

I love OUaT to bits and pieces. However, much like Shadowhunters, it was far from a flawless show. Very, very, very far. Seriously, it’s an absolute mess in many aspects but damn do I love it.

It appeals to many of the things I love. For one, classic Disney movies. For another, fairy tales - but the very specific niche genre of fairy tale crossovers, which is just... my biggest weakness, possibly. Thirdly, characters you can get invested in and love to bits and pieces.And fourth, shipping.

This is one of the incredibly small, tiny pool of shows where I absolutely adore the canon ships, not just in a “daw it’s cute enough” way that makes me accept that it is The Canon Ship That’s Happening, but in a way that has me actively invested in and rooting for those absolute dumbasses. And. Not just one ship, usually it’s like “huh I am surprisingly invested in this one ship”, but - Rumpel/Belle, Hook/Emma, David/Snow?? Yes, please, inject it into my veins.

Though also just as attached to my non-canon ships - REGINA/EMMA FOR LIFE, Ruby/Snow, Hook/David. And that duality of being really invested in the non-canon ships but still absolutely loving the canon ships? That is... completely and entirely unique to OUaT for me. Never happened outside this show.

I adore that this show did one of the things that I complained Descendants didn’t - it respects Snow White, the very first Disney princess, and puts her front and center. Never-ever made sense to me that Descendants just went “uuuh we at random picked Belle to rule all the kingdoms because I dunno the head writer loves Beauty and the Beast the most”... Snow White was Disney’s very first and I do think she deserves more respect.

The things they did with her! They made her an actual active heroine. Not a little girl hiding out in the woods. They explored possibilities and turned her into a total badass, who never lost the main qualities of Disney’s Snow White though. Her nurturing, loving, gentle soul. That is what I adore about her, because very often when trying to portray strong female characters, media removes their softness, makes them hardened to make them a badass.

Regina and Emma have such a brilliant canon dynamic - even beyond the fanon ship. The way they mended and grew together and became friends. The growth, the softness, the shared custody. I love them.

And with both Regina and Rumpel, I love the day they gradually progressed from “main antagonist from season 1″ to “part of the family”. This show is a found family feast.

It wasn’t flawless. It had some pacing issues, in my opinion. Like the Peter Pan arc was too long. They went hiking for like 12 episodes. That one still sticks with me as having bored me. And I also do think it was a huge mistake to make Peter Pan, one of Disney’s heroes a villain. He was a great villain and his actor absolutely killed it, don’t get me wrong, but in the context of Disney canon, it was a bit jarring.

The same is to be said about Arthur. Don’t take King Arthur, of all people, and turn him into a jackass. That didn’t sit right with me and I think that could, and should, have been handled differently.

As a huge fan of Wizard of Oz canon, I have mixed feelings about Zelina. She was kind of a joke most of the time, her raping Robin was not good at all (beeecause that’s what it is when you shapeshift into the person the other one loves and then have sex with them under pretense to get yourself pregnant), but in the end it - and her - fit relatively well into all of this.

Was completely wasted for the entire Frozen arc, but even I, someone who loathes that movie with a burning passion, genuinely enjoyed the way the show was trying to fix it? Answer all the unanswered question the movie left and actually tie it into the Snow Queen fairy tale? Like, that was a feast and I love that they did that. Also Ingrid was hot and checked all my boxes so there’s that.

In the same way, I adore what they did with Ursula. That they took the scraped canon of Ursula being Triton’s sister and worked with that and that they in the end decided to redeem her too - though I am still very disappointed that we never got to see Ursula actually interact with Ariel at all. That’d have been so interesting. (Also, I admit, they went really overkill with having three Ursulas. Regina pretending to be Ursula, Ursula the ancient golden statue goddess and the actual Ursula, daughter of Poseidon).

I love Hades. I love Greg Germann’s take on Hades. He absolutely killed it. The whole underworld story was incredibly awesome to me personally - though I know others didn’t like that half-season as much. But I really dug that.

I think that it started to fizz out after that though and that after the underworld storyline, they probably should have drawn it to a close, because... after everything, after five whole seasons of watching redemption and working hard to make up for the things you did in the past, they really just decided “and now Regina is gonna physically split off her Evil Queen”... and made that Evil Queen the villain. That felt insanely repetitive of season 1 and like a set-back for Regina.

(The second half of that season didn’t go better because honestly that whole nonsense with “not only is Rumpel the son of Peter Pan, nope, now we bring in his mom the Evil Fairy”, featuring the very overused trope of “baby is magically aged up to be a character who can contribute to the plot”... Not the best.)

Also I refuse to acknowledge the existence of that reboot season. It’s bullshit is what it is. The show had the perfect ending. And then they immediately slapped a reboot onto it... why? If they had taken their time, wait ten years until nostalgia for the show kicks in and the actors all need work again, and do a proper “now Henry goes through shit”, that’d have actually been interesting, but... the moment I saw “so... we keep half the main cast, break up some OTPs, don’t age the adults up but age Henry up and also there is now a second Cinderella”, I knew that’s not gonna be good.

Seriously, the second Cinderella is what really fucked it over for me. What I loved about OUaT was that it gave very specific rules to its universe.

The Author documents the tales. The Author gives them their spin. But they are still the same tale. Be that the Brothers Grimm, who documented Cinderella, or then Walt Disney, it was still Cinderella, from the Enchanted Forest. Their stories were simply written down.

That they then, in the reboot season, went “well, actually There Are Many Cinderellas!!” completely contradicts the previously established rules of this world? Because yes, the concept very similar to Cinderella actually exists in many cultures - and that was the cool thing of OUaT’s take, because pressumably that is because the Author was in said culture at said time and documented the tale, as is the Author’s job.

Especially since it was so... unnecessary? I mean, they gave Rapunzel one half-assed episode in the past, they never tackled Gold Mary, they could have shown what became of Hänsel and Gretel now also grown up, etc. There were other unused characters that could have been brought in instead of throwing the rules out of the window.

But moving on from that; I love that they didn’t limit themselves to Disney movies - that they did prominently put Red Riding Hood (my favorite fairy tale character) in there, that they worked with mythology as well as books.

One thing they absolutely fucked up was their spin-off though. Once Upon a Time in Wonderland. They made that. They decided that, out of everything touched upon in the series, Alice’s tale should get a spin-off... and then they didn’t use any of the actual characters?

Alice herself never got an appearance in OUaT, not prior or after the spin-off (only very much later in the reboot season, with a different Alice)

They had the Queen of Hearts on OUaT, but they didn’t use her as the main antagonist, or at least a huge deal, on Wonderland

They had the freaking Mad Hatter on OUaT, but he doesn’t even have a single cameo on Wonderland

And don’t give me “Seb Stan was too busy!”, because... even then, they could have recast. The Mad Hatter is kind of a big part of Alice in Wonderland, but... they ignored the majority of what is important in AiW in general, so there is that

They named the Red Queen Anastasia and very heavily implied that yes, the Anastasia who was the stepsister of Cinderella - but when OUaT’s original Cinderella got her stepsisters introduced, they suddenly had entirely different names than the Disney stepsisters and of course it wasn’t the same actress either

They introduced Jafar (for some reason) in Wonderland. And then recast him when Aladdin was tackled on OUaT and never addressed any of the things that happened on Wonderland, especially not how Jafar was the son of the sultan which would technically make him Jasmine’s brother

It was nearly dumb to move Will Scarlet to OUaT after the spin-off was axed, because at that point they legit just ignored Wonderland as a whole so this acknowledgment felt very off. But then it’s Michael Socha and I love him so I ain’t gonna complain about that.

So yes, I have mild issues with how they made a spin-off that had basically no inpact on the show, despite many elements that should have crossed over and carried significance in both shows.

Lastly, because we’re on the topic of spin-offs, I still would absolutely kill for a spin-off about Mulan, Merida and Ruby. Those three, exploring the Enchanting Forest together, training together, being gay together, it was the best thing. Which does force me to mention the gay. Because... Mulan was canonically in love with Aurora and when they set her up to find Ruby and journey with her, it came really off as them trying to make Mulan/Ruby happen. Then they introduce Merida, a very famously single princess, and you start to wonder. But in the end, it’s Ruby who ends up with Dorothy, aka two characters not associated with Disney. And it makes you wonder. (It doesn’t. We all know Disney is hugely homophobic. We all know OUaT most likely had some Disney executive yelling at them for even implying one of their characters may be gay. So they backtracked to give the wlw storyline to two characters that weren’t Disney property.)

Ah, I don’t like ending things on a negative note so one last positive - as weirdly as the Dark Swan arc was handled at parts, I absolutely love that Emma’s name being Swan really did pay off in making her the Swan Princess in the end and giving a nudge to Swan Lake with the Dark Swan. That was such a cool pay-off of something as small as a last name.

So, to sum it up, there’s some flaws in the writing, some things I wish would have been explored more, but overall good gods do I love and adore this TV show.