Welcome To 2026!!!

 HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

What a crazy ride that 2025 was, but it's honestly the first time in a long time that I have been happy to see a year go! It's been crazy but I now that this year has to be better than last. I don't know how but I think it will be.

This year I do have some cool projects that I will be doing, and I already have plans that I have coming that I know are going to be so much fun! However, This year marks 10 years since my first successful project My Year Of Review. It's been 10 years since I watched 100 movies in the theaters! I can't believe that it' been that long! So many changes have happened not only in Movies in general but in my life. Would I love to watch 100 movies in the theater again? Yes, but I am not going to because I have so much going on already. However, I am so thankful for that year because it's one of the best years of my life, but it's also lead me here. I never thought I would try, and experience, so many wonderful things just because movies inspired me to do it. 

So, what are this year's project? 

Well, we are talking Obedience and... music?

So, I have done several projects over the years that have dealt with my faith. However, it's just part of it. In the last few years I have struggled with Obedience, and this year that is going to be my focus. Now, I am not going to like do a whole big excel sheet, or a step by step process of what I need to do. I already know what I need to do, I have just not been doing it. Whether that is out of laziness, heartbreak, or any excuse that I can come up with, it needs to change. I need to change. So, I will be starting my normal mourning routine again, and I am sure when I start being obedient in the everyday then I am sure God will ask me to do something I find CRAZY! 

If/when God asks me to do something crazy, I will write about it here through that year as it happens. If nothing else, I will be writing how I am feeling and if I have been keeping up with talking to God on the daily. I will be continuing the Bible Recap with Tara-Light Cobble and I have another year long bible reading plan that looks really good that I will try to get through as well. I have spent all of last year listening to books written by R.C. Sproul and I have enjoyed them. However, listening to a book doesn't stick to me like reading it with my eyes does. So, this year I want to start my way through the Bible Recap's study books. They are like 10 week long courses so I hope to start that in the next few months, because I have a Bible study I have been neglecting called Braved and Beloved by Meredith Storrs. I have done the first two lessons and I really want to see that through before in over my head. 

This project is still based in a character from The Wizard of Oz and that would be the Flying Monkeys. They do not speak in the film, but The Wicked Witch of the West tells them "Now Fly! Fly!". In the book the monkey are controlled by a golden helmet that I forget how the Wicked Witch attains. They Monkeys are forced to be Obedient. Now, this year is not meant to see if being Obedient to God is good or bad, because I already know that it's good. I have walked long enough with the Lord to know that. However, sometimes we are obedient to the wrong person, and that's bad. Sometimes we can't help it, because of a curse, we are scared not to be, or because we tricked. The Devil doesn't want us to be obedient to anyone, so we can unknowingly follow him to our death without knowing Jesus. What I want to explore is what does the obedience that character are follow, or forced to follow, looks like and how we can be tricked that it's a good or a bad thing. 

The next project is going with a theme I didn't plan for this year but it's falling into place on it's own. 

The Brian Tyler Takeover. 

So what is this all about? Well, Brian Tyler is a composer to has TAKEN OVER MY HEAD! 

Back in like 2018, I was at work watching a movie on my phone listening to it with my headphones. The movie was Now You See Me 2. It was where Morgan Freeman is on the plan with Mark Ruffalo going to China to get the Horseman. Now, I turned my head and I heard fives notes. Just five. The scene that was now in my head from these five notes is not what is playing on the phone. It was a scene Thor: The Dark World. This Thor movie is my all time favorite stand alone Marvel film of all time. I love the soundtrack to that film. The violins when Frigga is sent off for her burial at sea and her soul float ups to the stars pinches my heart ever single time I hear it. Finding out he did both of these movies was shocking. I have never been able to pick out a composer of a film before. There was something about this fact that altered my brain.

Little did I know just how much until 2023. 

Picture it.. April 2023, me sitting in the movie theater watching Super Mario Bros. and the last battle scene is coming on, it just hits me out no where that the musical score of this film is brilliant! I didn't play many Mario games when I was young but I have played enough to know what the video game sounds are like. I can recognize sounds from the game even if I don't know what sound means what. However, this music that was so wonderfully epic fit so well into the film. It incorporated the video game sounds and the insane adventure of the world in a way I didn't know that any could. It was like the music was not just there to help you feel what you needed to feel in the moments that you needed to feel it, but it was there as part of the world building. 

It was Brian Tyler. 

May 2023... Fast X.... same thing happens

June 2024... Transformers One... THE SAME THING HAPPENS.

I tell my best friend Alaina about this craziness in 2025. I tell her that I have this weird ear to pick up on Brian Tyler's compositions and I don't know why. She laughs and agrees that it's weird. 

We are currently watching all of the Marvel films in release order. We get to Thor: The Dark World and I tell her like what I love about the music and tell her again on this weird thing. Fast forward a few months and are watching Avengers: Age of Ultron....

I tell Alaina the music is really good..... 

BRIAN FREAKING TYLER!!!! 

You think 2025 I would be left alone cause there is no way that this is happening. Then Now You See Me Now You Don't comes out and I figured that Mr. Tyler has done the other two films it's very possible that he is doing this one as well. He is.... no big deal I saw it coming. 

Then my roommate and I go and see Nuremberg. It was during the part where the Nazi general is about to take his own life, because he was found guilty during the trials, that there was something about the moment where just a few notes his and the Brian Tyler bell went off in the back of my head. I tried to deny it. I really did because I have not known Mr. Tyler to do a film that was historically based. It was just odd to me..... 

The credits rolled... as did my eyes.... Brian Tyler. 

I thought I was done till I started watching Yellowstone for the first time a few weeks ago, and yet again Brian Tyler is now following me to the small screen as well. 

So, I give up. I am goin to watch this man's filmography. Now, I know that there seem to be a good number of scary films under his belt so I am not sure what to do about that. However, I will watch all of the other movies that he has done. I will say where I thought that music was just perfect and why, and then we will see if I can still pick him out of a random movie I see during the week still. 

The other reason that I love that I am doing something with music this year is because I just signed up for a Music for the Movies class at the University of Tennessee. It a just for fun class but I think everything is aligning for me to to do something with music and why not the man whose music has been surprising me for the past seven years?

So, there we are. We have the year set up and ready to go... Well at least the plan, I still need to hammer some stuff out but we are getting there. 

I am looking forward to all the things that this year has coming up and I can't wait to see what God has in store!

The Shawn Levy Shuffle: Deadpool and Wolverine

 Well, it's one of the best movies of the year last year, and there is a reason why.

Through a strange set of circumstances, Deadpool and Wolverine have to team up to save the world.

Look there is a reason that this movie was so good you have to see it for yourself. 

I will say again just how incredible and heartwarming this movie is, is all because of the man who directed it Mr. Shawn Levy. It's still about family, it's still about hope, and it's still about love in all of it's many forms. 

I am very glad that I got to see the world through Shawn Levy's eyes for a year. 

I hope that I hear the world differently next year...

No Place Like Movies At Home: Monty Python and the Holy Grail

 We are finally at the most recognized, and by far the most superior, Monty Python movie: Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Arthur and the Knight of the Round Table are on a quest. They seek the Holy Grail. A mission given to them by God and a journey the not one expected to happen.... 

So, I have watched a fait bit of British Television over the years. I am not expert or can say that I can pick up on any references made by our British counter parts, but enough to know how their different, and yet alike, their humor is from ours. From what I have seen I still don't know how the two other Monty Python movies fit into play. Like I am not sure if it's just a niche bit of humor that only some people in the United Kingdom like or if they thought that last two files we wildly accepted. Regardless, this is the one that most people have found funny than they other two. It's not the it so wildly different from the other two, but it's one of those movies that my mom and some of my friends still quote. My mom and I will still clap our hands like we are holding coconuts pretending to ride a horse!

I love this movie! It's a must see if you haven't already!

There They Are and There They'll Stay: The Wizard of Oz

 Now, for my favorite movie: The Wizard of Oz

Dorothy's life seems like it's falling apart. Her dog is being taken away and nothing else seems to be doing right. She runs away before he dog can be taken. When she runs into a nice man who "persuades" her to go back home, only to be caught up in a tornado and taken to the Land of Oz. Where so goes on and adventure in order to go back home to Kansas.

"Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed instead of our heavenly dwelling, because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked." 2 Corinthians 5:2-3

Longing to go home. Man if there was ever year that to know what that feeling feels like. It's odd cause I have been home to months and I find myself longing for a time that I can't go back to. However, that the funny thing about home. Your home will change over time but it will be a place of comfort. If your home is in Jesus than you will have a place that is always safe, and welcoming. 

There They Are and There They'll Stay: Cinderella

 We are going to talk about a movie that is somehow ten years old this year.... Cinderella. 

Ella is a young woman who is forced to be a servant in her own home. With both of her parents passed, her step mother and sisters rule the house and they are tight on money. When everyone gets the chance to come to the palace for a ball. When Ella gets the chance, with the help of some magic, to get to the ball her life is forever changed when she meets the love of her life, the prince. 

"I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine." Song of Solomon 6:3

I don't really have a way to say why this relates to God but Phil did. 

He talks about how the prince says in the movie that he "has to see her again" and how Jesus died on the cross and has to see us again. That is so wonderful I really don't have anything else to add. 

The Shawn Levy Shuffle: The Adam Project

   The Adam Project

When everything goes wrong in Adam's life he has to go back in time and try to figure out how to fix the future without changing the past. 

I didn't think that a time travel movie was going to make me tear up but this one did. It's funny and entertaining while still holding the Shawn Levy charm of family and togetherness. 

There They Are and There They'll Stay: The Gift

 Now for another movie that I did not watch. 

This is another scary movie that I did not watch, but we are still gonna talk about it. 

"Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if three is any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting." Psalm 139:23-24

So, it seems like this movie deals with a lot of hiding stuff from people and secret keeping. I know this is bad but I am not going to look into this movie at all. 

However, this verse from Psalm is something that we should be doing daily. We are only human and we constantly need to fix our ways and out minds.