Benny and Kathy's First Meeting in The Bikeriders (2024) 🏍: Chance Encounter, or Master Plan?

Welcome to Taking It One Stef At A Time, and here is a brand new film analysis theory essay blog post for you! 

Reflections about Barbie (2023), Tuesday, July 25, 2023, 1:30 PM: A Movie Review...Finally

I held off from publishing this until the strike was over, but I wrote it the night I saw it because I wanted to get my thoughts down about the film while it was still fresh in my mind. I don't really have a full blown analysis planned for this one, but rather bullet points that I want to get off my chest. Might be a nice change of pace here. I'll try to keep this spoiler free. 

Let's Talk About The Barbenheimer Experience: Part 1?

The question mark is there because there might be a Part 2 to this if I actually participate in this and want to talk about the movies themselves. But I want to stand in solidarity with the WGA and SAG-AFTRA on strike right now too, so I might hold off on the movie review blog posts for the time being. But for now, I just have to talk about the movie marketing phenomenon that is Barbenheimer. 

Reflections about...My First Time Seeing CATS Live at the Mayo Performing Arts Center on Sunday, March 12, 2023 at 7 PM, and My Many Other Thoughts About the Musical

(I wanted to publish this way before the National Tour of CATS closed but kept needing to work on it more LOL!! Although, it is good that I started early so that it was pretty much ready for publication right when the tour closed and I didn't spend months starting now working on this to the point where it no longer felt current. I didn't know that I was going to have so much to say about this show and I just kept realizing and discovering more things I wanted to talk about. I was originally just going to tweet about it, but then it turned into a full blown blog post. 

I eventually published this and aimed to do so on June 12, exactly three months after my show and before their final week of shows in order to meet my deadline of actually publishing this before the tour ended. But now since I talk more about the end of the tour and all of my emotions about that in this too, I felt that it was more appropriate to publish this right as it was ending and after the fact as kind of a send-off. I'm finding that I'm still updating and perfecting this piece as I think of stuff I want to mention while it is live too, including this disclaimer introduction. lol Hopefully I will finally settle it soon though. I wrote a lot here and I feel like I may be rambling a bit, so feel free to just visit when you can. I kinda wrote this conversationally but it also seems to have turned into an academic essay as well, so please enjoy either way. lol 

I've seen that fans send the cast fan art. I'm not artistically inclined like that lol, so I feel like this is my way of contributing to that too. Sources of mine include Wiki sites, all around Google and YouTube searches, book excerpts, and others that I cite.)

I'm a dog person, so therein lies a reason for the disconnect between me and this Andrew Lloyd Webber Tony Award-winning musical all this time. lol

But I get it now. After 30+ years, I finally understand the CATS hype.

And now I have a LOT of thoughts and feelings about it, as you will soon find out. lol

Stef's 2022 Top 22 New Year's Resolution Reading Challenge - The Results

Happy New Year 2023! This is a blog post a year in the making, that I had to finally update lol. Here are the books that I have read in 2022, per my Top 22 Books in my To Be Read List of 2022, and some of my thoughts about them. :) I will also include some honorable mentions of books that I have started this year but haven't proceeded or completed.

There is only eight here and some of them aren't from the original list, but the important thing is that I did read! lol

Goodbye, Arthur

I had to take some time to process this. I have a lot to say and I don't think this one blog post will cover it all.

I'm surprised that I didn't plan on writing a blog post about this until later. I guess I didn't want to acknowledge it as true, you know? ☹

After 25 incredible seasons, the PBS Kids "Arthur" series has finally concluded. The final episodes aired for the first time on February 21, 2022. The show premiered on October 7, 1996. This is a huge deal and not treated like the ending of other shows.

Welcome "Complete Mess," the First Single of 5SOS5!

I really appreciate that 5 Seconds Of Summer always manages to write songs about me and named after me. That's nice of them. First “Empty Wallets,” now “Complete Mess.”

I was wondering if I should cover this song now, or later when I do a track by track review of 5SOS5’s entirety.

Ehh…I’ll do it now. It’s hot on my mind and it saves me from more work later. Lol

So on March 2, 5 Seconds Of Summer finally dropped their first single and music video of 5SOS5, “Complete Mess," thus kicking off the 5SOS5 Era in full swing. This was my first time as a fan experiencing the release of the first single and music video of a 5SOS album and watching them promote it in real time. 

(Wow. A lot of “firsts” there.)

Okay, so as usual, my initial thoughts, and then I’ll review the full thing further.

Top 22 Books on my To Read List for 2022

One of my New Year's resolutions is to read more. Every moment I get the urge to needlessly and aimlessly scroll on social media "liking" posts and/or getting depressed and irritated or get stuck watching some classic back to back late night TV or YouTube videos, I want to put my phone down and turn the TV and laptop off to pick up a good book instead. It relaxes me, takes me out of the real world for awhile and into a new one, and helps me sleep better, which is another one of my resolutions. 

Happy Stef and Abby Go To The Movies Day

Do you ever invent your own holiday? This is what one of my best friends Abby and I did.

Merry Christmas 2021: Blog Posts of Christmases Past

I'm seeing that a few of my past Christmas blog posts have been under my Popular Posts these last few weeks, so I thought that I'd share some of my best ones in one blog post. Merry Christmas, and thank you for reading! 🙂✝️🎄

A Perfect Christmas List Movie Review (2019)

A BAD MOMS CHRISTMAS (2017) Has a Church Scene EXACTLY like the Scene in HOME ALONE (1990)! (2017)

Why I Will Always Say "Merry Christmas" (2016)

Why PBS Kids Always Does Holiday Specials Right - By Not Just Celebrating Christmas (2014)

One of my Favorite Christmas Special Moments - The Church Scene from "Home Alone" (2013)

An Unrealistic Outcome: The Sad Truth About Charles Dickens's "A Christmas Carol" (2012)

A Good Twist and Variation...or a Rip-off of a Classic Ballet? A Look at Changes in The Nutcracker (2011)

The Symbolism of Angel Dumott Schunard in RENT: My Interpretation  (2011; first blog post!)