My Own Little World

The first two seasons of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt  were a great way to spend a couple of weeks.  I loved them  because of their relentless quirkiness and optimism, and I was so looking forward to the third season. Regardless of whether it would make the show better or not, I knew I would wildly enjoy the time I would spend with these characters and their comedy. Once again, the show swept me off my feet. The third season of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt  is the best season from the show yet (by a slim margin, mind you), and I think it's mostly due to how it doesn't let up on the gas at all throughout its thirteen episodes. There's so many things that contribute to this, from the brand of comedy that Tina Fey pushes so hard on all her shows to the cast's chemistry and performances to the simplicity and innocence of Kimmy's character. (Some of these things could be copied and pasted from my review of the first two seasons, so I'm just going to touch on what cha...

In case you haven't talked to me in the past year, I love Hamilton . This Broadway musical makes me completely and entirely helpless whenever I hear it. It ranks among the best pieces of music I've ever heard in my entire life besides just being my favorite musical ever written.  One of the things that the musical's creator Lin-Manuel Miranda teased during the musical's development and performances was The Hamilton Mixtape , a compilation of multiple artists from the realm of popular music covering and reimagining various songs from the show. It was finally officially announced a month or so ago and released on December 2.  To be honest, the fact that Hamilton  itself is so untouchable in my mind made me really nervous for the mixtape. I don't think I've ever been more helplessly obsessed with any piece of music ever, and to see other people do these songs that mean so much to me and restyle them made me really apprehensive. I've memorized every...

I was practically raised on Disney animated films. I watched ones like Aladdin , The Lion King , and Beauty and the Beast growing up, and recently I've rediscovered how magical they can actually be thanks to my girlfriend and I watching them all the time. Their (mostly) timeless scores get stuck in my head so easily, and the stories, despite their target audience of children, seem to have a transcendent nature and punch way above their age bracket. However, as of late Disney has had a little trouble finding its animated musical mojo.  Yes, recent films like Tangled and Frozen have begun to turn this trend around, but forgettable films like Brother Bear and Home on the Range  still are a large blemish in the Disney catalog. To some extent, the name "Disney" in front of a film lost some of its magnitude and power. Meanwhile, studios like Pixar and DreamWorks have come alongside (and in some cases, jumped ahead of) Disney in the race for kids' attention spans....

Hey all. I'm back to update you on my college life, and it's been going quite swimmingly. Just a few things to catch you up on if you don't look at my Facebook profile: Broadway Revue was at the end of September, and it was fantastic. I got to work with some great people in the theater department and was featured in a number from Finding Neverland  that I had a blast with. It wore me out so much, but in the end it was a very fulfilling and enjoyable experience.  So, there's this girl named Felicia, and she's incredible. That is all I'll say about that for now.  I was in the room where it happened on October 23 and saw Hamilton  in Chicago with Felicia and a few of her friends. Big thanks to my parents for a great birthday present in that ticket, possibly the best I've ever gotten.  So, with that lengthier-than-I-thought-it-would-be update, let's talk about my personal least favorite part of any college semester: that time when you realize you'...

In looking back over my posts, I realized that I've never really dived into what my favorites of everything are. Yes, it's fairly easy to see from my reviews where my tastes in film, TV, and music lie, but I wanted to talk specifically about my favorites of pretty much everything. These lists outline my favorites from different genres of music and movies, as well as some more specialized lists. First up is a tough one: my top ten favorite albums of all time. This particular list is actually quite fluid, so there's no guarantee that I'll feel the same way in a month, much less in a year. That being said, at the time of this writing, these are my ten favorite albums in my library. 10. Revolver  - The Beatles (1964) The Beatles' first inclusion on this list is definitely not their last, but it made me fall in love with the Fab Four in high school. Revolver  was a transitional period for the band as they moved from their poppy origins towards a more psychedelic ...