Louise Fowler

@seekjustice One of my favorite songs is titled “Without a Song” with the opening lyrics being “Without a song the day would never end; without a song the road would never bend; when things go wrong a man ain’t got a friend without a song.”

I always thought The Sound of Music wasn’t about a war.  It was about a family who happened to live during…[Read more]

@valtmy Its fine. I didn’t think you were addressing those complaints at me 🙂

Haha 😛 I remember writing a novel set in old Japan and windows and doors were constantly an annoying thing for me. Not that I was trying to add window scenes or anything. They just annoyed me

@rochellaine

I think you started a trend 😉

@rochellaine

Oh that’s true! And Newsies as well, even though its not a massive favourite of either of us.

Nope, I still adore Anastasia.

@rochellaine

When you were talking about why musicals should be happy just reminded me of the lyrics in a song from one of the German musicals I listen to: “How can it be that all the rules/ of reason and society/are undone by music’s magic spell?”

I feel though that one of my main reasons for disliking The Sound of Music is that its always…[Read more]

@seekjustice I have thought of two musicals we both like!!  One’s my recommendation and one is yours.

Mine: Brigadoon

Yours: Anastasia

There!  We have at least two musicals which we can both agree are wonderful. 😀 (unless you’ve changed your mind since our last discussions of them…)

@seekjustice Your description of The Scarlet Pimpernel and conclusion that you have no idea why I like your books is absolutely hilarious.

Put it down to good writing. 😉

Yeah, I get that.  I think each of these theological questions has to be viewed separately and you can’t apply the rule from one question to another question.

I grew up…[Read more]

@valtmy I honestly didn’t think you were! I was just agreeing with you.

That’s a really good list. Especially “something to hope for” and “no loners”. Those two things annoy me to no end.

@valtmy Uh…yeah.  Sorry about the rants. 😛  I’m really bad at being concise, so most of my explanations seem to turn into rants. 😉

Why do I think musicals should be happy and fun?  Well, there’s a precedent for that.  Musicals have all been happy and fun until very recently.  Sure, there have been a few dark ones here and there, like Lost…[Read more]

@rochellaine

Fictional magic is a whole other debate 😛 Though I will say that I grew up reading almost exclusively two types of stories: fantasy novels and missionary stories. As a child I never even thought about the magic in fantasy novels as witchcraft because I knew what real witchcraft was. Having said that, I have given up reading several…[Read more]

@seekjustice Oh yes, I see where you’re coming from.  Hm, I was about to argue that you seem to believe the fantasy world doesn’t have to match up with the Bible, since you like fictional magic, but if I use that argument I’ll have to be on the side that says Carousel is bad.  So…now I have something to think about.

Carousel could have been i…

[Read more]

@valtmy I agree with you, though the thing I tend to go for is realism, rather than darkness or “edginess”. For me, the thing I love about Les Mis is that it shows the plight of people who still live today, both in my society and societies all over the world.

@rochellaine

I guess maybe my problem with it is that I don’t believe God gives second chances (which I’m sure you believe too, so I’m not trying to insinuate that you don’t)

God makes it very clear that death is it. You have to live with your choices for eternity after that. I think Carousel could have been very interesting if he hadn’t died…[Read more]

@rochellaine

I actually think you’d really like the Scarlet Pimpernel. It’s much lighter than Les Mis or ATOTC, no one dies, its got a sweet romance and the characters are already married so there’s no sappy proposal 😛

After that explanation I am left wondering why you like my writing at all. 😀

Well…I could…but we’d be here all day.

@seekjustice There have to be!  Back when we started talking about musicals I don’t remember disagreeing all the time.  I’m going to have a look back at some old Writers’ Corners and see what I can dig up. 😉

I feel funny arguing for this side, since usually I want heroes and heroines I can look up to and am very adamant about that.  But I wi…[Read more]

@valtmy I didn’t like the fact that one of them contained curse words.  I think that was Les Mis.  Other than that there are two reasons.

One: I like musicals where the songs help the plot along, not where the songs are the plot.  Those musicals are too much like opera, where they sing the dialogue.  That’s probably because I like songs you can…[Read more]

@Rochellaine

Are there any musicals we actually agree on???

I already knew how it ended before I watched it and of course I’d read Liliom, so I might have been projecting too much onto it, but I found it difficult to care at all about Julie or Billy. Why was Billy so deadset against getting a job? And why on earth did Julie just put up with…[Read more]

@seekjustice @valtmy If they would just take out that one line (It’s seriously only one line!) about abuse in Carousel, it would be perfectly fine, though still somewhat depressing.

Do you agree, SeekJustice?  Other than that it seems to end well, with Billy telling Julie he loves her, and the daughter finding a friend.

@valtmy 😛

Your definition of a “horrible story” consists of unlikeable characters and depressing storylines?

Uh…pretty much? 😉

Okay, so yeah, Liliom/Carousel has a pretty depressing storyline, and the characters are horrible in Liliom.  The guy who plays Billy(Liliom) in Carousel, Gordon MacRae, is acting at his finest in the role and gives…[Read more]

@valtmy

Pretty much nil.

Its certainly an…interesting story. Many of the problems are fixed in Carousel, but its still a musical that makes me a tad uncomfortable. Okay, a little more than a tad.

@valtmy I know, how could you? In general though, I think they’re both pretty good book adaptions and Hollywood writers would do well to study them.