Watch Along: Roméo et Juliette (part 1/2)

Watch along with me here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KO22zFuldwM&feature=related

Fair warning. It's in French. And while I'm not fluent, I can understand a bit and I'm very familiar with the plot of Shakespeare's play. So unless you speak more French than I do, be prepared to take what I give you and be confused when I am. As far as I know, this may be the worst decision of my life. Adaptations of R and J tend to be on the...really, really bad side. But I like French musicals and I like Shakespeare, so I'm gonna go for it.

Alright so we start off with a really long monologue with a cheesy burning heart thingymabobber in the background. After a LOT of credits. How many people worked on this thing? The opener is also really long and really cheesy. It's something about love stories and the moon and the 'night and the guitars'...wait, what? Never mind. I'll skip along for you. It's pretty much the same thing from here on out. Love, blood, and rhetoric. (+2 nerd points if you caught the reference) I'm literally going to skip forward on this thing. Just bear with me and imagine the chorus of Romeo and Juliet being done twice as long at less than half the speed and--
ACK. WHO'S THE CREEPY LADY? WHY DOES SHE LOOK LIKE A VAMPIRE? IS THAT...Juliet? Maybe? I certainly hope not. She freaks me out. Her eyes are...weird.
BLUE LIGHTS UP. Those are the Montagues. I'm pretty damn sure of it. Blue and Red is always the color scheme. And if my calculations are correct...
DRAMATIC RED LIGHT. Ha! I was right! They run in a jerky formation at each other. Or...stomp. Or...wait, it's over?

That was disappointing. Let's keep going, I guess. I want to get to something. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KJk0KZjTdI&feature=related

GAH! Why is Creepy Lady still there? Get her away from me! What exactly IS the purpose of her continously looking up at something? Is this a motif? Wait...that's just the end of the last video.
Ahem. Anyway. Moving on. LIGHTS. A couple people run towards each other. The set looks like a Lego castle set.  And GET OUT OF MY FACE CREEPY LADY. Are you the chorus? Are you the angel of doom or something? I don't get you...
She waves her hand. Some pop-y music plays and everyone's...laughing. Okay, so we're on the streets of Verona. I guess. Makes as much sense as anything else.
Then a dude comes in and...dear god that's a shiny coat. That's a really shiny coat. With lots of bling. And fur. He must be Escalus. They bow to him. No fighting yet. But I'm in lurve with his voice. And his hair. I don't know why. He's being creepy.
Aaaand his shirt is sparkly too. Why am I not suprised? It's hard to understand what they're saying, but it's something about living in Verona and there seems to be some tension. Creepy Lady flaps her sleeves. Seriously, who is she? This song is growing on me. I sincerely hope the rest of the soundtrack keeps up with it. And if that's Romeo withe the boy-band frosted tips...kill me now. I'm assuming the redhead is Lady C, and she's freaking me out a bit.
And STOP IT Creepy Lady. WHO. ARE. YOU? The more I look, the more ridiculous the costumes are. There's a guy in a blue jacket that seemes to be poofed out into spikes. If that jacket doesn't feature prominently, I will be sorely disappointed.
Creepy Lady keeps existing. I'm going to call her Lilly from now on. It suits her and I have no other ideas. I kinda like this song. And Escalus's voice. I hope he's in here more. Lilly flaps around some more. Get off the stage and let the man sing. I'd really like that. You look like the Mummy meets the Bride of Frankenstein in a blender with stupid sleeves. Escalus has cooler sleeves than you do. Take that.
Now the music is all sad. NOW IT'S ANGRY. The red shirt guy is going cray-cray. Someone backhand-springs across the stage. Lilly fwooshes around. There's a bunch of screaming. Someone tell me what's happening.
Does this mean...oooh. Are we going to fight now? Jolly good. I love a good skirmish. This is getting intense. I might need some popcorn. And now there's two dudes in the middle. The servants from the beginning of the play, I presume. Maybe Lord Capulet and Lord Montague. It's Freaky Beard vs. Lance Bass. I'm intrigued. There's some highly choreographed dancing while they walk dramatically towards each other.  Freaky Beard gives Lance Bass a 'you got served' gesture and Lance Bass tackles him.
Escalus is back! Yay! Didn't he just leave five seconds ago...nah, forget it. He yells and flails his arms a bit and Lilly stands there looking devious. I still don't like her. It's going to take a lot for that to change.
And my thoughts on the color scheme were right. It's always blue and red. He says he's pardoning them this once, but if it happens one more time, the prince is gonna go medieval on 'em. And then it's over.

Thoughts: I'm gonna give this a chance. Prince Escalus better come back and Lilly better prove herself. Peace out.

I have a poll

Look at the shiny poll. If you want me to do more articles, vote on it.

Here's a preview sketch of Edward IV to bribe you.

Quick Updates: Guess what today is? *evil grin*

It's the anniversary of the Battle of Bosworth Field! And I didn't know it until I checked Twitter! And that's a sad say for me... And I forgot to wear my Richard III shoes. I have a slight obsession, if you haven't noticed. So happy Richmond Day to you all. I've gotta go to rehersals.

Bloody Mary Sue reads...IVANHOE: Part 1-ish

Sorry for the um...not so frequent updates. I was trying to work on something about Tudor history books, but instead, another topic has captured my attention.

Ivanhoe.

I picked up Ivanhoe while looking for the Hobbit at the library. I've always been meaning to read it for some odd reason or another and there it was, only checked out three times in the past five or six years. I know I was supposed to do some Holinshed, but frankly, I don't think I could entertain you.

So Ivanhoe. We start out with some pretty descriptions of England in the 12th century, which is nice. However, I grow to resent it after three pages. I kind of want to skip it, but I can't without a certain amount of guilt say I've read Ivanhoe and not read the first pages. There are a lot of descriptions in here. Boy, are there a lot of descriptions. Descriptions. Descriptions. Clothes. Franklins. There's something about the Normans and the Saxons that you probably don't need to know except the Normans are French and everybody speaks French because the Normans pwnd the Saxons.
Oh. And clothes.
There's these guys. They're the first human contact we've had. Their names are Gurth and Wamba and already I'm entertained. It's partly the names, partly the fact that the description is over for now. Because it comes back a paragraph later. Did I mention how much description there is? Because there's a lot. And it's about clothes again. Gurth and Wamba stop to insult a swine-herd for no discernable reason (I'm not kidding). Gurth calls his wolf, Fangs. I'm getting slightly more interested.
So then a priest, a Templar, and a parson are riding through the woods, this is starting to sound like the beginning of a bad joke, and the chapter ends there.

Thoughts: There better not be more description. If I have to hear one more word about someone's pants, I'm going to kill someone. But keept the ridiculous names and wolf-calling coming. I'm okay with that.

NaNoWriMo is eating my soul and it isn't even November

For those of you who weren't led here by my absolutely glorious hyperlinking from my NaNoWiMo forum sig, I have been a devout NaNoer for two years since I was dragged to my local library for a kickoff in 2009.
You think I'd be more familiar with writing historical fiction, being to author of a blog such as this. Alas, my only attempt came in 4th grade with a wildly inaccurate story about an Italian monarchy in unspecified-time-period-that-looks-a-bit-like-the-ealry-1800s-if-you-squint. It was about an assassin and a princess and I haven't looked back since. (Seeing as I didn't and still don't know much about post-renaissance Italy, the reasoning behind this adventure still baffles me)
I decided I'd tackle some more...familiar territory in 2011. Medieval England should be easy, I fatally thought as I decided to update my novel info page. This year, it's "Mockery King of Snow", a novel about the imprisonment of Richard II. I have 50,000 words to write about this.

Damn.

SO. I have sequestered myself to my brand-spankin'-new favorites folder with the articles about him I scavanged from endless nights stalking around Google and the piles of books about the Medieval world strewn about my house.
Also: PLOTTING. Which has, in the past, been a notoriously dirty word. I never plot until I have to, a habit I have to break soon or I'll never get this done. So far, the plotting I've managed could maybe take up the first...sixth of the novel.
This should be easier with an established historical figure. But here I am, mapping out his relationship with his father until my brain is dripping out my ears (lovely visual there). Not to mention the fact that Half Price only had ONE. BOOK. ABOUT RICHARD II. Wedged between more books about the Tudors than I could ever read. I need to make a post about that...hmm.
But I've got until November. Then I'm dead. For now, I need to get through the Grapes of Wrath. (It helps if you imagine everyone with Irish accents).

I swear I'm going to do webcomics eventually

I'm just an extremely easily distracted person, ya know? I have a bunch of scripts for things lying around and some odd sketches (including a request for Richard II I did for my bored friend once that may never see the light of day), but maybe I'll leave you with some of the character designs I've been working on. I admit, I was originally going to do a graphic novel of Holinshed, but then I read the thing and realized it would probably be more trouble than it's worth. So instead, I'm doing a side project with Shakespeare's histories.

Yes, I know they're blue. These are just blue prints *rimshot* for actual drawings. Today, I'll leave you with graphic novel Richard III. I personally refer to this particular picture as 'white beardless Jafar'. You'll see why.

See why?

So I got a Twitter

I know I haven't got many readers yet, but if you want to keep up on the details of my bloggers block, my attempts at NaNoWriMo, or some snarky nerdiness, you can follow @BloodyMarySue on Twitter and let the geeky fun begin. I've finally moved out of the 14th century and succumbed to Twitter. Edward the Confessor save us all.