Non-Christian related movies

oh, yes... I forgot musicals....
"Chicago" was wonderful... great performances throughout... John C Reilly was surprisingly great.... the movie version of "Les Miserables" was very good as well. Anne Hathaway's performance of "I dreamed a dream" will bring tears to your eyes... just among the most heartfelt, compelling performances of a song ever. Right up there with Dame Judi Dench singing "Send in the Clowns" in whatever play that was.. don't remember offhand.

This version...

I never saw either Chicago or Les Miserables, but one of my favorites along that line is the 2004 version of The Phantom of the Opera. I have both that and a 25th-anniversary stage performance on the Blu-Ray format, but I'd really love to see the movie get a 4K upgrade. The colors and sets are so bold and vibrant, I can't even imagine what they would be like at four times the resolution. The soundtrack is off the wall as well. People condemned Andrew Lloyd Webber back then, for hiring Gerard Butler since he had no vocal training...but if you ask me, he knocked it out of the park.

No, I've never seen that. I've heard the title in passing a few times, but that's about it.

OK, I just finished watching The Matrix Reloaded on 4K, having not seen it in probably ten years or better. To be honest, I don't think its as good as the original, but it was still a lot of fun. I do think the freeway sequence and Neo's fight with the Merovingian's goons made the story feel stretched a little too long. Certain moments with the first film made me feel the same way, like Neo and Trinity's rescue of Morpheus taking at least 10 full minutes, or longer. I'm usually patient with these kinds of things, but sometimes less really is more.

Anyway, back to the sequel: the only other downside to it that I saw, was a lack of color grading that matched what had been established in the original picture. The 1999 effort was basically split into three color schemes - blue for the real world, and either yellow or green for the Matrix itself. But in this one, almost everything was some shade of blue the majority of the time. There were some exceptions, like the scene with the Oracle and Smith's clones, plus Neo's chat with the Architect. But overall, I didn't remember the color differences being so drastic.

The UHD image was still gorgeous though; I loved the attention to detail and things like clothes, skin textures, and special effects. The so-called "Burly Brawl" still looks a bit like a bad PlayStation game, but I think that was due to a pair of things - tech limits of the time and the directors wanting to push that concept too far. We didn't need to see Neo fighting 200 Smiths to get the point across - half that number would've been enough. Thankfully, most of that sequence is accomplished in close and medium shots, so only the widest ones look compromised.

Overall, I give this one a solid 8/10. Next up is Revolutions (probably in a few days; I don't want to rush myself).

ahh... you should do so....

Chicago is a happy, funny, "bouncy" sort of musical, with surprisingly good performances from all the cast... Queen Latifah as "Big Momma"... it's just a wonderful movie

Les Miserables is much like what you described in "Phantom...." who knew that Anne Hathaway could sing? Or any of the others? Russel Crowe has a band, I think, but Hugh Jackman? It's just great, all the way around....

I loved Chicago. And after you posted about Anne's version of "I had a Dream," I went and listened to it. I was very impressed. .

I watched Gigi and Nate last night, and quite enjoyed this based-very-loosely-on-a-true-story telling of a young man
who found hope and a reason to live in his service companion, a Capuchin monkey, after becoming a quadriplegic.

After watching it I wondered about the monkey, whether it was CGI or not, and discovered
it was a mix of using a real monkey and a digital monkey, though I really could not tell.

Really enjoyed seeing Marcia Gay Harden, Jim Belushi, and Diane Ladd in this...

The lead was quite good also, and the monkey was, of course, adorable .

Magenta, do you like k drama too? I'm Not a Robot, Mask (2015), and The Legend of the Blue Sea used to be my favorite's.

Magenta,
Not many can compare to a crash landing on you. Castaway Diva is unique. I thought Beautiful Love, Wonderful Life was great, but it's a long 100 episodes, but I liked the theme of redemption. Healer is a classic with Ji Wook. clean with passion for now, perfume, and the dude in me all had good plots and are funny.

Be careful, though. I had to stop watching them because I never knew what I was walking into shamanism, ghosts, or Buddhism. Some of them seemed fine, but then they got too violent. C dramas are usually even worse. Poison revenge, sad endings.

But what I did find interesting was the supposedly atheist Chinese believe in many of the same things that we believe yes, there is a heaven and a hell; yes, there are three of knowledge and internal life.

The main difference is that they believe an angel can be evil and a demon can be good.

I can't say I have seen any C drama... I do like the innocence of some of the k drama though it gets a bit cloying at times, like watching teenagers fall in love at the end of every episode when they do the highlights... awww, it is cute but a bit much sometimes though I do certainly prefer it to anything much more explicit. I started watching one that was so different from that, really dark and too graphic, I could not watch it, and even Attorney Woo was not to my liking LOL though I gave it a second chance because my co-worker really liked it. I especially enjoy the edge-of-campiness brought to some like My Demon, and yes, I realize their beliefs can run quite a gamut... years ago my daughter and I watched a whole lotta lot of anime series because she was really into it and even taught herself the language as a result of her love of all things Japanese. She would even spend time translating manga and putting it online so others could enjoy the stories without having to learn the language, which she even studied post secondary for a year and aced... though all that was years ago as she has been working in an animal hospital for well over ten years by now. Any who, anime was like that, too. Thank you for the recommendations, I will be sure to check them out if they are on Netflix! I took a bit of a break from designing late last year and so k dramas were my go-to for a while (until about June-July) though I have been going great guns with my panels again now. I am working on my second one today and one day a few days ago I started three! LOL I am currently trying out this figure to see how and if it "goes."

So that's how you design them. It looks great.

Thanks! I have a few other "ladies" on the panel also but they are all "hidden" while I work with that one... I liked the first one I tried also because she kind of had her back turned and I had her looking toward the text, but I did not like her hair so was trying to find something/someone else's to sub for it LOL. She may not work at all. She;s tooo... Grecian. Then there is also this one



I did change the colour of her head scarf from red... and will need to swap out the bare shoulder for something more modest...

This is the one I did earlier today... @TabinRivCA will like it, I think... D

I worked with a man last night also!!! LOL



Can you tell I have gotten lazy with my frames? Ugh.
From Romans 6:19-21 You used to offer your body in slavery to impurity and to escalating wickedness when you were slaves to sin. What fruit did you reap at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? The outcome of those things is death.

I like the look of this one... I'll change her eyes and blend the shoulder somehow... @daisyseesthesun

Heh, this one is now CMY! Cyan, magenta, yellow. Those are my primary colours at work... RGB/CMY

for pictures with women, I always prefer the ones with a Diane flare who never look directly into the camera. the scarf definitely goes
that second one looks good i especially like the eyes
I like the last one. It shows the outward damage sin does to the body. It also gives a Vincent van Gogh feel.

A Diane flare? I do not know what you mean... princess Diana? I was making all my women look at the person looking at them... for a long time none of them really smiled either LOL it was just a rather steady gaze heh. I would change the eyes to make them do that... in fact the eyes are almost always the very first thing I change. I used a woman from "Lost" for this one (with eyes swapped out):


Romans 12:6-8 We have different gifts according to the grace given us. If one’s gift is prophecy, let him use it in proportion to his faith; if it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; 8if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is giving, let him give generously; if it is leading, let him lead with diligence; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully.
She (Maggie Grace) originally looked like this



I will reverse the face to have the light coming from the verse side... makes sense to me!
I don't always start with a colour scheme in mind but for this one before I started it I wanted to do a pink and yellow one

A number of my panels have the lead actress from some show I've watched... this was
a k drama actress but when I changed her eyes she no longer looked Asian


John 3:17-18
This is the young woman from "a good girl's guide to murder" (eyes swapped out)


Matthew 16:15-17

ohh you designed these like the woman is talking right to the person directly, it makes it even more real with the human eyes

That's interesting you should say that... Tabin said the same thing, as if the person shown is speaking the words in the panel (she wants to hear a male voice). I never thought of it like that. Tabs encourages me to design with more men, but to be honest I am more comfortable designing with woman, and also, one time rather early on, a panel just spoke to me so personally, the woman was so happy in the image proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ... with women, I used to do a lot of work constructing the backgrounds, flowers and butterflies seemed a fair choice but for men what was I to use? Guns and cars??? LOL And yes, using very arty faces as I did a lot earlier on, changing the eyes gave them more detail, which I wanted, no chunky gunky eyes for me. I see a lot of ai generated images now, and often the eyes are not great, so swapping them out with real ones is almost a necessity. Sometime it is hard to find the right angle or expression but I just keep plugging away, trying this pair and that. I put a real person's eyes on that "Van Gough" guy too...


Acts 13:38-39
Leaving her eyes closed seemed appropriate but I did change her mouth...

Mabey Stormy skys Clouds lakes mountains trees would be a good background for men.