It’s So Classic Blog Party: Obsessive Love: Far from the Madding Crowd

Unrequited love is a theme in Thomas Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd, but what I most love about it is the powerful, steadfast devotion of Gabriel Oaks. The mild-mannered sheep farmer proposes to the neighboring farm girl, Bathsheba Everdeen, only for her to reject him. She doesn’t love him and uses his station (as...

Why do we look?

You ever watch one of those movies that disturbs you just enough to want to go back and dig around in its innards? Figure out what about it caused you to walk away thinking about it? And have it stick in your head? I have been watching “film noir” movies lately. Don’t ask me why,...

Male Kibbe Types

I know at least one person wants to see these, so here we go. 😉 The same principle applies to men as women, in terms of what Kibbe means by “yang” (angularity) and “yin” (softness) to the bones and flesh. I am using classic and modern celebrities, because he did not have enough examples of...

Which Classic Actress Shares Your Body Type?

I thought I’d do something different on this blog for a change, since I’ve been studying David Kibbe’s body types. Like most women, I want to look good. I do not always have a natural sense of what looks good on me. I know what I like, but not what suits me. So, Kibbe’s 13...

Fact-Checking The Spanish Princess: Episode Five

I have mixed feelings about this show. It has good moments when it is historically accurate, then it abruptly veers into “Wait, what?!?!?” territory. As a Tudor novelist, I know how hard it is to keep to the facts without becoming predictable. You must create drama. Unless you want to invent fictional characters and have...

Fact-Checking The Spanish Princess: Episode 3

What's true and what's not in the third episode of Starz' The Spanish Princess?

The Symbolism of Notre Dame

I have to admit, the last few days haven’t been the greatest. But the crowning glory was Notre Dame engulfed in flames. It’s hard to explain why it caused me to burst into tears, but it did. Notre Dame is a symbol of France. It’s symbolic of the hundreds of people who have worked on...

Dumbo: Choosing Heroism

This contains spoilers for Dumbo. I have seen mixed reviews for Dumbo, which saddens me, because in my opinion Tim Burton has done something extraordinary. He’s given an animal “autonomy,” which in a literary sense means “the right to self-govern” and control his own story. Dumbo is not just at the mercy of events in...

Chasing Fantasies: Gone With the Wind

While we remember Scarlett, Melanie is the true heart and soul of Gone With the Wind.