February’s First Friday Favourites is brought to you by the letter “F” and two fantastic furry felines! That’s four “f” words in a row and three more for fun, an alliteration and profanity lover’s dream!
Inspired by one of my old planners by Pipsticks & Workman, these are things I’m currently loving:
WATCHING:
Shows:
Last year, Matt and I blazed through Season 1 of The Night Agent, another great series on Netflix. They just released Season 2 and we got through all ten episodes within a week. While I was disappointed with the lack of romantic tension between the two main characters – whom I thought were great together in the first season – it was still an exhilarating watch.
Movies:
After finding this book at Value Village, our kids and I wanted to rewatch the movie version of How to Train Your Dragon. I enjoyed it the first time we watched it and wanted to see whether it was as good as my memory served.
It was!
I think one of the reasons I liked it before was because of Jay Baruchel‘s voice as Hiccup. Baruchel has a very distinctive voice and while some may find it slightly annoying, I am a fan. Maybe it’s because he’s a Canadian that I have a soft spot for him. But I also loved America’s America Ferrera‘s portrayal of his love interest, Astrid. When the casting directors do a great job hiring the right actors for the role, it can really make a difference, even for a cartoon movie!
Another thing we discovered is how much they portray the dragons like cats, which is probably another reason why I liked it so much before and still do. Toothless reminds us a lot of our black kitty, Sweet Chili, with his big eyes and sleek black body!
Rather than renting it, we purchased the trilogy and can now watch it anytime we’re feeling like we need an escape from reality.
READING:
As mentioned above and previously, I started reading Cressida Cowell’s How to Train Your Dragon book to Brighton recently. It’s surprising how different the book is from the cinematic version. I have not looked into whether Cressida Cowell helped write the screen version or not, but it’s something that has piqued my curiosity for sure. If you have not read the first in this series and have only watched the movie, I highly recommend giving it a read.
Obviously, the book series was successful enough to have eleven more books written, an animated trilogy and now another live action version coming out in June of this year! Although the book was written more than twenty years ago, the story is uplifting and universal and makes for a great bedtime read.
When I read to our kids, I try my best to do voices for each character as how I think they’d sound. Since we had seen the movie before and I already knew how other people had portrayed them, I sort of did my version of those voices.
But after finishing Book 1, one thing of note is the lack of female characters in the book. There is one female dragon and Hiccup’s mother is alive and well but other than those two, all the rest are male. It got a bit hard to do loud, gruff voices right before sending Brighton off to dreamland. Thank goodness Matt makes us a nightly tea to sip on before our bedtime.
I love that Cressida Cowell also did the illustrations for these books! But I’m glad that I found the hardcover version of the book and not the paperback one. This set on Amazon just doesn’t look as good!
Another few points of interest I came across were in her “About the Author”. First the fact that she has three children, one named Clementine – Blythe’s middle name – and second that they had two cats, which we used to have. That could explain all the cat-like characteristics of the dragons. Third, that she is married to Simon Cowell, but not that Simon Cowell.
That is all for this month’s favourites. The cold weather has put a damper on my food love lately. Hope it is warm where you are and you enjoy some comfort food this weekend! Happy Friday to you!
