The Phantom of the Opera

The story of The Phantom of the Opera is best know thanks to the Musical that goes by the same name, The Phantom of the Opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber. This book was written by the French author, Gaston Leroux and was published in 1911 (The English version), but it was first published in 1910 in the city of Paris.

This books tells the story of Erik or the masked "phantom" of the Paris Opera House and how he fell in love with the young Swedish soprano, Christine Daaé, while he made her believe that he was the angel of music her father had promised to send once he had died.

This book has been adapted to many films, stage productions and a Tony Award-Winning musical. The movie that I think gets closer to the book would be the 1925 versions, which was the first movie based on "The Phantom of the Opera". Some people may prefer the musical adaptation of the book, which is alright as long as we're talking about the stage musical and not the 2004 movie. In my opinion the stage musical is way better than the 2004 movie, and I absolutely recommend people to watch the 25th anniversary performance of "The Phantom of the Opera", that was released in DVD back in February 2012.

Romeo & Juliet

"For never was a story of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo."

- William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

Romeo and Juliet, the tragic story written by William Shakespeare about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths reconcile their feuding families. This story has been around for quite sometime, and I'm sure everyone has heard something about or even watched the movie adaptations of Romeo and Juliet.

Personally my favorite is the 1968 adaptation with Leonard Whiting as Romeo and Olivia Hussey as Juliet. I love this movie because I think is the one that goes more to the book and the performances by Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey are wonderful, thought I also like the 1996 version with Leonardo DiCaprio as Romeo and Claire Danes as Juliet.as Romeo and Claire Danes as Juliet.