(Trailer) The Kitchen Counter Cooking School by Kathleen Flinn

From the lady who brought us this.

I'm two chapters in. So far: Two thumbs WAY up.

Unfamiliar Fishes Teaser

She was on the Daily Show.

Ladies and Gentlemen: Sarah Vowell:

                           

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Exclusive - Sarah Vowell Extended Interview Pt. 1
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook

                                                       

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Exclusive - Sarah Vowell Extended Interview Pt. 2
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook

                           

Hmmm....

Ramona And Beezus Trailer

thoughts?


PS: I'm reading. I promise. Things happen slower with an infant in the house. But Sweet Mother of Abraham Lincoln it's a good book. Just you wait.

The Fantastic Mr. Fox by Roald Dahl

I feel, in the spirit of full disclosure, that I should admit how much I adore Roald Dahl. He’s dry and witty, his writing is tight. His plots have morals without sugar-coating the immorality of (often) more than half of the characters...and even his heroes aren’t always clear-cut Good Guys.

Take Mr. Fox. He’s a thief. Yes, he’s stealing to feed his family, and he’s a fox so it’s assumed that that’s what he’d do...but he’s still a thief. And when it’s pointed out to him he rationalizes that it’s the only way to feed his family. It’s steal or starve to death. And after all, the people from whom they are stealing are three Very Bad Men, so it’s really not harmful.

And that’s the gist of it, really: three awful farmers (and to hear Dahl tell it it’s amazing they manage to have farms, employees, and spouses) get fed up with the fox stealing from them nightly and set out to do something about it. Namely: kill the fox. They chase Mr. Fox into his hole with his family and, when shooting and digging prove not clever enough, decide to starve him out.

I won’t tell you how it ends, except to remind you of the title of the book. It’s a little chapter book, it would take barely an afternoon for an adult to read, but could be spread out over a week for a young reader. I wouldn’t hold back from giving this to your kids to read, either. Certainly before the movie comes out. Dahl doesn’t sugar coat things, but he doesn’t discount virtue, either. It’s a worthy read.

Wes Anderson loves it so much that he’s written a screenplay and directed a stop-action film based on the book. From the trailer and the interview it appears that he’s given more story to the story, but that’s to be expected: a direct cinematic translation would be either full length and boring or thirty minutes and interesting. Staying true to Dahl’s vision is the trick, but I feel if anyone, Anderson is the man for the job.

Interview here:  

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120416136 

(there’s also an amusing anecdote regarding Anderson’s desire to shoot a sci-fi space movie on location at the end)

And Trailer:

Before It's Too Late

Read Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin.

Actually. Read EVERYTHING by Ira Levin.

Trust me.

Then see Rosemary's Baby with the incomparable Ruth Gordon. Realize that the book is better but the movie is still awesome.

And then cross your fingers and pray to whatever God you believe in that Michael Bay's remake either dies a quiet death or is so awesome that it makes the book look like crap. OR that he realizes NO ONE can be Ruth Gordon except Ruth Gordon so he decides to adapt Son Of Rosemary, since Ira Levin already went there.

Coraline, by Neil Gaiman...vs. Coraline screenplay and direction by Henry Selick

Ok - first, a common misconception - Tim Burton had nothing to do with this movie...except probably he was at the premier and watched it because the team who did do this movie worked with him on The Nightmare Before Christmas.

I'm just going to post up the trailer instead of writing an overview because it'll pretty much cover that.



Now, a little book vs. movie.

The book is excellent. It's short and readable in a few hours for most adults. Children could take a few days depending on their willingness to put it down and do important other things like going to sleep. It's not illustrated, but Coraline's blue hair is described in great detail, as is her love of colorful fun clothes and her obvious boredom in their new flat. The book skips a lot of development for the secondary characters and dives straight into the main plot of the book: looking for excitement and attention from the distracted adults around her, Coraline goes looking for adventured and finds herself wooed by the Other Mother and Father. She quickly finds herself sucked in, and then trapped, and then in a game with the Other Mother to win back her life and the spirits of three lost children she meets in the Other House. It's suspenseful and creepy and a page turner. A must-read.

The movie is better. It is film-adaptation at its best. Selick took an already amazing piece of fiction and fleshed it out. It was already a stage musical, so I really can't be sure how much of the difference is attributed to Selick and how much to the stage scriptwriters -- but I do know that the movie is the darkest version of the three (book, stage, film) and that can be directly attributed to Selick.

The secondary characters have larger parts to play - presumably so that the audience is aware of just how different the Real World is from the Other World. Wybie is completely created for a viewing audience (not sure if he's in the play) - neither he nor his grandmother appear in the book. Sometimes, the addition of a random new character feels random. In this case, however, he's someone Coraline's own age that she can relate to, and he gives back story that is missing from the book. When he shows up in the Other World...well that just adds to the scariness and suspense. The voice of the cat (Keith David) is perfect. Indescribably so. Actually, all of the casting is spot-on.

Two notes about the film that are not plot/character related, but which add to the overall atmosphere:

First, the music. In addition to a catchy little song by They Might Be Giants (who originally wrote songs for the entire movie, but when the tone turned away from the Musical and became darker and (I presume) truer to the book they only used one) Selick retained the talents of a Hungarian children’s choir to sing the background music. It’s chilling and haunting and perfection.

Second: the film is also entirely stop-motion. They made use of puppets and sets and filmed the entire thing in 3D. If you have the opportunity, that is the way to see it. (I’ve seen both 3D and flat.) The use of models and puppets over straight CGI adds a dimension of “reality” that -yes- adds to the creepiness.

Pick a drizzly, cold day to read the book. And then wait for a drizzly cold night and watch the movie. I guarantee chills.

Bonus:

HERE
(click enter site and it'll take you there)

Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

I re-read this (and some other) classic children’s books during my two months “bed rest” and I enjoyed it. To clarify before you start jumping to conclusions - I just read this one, and not Through The Looking Glass, which came next and had the Jabberwocky in it.

Alice starts off being spectacularly bored by her older sister, as any child would be on a beautiful afternoon when there are more interesting things to do than read a book...so she drifts off for a minute until she is startled awake by the White Rabbit. I’m going to assume you know the story. Everyone does.

It’s not surprising that as I read I heard the soft voice and saw the cartoony characters that Disney put on the screen decades ago. And then I realized something when I was about halfway through the book…it had been Disneyfied! Lewis Carroll was on (HAD to have been, but I haven’t done the research. Forgive me) drugs. Opium, maybe? The caterpillar was. And it’s the only way to explain the baby turning into a pig (left out by Disney.)

I was also struck by how RUDE all of the adults were and how creepy everyone else was. I’ve had some weird dreams lately (yay hormones) but Wonderland puts them all the shame. Which is why the reader is never quite sure if Alice dreams it all or if it actually happens - which is one of the common threads I’ve found in the books that last: where the author decides that the reader is smart enough to figure it out.

That doesn’t mean that this book isn’t dated, because it is. Who curtseys anymore, when they’re not meeting the queen? The language and the lessons place it squarely in the place and time in which it was written, but that only adds to the magic and mystery of Wonderland. A lost little girl speaking a language that sounds like English but which isn’t as familiar as our own English encountering people who in turn are speaking an even less sensical version of the language. If you think too hard on it your brain might turn to mush.

It’s a short little book, and filled with lovely woodblock illustrations - I do recommend reading it before heading to the theatre to see the Tim Burton version. Relying on Disney as the yardstick against which to measure it...well, that will only leave you wanting.


Click here for the trailer of what could be the best possible cinematic interpretation.

This is only slightly related to the book, it's more of a family drama in which wonderland plays a role, but I watched it and I feel that everyone should.

Private: The Series

Oh...my... I'm going to be sucked in. You know it. I read all the Gossip Girl and now I watch the show religiously...

Private is being made into a tv show.

Public Enemies, the Trailer

I'm about a third of the way through this bad boy...and if the movie is half as good as the book (and with that cast, how can it not be?) it's going to be AWESOME.