Check out this NPR transcript on the character Long Duk Dong. I was reading Eric Nakamura’s blog over at Giant Robot and just had to post a link to it.
Gosh, I can’t believe Gedde shops at Wal-Mart!
After a friend dedicated a Tears for Fears music video on my blog, I began to wonder what music videos have libraries or librarians in them? I could only come up with two. (They’re both from the 80s and pictured below.) However, I could of sworn I saw a snippet of a Vampire Weekend video with a library backdrop.
*Tears for Fears Head Over Heels video. A little stalkerish, but still a nice song. (Although in my mind I’ve replaced Roland Orzabal with Gerard Butler.)
*Ray Parker Jr. Ghostbusters video. A stereotypical idea of the librarian in a haunted library. (I’m wondering if the haunted library stereotype came from this movie.)
Penelope is based on a screenplay by veteran tv playwright Leslie Caveny, and has a book by Marilyn Kaye based on this screenplay. (Book pictured left.) This urban fairytale could best be described as a reversed Beauty and the Beast chick-flick. A curse is placed on the rich aristocratic Wilhem family, after their son slights the local witches daughter. The curse entails that the next born Wilhem girl will have a face like a pig. Fast forward to present day and Penelope Wilhem (Christina Ricci) is born, the first girl heir to the Wilhem family in decades. She is told the only way to break the curse is to find “one of her own kind” to love her. In an attempt to break the curse her parents (Catherine O’Hara and Richard E. Grant) subject her to a plethora of blue-blooded suitors. However, the suitors often run for their lives after seeing Penelope’s snouted face. In an attempt to get Penelope’s picture a nosey reporter (Peter Dinklage) hires a destitute gambler (James McAvoy) to act as a pseudo suitor. Even though he never sees Penelope, the destitute gambler begins to gain a connection with her. However, when Penelope proposes marriage the destitute gambler turns her down. Broken hearted, Penelope runs away from home to the see the world and finds more than she ever expected.
Christina Ricci does a great job playing an innocent doe eyed oddity, who likes herself just
the way she is no matter what obstacles she faces. Thus, because her character is so endearing one forgets the snout and begins to really see how beautiful Ricci is. Also, can I just say James McAvoy is pure hotness in this movie! (BTW can’t wait to see him in Wanted with Angelina Jolie.) His blue eyes literally pierce your soul. In addition, the costuming and settings in the movie were equally beautiful, and had a lighter Tim Burton feel. (I’d compare it to Big Fish) However, I did get a little confused over the location settings. It looked like they shot some scenes in New York and others in London. This is definitely not a dude movie, but will appeal to teenage girls and women who love magical romantic fairy-tales with fabulous outfits. See the trailer below!
Author Blake Nelson conducted an interview with director Gus Van Sant about the movie Paranoid Park in the Sunday New York Times. Here’s the link to the article.
*Imagine here me speaking in valley girl*
“At first I was like huh, what? Omigod, Blake Nelson is the author of Paranoid Park what’s he doing interviewing Gus Van Sant? Isn’t that like J.R.R. Tolkein interviewing Peter Jackson?”
Then I thought a bit about interviewing and writing. As an amateur blogger/writer it’s pretty neat to interview someone. There’s an indescribable excitment, thrill, and sense of cache after interviewing someone you respect. Interviewing brings a new layer to a book, movie, or personality. You get an inside scoop on the stories behind the stories. On that note, I’m looking forward to the SBBT.
Really bad dubs. It hurts my ears when I hear really bad dubs for movies that originated in a different country. Main case in point being anime from Japan.
I was watching Howl’s Moving Castle this weekend and saw the preview for My Neighbor Totoro. The way they said “Totoro” made my skin crawl. Suffice it to say, I watched Howl’s Moving Castle with the original Japanese voice cast and English subtitles. Funny how it’s okay for me to listen to Japanese pronunciation of western words but not vice versa.
I heart Hayao Miyazaki’s films. I’m ashamed to say I’ve never read the novels by Diana Wynne Jones on which some of his anime is based. I think that’s a short term goal for 2008, read something by Diana Wynne Jones before the Miyazaki movie comes out. Part of the reason why I want to read Howl’s Moving Castle is that there was quite a bit of ambiguity and not enough closure for my taste in the anime version. I know that’s asking for a lot and why mess with near perfection, but I have to say that it’s pretty cool that a movie version actually makes me want to read the book. I’m usually in the school of the book is way better than the movie and reading the book is far more fulfilling in the long run, so I tend to read the book first and lament the missed parts in the movie. Who knows, maybe this is a positive new trend for me, watch the movie then read the book. Seems to have worked in getting me hooked on Harry Potter.
This week’s PW Children’s Bookshelf includes an article about The Luxe. Looks like there will be four books in the series, with the second, Rumors, coming next summer.
There’s also a starred review of Libba Bray’s The Sweet Far Thing. (And I thought Long May She Reign was long.) Maybe Libba—jeez, I say this as if I know her, when I really only read her books and her blog—should’ve taken a page from Christopher Paolini’s, er, book and turned it into a cycle instead of a trilogy. (Best comment I’ve read about this: “I probably shouldn’t admit this in cyberspace, but I gotta say that Christopher Paolini is not exactly a favorite of mine. Every time I hear him interviewed I sort of get this powerful urge to kick him in the shins.” And there’s more, so go read the rest.) Anyway, The Sweet Far Thing is probably the book I’m most looking forward to that’ll be published in the next two months.
2008 book I’m most looking forward to (so far)? Not that anyone’s asked, but it’s this one.
Genius idea of the week: Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki READ posters.
The “Veronica Mars” season 4 mini-pilot. Don’t tell me what happens! I still haven’t seen season 3.
On NPR, “Novels You Wish a Teacher Would Assign,” about the finalists for the National Book Award in Young People’s Literature.
The Teens’ Top Ten winners were announced last week.
Wired’s manga special has been getting lots of attention, but I found the Daniel H. Pink article that precedes it, “Japan, Ink: Inside the Manga Industrial Complex,” much more interesting.
You’ve got about three more weeks to nominate books for the Cybils.
And finally, the Winter Blog Blast Tour is coming next week! Chasing Ray’s got the full schedule, but here’s what you can expect from us:
Monday - Perry Moore
Tuesday - Autumn Cornwell
Wednesday - Julie Halpern
Thursday - Paul Volponi
Friday - Lily Archer
Saturday - Blake Nelson
At first glance the Harunos seem like a typical Japanese family living in the countryside. However, upon close inspection this family is a ragtag gang of eccentric characters. The mother Yoshiko (Takahiro Sato) is an animator trying to perfect her craft, while her husband Nobuo (Tomokazu Miura) is a professional hypnotist. Their daughter Sachiko (Maya Banno) is constantly plagued by a larger version of herself, while their son Hajime (Takahiro Sato) is infatuated with the new girl Aoi (Anna Tsuchiya from Kamikaze Girls). In addition, Yoshiko’s brother Ayano (Tadanobu Asano from Ichi the Killer) is a music producer who drops by to tell a strange childhood story involving eggs, poop, and tattooed gangsters. Lastly, there’s Grandpa (Tatsuya Gasuyin) who is an retired animator with rather eccentric habits, like making up love haikus about inanimate objects. Overall, Taste of Tea is an enjoyable romp through the quirky world created by writer/director Katsuhito Ishii.
Sang-Min is a total player who enjoys oogling women in any setting. Seo Bo-eun is an average 16 year-old girl whom everyone thinks is cute. While Seo Bo-eun’s grandfather is in the hospital he makes a dying request that she marry Sang-Min. Even though they have known each other since childhood, Seo Bo-eun is not attracted to Sang-Min and thinks he’s a perverted womanizer. However, to appease her grandfather Seo Bo-eun and Sang-Min agree to an arranged marriage. As soon as they are married Seo Bo-eun begins to lead a double love life. While Sang-Min spends their honeymoon alone hitting on women. Will this couple survive a loveless marriage? Or will it all end up in a hot mess? To find out watch My Little Bride a semi-unconventional romantic-comedy.
My quick take on “Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker”: if you’re not a kid or a teenage girl, just read the book. Or the graphic novel adaptation. Because, really, the only reason to watch it is Alex Pettyfer. He’s the perfect Alex Rider (read: really cute!).
If you’ve read the book, you know what to expect. The movie is pretty faithful to the book. Not surprising, since Anthony Horowitz, who wrote the book, also wrote the screenplay. For those unfamiliar with the story, Alex Rider thought he was just a regular 14-year-old boy living in London. Until the day the police came to tell him his uncle was dead. Alex had lived with his uncle, Ian Rider, since he was a baby (his parents died in a plane crash). Now the authorities were saying that Ian was dead, killed in a car accident because he wasn’t wearing his seatbelt. But Alex knew his uncle, and he knew there was no way Ian Rider would have been in a car without his seatbelt fastened. But why would they lie about something like this?
That’s when Alex started noticing things, like the strange men at his uncle’s funeral, and how all the files from his uncle’s home office were being stolen, not to mention the bullet holes in his uncle’s car. Turns out, Ian Rider wasn’t a banker like Alex thought he was. He was a spy for MI-6, British Intelligence. And now MI-6 has seen Alex in action, and they want him to complete his uncle’s last mission, the one that got him killed.
*cough* Now that I’ve basically finished my booktalk… It’s not so much that “Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker” is a bad movie as much as I don’t think it lives up to its potential. There’s a lot of action and cool stunts, but not much else. Kids will like it, girls (okay, and women) will enjoy looking at Alex Pettyfer, but from an adult perspective, the rest of the movie is mediocre and unsatisfying. This is definitely no “The Bourne Identity.” And an overly tan Mickey Rourke with blue eye shadow is just wrong, even if he is the villain.
Josh Schwartz, creator of “The O.C” has two new shows on TV this fall, “Chuck” and “Gossip Girl.” I don’t watch anywhere near enough television to do an adequate job reviewing them, but here’s my $0.02.
Chuck: Chuck receives an e-mail that leaves him privy to government secrets and the target of the NSA and CIA, who both want their information back. Unfortunately for these agencies, all their intel is no longer on a computer, but in the head of a nerd: Chuck, who works at Buy More as the supervisor of a Nerd Herd (think Best Buy’s Geek Squad).
Okay, so it’s totally implausible and some of the effects could have been better, but it was still fun. Not as immediately “OMG! What happens next?”-intriguing as previous shows I’ve gotten hooked on, but good enough and fun enough that I will watch tape the next couple episodes. Why is it that all the new shows I want to watch are on when I’m at work and can’t watch them?
Watch the pilot episode of “Chuck” on Yahoo! (Updated: download expired 
)
Gossip Girl: You know the story. Based on the books by Cecily von Ziegesar about rich kids in New York and the anonymous, all-knowing Gossip Girl who makes public their every move.
It was okay. I wouldn’t say it was bad, it was just kind of boring (but maybe that’s because I vaguely knew what was going to happen because I read the book). Though I suppose boring=bad, because it could have been bad in a good, campy way, but just struck me as dull and not as titillating as I thought a teen show with sex, drugs, and booze would be. Except for that first Blair/Nate scene, it seemed more like cool kids showing off how cool they are. Regardless, I won’t be watching “Gossip Girl” on TV, since I don’t care what happens plot-wise or character-wise, as most of the characters were bland and dull, with the exceptions of Jenny and that icky, creepy Chuck. Ewww. Jackie, feel free to keep on hating it, because it’s so not as good as VMars.
And, huh, I never expected to hear a Cold War Kids song on television.
Download the pilot episode of “Gossip Girl” from iTunes.
My So-Called Gossipy Life (New York Times article about an informal panel of 7th graders thoughts on the show).
The Winner: “Chuck,” hands down.
I think I’ve already mentioned that I’m a sucker for YA spy books, used to be a big “Alias” fan (well, seasons 1 and 2, anyway, even though I kept watching even after it got all sucky), and only read one Gossip Girl novel, so it’s not a big surprise that I prefer “Chuck”. But even discounting the spy/action preference, I’d still go with “Chuck”. It’s got a sense of humor, doesn’t take itself so seriously, and is occasionally over the top in a good way. “Gossip Girl,” on the other hand, occasionally over the top in a bad way and just not fun. And Zachary Levi as Chuck (the one from “Chuck”, not GG) is cuter and more crushworthy than any of the guys in “Gossip Girl.” Yes, I am that shallow.
I’m anticipating the release of the movie adaptation of Jon Krakauer’s book Into the Wild this Friday. The first time I heard about this particular book was when I was tag team booktalking with two other librarians at a middle school on Maui. One of the other librarians gave such a rousing booktalk on this book that as soon as I got back to my library I checked it out.
The basic story is Jon Krakauer’s piecing together of Christopher McCandless‘ last year of life preceding his death in 1992. What was this intelligent well educated young man from a privileged background doing dead in an abandoned bus in Denali National Park? How had he gotten there? Was there foul play involved or a hideous accident?
Why am I so excited about this movie? Perhaps because Sean Penn is directing it. Maybe because Eddie Vedder is on the soundtrack. Or maybe the Into the Wild movie website resonates well with me. Maybe it’s because I have a little bit of the need for adventure like Christopher McCandless in me. Whatever the reason, I can’t wait to see this flick.
One last thing, don’t confuse this book with the other book Into the Wild of the Warrior series by Erin Hunter about warrior cat clans.
