Anyone else getting *ridicuously* excited about ECLIPSE? I am about to fangirl out. Seriously. It’s my fave book of the four and I’m soooo ready for the movie! I’ll be going in my Team Edward t-shirt with the BFF in her Team Jacob shirt. Yep, we’re besties who agree to disagree on teams. 🙂
Category: movies
Post up at Teen Fiction Cafe
Today is my day at Teen Fiction Cafe! Yay! I posted about going to see 17 Again with Zac Efron. I had SO much fun. Head on over and leave a comment! 🙂
Meryl Streep bringing Dewey to the big screen
Variety reported that Meryl Streep has been cast to play Vicki Myron in Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World.
Move over, Marley! Cats are back! 😀
I loved this book and can’t wait to see it on the big screen. The movie was picked up by New Line Cinema. (Thanks to Alex for correcting my earlier mistake!)
In other news, I’ve got the lovely Courtney Sheinmel on my blog tomorrow. Check back for that!
Weekend movies
Saturday was busy—I was adjusting to getting back home after my trip and editing. That night, I decided okay, I’m going to watch The Golden Compass since I completely missed it in theaters and *know* I’ll love it. I was super-happy that I finally had time to watch it. Very excited about my fav actress and the dashing Daniel Craig.
I get to an hour and forty minutes in and they start to play the “this is the end of the movie, get ready to exit the theater music.” I freaking jump out of my recliner and scream (thereby scaring parents and brother who almost dropped his soda) at the TV. Oh. My. Goddess. Was that the worst moving ending ever?! Plot and camera shots were just WEIRD. The last shot of lovely NK we see is of the back of her head, we wonder if Lyra will make it to her dad in time and did the poor kids get their daemons back? Sure, we know all of this from reading the books but I want to S-E-E it on film.
I Googled The Subtle Knife and it’s *supposed* to come out in 2009, but I’m not sure if that’ll happen with Nicole’s baby on the way and the domestic box office figures. Argh.
My brother was like, “Dude, it’s just a movie, calm down.” But I was pissed. Still am, actually. (He’d be mad, too, if he read the book.)
Then I watched one of my favorite comedies with Josh Duhamel and Kate Bosworth—Win a Date with Tad Hamilton. Silly, I know, I know. But I love it. Plus, if you watch the extras, Josh moons the camera. 🙂 Maybe rent it just for that…
A weekend of horse movies
Ahhh, Viggo.
Never a better chick flick than something from Hallmark Entertainment.
And Zac Efron with a horse.
Over the weekend, I felt like I needed horsey inspiration before I dive into my next book in my series for Aladdin MIX. So, I got three horse movies, two of which I’ve never seen before.
The first, The Derby Stallion, came out in 2005 and stars Zac Efron. The film won several indie awards, but honestly, I just didn’t get it. The story was decent, but the odd camera angles and the fact that Zac couldn’t ride well, made for lots of cut away shots and not much horse action.
Next, I watched The Long Shot, from Hallmark Entertainment. It’s a made for TV movie and really, really good! There were lots of correctly done dressage scenes, which was perfect since dressage is my weakest area. Plus, I really liked Julie Benz and I don’t think I’ve seen her in anything else.
Finally, I watched Hidalgo (Viggo Mortensen, yum!) and loved it. It’s the second time I’ve seen it and I liked it more this time. The main horse, Hidalgo, is a Mustang and since my new YA is about Mustangs, it was good timing.
Anyone else use movies to give you inspiration for your latest manuscript?
A Raisin in the Sun with Sean Combs
Okay, so I’d heard lots of buzz for A Raisin in the Sun on ABC and I watched it last night. Sean Combs took the role of Walter Younger, Audra McDonald was Ruth and Phylicia Rashad played Lena. Sean talked up the film on Oprah a few days ago and it sounded like a good film.
I’d read the play a couple of times before and was excited to see the movie, even though three hours sounded like a looong running time.
That said, I loved it. Phylicia and Audra were brilliant although that seemed to be a bit of trouble for Sean. I kept watching and thinking, okay, Sean can’t act well enough to make me feel the sympathy I had for Walter when I read the play. But in the movie, I didn’t feel sorry for Sean’s version of Walter until almost the end. It had to be daunting to be opposite Phylicia and Audra, but Sean’s acting got in the way of me fully enjoying every aspect of the movie. (Sorry, Diddy!)
Anyone else see it? Or, if you’ve read the book, does it make you want to see the movie?
Books to Movies in 2009 and beyond
So, The Spiderwick Chronicles released yesterday. Did anyone see it yet? I haven’t, but I’m excited to go.
TSC got me thinking about other children’s books that could be coming to the big screen in 2009 and beyond. I did some digging and here are a few of the possibilities:
Life of Pi (book by Yann Martel)
Girl of the Moment (book by Lizabeth Zindel)
Beastly (book by Alex Flinn)
Ramona (We’re probably all familiar with Ramona Quimby!)
Almost Home (book by Jessica Blank)
The Alchemyst (book by Michael Scott)
The Lightning Thief (book by Rick Riordan)
Pretty exciting, huh? I adored Beastly and it would make a fantastic movie for sure.
Know of any others that I didn’t mention? When I was searching, I noticed that a lot of upcoming kids movies had one glaring theme–girl power. Yep, girls are taking bigger, stronger roles and being adventurers, princesses and cowgirls. Yay for girls doing it all!
Also, I wanted to thank everyone who e-mailed me or found me through my contact page since The Writer article came out. Thanks so much for your kind words and I’m glad to have made so many new contacts over the past week because of it. 🙂
TGIF! What are your weekend plans? I’ve got to edit and update my poor, ignored contact roster. I’ve got a thousand sticky notes with people’s names and info that haven’t made it into the book. Sigh.
Writer Strike Resumes & Golden Compass Reviews
First, the talks to end the five week writer strike have ended with no resolution. Sigh. I feel bad for everyone all around. The boxoffice has been slow this year (again) and this is an awful time for this to be happening.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071208/ap_en_mo/hollywood_labor
And, the reviews for The Golden Compass are in. The reviews averaged out to be a B-, but I’m not too concerned. Tons of Hollywood movies go so-so reviews (Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End) and were boxoffice blockbusters. We’ll see. If you go, come tell us what you thought!
http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1808718640/critic
On Monday, I’ll post an update on the class of 2k9. Plus, some very exciting news!
Amazon, Chasing Blue update and signing offer from tack a shop
Thank you all so much for sharing my excitement about finding Take the Reins on Amazon yesterday. Yes, the pub date is off but at least it’s there in all of it’s paperback glory.
Also, I wanted to share that on Saturday, I visited a lovely upscale tackshop downtown. I struck up a conversation with the store owner she excitedly offered to host a book signing in her shop next fall. 🙂 I was thrilled about that and wrote her a thank you note as a follow up.
Chasing Blue, my NaNoNovel, sits at 21k and I hope to get at least 1500 words down today. Except, well, it’s sweeps month and every afternoon at 3 I must break for General Hospital. Lots of drama this month! 🙂
How’s everyone else doing with the NaNoNovel? Are you going to type during the Thanksgiving holiday or are you building in some extra words now?
PS- Anyone else dying to see Beowulf and The Golden Compass? Both look fantastic, especially GC. Hopefully, it will turn into a Lord of the Rings type of series.
PPS- Thanks to Em for you-know-what yesterday. 🙂
Jessica Burkhart 