Winter Guest (1997)

I watched this movie because of Emma Thompson.  Her mother was the lead in the movie but I hadn’t realized how talented she was.  It was based on a play, and and directed by Alan Rickman.  The acting was superb.

I can’t quite remember the plot.  People are unhappy and very sensitive. And it’s cold.  The Winter Guest is death.

To be honest, I disliked this movie.  Watching this was like listening to a person, for whom you have a great deal of respect, who is telling a joke that they have forgotten pieces of; and so they repeat the pieces they remember while you really want to go home and watch “MXC.”

On my shelf II

What I’m watching:

Pirates of the Caribbean – At World’s End

Kaleido Star: New Wings vol. 3

I checked a whole bunch out of the library but I may not watch them:

The Little Mermaid, which I haven’t watched in years. edit: watched

Love Me Tonight, a Jeanette MacDonald movie

Stepford Wives, with Nicole Kidman edit: watched

Strawberry Marshamallow, an anime

Max and Ruby’s Halloween, the rabbit cartoons

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This is what I have checked out:Communion by bell hooks
The Essential Guide to World Comics by Tom Pilcher, Brad Brooks
Touching the Void by Joe Simpson
Sheroes: Bold, Brash and Absolutely Unabashed Superwomen by Varla Ventura

How to Catch a Star

How to Catch a Star (2004) written and illustrated by Oliver Jeffers is a charming fable about stars and finding friends. It begins, “Once there was a boy and the boy loved stars very much.” It reminded me a lot of James Thurber’s classic, Many Moons. The illustrations are slyly humorous and I would be happy to read it aloud a hundred times, if need be.

Hamlet Manga

It’s a shojo manga styled version of Shakespeare’s Hamlet – complete with excerpts from speeches.

At first, I was uncertain about the Hamlet character – he seemed awfully young and fragile. But this choice also made the King more threatening. For the first time, I believed that Hamlet might actually have been killed before he exposed the murderer. Poor wispy Ophelia, she is such a nice girl.  It’s more pathetic than tragic when she dies.

I did not think the SF accouterments were necessary to the story, especially since the characters were dressed in pseudo-Medieval outfits for the most part.

It was actually an enjoyable and successful experiment, I think.  The story is much less weighted by literary and theatrical history, and turns into a cat-and-mouse thriller.

Copyright Comic

Bound by Law by Keith Aoki, James Boyle and Jennifer Jenkins is a fun comic book and very informative, I thought.  It’s a comic book about copyright law: fair use, infringement and so on.  It’s one of the more balanced presentations I’ve read.  Most people seem to be quite stirred up no matter what side they are on.

It’s about documentary film making and I thought it might be a bit dry but it wasn’t.   I appreciated it.  And it gave me something to think about.

Luv-Luv…be careful what you wish for

A while back, I was wishing for more grown-up manga than shojo manga. While it’s not exactly what I was hoping for, I seem to have more-or-less gotten what I wished for.

Aurora Publishing is releasing a new line of josei manga as Luv Luv comics. I’m not sure why baby-talk signifies mature titles. While they are careful to say that it’s more than just about sex, that seems to be a big component. They’ve got three collections out so far. They seem to be starting with short comics.

Love for Desserts has a cute concept – she loves sweets so much she eats whipped cream for lunch. He hates sweets and being sweet until he gets a whipped cream kiss from her.

But I think I like the cover for Voice for Love best.

Well. I am going to buy them. I’ll have to see what I think.

Golden Compass (2007)

Disclaimer: I have never read Philip Pullman’s series. The people I watched it with were huge fans of the book and they had a completely different experience. I saw this in the cinema, I’m just slow.

Lyra (Dakota Richards), an orphan, sets out on a quest to recover her friend Roger (Ben Walker) who may have been abducted by the dreaded “gobblers.” Needless to say, she meets a slew of exotic characters and is in constant danger.

On her journey, she learns more about the magical dust her uncle Lord Asrael (Daniel Craig) has been investigating. She also meets Lee Scoresby (Sam Elliot) who is a larger than life home-spun sage.

At one point, Lyra is taken under the wing of the glamorous Mrs. Coulter (Nicole Kidman).

N. B. I was wrong about the trailer. Mrs. Coulter is not a witch. Serafina (Eva Green) is one of the witches, and she is good.

The scenes with Lyra and the Armored Bear (Ian McKellen) were my favorite parts, since they seemed to be equals in knowledge and purpose. I wonder if some girls will grow up wanting a polar bear warrior instead of a pony.

The reviews I had read before watching it lamented the simplification of the plot and characters. I felt there were more than enough characters who arrived and gave us an info-dump.

When Lyra is adventuring on her own, it was exciting and fun. It was also nice to see another heroine added to the fantasy adventure canon. It was beautiful to look at and well-conceived world. I am sorry that it was not more successful because I would have enjoyed a sequel.

Clue of the Linoleum Lederhosen

Cover via Amazon

Clue of the Linoleum Lederhosen by M. T. Anderson is a sequel to Whales on Stilts which I haven’t read. Anderson also wrote Feed and The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing. This book is like a juvenile version of the Eyre Affair about kids’ series books. Part of the fun for an older reader is figuring out which series is being parodied.

The story is about Katie (adventurer & mystery solver), Jasper Dash (a whiz kid like Tom Swift), and Lilly (who is ordinary) who go on vacation and run into other literary stars of kids’ book series. Quintuplets (5 Little Peppers?) are abducted and it is up to the heroes and heroines to find them. The Cutsey Dell Twins (Sweet Valley High) are too vacuous and self-centered to do much. The Manley Boys (Hardy Boys) are too stupid and too close to being bullies to accomplish much.

There are many strange characters at the hotel and most of them have clearly missed the exit to reality a couple of hundred miles back. Outrageous stuff happens on nearly every page and it’s hard to keep up with all the reversals and reveals and mortal peril.

Something to fix…

XKCD was exceptionally funny today. Not that I can relate or anything.

Avi’s Silent Movie

Cover of Silent Movie

Avi’s picture book Silent Movie (illustrated by C. B. Mordan) is quite a treat for movie lovers and sequential art fans.

According to the title page, the illustrations are ink on clay-board, and to my uninformed eye, it looks like woodcut. It is a stark experience at first but I grew to think of it as the flickering of the early films.

The story is melodramatic and entirely appropriate. A young boy and his mother voyage to New York City to join their father and husband. But very little goes as expected….