GWENDA BOND

The Return of Veronica Mars Talk (movie edition!)

So, things are different now and we don't do the TV gabfest around here so much, but I feel the need to create a spoilery haven for discussion of the movie (which we just watched on Amazon streaming, and I will probably watch again later!), if people want to.

Ye olde Veronica Mars Talk returns.

Let me know what you thought in the comments, if you're so inclined.

(Nonphony) Preorder Mania!

So, I think it's time for a little preorder contest for THE WOKEN GODS, which is out on September 3, less than a month! This is a contest where you win IF you preorder, basically. And I even made a video. If you are not the sort of person who delights in watching awkward author videos (or if you are!), the details are all below too.

 

 

The details...

Things to know about The Woken Gods relevant to the contest:

• The book takes place in a world where the gods of ancient mythology awoke five years earlier, and is set in a transformed Washington, D.C. The magic of the gods has unpredictable effects on technology, which means more advanced forms of it often don't work in places like D.C.
• For centuries, the Society of the Sun (no longer secret and headquartered in the Library of Congress) has been collecting relics, objects that hold divine magic and have specific effects. For instance, in the book there's a shoe owned by Vidarr from Norse mythology which bestows invisibility on the wearer and anyone they're touching.

The contest:

• Pre-order anytime by midnight August 15 (UK or US) and you will receive a shiny The Woken Gods postcard with a relic and its story typed by me on a typewriter and signed. The first 25 people (and maybe a few more if I go nuts) will get a custom relic and can even pick their pantheon, and I'll choose a god and type up the specific relic for them. Everyone else will get a shiny postcard with one of a few relic stories I'll create specifically for this. Old school! Typewritten! In the mail!
• Email proof of purchase of book or e-book to WokenGodsATgmailDOTcom, snipping out any private details and including your snail mail address, and we're good. If you order from an indie or local bookstore, I'll take your word for it*, and if you send me a picture I'll tweet about them (yay bookstores). Ordering links**:

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Indiebound | Powells

I wanted to do something a little bit different to reflect the book, and hopefully you guys are into it. And please do share the video and spread the word, if you're so inclined.

Also, hey, the book is  starting to get some early reviews. Here's one from the weekend that made me happy:

Ink Scratchers: "I can't recommend The Woken Gods enough, the world, the writing, the action and the characters are all so awesome. This is a unique concept that you have to try even if you aren't a fan of the YA mythology genre. This book is political thriller mixed with mythology which doesn't sound like it should work... yet strangely they go together like cookies and cream."

*Unless you go out of your way to seem like a grifter...which seems unlikely, but just caveating.

**If you don't want the postal relic, but preorder anyway, well, that is just fine too, obviously. As is purchasing when it's out (or asking your library to order it). But I wanted to offer a fun thank you.

#Topper Party

So TCM had a mini-Cary Grant marathon the other day, and one of the films included was Topper (which is also available on DVD, of course). Justine and I were bandying our love for it around with Ari, who had set up a timer but never seen it... And then Justine had the marvelous idea of live tweeting a simultaneous watch party from our respective corners of the world.

I'm stealing Scott's post about the relevant details, because lazy! but also busy! Here goes:

Next week I’m going to be live-tweeting an old movie with various friends around the world (namely, @justinelavaworm, @readingincolor, and @gwenda (ed. note from G--@scottwesterfeld is the other relevant twitter handle, of course). In other words, we’ll all be putting the DVD in at the same time, watching it in sync, and tweeting VERY witty things. Or just crapping on about Cary Grant’s amazing car, more likely. Why are we doing this? Because it seemed like fun, and @readingincolor hadn’t seen it yet.

The movie is called Topper, and is a screwball comedy about dying in a car accident and then messing with your banker as a ghost. (Seriously. People laughed at some weird stuff back then.)

If you’re on the twitter machine, please feel free to join in.

Time: 8:30PM US EST
Date: Tuesday Dec 27
(Sydney Time: 12:30PM Wed Dec 28)
Hashtag: #Topper

Join in if you like. It should be fun. After all, what is twitter for if not live tweeting old movies?

Something Adorable In Denmark

I usually try and indulge my zooborns love elsewhere, but I feel like this is one video I'll need to watch again and again in stressful moments.

Baby buckethead the polar bear at the Aalborg Zoo:

Casting Games Elsewhere

Today I'm over at Heroes & Heartbreakers talking about The Hunger Games movie and casting Katniss:

Is there anything* that sets the heart racing—whether in hope, terror, or outrage—faster than the news that a movie version of a favorite book is in the works? Magnify this in intensity if: (a) a series is involved and the question’s still open whether multiple books will get smushed into one movie; (b) the movie(s) are likely to be unfaithful (oh, why even bother, Dark Is Rising and Blood and Chocolate adaptations?); and/or (c) it seems likely the movie might actually, y’know, get made, and actors’ names start floating around.

...and it goes on from there. Please do drop by and share your thoughts. I'm especially interested in any answers to my last question: Who should play President Snow? (Which I think is the next most important role to cast, obviously. And the boys: Peeta and Haymitch. And I guess Gale, too. I GUESS.)

Electronic Brains, Dream Mash-Up No. 1*

Today I am busy with many things, including an overdue auction critique, so this will be short and silly.

Remember when Kelly was on her blog tour and she proposed combining Bringing Up Baby with paranormal romance? This is kind of like that.

As a sidenote to a conversation at World Fantasy with Ted and Christopher, I realized that the computers in Desk Set and WarGames are--more or less--the same computer.

Joshua

meets

EMERAC.

Would you like to play a game, Bunny?

*An occasional series.

It Came From the Woods

A short movie for M.T. Anderson's* The Suburb Beyond the Stars. Complete hilarity ensues:

The Suburb Beyond the Stars from Sang Lee on Vimeo.

(Via Leda, a brave soul who lives in the land of Vermont.)

*That is one spiffy website.

Crush Your Enemies

Pure brilliance.

Via Karen Meisner.

Sidebar

We saw Avatar, which I enjoyed for the most part but don't plan to talk about in depth. So pretty, and yes, some of the visuals really did remind me of Nnedi Okorafor's fabulous novel Zahrah the Windseeker, which I highly recommend if you haven't read it. Anyway, my favorite in movie moment came near the end during protag's rousing speech*:

*NOT A SPOILER BECAUSE THERE IS ALWAYS A ROUSING SPEECH. OR FIVE.

ME: This speech is pretty weak.

::on screen crowd rouses to frenzy::

CHRISTOPHER: The translator is improving it.

Hearted

Whip It is such a fun movie, and with a heart as big as Drew Barrymore's seems to be. What's not to like? I am sad that our local team's season just ended.

But, hey, let's come up with derby girl names anyway. I'm liking Candy Carnage and Erin Breakovitch at the moment.

R.I.P.

John Hughes. His influence lives on.

EW names his 20 key movies; Mark Kozelek remembers a phone conversation; and a long-time pen pal remembers her long-distance friend.

Watching

I usually skim the Washington Post capsule reviews on DVD releases to prioritize new stuff into my Netflix queue. Imagine my surprise to see a science fiction movie I'd never even heard of, Push, being released on DVD this week and having gotten a recommendation.

Perhaps I enjoyed this so much because it's completely my kind of story (involving several of my bulletproof kinks, as it were*). The kind with interesting world-building and lots of cool powers and fighty fights and it's set in Hong Kong. And, in fact, it feels like a Hong Kong action movie in all the good ways. Dakota Fanning is a little revelation in this one. Most science fiction movies are really bad, if you haven't noticed, and this one isn't.

Checking out the Rotten Tomatoes (22 percent fresh, ouch!), the complaints about this seem to be that people didn't get it, felt it was too convoluted to follow, etc. Some said it was silly, but I'd go with fun. And we wonder why smarter science fiction movies don't get made, or don't get much of a sell. Anyway, we liked it a whole bunch. And the concept would make a great young adult series too.

*dystopian, secret one-name sinister organization, awesome and evocatively named powers, fights that have brains behind their choreography

Updated: Charlie Jane likes it too--so there!

Admission (Updated)

This year the part of the Oscars I was most looking forward to: Today. The Fug.

(Not that I don't love the Oscars, and actually I'm really pleased with the winners, it's just some years it's hard to care. I look at it as leaving room for the years when you need to drink champers, wear a tiara, and make a fuss. Perhaps I'm just sad that the fabulousness of the first ... Oscar Party, oh lo many years ago now, will never be equaled.)

(What was Daniel Day-Lewis' wife/girlfriendRebecca Miller wearing? WOW. Just, WOW.)

Update: Fug on the dress. (I hadn't seen the shoes!)

Absolutely Charming

I love this.

(Via Erin.)

Dance Off!

The only way to lick one's sadness over missing AWP after finding out that there was also an Anthropologie sale on...

Bad Movie: Spiderman the Third

The first installment in a (fingers crossed) occasional series now that we are Netflixing again. This probably should have started with Transformers, but Spiderman 3 will do nicely.

Leaving aside the fact that None of It Makes Sense, the worst (and best) things about the movie:

1. Emo Bangs! Seriously, who goes evil by way of Emo Bangs?

2. The Emo Bangs turn Spidey into a jiving '70s guy -- I so wish I was making this up. How did they convince Maguire to do this? Sam Raimi must have pictures of something really disturbing... but how it could be more disturbing than this sequence, I really don't know.

3. James Franco's Harry has a butler who seems--for lack of a better word--special and who gives such a rousing speech about love and mad boy love that I could Not Stop Laughing. Christopher's convinced this guy is a random hobo who won the role in a contest using a public library computer.

4. They're all supposed to be fighting over Mary Jane, but boys? Get a room.

5. Brilliant new storytelling! Inconsistent Characterization = Plot and Thinly Veiled Pretext = Plot Point.

See how I took the high road? I didn't even mention Maguire's baby double chin. (Not that I'm advocating for the current insane cultural skeleton fetish, but if Dunst showed up like this they'd either have her killed or digitally edit the excess away and she'd still never work again.)

Wheelman

We recently re-upped our Netflix subscription (big TV and TV season disappointing and all) and have mostly seen terrible movies as a result. (Tranformers = How can you screw up giant fighting robots so badly?) On the other hand, we also finally watched the miniseries of Battlestar Gallactica, which was better than we'd hoped. (Maybe better for having watched most of the series? We found ourselves wishing that Starbuck had kept her messy teeth instead of getting caps before the series though.)

Last night, we had some friends over to watch a movie about Scottish cyclist Graeme Obry called The Flying Scotsman. Cycling is one of those sports that seems to come off well on film, usually -- perhaps this is because the sport isn't such a big deal here so when movies get made about cyclists it's because the people involved actually care. The thing I liked best about this movie -- besides cutie Jonny Lee Miller's understated, natural performance as Obry -- was that it resisted the Good Guy Vs. Bad Guy format that seems to be the default for American movies about sports. This movie is about someone trying to accomplish an amazing, radical athletic feat, but the obstacle is not some evil jerky cyclist from another cohort. Instead, the obstacle is Obry himself (and his mental illness). Bonus: Billy Boyd (Fool of a Took) is physically incapable of playing anything less than lovable and charming as Obry's friend and manager.

Recommended for non-cyclists, too (and definitely for you Jenny D). You can watch the trailer here. Velodromes are awesome!

Pretty Sure

That this is what it looks like in Christopher's head at night:

(Thanks, Erik!)

PSA

Do not see the movie Sunshine. You won't like it. It's terrible. It's stupid. It's SO bad.

I say: "How? Why? So confused."

Kelly says: "It follows the exact plot of Event Horizon."

Gavin says: "This is the dumbest film ever made."

Christopher says: "Event Horizon is a stupid stupid movie, but comparing the two is a disservice to Event Horizon."

We are all in agreement here.

More Book Group.

Didn't This Happen?

I'm pretty sure I remember this night from my junior year in college...

(Via Paul Collins.) More on K. Gordon Murray here.

Catching a plane very early, hope to do some e-mail en route or on arrival or sometime soon. But now I will finish packing and the last of the birthday Veuve Clicquot. Ah, life she is a marvel.

Word Pictures

Two movie trailers of interest are out on the street. You can watch the one for the adaptation of Holly Black's Spiderwick Chronicles here. With such a Neverending Story vibe, how can it possibly go wrong? (That kid is a new Bastian!)

The other is for the adaptation of Karen Joy Fowler's The Jane Austen Book Club. I'll admit to some concerns based on it, but maybe it'll still be fun. (Is Prudie actually sleeping with a teenager? But Maria Bello*... ) (Via Gavin.)

I'll see them both, of course.

*I'll actually love Maria Bello forever (or at least until I see this movie) because I read an interview with her once where they asked what she'd like to end up doing and she said running a used bookstore.

Christopher's Wild Ride

New video camera + bicycle =

Experimental Video

So, my mostly-spontaneous irresponsible purchase of the day was a basic point-and-shoot digital video camera at Target. This is because sometimes I want to make fun videos, but have no way to do so (other than the LCDless, soundless digital camera). Now I am a camera-armed menace.

Anyway, I want to play around with it some this weekend, but the world, her canvas is too large. You'd just end up with a video of the dogs. So I want a theme, a topic, a word, a concept, a suggestion around which to organize this first, exploratory video. And, well, yeah, the dogs will be in it anyway, I'm sure. So, ideas? Something simple, flexible and fun is preferable.

One of our first little videos, I'm happy to report, featured Christopher flipping off a Hummer -- already with the Brotherhood 2.0 homage.

(Also, on a more technical note, there's the software that came with the thing and iMovie -- I've never been able to figure out how to save iMovie vids so they are exportable to YouTube. Possible/impossible and how?)

Wowzilla

The Host is the best movie I've seen in AGES. I can't even remember the last time that I went into a theater with expectations so high and they were exceeded and then some.

Don't hesitate: see this movie.

Movie of the Year?

West Bank Story -- I so want to see this based on that clip.

Pssst. We're all over here. I'm not sure why I'm still up.

Sweet, Sweet Still-Beating Hearts

Jeff Ford went to see Apocalypto, and offers his take (undoubtedly better than the movie*). The bottom line is probably this:

If you're not partial to the sight of hearts being ripped out while still beating and being shown to their previous owners, you might not want to check this out.

*Which I will see, absolutely, not because I particularly think I'll like it or it'll be good**, but because I've been reading a lot about that part of the world during that period and I want to admire the make-up and costuming and spectacle of it.

**Actually, it sounds like it probably is good in the way you go see a "good movie," but not in the way I necessarily mean here.

Stranger Than Fiction

Wow, two winners in a row -- my faith in Hollywood's about to be restored or something. Definitely go see this movie. The cast is uniformly great and understated (and this includes Dustin Hoffman!). It's smart and plays against expectation and especially traditional Hollywood movie expectation. It is not, I repeat NOT, a comedy; that's some bait and switch they're trying with the trailer. Although, maybe it ultimately is a comedy, in the larger sense. I'm still thinking about it, but it does a goodly number of things right. And, as C said, it feels like the people making it cared.

Plus, beautiful '70s homage eye candy set dressing.

Finally, A Good Magic Movie

I thought The Prestige was wonderful -- meticulous in detail and technique and sophisticated in its con game. (C and I both saw through the major plot points -- neither of us having read Priest's book -- early on, but the beauty of a trick, like so many things, is in the process, so long as the end holds together. Here it mostly does.) Plus: Hugh Jackman. It's so nice to see him in a role where you can tell just how good he is. Bale acquits himself fine, but Jackman manages to define each different version of himself subtly, most markedly with his double. And he seems effortless, a rare natural actor who can perform equally well on film and on stage. I'll say no more to avoid spoilers for those who haven't seen the movie. But, as someone who loves, loves, loves magic, I tell you to go see this, without reservation. Tesla!

It was one of the most enjoyable two hours at the movies I've had in a long time and made me want to see more of them in the theater (and in general). It made me want to see a movie every week. Even the previews we had were interesting (especially the Emma Thompson/Will Ferrell movie -- I will SO see Stranger Than Fiction). Next up are probably The Illusionist and Renaissance (looks beautiful), not necessarily in that order. Other recommendations? (No war movies, please; just a preference, don't try to change it.)