Away We Go

I am a huge Dave Eggers fan (as many of us are at BGB) so it really didn’t take much to convince me to dash out to my local indie movie theater as soon as Away We Go started showing. This movie met all my expectations. It is quirky, sweet, funny and has a great soundtrack. After the movie, my husband asked me “What was the movie really about?” Upon discussion, we realized that it was about life, being a parent, making decisions on how to raise your kids and that ultimately there is no right answer.

There are five different segments in the movie each of which portrays a family with very different beliefs on family and particularly child-rearing. Some are hilarious, some are pathetic but mostly it demonstrates that you can only do your best and hope that your kids turn out okay. The two main characters, John Krasinski from the Office and Maya Rudolph from SNL are in their mid 30’s, expecting their first child and feel that they just don’t have their shit together. In one of the more poignant scenes of the movie – they are debating whether they are really “fuck-ups” or not. That is one conversation that all of us have had at some point in our lives.

Eggers and his co-author wife, Vendela Vida, have denied that the movie was autobiographical. Even if it is not exactly a story of their lives, I felt that Eggers was in his comfort zone with the themes from his other books: loss of parents, childhood, family, etc.

This is a perfect movie for a date night with your spouse especially if you want to reminisce about that magical yet crazy time in your life when you were pregnant for the first time and trying to figure everything out.

(Heather at I am Fuel… was also charmed by the movie and some excerpts from the soundtrack )

Down the Rabbit Hole

Tim Burton is adapting Alice in Wonderland to the big screen.  Wired takes a first look at the concept art for the film.  Check out Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen below:

The Wild Things

Q: Can I wait to read this?

A: No.  I cannot.

(via Galley Cat)

Tintin

The Elegant Variation notes that the Spielberg produced Tintin movie will be released in Europe 8 weeks! before arriving in the US.  Sacre bleu! In the absence of an actual trailer for the film, someone came up with this:

C’est incredible.  (via Tintinmovie.org)

The Road Watch

The latest news on the film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s On the The Road comes from the always excellent music blog I am Fuel,You Are Friends.  Heather notes that Nick Cave has been tapped to provide the score for the movie.  The post includes a BBC story about the upcoming movie that includes some of Cave’s music for the movie.  Even though this sample doesn’t reveal much, Nick Cave can certainly bring the spooky.  Even spookier, the I am Fuel post that went up on Friday includes a video of a Nick Cave song, Into My Arms, that I hadn’t heard before.  A friend used the song as the first dance at his wedding on Saturday.  Spooky!

Another Children’s Book Hits the Big Screen

I did not see this coming.

Wild Things Trailer

The first trailer is now out for the Spike Jonze/Dave Eggers adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are.  (Many thanks to Dan for providing the link!) The music in the clip is a song by Arcade Fire.  There’s no chance that I won’t be there opening day.  This time next year, Dave Eggers could conceivably be looking at two Academy Awards – best original screenplay and best adapted screenplay.  Just throwing that out there.

Speaking of adapted screenplays, word on the book-to-movie scene is that the Coen Brothers will postpone their adaptation of  The Yiddish Policmen’s Union in favor of bringing a new version of Charles Portis’s True Grit to the screen.

There’s one in all of us

Amazon’s Omnivoracious and Armchair Commentary blogs have word that the Dave Eggers penned/Spike Jonze directed adaption of the children’s classic Where the Wild Things Are is only seven month saway from the screen.  The movie poster, below, makes me giddy. 

Sita Sings The Blues

My favorite movie of 2009 wasn’t at the multiplex, and it didn’t cost $12 to see.  I’ve been checking it out in fits and starts for free on my computer, and it’s so charming that it’s completely worth the hassle that has entailed so far. 

Sita Sings the Blues is billed as “greatest breakup story ever told.”  It’s got everything: romance, comedy, heartbreak, action, dance numbers set to twenties jazz tunes – and its animated!  The movie is based upon the Indian epic The Ramayana.  The film is narrated by three puppets that can’t quite agree on the details of Rama and Sita’s story to hilarious effect.  Interwoven with the classic story is the modern day break-up of the film’s creator, Nina Paley, and her husband.

Along the way, Paley has had some copyright problems with the songs used in the film.  The copyright issues are an interesting story in their own right and are covered in depth at the Sita web site.  

Check out the entire movie for free or download a higher resolution copy (recommended) that you can burn to DVD yourself with the movie maker’s blessing, if you know how to do such things.

A Note for My Mom

Did you see that HBO is making a series out of Alexander McCall Smith’s The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency books?  It’s true.

Slumshark

One of BGB’s all -time favorites, Steven Hall, author of The Raw Shark Texts, has a new blog.  In a recent blog post that I can’t figure out how to link to, Hall revealed that the screenwriter for the early-in-the-works movie adaptation of Raw Shark is Simon Beaufoy.  The screenwriter has had a recent bit of good fortune, having been nominated for an Oscar (and has already won a BAFTA) for his adaptation of Slumdon Millionaire.  Hall says: 

I read Simon’s Raw Shark script over Christmas and had a very productive meeting with producer Pete ‘In Bruges’ Czernin about it last week. God, I’d love to be able to say more about all this, but I really can’t/shouldn’t yet. It is exciting and frightening in equal measure. 

The film Slumdog Millionaire was based on the book Q&A by Vikas Swarup, which Shaft reviewed for BGB way back when.  The soundtrack of the movie featured Sri Lankan rapper M.I.A. who the world will never forget because of that outfit.

What rapper will bring  The Raw Shark Texts soundtrack such infamy? Difficulty: the rapper will need to be British.  The Streets?  Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip? Dizzee Rascal?

The News from Sweden

Reading my favorite Swedish lit blogs yesterday (with generous assistance from Google Translator), I happened across some cool esoteric Scandinavian lit news.

First, a movie is imminent for Stieg Larsson’s international best-seller The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (review). The book was called Men Who Hate Women in Sweden, but it was changed for the US.  The movie will be in Swedish.  I don’t know if the latest from Stokholmwood will make it to the US in subtitles.  From the little on IMdB, it doesn’t look like it.

Here’s the trailer (found thanks to post on Bokhhora with a line that I love – “This year’s autumn semester ends unworthy of blueberry soup…”:

Second, in an apparently unexpected development, Horace Engdahl has stepped down as the Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy.  He will be replaced by author and historian Peter Englund.

The badly translated Swedish lit blog blog reaction to the news is, well, I’m not sure…

“Fleet! I say that like Peter E.,” says Johanna Ö at Bokhora

and

Lisa Jannerling at Bokbloggen says, “I like the contradiction of the whole…Many questions arise. How will we do without Horace? Peter Englund will be able to fill the chamber? Exciting.

I didn’t understand the hubbub until WikiPedia helpfully pointed out that the Swedish Academy “…amongst other business, announces the names of Nobel Prize laureates. The latter makes it arguably one of the most influential literary bodies in the world.”  So there you go.

Short Attention Span Theatre

If you want to find out what all that hub-bub is about the Twilight movie, but you don’t want to read Stephanie Meyer’s long book or shell out the cash for the two-hour movie, behold the Twilight Puppets (via Bokhora):

Curious Case of the Arcade Fire

The new trailer for the upcoming film adaption of Fitzgerald’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button features the song My Body is a Cage by Arcade Fire, which makes the movie a must see.  Fantastic.

Check out the BGB review of Benjamin Button (the story).

Neil Gaiman Talks Coraline the Movie

Persepolis on DVD

I picked up the Persepolis DVD yesterday, having missed it while in theaters.  I was a big fan of Marjane Satrapi’s books (Persepolis and Persepolis 2).  The tone of the movie was much more ethereal than I would have imagined, but very cool all the same.   I was all set to watch the movie in the original French (I am always amazed at how good my French is when I have English subtitles to read), but then I noticed than Iggy Pop did the voice of one of Marjane’s uncles in the new English version.  Gotta go with Iggy.

I feel bad about my gunshot wound

I was looking forward to the movie version of No Country for Old Men. Okay, I’ve been obsessed with the movie version of No Country for Old Men ever since I heard it was in the works and couldn’t wait to see it. I don’t get to the theaters much anymore, but any time my favorite filmmakers adapt a novel by my favorite novelist, they’ll get my $9.50.

I’m on record as saying that this wasn’t Cormac’s finest book. I wouldn’t rate No Country in Cormac McCarthy’s top five, or even eight, novels, but it lent itself exceptionally well to adaptation for the big screen and the character Anton Chigurh was one for the ages. That much was obvious going in.

I couldn’t wait to see how the Coens would do three things:

1) Depict what is really the main character in the story (at least the first half of it): the bleak West Texas landscape;
2) Depict Chigurh, truly one of the most original fictional characters I’ve ever come across; and
3) Be faithful to the tension-building atmosphere Cormac created in the novel. I thought that if they could remain true to the long stretches in the novel without any dialogue, they’d create a masterpiece.

The verdict: the cinematography was austerely gorgeous. Javier Bardem as Chigurh was treeeee-mendous. And the Coens created a masterpiece. (Compare it to Billy Bob Thornton’s adaptation of All the Pretty Horses. It’s not a fair fight.)

When I saw the movie last week it had been more than two years since I read the book, so I couldn’t place every single scene and compare it to how Cormac had written it, but I didn’t much care. By the end of the movie I honestly couldn’t tell where Cormac’s vision ended and the Coens’ began. I mean that as the highest compliment. I thought the ending, which has been criticized elsewhere, was perfect.

So I was thinking about what I wanted to say about this movie and wondering if I could recommend it to someone who hasn’t read the novel or formed a — well, obsession with McCarthy’s fiction, when I read Nora Ephron’s parody in the New Yorker. I think that pretty well answered my question.

Special bonus: If you’re a Coen bros. fan, you may have an experience like I did during the most chilling scene of the movie, the one where Chigurh makes a convenience store clerk call heads-or-tails for his mortal soul. (It’s in the trailer.) I kept having flashbacks to the “No, unless’n round is funny” scene from Raising Arizona. The people sitting around me in the theater couldn’t figure out why I was laughing.

Double-special bonus: my local newspaper reports that John Turturro is working with the Coens on a spin-off of The Big Lebowski, which will explore the character The Jesus.

Lo!

Dana Stevens reviews the movie Beowulf in verse.

Secret History: The Movie

Sorta.  Maud links to the latest word on the byzantine path of Donna Tartt’s novel The Secret History to the big screen.  It looks like a movie will happen later than sooner.  In the mean time, Maud found an homage put together by some kids in Belgium.  The cynical among you may complain that it just looks like a bunch of kids running around in the woods.  Philistines!  This is a dramatization of the end of the novel, although I  think that it is safe to say that there are no spoilers.  Also: Sufjan Stevens provides the sound track.

No Country

The trailer for the Coen Brothers adaption of Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men is giving me the willies.