I Am Number Four: New Trailer

woot woot! this is looking better and better.

related:
I Was a Teenage Alien

Quip Pics

sometimes spreadsheets and powerpoints aren't enough for me, you know? as much as i love the usual infographics, i think even simple clip art is trying to tell us something. back in 2006, i experimented with a little 'truth in clip art' presentation. it seemed to go over well, so i came back for more a couple of weeks ago.

i hope i don't ruin microsoft for you.

more than one way to Skin a cast

when word got out last week that a buffy feature was going ahead without joss whedon at the helm, joss had a couple of words on the subject. his response was honest, and cynical, and witty - all the things you would expect of him. and, while i'm incredibly miffed that this project is happening (as is the rest of the internet, it seems), i was so impressed with his tiny takedown of the hollywood machine that i forgot to be angry for a moment.

"feeding off the carcasses of beloved stories", as he puts it, is nothing new. but it doesn't feel like things are even given enough time to decay or disappear from the pop cultural conscience anymore. case in point: Skins.

uk cast, 2007

not a beloved story exactly, but this british tv series only premiered in 2007 with two really amazing seasons, another two fairly good seasons with a second-generation cast followed, and a third generation for season 5 was just announced in august.

 

us cast, 2010

 
this show is alive and well in the uk (with a substantial american following), not long dead and buried, which used to be the prereq for a reboot. nevertheless, mtv's decided an almost shot-for-shot remake is what america needs right now.




now, i'm not a purest - some of my favorite shows have been reboots (battlestar gallactica), revamps (baz luhrman's r + j), pastiches (every campy minute of BtVS), etc. what i am, however, is someone who believes reviving something before it's dead is a big waste of time. and, in the case of Skins, the disappointment comes from knowing that the version american audiences will settle for will be a dressed up, watered down half hour of tv.

the genius of Skins was showing kids (not near 30 year-old actors) do and say the things you know they shouldn't (but really do anyway). sanitizing the on-screen drug use and sex, replacing normal looking teens with impossibly attractive cast members... this is only going to make the Skins reboot mtv's undressed, part 2. and, really, what's the point? the grit of the uk Skins didn't insult my (read: the teenager inside me) intelligence. but, you know, that's something mtv lives to do these days (i'm looking at you, jersey shore).

as long as these easy-bake remakes make advertising dollars, there's really no stopping the studios from popping them out. but i will say this, if i could get paid for turning in my co-worker's project, i guess i wouldn't be too picky about the quality of the copy either.

Buffyverse Chronology

seriously... i wasn't kidding about how much i like making charts. like most ridiculous things i do, this started as a joke. but, after a couple of Buffy/Angel marathons with friends, it actually became a handy reference for all the flashbacks/flashforwards in the series.

yes, i'm compulsively dorky, but ive spared you all the whiny Buffy. skip ahead to Fool for Love (Buffy s5e07) and thank me later.

i'm nothing if not servicey.




click to enlarge

making my point. my POWER point.

i've always said that i am a visual person. and i've always known myself to be...fact-oriented (read: anal retentive). hence the whole librarian thing, you know? i'm sure if i were in an interview i would highlight these things about myself. of course, i'd probably leave out the fact that i like to chart the details of my personal life in powerpoints. seems a bit weirdo-creepy-loner, non? undecided? observe:

in which i powerpoint my friend

so there you have it. i bet you feel like you know lucy a little better now, don't you? you probably know me better now, too.

i was a teenage alien

you ever go to the library and check out more books than you have time for? i do. all the time. if books were food you might say my eyes are bigger than my stomach. but i just can't help it. i can't resist the siren call of brightly colored ya in crinkly library cellophane.

that said, i took out I Am Number Four a month ago and didn't devour it on time. it didn't seem like much of a loss then, but i should have realized my mistake - my copy couldn't be renewed because of the dozens of people on the wait list. my suspicion is that things this high in demand must be good. um, i know i've been wrong with that line of thinking before (ahem, twilight, ahem) but i'm still gonna go with the thought.

i'm intrigued because the story centers on a teen alien on the run. and, let's face it, my teenage soul has felt more than a little empty since Roswell went off the air (note: telling people you watched the show for guest appearances of the ever-hip rock n' roller john doe does not get you any cool points. it only confuses fellow geeks). but i've stayed away because this sounds suspiciously like the plot of twinklevamp typer's (Ms. Meyer) The Host (a much better story than the one that made her famous, but not something i'd care to read again).

but, hey, i'm lazy and have let the internet settle the to-read-or-not-to-read debate. and guess what? that was a good decision! the trailer for I Am Number Four has got some pizazz! it's also got Glee's Dianna Agron. not too shabby, not too shabby at all. the only thing that might make this better is if she gets a doo-wop/hip-hop mash up to sing between moments of extra-terrestrial terror.

blast from the past

long time no type. my apologies. it's been a busy few months here full of plenty of tv on dvd (the wire!), ya reads (5 in one week!) and christmas club 2010. but, you have my undivided attention now. and, hopefully, i've got yours. because, just as i've returned from a long hiatus so have a few friends of mine. dear readers, let me re-introduce you to eric balfour and donald faison, whom you may remember from, you know, the 90's.



now, if the trailer is supposed to be the best 2 minutes of the feature then... i just feel bad for these boys. they've put in their dues (adult braces? **can't hardly wait's hippie dude #1?), seen success and now...they're just paying the rent. but hey, who am i to rain on their alien parade.

**what are the chances of another 90's teen star vehicle? cant facinelli take a break from being papa sparklepants and join the crew for one more go around? and here's a terrifying thought, if they updated can't hardly wait, i'd have no idea who anyone was.

someday...this tv movie will be iconic

remember when marcia gay harden defended the honor of her promiscuous teen in lifetime's "she's too young" (tagline: to fit in, you've gotta put out)? oh, how you weeped for lost innocence and a mother's struggle! you said to yourself, never again can marcia know the pain of raising a child who rejects true love! after you dried your eyes and poured out another glass of rosé, you dared god himself to produce a more thrilling television event. you shook your head. it couldn't be done, it just couldn't.

dearest reader, you were wrong. it can - and has! - been done again. this time, the appropriately named marcia gay harden, will appear as mother-of-the-teen in the book-to-film translation of someday this pain will be useful to you, a story about my favorite kind of disaffected youth - the gay new york socialite.

in all seriousness, of the ya in the last few years, this novel managed to really capture the tone of a not-quite-adult. nothing is ever right for james sveck, son of an inattentive mother and arrogant father. the walls of his well-heeled world (brown university, manhattan's upper east side...) are closing in on him and it's everyone else's fault but his. he's a completely unlikable hero to be sure, but a smart ass who keeps you in on the joke (ie.: see how much everyone sucks?)

his tiny "tragedies" made for one great read and i can't wait for them to bring the drama to the small screen.

A Scott Pilgrim Squee

6 reasons to love the scott pilgrim series

1) a mashup any fanboi would be proud of

imagine you read comics. imagine you have a soft spot in your heart for old-school gaming consoles. imagine the joy of discovering scott pilgrim 1up and turn a foe into a pile of coins. sure, its completely out of left field, but so was the time/space travel and the evil exes. if you dont find the retro reference thrilling, you have no soul. or you were never 12.


2) eisner award winning


eisner's are the oscars of the comic world and volume 5 just took home the trophy for best humor publication...ya' damn right!

3) canadian counterculture


canadians are just like us. they eat burritos, trash talk their ex-girl friends over beers (molson ice?), and get asymmetrical hipster haircuts. scott is even in a shitty band. nevermind the fact he plays a rickenbacker 4003fl (per the movie poster. that's 3 grand worth of bass my friend.), with a name like Sex Bob-Omb you know they cant be good. point is, they're taking notes of our trends. last time i was in ontario, 20-somethings asked if i lived in the part of brooklyn known as williamsburg... beware of our neighbors to the north.

4) movie to feature battle between george michael and anne (...who?)

not all of ramona's exes are dudes. like most self-respecting hipster hotties, she had an experimental phase. what does that mean for us? we get to see scott get a beat down from a girl, before he explodes her into tiny woodland creatures (sonic the hedgehog style) in the comic. in the movie, my favorite loud-mouthed half-ninja is played by mae whitman, formerly the pious cutie on arrested development. the lesson here: date outside your social circle. no one wants to share an ex with their current.



5) with friends like these...

sure, scott's got seven evil enemies, but you know what he doesn't have? friends who pity him. it's probably not easy living under the constant threat of attack, but it's most definitely not easy being the shoulder he wimpers on. scott's friends think he's a pussy and dont hold back telling him "if your life had a face, i would punch it in the face."speaking the truth, that's how you know your friends love you.


6) well received in some circles

the back cover of the last scott pilgrim installment has a single quote that may define this series' place in comic history. when joss whedon says, "scott pilgrim is the best book ever. it is the chronicle of our time. with kung fu, so, yeah: perfect." you just listen. he is the jesus of pop culture and everything that man says is gold. case closed.



so... you and me, movie date, august 13th?

crazy, but true

movieland has run out of original stories. yeah, ok, you get that. i know. but seriously, take a look at the movies out these days. on the summer roster of apx. 125 movies, about 30 are remakes, sequels, or stories cribbed from another source (best sellers, classics, comics...). studios have been quick to finance flashy stories with little to no plot, (comics in particular. i'm betting is has something to do with the fancy cars and explosions) and lately there have been a lot of uninspired flops. Jonah Hex, anyone?

that said, there is one book-to-movie conversion i'm super psyched about.


It's Kind of a Funny Story

there was this one time some dude asked me what i was reading while i was waiting for my bus. i said, "a book about high school students". he nodded and then asked, "do you like it?" which seemed like a dumb question at the time. i usually read books that i like. unless theyre homework. and this wasnt homework. despite my eyeroll, he continued. "do you identify with the characters?" i shrugged. not because the answer to the question was "no", but because this stranger was awfully forward. he was starting to creep me out, but the bus was pulling up to that curb any minute and its not like i could blow him off by walking away. i went back to reading. he went back to not getting the hint. one more question: "now, what grade are you in?" if i had only known he was after pretty young things, i would have told him i just finished grad school at the start of the weird exchange. instead i killed the conversation right there. 

but i digress.

the book that started that interrogation was Tales of the Madman Underground - another story about crazy kids, sure, but ones with extraordinary circumstances that make them so. Ned Vizzini's It's Kind of a Funny Story, on the other hand, is so charming exactly because its narrator, Craig, suffers from a kind of crazy that's just...so...normal.

he's 15 (stressful enough), enrolled in a super competitive high school (kids these days! start their testing from pre-K), can't seem to have a successful personal relationship (anti-psychotics and their side effects), and has a habit of fixating on small worries, turning them into giant panic attacks about the future fate of the world. at almost twice his age, i feel like i've got the same problems. without the suicidal thoughts, of course, which is why Craig checks himself into a mental health clinic. hilarity ensues and lessons are learned when a hospital remodeling forces Craig into the adult psych ward.

so, a tiny list of reasons why you should see this movie...

1. downtrodden, but likeable hero, trying to answer the big questions in life
2. slightly less silly (read: more approachable) zach galifianakis (i totally spelled that without double checking)
3. daniel faraday! in a hat!
4. carefully selected indie soundtrack for maximum emotional punch

now that you're convinced, go watch the trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_pq7HKc9z8

it's like christmas morn in the movie theatres. the only thing that could make the awesome adaptation any better is if it was a double feature with John Green's Paper Towns (have i mentioned my soft spot for disaffected youth?). but since that's not due to happen any time soon, i'll settle for another promising adaptation involving canadian humour (note the extra "u"), video game metaphors, and michael cera.

Stay tuned for: A Scott Pilgrim Squee

EDIT: this John Green promo on the amazon site is high-larious.

twee tv OR how i learned to love books on the screen

a full (and last) semester of library sciencing under my belt, i now return to tv blog you silly. i know you've missed me terribly, so what do you say we just dive right in? good? great!

having the grace and good luck that i do, i've chosen the most inauspicious time to pop back to pop culture. the ominous atmospheric change of which i speak...twilight. now i could, like many people who have the good sense to do so, mercilessly mock the franchise, but what else could add to the conversation that hasn't already been said? take downs of creepy merch, creepy fan-mades, and the creepy fans themselves are everywhere and i don't love the series enough to justify talking about it all the time.

instead, let me spend some time talking about things i do like - namely, YA, tv, and YA on the tv. it will be funnier, and it won't make me hate life as much.

so, dear followers, let's travel to a place, far off in the internet where the hair is big, the emotions are bigger and the banter campy. that place, gentle readers, is a land called "made for tv movies". as we wander, take a look around. who's that you see? valerie bertinelli and marcia gay harden?! crying about teenage pregnancy, cancer, and low self esteem?! oh well, then we must be nearing the village of "lifetime television for women". moving along. as we continue our tour, you can - wait! kristen stewart? is that you?! i thought we left your ass back in "teenage sparklemopey mumbleville". oh, i get it. you're here as a representative of tv-cum-YA novels. fine. you can stay and listen to me. but only if you shut up and sit in the back.

Speak

once upon a time, a sullen suburban teen kept a secret. ever since her encounter with the pervy undead jock at that party on the twinkling meadow farm, she hadn't been the same. withdrawing from friends, increased clumsiness, and an appetite for woodland creatures self-destruction, mark this tale of female frailty empowerment.

no, seriously, laurie halse anderson writes some pretty fantastic books. the tv version may smack of lifetime's "not my daughter" aesthetic (elizabeth perkins takes a very un-"weeds" turn as a concerned mother; kristen underwhelms us with her mumblecore method of acting), but nothing satisfies me more than a problem novel brought to life.

Don't Die My Love

 in 1998, lifetime had the happy idea of producing a movie based on the lurlene mcdaniel novel (can you even call it that?) don't die my love. the title? a champion's fight: a moment of truth movie. seriously. i couldn't make that up. fortunately for us suckers, they retained the GRAND STATEMENTS ABOUT LOVE!, the ridiculousness of teenage logic and (SPOILER: not that you'll find this movie, or have any reason to read this book) luke still bites it in the end. i laughed, i cried, i wanted more.

Rats Saw God

this book might be one of my favorite YA books. it's got everything a girl could want: sensitive/sarcastic boy protagonist, a band of merry social pariahs, no nonsense love interest wanda "dub" varner...

author rob thomas (no, not that one), takes the familiar loner and makes him something more than a two dimensional place holder carried along by flimsy plot devices (i'm looking at you, lurlene). scott york may be a total loser (socially retarded, failing class, king of unrequited love. he really can't get anything right.), but he's the kind of loser i'd want for a best friend. wherever he is, i hope scott's doing alright these days...

now, while this novel was never officially turned into a television screenplay, it's a literary sibling to one of the best shows no longer on tv - veronica mars. vm was born out of a novel rob thomas (no, not that one) never published. read a few diary entries in rats saw god, listen to a few voice overs on vm... you'll start to see the two loners as one in the same. in fact, veronica is so similar to scott, thomas first imagined her as a him. but, knowing better, rob added some girl power into the script.

oh, and more proof they come from the same world: s1e6 features veronica mars getting duped by a smart-mouthed wild child. her name? dub varner.