8 posts tagged “stardust”
I used to be more clever than I am these days. I used to write very interesting entries and these days I am living through my interests. This post won't be different. I just have to marvel at my former wit and wonder where it all went. It's like I've had a lobotomy. I was more fun before. I had edges. *sigh*
Today was Twilight Tuesday and Stephenie Meyer announced that she would be doing the Breaking Dawn Tour in conjunction with Justin Furstenfeld of Blue October. She will be in LA at UCLA's Royce Hall, 7 August. I am just one who doesn't learn, I wasn't so blown away with the last signing and yet I am bound and determined to go to this one. And it's more expensive too. She's really not worth it but I am compelled to go. It's like I'm a domestic violence victim and I keep going back.
I had hoped that we would get more about Twilight the movie on Twilight Tuesday. I really don't think Breaking Dawn touring dates count. I don't think I can be convinced that that was worth my full attention. You could give me Taylor Lautner and it would be better. Oh hell, I'm rarely happy on Twilight Tuesday. I like them beefy with Rob and Kristen. I have yet to have one that gave me a Kellan fix. That would be awesome. There are many Tuesdays between now and 12 Decemeber though. There is still hope. C'mon MTV, give me a Kellan Tuesday.
Last night D got me to watch some season 1 Veronica Mars. Jason Dohring is so perfect as Logan Echolls. We watched the Pilot and Credit Where Credit's Due and it was as good as I remember. We found a map with all the locations on it and there are a few that we have never seen. Maybe if we are down there in SD for Comic Con we can scope out some of the new places. New to me. I guess the fangirl in me is still die-hard. Atleast I'm not staying up all night reading Logan fanfic and stalking Jason Dohring. Although that experience made me really deluded about how celebrities react to fans. He was way too nice to us. It is too bad Moonlight got cancelled. I'm sure he'd have been at Comic Con otherwise. Okay I'm scaring myseld with where this line of thinking is going. I can only fixate on one celebrity at a time and I have to choose Rob for the time being. I say that after mooning over Kellan.
Books... they don't usually petition for restraining orders. I finished This Lullaby last night and I really liked it. I did have some minor issues with it like the time frame, it felt like things were a little rushed and that the time period given wasn't enough for the events that take place. Of course I was put out by the main character, it's not a book if I don't like the main character. The girls always drive me crazy and Remy Starr was no different. She's inflexible and pigheaded and a little too know-it-all for me. Dexter, the love interest, on the contrary, is quirky, bumbling and adorable. I don't think there was a line by his character that I didn't like. He's easily relatable and his faults aren't annoying to anyone other than Remy. I really found the pacing good up until nearing the end when there are long periods of Remy with everyone but Dexter and this was tedious. The pay off was a drop in the bucket when I wanted a deluge. It felt a bit like an afterthought. But in the end for all my complaints I did like it. It was a quick read and I really want to read Dessen's new book now. I also BookMooched How to Deal which is Someone Like you and That Summer together. I hope to read a lot more Dessen. I approve.
So after I finshed This Lullaby I started Fragile Things and so far I'm barely into it and already remembering that I hate Neil Gaiman's short stories. I just never like these compilations. I am going to try to read to page 50 and see if I don't enjoy it more but as of now I am really in hell. I like Neil Gaiman, I really do. His short stories always bore me though. I don't find them a draw like I did with Neverwhere, Good Omens, Stardust or American Gods. A part of me just thinks that there is a good reason why none of these are full books. These are the cast offs that he couldn't make work. Someone is going to be a huge Gaiman fan and feel really insulted by that, but it's how I feel and I won't apologize for not liking crappy stories. When I get a Gaiman craving I would be better off reading something I've already read than to read Smoke and Mirrors or Fragile Things.
Before I read Wicked Lovely I was rereading The Host again and I loved it as much on the second read as I did on the first. I read all the signing questions on Twilight Lexicon and I am really excited about the prospect that this could be a trilogy. I really am hoping that it is. I know Stephenie Meyer is taking next year off to write and I hope she gets the urge to revisit Wanderer.
I got the 1st chapter of Breaking Dawn the other day. Belle found it had been leaked on the internet. I was really excited to read it but it made me immediately aware of the fact that Bella drives me nuts. She waffles and wars over the silliest of things. Edward apparently buys her a new car, a Mercedes Guardian, because the truck dies and she is embarrassed by it. She's not embarrassed to ride in a truck that no doubt kills emissions standards but a nice car is too much for her. And she is still belaboring the getting married thing when she is the one who insisted on it after Edward tells her that he rescinded his demands. The girl is marrying Edward Cullen, her dream guy, you think she could pull it together and be happy about it. The first chapter just made me want to devour the whole book. I don't know really if I can make it the 65 days until it comes out. I guess I can reread my Twilight Saga and The Host and pretend that time is passing more quickly.
Today, well yesterday I guess, was Twilight Tuesday and I actually wasn't disappointed in the article this week. I thought it was a nice little grab bag of some really dorky questions. I especially loved the RPattz one. I think I could call the guy Spunk Ransom. Although D thinks it sounds like a porn star name. I think we are going to go to the red carpet for the MTV awards on Sunday. It should be interesting to see what can be seen. I hope that we do see Rob there. Kristen I could take or leave. I was talking to D and I can't even really name that many good movies from the last year. Stardust should win something though. Just so Ben Barnes could maybe get some love. I realize Charlie Cox is the star but Ben is cuter.
After that we watched Stardust again as Belle had never seen it. I was excited to share Ben Barnes with her. I am trying to cultivate an obsession for him and it is only lukewarm and lending more toward admiration than fascination. But I did find a few pictures of him so I had to decorate this post in one.
Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl was next and I think the consensus was that Johnny Depp is a god.
Today, we watched The Bad Mother's Handbook. Another Robert Pattinson show. He was utterly adorable in this. I really liked his character and I hope that David will watch with me sometimes. I can honestly say that he was the best actor out of all of the cast.
Tonight after we took Belle home we watched Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. I am trying to get all refreshed before the new movie comes out. I don't have much expectation for the new one. I totally think Harrison Ford is too old to pull of Indy and Shia LaBouf isn't going to be able to distract me from Ford taking his Geritol. But I plan to rewatch all the old ones and they were really good even though they were formulaic and cheesy.
I got set straight by Belle that A Great and Terrible Beauty is being made into a movie. So my dream is someone else's dream too. The script is supposedly been bought by Mel Gibson's production company and that worries me to death, but, okay. There is much talk about who should play who but I know some of the suggestions confound me. No Kiera Knightley. I have managed to read 100 pages into A Sweet Far Thing and I am distraught for the lack of Kartik. It makes the first part of the book worthless to have him absent. If he doesn't show up soon I might start on the last page and read backward.
Lastly is a little comic of the Twilight movie that made me smile. Today was Twilight Tuesday and MTV had an article talking about the plan to shoot the sequels together should the movie see enough of a turn out in the theaters. It pretty much said what has already been said and I was looking for more concrete things than what-could-bes and might-bes. The other thing was a little clip on Peter Facinelli and Carlisle's car. What happened to interviews? I want more of what I was getting during filming.
I did like Ben Barnes as the hapless young Dunstan Thorn. I think the boy is very pretty and I am just a sucker for the pretty. I also liked Claire Danes as Yvaine. I loved Charlie Cox in Casanova and I thought he was perfect for Tristran/Tristan. I did not like Kate Magowan as the Slave Girl/Una. I thought she was a bit odd for the part. I pictured someone tinier, more agile and pixie-like. I also imagined the fair Victoria as a lot better looking than Sienna Miller. I did love Mark Strong as Septimus. He's still my second favorite character of the book. And De Niro as Captain Shakespeare was entertaining, even if they built that character entirely for the movie and he is not the man he was in the book. Oh and I didn't like Michelle Pfieffer at all. I thought she was just cheap compared to the rest.
Back to Ben Barnes, I also finished Prince Caspian. It was a quick and sometimes pedantic read. The voice that the entire book is written in is so obviously masculine that sometimes it feels rather cardboard. I don't know how to actually describe it. It's just a shallowness. Like if a male is telling a story where you aren't really described the situation, but you are getting a summation. I am looking forward to the movie at the end of the week. I am hoping that I find this more memorable than The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe movie. I just can't say that I recall a whole lot of what actually happens in the first. This is the bane of being un-fan-like about something.
I am hemming and hawing now, whether to read The Host or A Sweet Far Thing. I have missed Kartik this last week without him. I even found Gemma Doyle fanfic and I couldn't read it without spoiling myself. Of course, because it is my way, I did manage to spoil myself some anyway. It's not as bad as last time where my nosiness spoiled me for the end of Rebel Angel's. This is more of a 'and after everything that happens, this happens' thing. I will stop talking about before I write it out and spoil Belle. So I guess I just made my decision. I will be reading, A Sweet Far Thing next. I wouldn't be sad if that got made into a movie. I don't have a clue as to who would play Gemma or Kartik. I would love for Kate Winslet to play Miss Moore. I don't know who I would have play Gemma's mother or father. Could I pick Charlie Cox to play Thomas though? And Pippa, Felicity and Ann... *sigh*. Too hard. I have one person cast in my version of A Great and Terrible Beauty. I will have to keep it a work in progress.
Tonight, Belle is coming over for us to watch the Ring of the Nibelung or otherwise known as... Dark Kingdom: The Dragon King. It has Benno Furmann and Robert Pattinson in it. Benno Furmann played Inspector Detector in Speed Racer. We rented it to see Rob. We aren't hoping for a lot from it. It is a made for TV movie. But hey, it could happen, it could be the best made for TV movie ever.
Today it is only 18 days until the 31st. I am hoping to be awake and coherent at 10AM that day to go to the bookstore and read the Special Edition Version of Eclipse for the Breaking Dawn chapter 1. I have tried to talk D into buying me the new version but as I want the paperback versions too, he's not as convinced to buy every version that comes out. So I might be living at the bookstore reading and rereading the chapter until 2 August. How pathetic. But it can't be helped. I feel like I've been waiting for this forever and it hasn't been a month. I can't imagine how those who read Eclipse when it came out feel. They are probably heavily medicated.
Going back to my Stephenie Meyer obsession, there is an excellent NPR story on her here. I love how much attention she is getting. I really do hope that this gets the fires burning so that when the movie comes out there is a real buzz going and it succeeds. I worried when I read the production budget went from 35 million to 60 million. That made it all that many more seats that have to be filled. And I don't want the movie to just break even, I want the franchise. I worry for it. I need to up my Geodon.
Last night I watched a terrible show with Robert Pattinson and Julian Sands in it called The Haunted Airman. It was confusing and really quite boring. It was about a chain smoking, paranoid, war veteran and in the end... well I won't give it away. Someone might be sad enough to want to watch it.
Tomorrow D and I are going to Torrance to pick up my tickets to the Stephenie Meyer book signing on 22 May. I am hoping to get my Twilight book signed while we are there. I paid the money they should let me get whatever book I want signed. I plan to ask tomorrow while we are there. I also want to ask if they plan to do a book release party for Breaking Dawn in August. It's kind of far to go at midnight. I would rather go to one up here but I haven't been able to find anyone with thoughts for a book release party then.
I have so many things I want to write about today that I just don't even know where to start. I finished Rebel Angels this afternoon. What can I say, I really love Kartik. I loved how his character was developed in book two of the trilogy, although I was a bit disappointed about how things end between him and Gemma. The action was great in this book. The twists and turns were diabolical. All those things you sort of thought you were right about you find out you are, but you no longer think you are. It's tricky. I liked Gemma more in this book than in A Great and Terrible Beauty. She was still terribly immature at times but she isn't as blindly naive. I was ambivalent up to a certain point about Simon Middleton and then flat out didn't like him. Not to mention I measured him up to Kartik the entire time and he doesn't compare. I think Bray is doing an excellent job of defining the taboo and the expectation of the society. I just wish that Kartik wasn't taboo. I'll take him if Gemma can't make it work.
I went and bought The Host and A Sweet Far Thing today. I am currently torn because I don't know if I should read either one of those or Stardust. Stardust, I could probable read by tomorrow. Okay I have to study so maybe not. But I could read it quickly. The Host is 600+ pages and A Sweet Far Thing is 800+. Those are real commitments. With how fuzzy my head is at the moment I just don't know which is the better book to start. And I'm reading Twilight again with Jason and I told him I would be ready to discuss chapter 5 by Thursday. So many books and so little time.
While at the bookstore I took note of the display for Twilight. It is so big and always in flux. Sometimes stocked, sometimes not so much. The woman who checked us out gave me a small happy when she noticed that I was buying The Host and asked me if I was waiting for Breaking Dawn to come out. I admitted, shyly, that I was and told her how many days until 2 August. I mentioned the movie coming out in December and she surmised that it was going to be huge. She thinks the sequels won't be a problem. It made me feel good about the whole situation. Random bookstore clerk who sees popularity of the books, thinking that the franchise is a go. *sigh* Happy thoughts.
Speaking of Twilight, today is Twilight Tuesday and MTV released the official movie poster. I'm not that excited about it. I think it could have been better. Edward looks disjointed to me, not like he's looking over her. I think she looks soft and he looks too dead. Maybe he should look dead, but it just makes me not like it. I do like one thing. His eye looks topaz. Score points there. There was a fan poster made by Loleia that I liked, I'll post that too. If I had my choice between this and the cast photo I would pick the cast photo. I think the teaser trumps them both. Although with some time and space I can recognize that the teaser caters too much to those who already know and love the books and were going to see the movie anyway. It could have been catered more toward a more diversified audience.
Tomorrow is my second exam in Art History and I am not, exactly, looking forward to it. I am sort of dreading it. But to save me from real dread, the class is at the Getty. I hope to go in early and be able to look at one statue in particular. I want to do my paper on it. It's called the Venus Genetrix. She's very much in the style of the Winged Victory of Samothrace. I hope to compare them to one another. It will also give me time to study a bit before the exam. Of course I don't think we will have a tour tomorrow. Since we have so much to make up after last weeks class fiasco.
After class it will be a comic book day. Angel: After the Fall, Buffy and Lords of Avalon are all coming out tomorrow. It will be a nice reward after the exam. LOA left off at the place where Seren is stabbed by Kerrigan. It's one of my favorite parts of the book and I loved seeing it done in comic. D told me that after Angel: After the Fall that they are going to do a Spike: After the Fall. I am interested in that. I still can't get into the Buffy comics. I don't like the legions of slayers. It was hard enough for me when there was Faith. I hope that there could be a Twilight Manga. That would make for good adaptation.
Tonight I caught up with past times and finally saw SuperBad. I must confess... this movie did nothing for me. I don't really get the cult success of it. I found it just overdone and embarrassing. Why is it that embarrassment is seen as funny? I have to say Michael Cera was my favorite part of the movie although I liked some of the facial expressions of Seth Rogan as one of the cops. I don't think that this is in the vein of Knocked Up or Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Or maybe it's just a lot more guy-oriented that I would like it better if I had a Y-chromosome.
The Lion & Lamb LJ community is a big resource for getting Twilight things of all kinds. Some rather ambitiously creative people there have been making movie posters for the long awaited (221 days) movie. I saved a few of the really good ones for my desktop but I wanted to post them here for prosperity's sake. I really love the one done by Lovewithbite, the bottom one. The other two are done by Flame_Eternel. I think they are rather impressive.
I have been having a bit of a hard time reading lately. I'm unfocused and undisciplined and have been tending to get sucked into some truly horrible fanfic rather than finishing what I have started. I explained it today as being a heroine addict and taking cough medicine to get me through. It is a bad, nasty habit that is attached to a goodly amount of self loathing. But enough belaboring... I have been reading Rebel Angel's for almost an entire week. I am liking it well enough, but would like to just be done with it already. I am looking forward to finishing the Gemma Doyle Trilogy with A Sweet Far Thing. I hope the last book has more Kartik in it than this one does. I am not feeling the Simon Middleton vibe. I don't care if Kartik is taboo in her society. They kissed once and I want more of the same.
Lastly, after The Host, I am going to attempt to read Stardust so D's head won't explode. I have yet to see the movie because I haven't read the book. D would love to watch the movie again and I'm the wrench in the works. I owe him this small favor. So it's been added to my cue. Of course at the rate that I'm reading this could be reading for next month. How did I go from reading a book a day to not finishing one in five days? It's Twilight. It ruined me in so many ways.