Happy Birthday Anna!!!!

23 Books That Changed My Life

This week I'm turning 23, and decided that as part of my birthday celebration I would look back and see if I could list 23 books that had changed my life. NEVER TRY TO DO THIS. It was impossible. First, I had to decide to get rid of religious texts (The Bible, The Book of Mormon, etc.) - yes they've changed my life, but I wanted to do more secular books. Second I decided that only chapter books would make the list. Third, I realized not all the books that have shaped me would fit on the list. Fourth, I thought about ditching the whole thing. Fifth, I decided series would count as one book. Sixth, I realized these would not be my most favorite, or the ones that changed me the most, just some. Seventh, my computer rebooted. Eighth, some of them have reasons, some don't. Ninth, it is what it is. So, I hope you enjoy 23 books/series that really influenced me.

(In no order whatsoever. Really though, don't ask me to order them.)

bold = series     normal = single book

1. Harry Potter - J.K. Rowling

2. The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien

3. The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien

4. The Chronicles of Narnia - C.S. Lewis

5. The Great Divorce - C.S. Lewis

6. The Screwtape Letters - C.S. Lewis

7. The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

8. Nightcrawler, Volume 2: Reborn - Chris Clairemont

     - This may seem like a strange choice, but this comic volume was surprisingly deep and thought provoking. Also I may have cried.

9. The Tolkien Reader - J.R.R. Tolkien

     - Leaf. By. Niggle. 

10. Tiffany Aching (The Wee Free Men) - Terry Pratchett

11. Ivanhoe - Sir Walter Scott

12. Pure Dead Magic - Debi Gliori

     - This is one of my most favorite books to re-read. It never gets old. It's funny, it's weird, and it's fantastic. It helped me to understand that a weird sense of humor isn't a bad thing, you just have to find the right people, and that keeping your living great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother in your freezer is perfectly acceptable. 

13.The Dark is Rising - Susan Cooper

14. Earthsea Cycle - Ursula K. LeGuin

15. Captain America: White - Jeph Loeb

     - I actually wrote a previous blog article about this one - Cap and Bucky: A Love Story

16. Defiance - C.J. Redwine

     - I read this book at a time when I was dealing with extreme chronic anxiety, and one of the main characters reacted to things and thought about things the exact same way I did, and he still managed to save everyone and function, for me this was a wonderful revelation, even if it was fiction.

17. Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

18. A Long, Long Sleep - Anna Sheehan

     - In this retelling of Sleeping Beauty, the "princess" is not the girl sleeping waiting to be rescued, but the resilient briars that grow around the castle keeping everyone out, and the princess safe. You can be your own hero.

19.The Once and Future King - T. H. White

20. Macbeth - William Shakespeare

     - While reading this play in school I actually laughed out-loud at several points (this is not a comedy). My classmates found it odd. I love this play, and find it hilarious which further notified me of my sometimes dark sense of humor.

21. Dracula - Bram Stoker

22. A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

     - Sydney Carton's act of selflessness. Need I say more?

23. Through the Looking Glass - Lewis Carroll

So, there you have it. I would love to hear your thoughts and comments! 

The Little Prince

Title: The Little Prince
Production Company: Netflix
Director: Mark Osborne
Screenplay: Irena Brignull, Bob Persichetti
Based on the French novel by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Starring: Jeff Bridges, Mackenzie Foy, Rachel McAdams, Riley Osborne (and a lot of other people)
Release Date: 5 August 2016
Length: 1 h 48 min
Rating: PG
Genre: Animation, Adventure, Drama, (Sci-fi?)

Synopsis:

A little girl lives in a very grown-up world with her mother, who tries to prepare her for it. Her neighbor, the Aviator, introduces the girl to an extraordinary world where anything is possible, the world of the Little Prince.

What I have to say:

At long last! You can now stream The Little Prince on Netflix! And the film lives up to its expectations: all in all, this is a funny, sweet, heart-warming film with beautiful animation that is sure to move viewers to tears. Lots of them. 

There are two stories in this film: a story about a little girl making friends with an old aviator, and a story about The Little Prince and his adventures. The Little Prince's story is framed beautifully by the real-world story of the little girl and the aviator. Each story has a different animation style, which is a wonderful touch and helps to distinguish between the two. I LOVE the animation style in which The Little Prince's story plays out. It suits the story and fits in perfectly with the original illustrations by Saint-Exupery. 

Both stories are well told and nicely executed. I could wish that the filmmakers spent a little more time on The Little Prince's story, as it seemed just a bit too brief and moved rather quickly. But even this didn't detract from the story's beauty and depth.

The only thing that I felt really detracted from the story was the episode after the conclusion of The Little Prince's story, when the little girl flies the aviator's plane to another planet. Here she finds all of the characters that The Little Prince meets on his journey through the stars before coming to Earth (the rich man, the king, the clown). 

As a fantasia on themes found in The Little Prince story, it's not bad and actually rather creative, but as a story that is of a piece with the story of The Little Prince himself, it's totally wrong and the effect is jarring. This episode feels disjointed when taken as a whole with the rest of the movie. For one thing, it's unnecessary. It springs out of the little girl's need to come to terms with things like letting go and growing up, which is a viable dilemma, but there are better ways to accomplish this that would have been more in keeping with the rest of the story. 

One thing I did really like about how this episode played out, however, was that, since the little girl falls off the side of the house and blacks out before waking up and finding the aviator's plane, and since the scene fades out after she leaves Asteroid B-612, you could assume that the whole incident was a dream, which makes me feel slightly better about the whole thing.

So if you watch The Little Prince, I recommend just skipping that whole episode in the middle, starting when the little girl flies the aviator's plane out of Earth's atmosphere. Just pick it up again when she gets up in the morning and decides to go visit the aviator with her mother. That's a sweet scene. 

Outside of that one part in the middle, the movie is absolutely beautiful: the visuals are stunning, the writing brilliant, and the story as poignant as ever.

The Little Prince gets release date and new trailer

Dear blog readers,

I thought you might be interested to know that The Little Prince movie now has a release date of August 5th.

Also, there's a new trailer.

That's all.

Sincerely,

Erin

Must be a Thursday....

Hello friends, Romans, countrymen, Narnians, rebels, and free peoples of Middle-Earth! (If that didn't cover you, consider yourself included by default.)

Apparently my resolution to post every first Thursday took a month off. So here, a little late but still on a Thursday, is a post of relatively-random miscellany.

First, some Little Prince news: Netflix has taken over the rights to the film and will be releasing it... at some unknown future date. This means - barring a small miracle - we won't get to see it on the big screen. (sigh). If you have any further news on the movie, pleASE TELL ME!!!!!!

Second, I'm seeing Disney's Broadway musical Newsies in Portland tonight and will try to get a review of the play posted by my first Thursday deadline in May. However, I make no promises. You can go on strike if you want, but it won't make anything happen faster.

Third, I recently became aware of a program known as VidAngel which allows you to watch clean versions of PG-13 and R-rated films. The website (www.vidangel.com) lets you set your own filters, after registering, so you can choose how much you want to edit out of language, sex, nudity, violence, disturbing images, and Jar Jar Binks (yes, it really does let you edit out Jar Jar Binks; also the new scenes in the original Star Wars trilogy).

Though it might take a couple uses for you to figure out where you should set your preferences to ensure you don't see the bad stuff while also not missing out on key plot points like main characters dying (apparently my graphic violence filters were too high when I watched The Matrix), it's great for film enthusiasts (like me) who don't watch R-rated or even sometimes especially sketchy PG-13 rated films. I finally got to watch The Grand Budapest Hotel and for those of you who like Indie films with an original story, clever script, and high degree of artisanship - plus great actors - the film is a must-see. Also, it's hilarious.

Finally, enjoy some photos from my sister and I's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Party. She'd just finished reading the first three books in the "trilogy" for the first time, and wanted to see the 2005 movie starring Martin Freeman, despite my warning that the film is a vast disappointment (though brilliantly cast).

Our menu included Babel gold-fish, non-alcoholic Pan-Galactic Gargle Blasters (if you want the recipe I'll try to remember how I made them), and ... some other snacks that had nothing to do with Hitchhiker's Guide - you'd be surprised how difficult it is to come up with HHGTTG themed snacks (yes, I got tired of writing the whole title out; from this point on you will see a number of different abbreviations, none of which really work). We also carried towels.

On a second viewing, the movie wasn't as bad as I remembered it being, but then again, my expectations were below ground-level. My sister and I agreed that the first third of the movie was great and we were laughing our double-heads off, but around the middle, the film took a dive, to be partly redeemed in the last third of the movie. Whatever else I can criticize about the H2G2 film (and there's a lot), I can say nothing at all against the casting. Martin Freeman as Arthur Dent, Zooey Deschanel as Trillian, and, of course, Alan Rickman as Marvin the manically depressed robot are all brilliant moves. Not to mention the actors who play Ford and Zaphod, also perfectly matched up, and Stephen Fry as the voice of the Guide. Seems like a recipe for success. Ah well.

Until tomorrow.

WHY PARAMOUNT? (Or I have to wait a further unspecified length of time to see The Little Prince)

We continue waiting for the release of The Little Prince.

Over a year ago I posted the announcement that The Little Prince, the classic "children's story" by French author Antoine de Saint-Exupery would be made into an animated movie. Since then, for what feels like an age, I have been waiting for a mere RELEASE DATE for this movie. Then, just in the last few weeks, Little Prince merchandise began to appear at the mall. I hoped desperately that this was a sign the movie would be coming out in the U.S. soon, and apparently it was. But then catastrophe struck.

On Saturday, Mark Osborne, director of The Little Prince, tweeted that the film's release would be delayed. This was followed by another tweet announcing that the film "will in fact be released by another distributor later this year."

The most maddening part of this whole affair is that the film was scheduled for release one week after Osborne made his announcement. Now, no one knows when it's coming out.

To those of us who have been waiting for ever for this thing, Osborne advises that we head to Canada, as the film opens there this weekend.

Why Paramount would drop such a highly anticipated film adaptation of a book that has been translated into 250 languages and remained a classic since its publication in 1943 eludes me, but Osborne's reluctance to explain why Paramount dropped the film and his grateful acknowledgment of everyone who has offered "love and support in these strange times" makes me suspect that there's something else going on here and maybe it's not all entirely Paramount's fault. At least I can give them the benefit of the doubt, although I'm not feeling particularly generous toward Paramount at the moment.

So I guess I and my fellow Little Prince fans will be waiting a little (or a lot) longer.

On a different but not totally unrelated topic, I learned while researching facts about The Little Prince that Orson Welles, of Citizen Kane and War of the Worlds radio broadcast fame, bought the rights to the book immediately upon reading it, and tried to team up with Walt Disney to turn the book into a film. Reportedly (though I'm not sure this is true, but who knows), Walt Disney stormed out of the meeting shouting, "There is not room on this lot for two geniuses."

Maybe there isn't room in this world for The Little Prince. Whatever else we may think we know or don't know about him, it's clear at least that he's much too delicate, innocent, and intensely alive to last long here. Wasn't the whole book concerned with his attempt to return to his own planet?

Whatever the case, I still hope to see this film adaptation sometime before I die.

Articles consulted in the research for this post:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2016/03/12/little-prince-film-release-mysteriously-delayed/81694556/

http://www.slashfilm.com/the-little-prince-release-date/

http://mentalfloss.com/article/64148/12-charming-facts-about-little-prince

Your early Christmas present: Le Petit Prince

Happy December, everyone! I hope your plans for the Holidays are going well, and that you aren't drowning in finals and/or Christmas shopping. Now down to business.

If you haven't yet, watch this trailer NOW:



The Little Prince 

Premieres October 7th, 2015 in France.

Apparently they are also planning on making a version in English, but I'm kind of thinking I'd rather watch the French one. I don't know when the movie will be released in the U.S.

For (slightly) more info, head over to this article by the Verge:
The Little Prince could be one of the most beautiful animated films of 2015

“The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched, they are felt with the heart.”   

  - Antoine de Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince