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Movienotes: Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist

03 Tuesday Mar 2009

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Okay, I’ll admit this right off the bat: I was ready to be disappointed by Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist. Despite my affection for Michael Cera as a comedic actor (due to being introduced by my brother to Arrested Development), it automatically starts out with a heavy handicap given that it’s a movie made of a book I have adored since it first came out and introduced me to the brilliant David Levithan, who co-authored with fellow YA author Rachel Cohn.

In the spirit of the film classic American Graffiti, Infinite Playlist tells the story of a group of teenagers poised on the thresh-hold of adulthood as they spend an endless night trailing around New York City in search of an elusive performance by the mysterious band Where’s Fluffy? Nick (Michael Cera) is the one straight guy in a queer-boy band, not yet over his traumatic break-up with manipulative queen bee Tris; Norah (Kat Dennings) is competent and quiet, used to spending her time at concerts watching out for her reckless friend Caroline and ignoring rumors she’s a frigid bitch.

Despite these obviously gender-specific social quandaries, the thing that really struck me while I was watching the movie is that the people involved (writers, directors, actors) have managed to tell a love story that’s not boy-meets-girl but person-meets-person. It’s a story that resists casting Nick and Norah into any stereotypical “teenage boy” and “teenage girl” roles — or at least making the story revolve around their performance in those roles.

On the downside, I missed the richess of the inner dialog inherent in first-person fictional narration (the novel is told in alternating chapters by Nick and Norah), and the more explicit sexuality that’s possible in fiction that can’t be translated onto movie marketed to a teen audience (thanks movie ratings board). While there’s a really sweet make-out scene — the details of which I will not spoiler ahead of time — I couldn’t help but notice that both the Tris-and-Norah snogging and the almost-oral sex scene didn’t make the cut in the film version. I iz suzpishus.

In the end though, I think they may have made up for it by writing solid new material and (more importantly) giving Salvatore his due; I would have been very, very sad if Salvatore had been entirely absent.

More Favorite Things: Joint Movie Blogging

26 Thursday Feb 2009

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A couple of weeks ago, Hanna’s bed unexpectedly died. It was a very traumatic event that led to a lot of hauling of various old bits out and new bits in, deconstruction, construction, sweeping of dust bunnies and the consumption of a very nice bottle of sake. Which in turn led to the creation of this annotated list of twenty-nine of our favorite romantic movies.

Which was also, in part, a response to this list, that Hanna had blogged about earlier.

So anyways, check out our own (far superior, *coughcough*) list over at Hanna’s blog, …fly over me, evil angel….

UPDATE: We’re already accumulating, via comments, constructive critique concerning films we short-shrifted. And really, there is no excuse for forgetting a movie like Secretary or My Girl Friday. In the interest of full disclosure, certain movies (Hanna has already mentioned History Boys) were considered for inclusion, sidelined, and then we ran out of room (the list we were responding to had 29 films, thus our seemingly-arbitrary cut-off). “Honorable mentions” from the rough draft also include Stardust, Beyond Silence, Little Voice, Bend It Like Beckham, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Lion in Winter, Stage Beauty, and The Princess and the Warrior.

Clearly, we’re already at work on installment number two . . . thoughts? put ’em in comments (on either blog)!

Midweek Oscar Post

25 Wednesday Feb 2009

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Hanna and I watched the 81st Annual Academy Awards last night, from red carpet to closing montage. Why, we are not quite sure given that between the two of us we had seen exactly two out of the entire slate of nominees (Hanna saw Dark Knight and both of us had the great pleasure of seeing the spectacular Wall-E in the theater). A few others are on the list (eg. I would like to see Milk eventually, and we keep saying to each other, “we really should go see Slumdog Millionaire“) but student schedules and student budgets have conspired to put most of these on the Netflix list.

Still, the ceremony was a fun way to spend Sunday evening. Danny Boyle’s acceptence speech for Best Picture was eclipsed by the way he bounced onto the stage (“in the spirit of Tigger”), and Dustin Lance Black’s acceptence speech for Best Original Screenplay (Milk) was a beautiful, heartfelt piece of extemporaneous oratory — and I say this as someone who finds most speechifying, yes even Obama’s, stilted and dull.

Poor Hugh Jackman seems to have gotten scant mention for his turn as Oscar host, which I think is a shame given the exuberance with which he embraced the role. Perhaps it was just my own childhood ambition to be a broadway musical actress welling back up to the surface, but he seemed to me to be having such a brilliant time. So for this week’s Midweek post, I’m sharing the YouTube video of his opening monologue/song with cameo appearance by Anne Hathaway as Nixon (no, Hanna and I aren’t quite sure why either, but somehow it totally works).

And for the dedicated musical junkie (read: me), his later number with Beyonce, composed by Baz Luhrmann (yes, you could tell), was also thoroughly entertaining.

Moviesnotes: Coraline

13 Friday Feb 2009

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These “movienotes” posts seem to take me about a week to actually get around to finishing. Last Sunday, we went to see the new Henry Selick feature, Coraline, which is a stop-motion animated film based on the novella by Neil Gaiman. Despite being an animated movie based on a book marketed to middle-grade readers, like other Selick films (eg Nightmare Before Christmas and Corpse Bride) Coraline is not a film for younger children (unless you know said children very well and have pre-screened the film yourself with them in mind). It is about a child who, moving into a new house, stumbles into an alternate version of reality controlled by an evil spirit, the Belle Dame, who devours children and kidnaps her parents, all the while insisting she is Coraline’s “other mother,” her better mother, and becomes very, very nasty when canny little Coraline resists her attempts at seduction.

The book is a deeply scary, compelling read; and with that version of the tale in the back of my mind, I’m sorry to say I wasn’t that caught up by the narrative of the film. They shifted locations from London to southern Oregon, and added characters that leeched away the ingenuity of Coraline-the-book-character. I was also disappointed by the film version of the cat, whom I remember playing a more central role in the novel (although to be fair, it’s been a few years). The women at Pursuit of Harpyness have a round-table discussion going about the film that likewise raises some questions about how the story adaptions changed the nature of the story and, in some ways, made the central narrative of a girl who successfully combats an ancient evil confused and unsatisfying.

Yet all is not lost!! Taken on its own terms — particularly as a visual accomplishment — the film was totally worth seeing. Whether you end up seeing it in 3D or regular format, it’s overflowing with color and spectacle, and manages to walk a line between whimsical and eerily wrong quite adeptly. It was the small details in the film that, for me, made it worth watching. The switch from England to America was jarring, but I was won over by the fact that Coraline’s family (in the film) moves to southern Oregon, to the outskirts of a town boasting a Shakespeare festival — the town is unnamed, but is obviously an allusion to Ashland, near where I went to school for part of my extended undergraduate career. Not only did they move to a place I know and love, but they also moved from a place I know and love: Michigan! Coraline and her parents relocate from Pontiac, Michigan, and her father sports a Michigan State sweatshirt for most of the film. This is apparently a wink to one of the producers, who graduated from the school, and it led to an entertaining game of spot-the-Michigan-references. I was also charmed by the song written and performed by They Might be Giants, even though it was part of the “other mother”‘s not-quite-right world.

Oh, and I totally want Coraline’s yellow slicker and galoshes for Boston’s rainy season.

Image nicked from Grow Wings.

For Hanna’s take, see “coraline”

Movienotes: Inkheart

06 Friday Feb 2009

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Hanna beat me to a review of Inkheart, which we saw last week at the cinema down on the Boston Common, which offers morning tickets at $6 a pop (Sunday morning is the new “movie night” at our apartment). Check out what she has to say, since I agree with her assessment that it lacked a certain depth of character (in spite of a brilliantly-cast cast), and a satisfying quotient of wonder and peril, all of which are found in abundance in the original novel. The novel actually moved me to tears in places, and I find the relationship between Meggie and Mo, her father, one of the most satisfying parent-child relationships I’ve seen in children’s fiction in recent years. So often, authors feel compelled to make their child-protagonists orphans or otherwise removed from the family sphere in order for them to be an independent actor. Meggie, on the cusp of adolescence — though still very much a child — insists on her autonomy while simultaneously clinging tenaciously to her relationship with her father. She holds her own alongside (rather than against) Mo, her great-aunt Elinor, and other adults to rescue her missing mother. If you’re looking for a fun fantasy film, I’d encourage you to consider seeing the film version, but before or after you see the movie, be sure to check out the book (and as extra incentive, the book has sequels!)

As another small item of note: This is my 200th blog post!

Alice: "I can’t believe it’s not butter"

16 Friday Jan 2009

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I’ve become quite fond this past year of the long-running BBC comedy Vicar of Dibley, which both the New Hampshire and WGBH public television stations broadcast here in perpetual re-runs. I was trying to explain to my family over the Christmas holidays this particular clip, in which Alice, the totally endearing verger, explains to vicar Geraldine her suspicions concerning I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter. Since no one can deliver the monologue quite like Alice herself, here she is in full form!

Monday Morning Melange

12 Monday Jan 2009

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It’s a snowy Monday morning in Boston and I’m sitting at the MHS enjoying my London Fog latte and checking out my iGoogle blog feeds. Here are some links of note.

Thanks Michigan for once again making me proud of my home state. Sigh.

Hanna has a new blog which I’ve added to my blogroll, and she’s already put up a few fun links! If nothing else, you should go check out her beautiful design. The photograph is one of my favorites that she took last summer on a foggy day down in the North End.

I still remember vividly the first time I ever saw Christina Hoff Sommers interviewed on a documentary about contemporary feminism. I had no idea who she was, and my seventeen-year-old, newly-political feminist self was utterly taken aback by her anti-feminism-in-the-name-of-feminism outrage. Ten years later, she’s still at it.

I see that over the weekend Kate Winslet won Golden Globes for Revolutionary Road (which I have neither seen nor read) and The Reader (which I have read but not seen). While checking out the news coverage over at The Guardian online, I stumbled into Ann Billson’s joint review Films for people who don’t really like films. I can’t speak to the validity of her reviews, but I thought the overall point was an interesting one.

Finally, for those of you who wonder what this Dr. Who thing is I occasionally witter about on this blog, Wired magazine has put together a gallery of images following the many actors who have played the character over the years. I’m still working my way through the back catalog, so have only seen four of the eleven incarnations.* I told Hanna she needs to make me flash cards!

*For those of you who are/were fans of the BBC Chronicles of Narnia, Tom Baker (Dr. Who from 1974-1981) is also known for his turn as the Marshwiggle Puddleglum in Silver Chair.

Winter Break Booknotes

24 Wednesday Dec 2008

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I’m headed off tomorrow morning to Logan Airport, for my Christmas Day flight back to Michigan. As Hanna remarked as we were hauling book-heavy her duffel bags down to the rental car last Saturday, “oh, the terrible cost of literacy!” My suitcase and carry-on will, similarly, bear an over-representation of books. A quick (and no doubt incomplete) survey of what’s on the reading agenda for my winter break:

  • Monster Island, and its two sequels — Monster Nation and Monster Planet — by David Wellington. These are apocalyptic zombie novels about what happens to earth after human beings, infected by a mysterious virus, stop staying dead and instead come back hungry for human flesh.

  • Good Omens, co-authored by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett which Hanna has warned me to read with circumspection on the airplane, since spontaneous giggling has been known to occur during reading. Giggles will be welcome after a trilogy about zombies!
  • As will Little Women and Little Men which Hanna and another friend from Simmons, Laura, have impressed upon me the need to re-read and re-evaluate since I never enjoyed them much as a child. I have promised to give them a second pass . . . perhaps with an historians eye they’ll prove more enjoyable (who says scholarly analysis ruins literature?)
  • Perdido Street Station, by China Mieville. I bought this last summer after reading The Scar (set in the same world) but didn’t have the emotional energy to tackle it during the term (Mieville’s fantasy world is a dark one) . . . so I’ll be trying again!
  • On the non-fiction front, I have the new feminist anthology Yes Means Yes, edited by Jaclyn Friedman and Jessica Valenti, which asks its contributors to meditate on how a world that promotes authentic sexual pleasure and agency can help combat sexual violence.
  • Likewise, feminist Linda McClain’s book on the relationship between family relationships and politics, The Place Of Families, was cited in something I read recently on childhood and sexual agency (the exact reference is escaping me) and the copy I inter-loaned at the library has finally arrived — so I’ll get to indulge in my penchant for footnote wandering.
  • Finally, I practically had kittens when I was in the brookline booksmith a couple of weeks ago and saw that Nick Hornby’s third collection of “Stuff I’ve Been Reading” columns, Shakespeare Wrote for Money, is out. I’m saving this one for the airplane, though my seat-mates may not thank me.

And what winter break would be complete without a movies as well as books? My friend Aiden and I were thinking about trying to see Milk before he left town for the holidays, but it didn’t happen. I’m still hoping to catch it in the theater at some point, as well as the new Bond flick. Hanna and I are in the midst of Dr. Who (Season Four) with the second season of Torchwood in the offing as well . . . and it’s been called to my attention in recent days (as somehow we got involved in a debate about the morality of Vader’s death scene in Jedi) that I’m overdue for a review of the six Star Wars films. On a slightly more historical note, I have plans to show Hanna both Goodbye, Lenin! and The Lives of Others, both of which I think are interesting companion pieces to Tom Stoppard’s Rock ‘n Roll.

And Again With Twilight

09 Tuesday Dec 2008

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Despite the fact that I am deeply suspicious of the book and have yet to see the movie, Hanna has decided to hold me personally responsible for the phenomenon of Twilight, and specifically the chivalrous male lead, Edward Cullen, whom she has taken to referring to as “your stupid vampire.”

Given that my name will thus inevitably–at least in our apartment–be linked to many adolescent girls’ (and adult women’s!) lust for “vegetarian” vampires with stalker tendencies, I figure it’s only fair that I get to post links here to some of the awesome (and hilarious) deconstruction of the series that’s taking place around the blogosphere.*

Thus, two links that came across my desk today:

The first is Amanda Marcotte’s rant on Pandagon,
Vampires, liberals, and blood-sucking pretend liberals, which manages to connect the hate-mongering commentary about Proposal 8 to reactionary adoration of Twilight (apparently, the popularity of the series “means feminism is bound to fail”) through the person of Caitlin Flanagan. I have to say, when I saw that Flanagan had reviewed Twilight over at the Atlantic this week I about popped a blood vessel. Anyone who declares halfway down the first page of a review of teen lit that “I hate Y.A. novels; they bore me” has absolutely no business reviewing (or claiming to understand the popularity of) young adult literature — let alone explaining with condescending smugness the desires of adolescent girls with such generalizations as “the salient fact of an adolescent girl’s existence is her need for a secret emotional life.” Thank you, Amanda, for giving this review the critical attention it deserved — and most importantly connecting it to larger themes of political conservatism.

And in case political analysis is not your bailiwick, commenter annejumps on the Pandagon thread provided a link to The Secrets of the Sparkle, a three-part (plus drinking game!) send-up of the series written by an ex-Mormon. (To explain title of the post: apparently, Edward Cullen sparkles in the sun. Like, literally. It’s a detail I sadly forgot from my reading of the novels last year. Damn.) It’s sort of like a picture book cliff notes version of the first three books . . . through the lens of LDS theology. Trust me.

Okay. That’s my fun for this evening. Back to editing the final draft of my history term paper! The semester’s almost over!

*I want to reiterate here that 1) my reservations about the series does not mean I think we should disparage the pleasure girls are getting out of the romance of the books–though we can encourage them to think critically about messages that Twilight conveys about sexuality and gender, and 2) that my reservations also don’t mean I fail to get pleasure myself out of stories about scary, sexy vampire bad boys. I just happen to like my heroines with a little more bite and my sex with a little less prudery.