Movie Monday: Oscars and The Hunger Games

Lots of book news for today’s Movie Monday.

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore won the Academy Award for animated short film. I had never heard of this before yesterday, but it’s a beautiful movie and I’m very glad it won.

This year’s Oscars were a very bookish affair, there were lots movies that were based on books this year and they did well. Hugo won for best visual effects. best sound editing, etc, etc. Octavia Spencer from The Help won best supporting actress. The Descendants won best adapted screenplay, I’m disappointed that this movie was even nominated. Full list of nominees and winners is here if you’re interested.

Enough about the Oscars. With less than a month to go before The Hunger Games hits theatres many bookstores are creating special displays that feature the trilogy. I saw this awesome set up at an Indigo store in Toronto. They bought a bow and arrows, spray painted them gold and hung them from the ceiling. Simple but very effective, it looked great (at least in person, the photos don’t really do it justice) and it really fits the book. Absolutely genius.

Review of Various Positions by Martha Schabas

Various Positions features Georgia, a teenager who is a talented ballet dancer. After she auditions for the Royal Toronto Ballet Academy and is accepted she has to balance being a teenager, ballet dancer and daughter. Georgia is very confused in this book and it really translates into the writing, but not in a good way. There are a whole lot of different events and interactions with different characters and they all seem as if they were just dumped into the book. It doesn’t flow from one event to the next, it’s so choppy and jumpy that as I was reading I wondered if I had gotten a copy with printing mistakes, I felt that there were parts that I must have missed or skipped over somehow.

There’s really no good way to sum up the events in this book. I disliked the book so much that I was just going to use the summary from Good Reads and add my review to it, but I feel that the Good Read’s summary of it doesn’t really fit the book.

There were some good points to the book. Martha Schabas lives in Toronto and Various Positions is set in Toronto. It’s nice to find a Canadian author, as well as to read a book set in Canada. It’s nice reading about locations that I have been to or have heard of.

I also really liked how the characters of Georgia’s friends and fellow dancers were written. They all had distinct personalities and attitudes, they were all unique. Some books seem to have characters that are all just slightly different variations but Schabas seems to have put a lot of effort into these smaller characters and they don’t fade into the background.

Overall, I can’t recommend this book. I would give it a 2/5 because I really enjoy the minor characters and the location and how it was written but it was difficult to read the book the whole way through. I finished it so that I could give a full review of it but this is definitely a book that you should skip.

Review of Hana By Lauren Oliver

This short novella serves as perfect bridge between Delirium and Pandemonium by filling in gaps from Delirium and whetting your appetite for Pandemonium. In Delirium Hana seemed so perfect, even when she was rebelling and going to the underground parties and concerts. This novella gives us a deeper look into Hana’s character, what she feels like. It’s very well written and clearly describes she is going through. It’s easy to imagine yourself in her place, feeling the horror of giving up your life and personality, and becoming the perfect wife of someone whom you are matched to, without being able to make a choice for yourself. I absolutely loved this quote from Hana because it clearly shows how Hana is feeling on the inside:

“I can’t tell her about what I’m feeling now, either: that my life is slowly squeezing closed around me, as though I’m walking through a series of rooms that keeps getting smaller.”

Hana shows more of the relationship between Hana and Lena. In Delirium it seems as if Lena liked Hana more than Hana liked her- not that Hana disliked Lena, but she seemed more aloof, and like she had so much more going on in her life that she didn’t really need Lena as much as Lena needed her. In this novella you see their relationship from Hana’s eyes and it surprised me.

If you liked Delirium I would definitely recommend picking up Hana. It’s a quick read but it really complements Delirium and would be a great read before picking up Pandemonium.

What’s in a name?

Being a well known author can help you: J.K Rowling has broken out of Children’s Literature and has written a book for adults. The name of the novel, plot and other details haven’t been released yet but there’s already lots of buzz over this, details are going to be released later in 2012.

Sometimes it’s better to be unknown: Patricia O’Brien had published 5 novels but her 6th effort was rejected multiple times. When she switched to a pen name her novel sold within 3 days. The Dressmaker by Kate Alcott is a historical fiction novel about a seamstress who survives the sinking of the Titantic. Sounds like a great read. So many books and movies about the Titanic focus on the night of the sining, it will be interesting to read a book that goes beyond that.

Nothing to do with names: EW’s Shelf Life has a sneak peak at Insurgent, the sequel to Divergent by Veronica Roth. I can’t wait for May 1st, I loved Divergent.

Movie Monday- Jane Eyre

For Movie Monday this week I watched Jane Eyre, the 2011 version directed by Cary Fukunaga. Although Jane Eyre, the novel by Charlotte Bronte, has been turned into several miniseries, movies and made for t.v movies this version takes a fresh look at a classic.

I haven’t read Jane Eyre in quite awhile, and I didn’t really like it when I did read it. The plot in the movie stays close to the novel, so my problems with the movie are mostly the same problems as the novel. I greatly dislike Rochester’s character, and the idea that Jane would agree to marry some guy that she doesn’t know that well, especially a guy that isn’t even nice to her. Maybe some women want the proposal to be something of a surprise, but I’m pretty sure it’s the location or the timing that’s supposed to be the surprise- not the fact that they guy actually likes you. During the proposal scene in the movie you almost get whiplash as Jane goes so quickly from “What, you like me?” to “Sure, I’ll marry you!” This is paraphrased, of course.

Other than the looney tunes romance, this movie is absolutely brilliant. Mia Wasikowska portrays Jane Eyre beautifully with a quiet strength to her character. Judi Dench is wonderful as Mrs. Fairfax, my favourite scene with her is when she is showing Jane to her room, and Jane thinks that she is the owner of the house. I also love the interaction between Jane and Mrs. Fairfax near the end when Mrs. Fairfax is explaining what happened to the house, and tells Jane that she would have helped her.

This is such a beautiful movie- the moors alone made me want to visit, and the historic house that they film in is breathtaking. The lighting that they use (lots of candles, fireplaces, etc) feels very natural and complements the scenes well. Some of the scenes are very dark in terms of lighting and I really like that because it felt more realistic. I’ve seen historical movies where they’re inside at night and it completely feels lit by electricity, too bright, too much direct light but in Jane Eyre the lighting felt very authentic.

Jane Eyre is such a haunting tale and that fact really shines in this movie. It feels very gothic and tragic, but not as creepy as the trailer made it out to be. The trailer of the movie really makes it feel like you’re going to be watching a horror movie, but I think they crammed in all of the scariest and creepy bits of the movie into it, and possibly some of the deleted scenes, which are available on the dvd. I watched Jane Eyre by myself late at night and the deleted scene “Rochester Pleads with Jane to Stay” almost gave me a hear attack! (check out this clip at 0:09, and 2:31!)

This movie manages to stay fresh while staying true to the original story. It’s the kind of movie that you turn on the commentary and re-watch immediately after watching the first time, or at least I did. 5/5.

100 Greatest Books for Who?

Scholastic has released a “100 Greatest Books For Kids” list . All of the books on that list are wonderful books and I imagine it must have been very difficult to choose just 100 to include on the list. They included so many of my favourite books on that list: A Wrinkle in Time, Where the Wilds Things Are, The Giver, Madeline, etc, etc, etc. Too many of my favourites are on that list to name them all.

I know that the list isn’t going to make everyone happy. Maybe some favourite books have been left off, or people will disagree with books that were included. There’s a lot of excellent picture books that have been left off that I believe should have been included, and some of my childhood favourites such as The Egypt Game have been left off. If I had been on the committee helping to choose those books the list probably would have been renamed “1000 Greatest Books for Kids”.

But.

You knew there was a but coming, didn’t you?

I read an article on USA Today where Nick Friedman, the editor in chief of Scholastic Parent and Child magazine was interviewed about the list.  Then my head imploded. Apparently Twilight was considered “too mature” for the list, which I would agree with since it is a list of books for children, not teens or young adults. However, they included The Hunger Games. Apparently vampires fighting and discussions of waiting until marriage to have sex is too mature for children but teenagers brutally killing each other for the entertainment of others is great for kids to read.

I’m not saying Twilight should have been included. It’s a very popular book but in terms of quality as well as in terms of what is appropriate for children it doesn’t belong on the list. The Hunger Games doesn’t belong on the list either. If Scholastic comes up with a list of “100 Greatest Books for teens and young adults then the Hunger Games should definitely show up on that list. Until then, how about we give that spot to a book that’s actually meant for children?

Breathless Reads Giveaway

Beth Revis, author of Across the Universe, is hosting an awesome giveaway on her blog. She’s giving away signed copies of Across the Universe, Born Wicked by Jessica Spotswood, Nightshade by Andrea Cremer and Legend by Marie Lu. If enough people participate, more books will be added to the giveaway. Click on the Breathless Reads poster to check it out!