Blog Post
October's Family-Friendly Books to Film
by muffy
Based on the remarkable true story in William Nack's Secretariat : the making of a champion, the film chronicles the spectacular journey of the 1973 Triple Crown winner. Housewife and mother Penny Chenery (played by Diane Lane) agrees to take over her ailing father’s Virginia-based Meadow Stables, despite her lack of horse-racing knowledge. Against all odds, Chenery, with the help of veteran trainer Lucien Laurin ( John Malkovich), manages to navigate the male-dominated business, ultimately fostering the first Triple Crown winner in 25 years and what may be the greatest racehorse of all time.
Already in theaters is the animated IMAX 3D Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole, based on the first 3 books in Kathryn Lasky's ever-popular fantasy series The Guardians of Ga'Hoole.
After Soren, a young owlet, is pushed from his family's nest by his older brother, he's plucked from the forest floor by agents from a mysterious school, the St. Aegolius Academy for Orphaned Owl, where Soren suspects there is more to the school than meets the eye. He and his new friend, the clever and scrappy Gylfie, find out that St. Aggie's is actually a training camp where the school's leader can groom young owls to help achieve her goal--to rule the entire owl kingdom. Later they meet with two more orphaned owls, the indomitable Twilight and pensive Digger, and the four form a band as they journey to a refuge that may exist only in legend--the Great Ga'Hoole Tree.
Blog Post
October's Books to Film
by muffy
Now a Focus Features film, teen novelist Ned Vizzini's It's Kind of a Funny Story is a "whimsical coming-of-age story".
Craig Gilner sees entry into Manhattan's Executive Pre-Professional High School as the ticket to his future. At his new school, Craig realizes that he isn't brilliant compared to the other kids and soon sees his once-perfect future crumbling away. The stress becomes unbearable. One night, he nearly kills himself.
Craig's suicidal episode gets him checked into a mental hospital, where his new neighbors include a transsexual sex addict, a girl who has scarred her own face with scissors, and the self-elected President Armelio. There, isolated from the crushing pressures of school and friends, Craig is finally able to confront the sources of his anxiety.
Ned Vizzini, who himself spent time in a psychiatric hospital, has created a remarkably moving tale about the sometimes unexpected road to happiness. For a novel about depression, it's definitely a funny story.
Based on the graphic novel** by Posy Simmonds Tamara Drewe (trailer) is loosely inspired by Thomas Hardy's Far from the Madding Crowd. It delightfully skewers modern mores and manners with great wit and understanding for the foibles of humanity.
At a bucolic writers' retreat run by Beth and Nicholas Hardiman, where Dr. Glen Larson, an American professor and struggling novelist, is staying. An ambitious young Tamara Drewe, mourning the loss of her mother, has returned to her family home nearby. A bookish girl not so long ago, Tamara is now a gossip columnist at a London paper and undeniably sexy. She quickly has every man in the vicinity falling at her feet. Meanwhile, long-suffering Beth sees to the needs of the writers while managing the farm, the household, and the many affairs of her husband, a best-selling detective novelist.
** = starred reviews
Blog Post
Author Birthdays: Stevens, Greene, Finney
by marshd
October 2nd marks the birthday of authors Wallace Stevens, Graham Greene, and Jack Finney.
Wallace Stevens was an American poet and lawyer, as well as a two-time winner of the National Book Award and a Pulitzer winner. Both awards went to his 1954 book of Collected Poems. However, he wasn't only famous for his poetry; in the 1930s, Stevens got in a fistfight with Ernest Hemingway.
Stevens was a Modernist. One of his poems, "The Man with the Blue Guitar" was inspired by Pablo Picasso's "The Old Guitarist." This poem in turn influenced artist David Hockney.
Graham Greene was an English writer, known for his books' religious themes. Greene was a Catholic, however the Church didn't always like his writing. Many of his stories were self-proclaimed thrillers, though not all. He liked to note that he wanted his serious works to be the main body used for criticism, not his "entertainments."
Many of Greene's books were made into films, including The End of the Affair, The Honorary Consul (US: Beyond the Limit), Stamboul Train (Orient Express), and The Quiet American. He also wrote both the novella and the screenplay for The Third Man.
Jack Finney was an American writer, probably best known as a Science Fiction novelist. One of his books, The Body Snatchers, was the basis for the sci-fi favorite Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and its many remakes.
Finney also wrote Time and Again, which is a tale of time travel, and includes several illustrations and images, some of which are actually from the 1880s. The story is about a man named Si, who is asked to perform in a secret government project which requires self-hypnosis in order to travel back in time.
Today is also the birthday of Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi, promoter of civil disobedience and non-violence.
Blog Post
Susurrus: A play without stage or actors
by annevm
A promising fall field trip would be Susurrus, running Wed.-Sun. through Oct. 3 at Matthaei Botanical Gardens. This creation, named for the sound of wind rustling in trees, was written and directed by David Leddy. It is an adult-themed "genre-defying reinterpretation of A Midsummer Night's Dream that weaves snippets of opera and a lesson in bird dissection into a mournful, poignant love story." Participants walk a path, while using headphones to listen to the story. Groups of four people are admitted every 15 minutes. Tickets are $30 in advance at the Michigan League or from the University Musical Society.