Archive for May, 2008

The Strangers director Bryan Bertino takes a simple storyline based in reality (“inspired,” in fact, by true events) and tells it with such careful realism that our own basic human terror, usually lying dormant within us, rises inescapably to the surface. He has figured out a perfectly lethal recipe for horror movie success: take a large dose of realism, add a few scary things and then patiently wait for the fear to rise.

This movie is a great example of a horror/suspense film done well. We human beings already have so many fears just lying inside us, waiting to be tapped into. We don’t need two hours of cheap jump scares (looking at you, Prom Night) or gratuitous, nauseating gore. We just have to witness very simple, normal things that could happen to plant a tiny seed of fear in the backs of our minds. Then, all it takes is a patient, detail-oriented filmmaker to nurture that seed until it grows into all-consuming terror.

To see the basic plotline and how it somehow so thoroughly scared the living daylights out of me,

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• According to the AP, Melissa Gilbert will once again star in Little House on the Prairie — but this time as “Ma” Ingalls in a stage musical version of the show.
• Harvey Korman, the Emmy-winning actor from The Carol Burnett Show has died at age 81, Zap2It reports.
• Billboard has the news that Toni Braxton has canceled all her scheduled shows in order to concentrate on her health.
• The memoir of Elissa Wall, Stolen Innocence: My Story of Growing Up in a Polygamous Sect, Becoming a Teenage Bride and Breaking Free of Warren Jeffs, will be adapted for the big screen, Variety reports. The book is also one of CitzenSugar’s suggested reads right now.
• According to Disney execs, their latest Narnia movie, Prince Caspian is not doing well at the box office simply because of the timing of the movie’s release, writes ComingSoon.
• According to Zap2It, Ray Winstone has joined the cast of HBO’s police drama pilot Last of the Ninth.
• UK band James will release their first album in seven years this September, Billboard reports.

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Counterculture icon Emily the Strange is getting her own movie. Unlike the ladies of SATC, Emily is a girl of 13 years who definitely is not looking for labels and love. In fact, her favorite phrase is, “Get lost!” (But not, you know, Lost.)

She is the brainchild of Bay Area skateboard merchandiser Cosmic Debris, and after all kinds of t-shirts depicting Emily and her cats became popular, Emily got her own comic books.

She’s different things to different people: fun t-shirt logo, symbol of female empowerment, gothic figure, intriguing comic book heroine. I happen to think of her as a strange and awesome little girl who loves her white Mary Jane shoes.

Of the plot, The Hollywood Reporter writes:

The storyline is being kept under wraps, though Reger, who concocted it, said it will offer up some backstory and will feature Emily’s four cats — troublemaker Sabbath, schemer Nee-Chee, imaginative Miles and leader Mystery. It will also have 13 new characters with names like Earwig, Umlaut, McFreeley and Officer Summers. The story forms the basis of an Emily young adult novel, which will be published next year by HarperCollins.

The folks producing the film are looking for a filmmaker who “gets the character.” I’m kinda hoping it’s a woman as this would be the perfect project to give a talented female director.

Is this exciting news? Any Emily the Strange fans out there?

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Hello Buzz Book Club readers! Between covering the ins and outs of the Sex and the City movie and reading Four Blondes as my last book club selection, I’m a little spent on the fabulous lives of women in New York City.

And while I’m excited for summertime, the truth is that many of us are stuck in an office during these sunny days. So, I thought a fun way to get us through the doldrums of gazing longingly out the window would be to commiserate with a hilarious book about life on the cubicle farm.

Introducing my June selection: Then We Came to the End: A Novel by Joshua Ferris.

The book has received all kinds of buzz and critical acclaim, so I’ve been excited to read it. Stephen King called it “hilarious” and the New York Times named it one of the best books of 2007.

For those of you new to my book club format, here’s how it works: I’ll announce a new book each month. Every week I’ll suggest chapters to complete by the next post (which, in this case, will go up every Friday in June). In these weekly Book Club posts, I’ll posit a few discussion-provoking questions for you to respond to in the comments section.

To find out what Then We Came to the End is all about and to get the first assignment,

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Nope, not a joke (at least, I don’t think it is!): Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth will be made into an opera by Italian composer Giorgio Battistelli. The production will debut in Milan in 2011. As The Independent explains it, “It began life as a slide show before mutating into a prize-winning documentary and a book, but now An Inconvenient Truth, the work for which the former US vice-president Al Gore was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, is to become an opera.”

This is kinda weird, right? What, exactly, will this look like? Also, hang onto those PowerPoint presentations, folks. They could be operatic masterpieces someday.

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OK, now this is a movie trailer! The Coen Bros. latest venture, Burn After Reading, now has a red-band trailer (which in this case means they’re using some NSFW language) and it is funny-goofy-weird-dark. Which is to say, awesome. The people in this movie are so fantastically talented, and combined with the Coens’ dark and bizarre direction, this movie looks totally promising.

The trailer is a little confusing, but the IMDB plot description puts it like this: “A disk containing the memoirs of a CIA agent ends up in the hands of two unscrupulous gym employees who attempt to sell it.”

I could watch Brad Pitt act like a total goofball all day.

To check out the trailer and tell me if you think there are more Oscars in the Coen family future,

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Wow. And. . . wow. The season finale of Lost was heartbreaking and heartwarming at the same time. It was totally intense and spooky and sweet and gave us some answers. My head is still reeling a little from the two full jam-packed hours.

There’s no way to process it all right now, but we might as well get started! To check out some of my thoughts on the season finale (spoilers ahead, of course),

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Welcome back Buzz Book Club readers! The time has come to bid farewell to the characters of Bushnell’s world in Four Blondes. It seems fitting that the final story in this book would be the most autobiographical (although I have no idea if Bushnell ever went to London looking for love) because she seems most at home with this character.

If you’re new to the Book Club, this is how it goes: every week I’ll suggest chapters to complete by the next post. In these weekly Book Club posts, I’ll posit a few questions to prompt discussion in the comments section.

Of course, you are always welcome to read beyond the weekly chapters, but please don’t spoil anything in the comments! After the jump you’ll find some questions that struck me as I read this section.

And stay tuned for the announcement of my June book club selection!

To discuss the final section of Four Blondes (in which we read to the end of the story titled “Single Process,”

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