Two days before the Order of the Phoenix movie!!!! Wooooohoooooo!!!!!
This is just going to be an amazing month. One, there's the OoTP movie. Then the Deathly Hallows book. Heh, it seems like EVERYTHING is happening the weekend of July 20! There's a play , a concert featuring LOTR music, the Akron Cup... and of course, The Book.
Grudge Match: Sorry, folks, I thought we would have an update before this, and it probably isn't going to happen at this point before the book release. Sorry! Some of you know better than others the chaos in my life, and my co-author also has been busy (she's looking for a new job).
Well, I need to wrap this up. My parents and I are going to see a play this afternoon (Patsy Cline). It's been a busy weekend. Saw a very charming and whimsical version of the Peter Pan story on stage Friday evening. It was simply delightful. Also saw a couple neat exhibits at the area fashion museum, including one pairing Curtis' photography and Native American items. Also saw A Chorus Line at a smaller community theater. I was very impressed, for that is NOT an easy show to do. The dance numbers were very polished, and the singing quite strong (even in professional versions, sometimes the singing suffers due to the concentration on the dance).
Movies:
Saw the original Poseiden Adventure. This is an amazing movie, especially when you consider it was done in the days before CGI. So much work must have gone into this. And wow, does Gene Hackman look young, heh heh. It has the same feel as The Towering Inferno (no wonder, since the same director did both). Basically, a cruise ship turns turtle after a huge wave crashes into it, and a handful of survivors, led by Hackmans' character, need to find their way to the hull of the ship in hopes of escape and rescue.
Books:
War of the Worlds, by H.G. Wells. Wow, for a book written at the turn of the century (or, rather, the turn of the LAST century), this tale was very creepy. Basically, mankind is in danger of being annihalated after it turns out that the sentient life on Mars turns out to be rather brutal and bloodthirsty. It offers a lot of food for thought. If there is life out there, and I suspect there is, how do we know it will be friendly? Also, the observations about mankind's exploitation of weaker creatures to parrallel the alien's actions makes one shiver a bit.
Memoirs of a Geisha, by Arthur Golden. I saw the movie first, but definately prefer the book. There is far more character development, and many of the plot points just make better sense as described in the book. After their mother becomes fatally ill, Chiyo and her older sister Satsu are sold -- Satsu to be a prostitute, and Chiyo to an okiya to train to be a geisha. Chiyo encounters many barriers, not the least being Hatsumomo, the okiya's only geisha. Hatsumomo is a vindictive, bitter beauty who cannot tolerate any sort of challenger to her high status. But Chiyo, later Sayuri, comes under the tutaledge of Mameha, the most successful geisha in Gion and Hatsumomo's bitterest rival. I really like Mameha's character development in the book. In the movie, I merely got the impression that she became Sayuri's big sister to give a promising girl a chance. In the book, it's more clear that Mameha's goals are not all altruistic: she wants to get even with Hatsumomo, and sees Sayuri as a way of doing that.
Roureville, by E. Hae. Graphic novel/manga. Evan Pryce, a celebrated writer with the New York Times, is sent to a small town to do a story on the rumors of ghosts haunting the area. But it looks as if he may be getting more than he bargained for when he encounters the mysterious backwater town of Rourville. The story is a bit hard to follow, but it is well illustrated. I do like how the story doesn't tell you everything in the first volume (indeed, it tells you very little at all, and makes you wonder even at the end just what is going on...)
89 / 150
(59.3%)