Friday, April 22, 2011

April Showers Bring May Round Ups

Friday round up with Laura:

Most important things first, friends and foes: HBO has already renewed Game of Thrones. After one episode. Nice work there, HBO. I thought it looked amazing, and I love the cast, but I just wasn't very involved in the story. Maybe because I know how it ends up? Probably because I don't think they can do it justice in a ten episode season. Speaking of not doing justice, did anyone else not like the trailer for The Help? I'm a big Emma Stone fan and I still didn't like it. It just seemed like a rom-com trailer for a decided not rom-com book. But that's just me? Either way, it's got to be better than these terrible literary adaptations.

Abrupt subject change: did you know that, statistically, you're never going to read all the stuff you should? This is a response to Roger Ebert's plea for more well-read folks, and I think it's a fair point. Instead of trying to read boring things we should all spend more time doing all things Laura Ingalls Wilder, and living the Wilder life. Or watching more TV, because James Frey is going back to Oprah, which I think is just to keep him from being sad that he's not one of the six authors on Time's 100 most influential list, and he doesn't have a new HBO series like Jennifer Egan (or, while we're at it, a Pulitzer like Jennifer Egan). He doesn't even have a play like The Shack. Sad face!

I'm off to do Friday things—have a holly, jolly weekend, and see you next week.

6 comments:

  1. I hate to disagree but I love the trailer for "The Help." For me it brought back all the feelings of the book. Can't wait to see it!
    Happy Easter!

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  2. About the article that quoted the statistic that the average teenager spends only 17 minutes per weekend reading, I can only smirk and think that someone didn't factor in text messages. :)

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  3. I'm on a waiting list for the book from the library, but the trailer really works for me too.

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  4. Jil and Smoke--maybe I just hated Emma Stone's hair? Either way, I'll probably end up spending the $12 to see it in theaters.

    And English Teacher, I feel like no one counts text messages, blogs, emails, etc. in these calculations because they're not highbrow enough. And if we're going by highbrow, I don't read anything that counts...

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  5. English Teacher is correct! Teens spend a lot of time in the day texting. While it isn't novel quality work, they are reading quite a bit.

    Regarding the post topic--Game of Thrones is turning out to be a fantastic series! I'm wondering the same as you--can they wrap up the story correctly in ten episodes?

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  6. That trailer gave me an aneurysm. The soundtrack is so bad I don't think I could properly describe it without the use of four letter words. So cutesy and pat and simplistic and lacking the real sense of danger in the book, the real sense of Skeeter's insecurity. It's too bad somebody couldn't have put Laura Dern in a time machine and had her play Skeeter. I'm not a huge Dern fan, but when it's right, it's right, and she could have played Skeeter beautifully.

    Man. What a major freaking disappointment.

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