Taken from here.
 

It's almost impossible for adults to engage in an intelligent conversation about the debt crisis, mostly owing to the fact that nobody ever really seems to know what's behind the debt crisis. "Argh, bloated government spending!" "Argh, stupid tax breaks for the wealthy!" How, then, might an adult go about explaining the debt crisis to a child? By reducing it to a story about a greedy, penny-hungry dragon, of course! More »

Taken from here.

Today marks the 103rd celebration of International Women's Day, an annual day set aside to  celebrate the economic, political and social achievements of women around the world. How will you celebrate with all the women - young and old - in your life? Why not volunteer in support of a local women's cause, celebrate at an International Women's Day event in your area, or curl up with your favorite girl and read a book championing girl power? Here are seven books that remind us all that girls can achieve anything they set their minds and hearts to. 

Credit Image: © Florence Low/Sacramento Bee/ZUMAPRESS.com/

View the list here.

Taken from here.
 


Lutz Becker was born in Berlin, he says, "during the anno diabolo, 1941. Mine was the generation that was sent into a dark pit." Meeting this survivor of the Third Reich, now in his 70s and living in Bayswater, London, it's hard to suppress the thought that Becker, a distinguished artist and film historian, has conducted most of his life in a circle of hell.

Becker's childhood passed in the fetid, terrifying atmosphere of Berlin's air-raid shelters as the Allied raids intensified and the city was reduced to burning rubble. He recalls the radio announcements – "Achtung, achtung, ende ende, über Deutschland sinfe bender. Achtung, achtung" – followed by the helter-skelter rush downstairs. When the bombs fell – even far off – "the change in the air pressure was enormous, and extraordinary," he says. "People used to bleed from the ears, the nose and the eyes. I came out deaf, with tinnitus." Today, Becker adds, "I envy children who grow up without fear."
When the war ended in 1945, Becker and his family found "a world in ruins. The bodies of soldiers lay in the streets. When you passed a bombed-out building you could hear the buzzing of bluebottles in the darkness. Death was still underneath the ruins," he remembers. The devastated, malodorous aftermath of the Third Reich left a deep psychological scar. "As a child I had been forbidden to use dirty words. Now I would stand in front of the mirror in my mother's bedroom and repeat 'shit' and 'arsehole'." He laughs at the memory. "But I was thinking of Hitler."

In some ways, Becker has been thinking about Hitler ever since, and what the Führer did to the German people. "I was raised in a world of lies," he declares. As the Second World War morphed into the Cold War, the terrible truth about one of the most evil regimes in history began to leak out. Poignantly, the first Germans to come to terms with the reality of the Third Reich were those children who had somehow survived the fall of Berlin – young men like Lutz Becker.

A gifted abstract German artist and film-maker, Becker discovered his vocation as an artist in the 1950s, when he also acquired a passion for film. In 1965, he won the Gropius prize for art and chose to spend it by transferring to the Slade, first coming to London in 1966 to study under William Coldstream. His contemporaries included the artist and filmmaker Derek Jarman. While researching his thesis, his troubled relationship with his childhood under the Third Reich found a new outlet. "It was in the Bundesarchiv," Becker recalls, "that I first unearthed a photograph of Eva Braun holding a 16mm Siemens cine-camera."

Eva Braun still exerts a strange fascination. Today, 80 years after Hitler became chancellor, Braun is both a symbol of Nordic simplicity, and also a tragic figure whose ordinariness provides a window on to the banality of evil. Postwar fascination with the Nazis means that Eva Braun still has a remarkable grip on our imagination – the little girl in the fairytale who takes us to the horror in the woods.
The woman who holds the key to the domestic face of Adolf Hitler was 17 when she was first introduced to the Führer, who was only identified as "Herr Wolff". This blind date had been set up by Hitler's personal photographer Heinrich Hoffman, for whom Eva Braun worked as an assistant.
Hoffman, who ran a photographic studio in Munich, had been instrumental in the making of Hitler's image. He ensured that Hitler was always seen as a determined, defiant and heroic figure, a man of iron. From the 1920s, Hoffman's photographs were duplicated by the million in the German press, and sold as postcards to the party faithful. When Hitler's mistress, Geli Raubal, committed suicide on 18 September 1931 in the apartment they shared in Munich, there was an urgent need to hush up a potential scandal, and give the Führer's private life the semblance of normality. Hoffman stepped in. Eva Braun bore a striking similarity to the dead woman, and Hitler took comfort in her company after Raubal's suicide. By the end of 1932, they had become lovers.

Read the rest here.

Taken from here.
 

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is, in no way, shape, or form a film that passes the Bechdel test. Not only does it lack two female characters interacting with each other about something other than a male love interest, it pretty much lacks female characters, full stop. Of all 15 main characters, not one is female. Granted, this is true to J.R.R. Tolkien’s original book, an adventure story written for his children that primarily charts the story of Bilbo Baggins, a hobbit, on his journey across Middle Earth–a place filled with dwarves, goblins, dragons, magic, evil and, yes, very few women.
As noted at Feminist Fiction, “Women don’t play a named, significant (or even insignificant) role in the story. They don’t matter. They basically don’t exist.” While screenwriters Peter Jackson, Guillermo del Toro, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens do make some changes to include more females in the film, J.R.R. Tolkien’s book The Hobbit hardly references women. However, the paucity of female characters doesn’t mean a text need be written off or ignored by feminists–quite to the contrary.

While I disagree with the main claim of this post, which argues that one of the main points women can take away from The Hobbit is that women are better than men, I do agree with the sentiment that the story can be read as suggesting “Men should not be given a free leash with leadership.” However, I would add that the story actually works to trouble the category of “men,” as well as that of masculinity/feminity, and instead of merely suggesting “males make bad leaders” it suggests that greedy, power-hungry, domineering, discriminatory creatures–of any gender or type–make bad leaders.
Thus far, the story (of which An Unexpected Journey is the first of three films) not only reworks the definition of heroism and leadership, it also de-essentializes gender, giving us two male leads who blend femininity and masculinity. Sure, The Hobbit, much like The Lord of the Rings, director Peter Jackson’s previous Tolkien trilogy, consists almost entirely of male characters. This bugs me. I am inclined to agree with this post, which pointedly asks,

Here’s a man brilliant enough to invent entire languages for his elves and dwarves, but he can’t dream up a chick to join the unexpected journey? Not one of those 13 dwarves has a wife, a sister or a mother? Does the stork deliver Middle-Earth babies?

At least in the film adaptation, Galadriel (Cate Blanchett)–a royal elf who is part of the White Council (a group of wizards and others trying to defend Middle Earth from evil)  makes an appearance. Screenwriter Philippa Boyens argues that, “As Professor Tolkien wrote her at this time, this part of the history, she is the most powerful being in Middle Earth.” Well, that may arguably be the case in other Tolkien texts, but she is absent in The Hobbit. At least the second installment will up the female quotient a bit with the inclusion of Evangeline Lilly as Tauriel, a female elf.
Though Jackson has noted his plans to remain faithful to the source material, and only added one scene with Galadriel to An Unexpected Journey, the adaptation does display a distinct bent towards feminizing its two male heroes–Bilbo Baggins and Gandolf–and, even more key, feminizing them in a way that is championed rather than mocked.
Perhaps this is at the heart of what various critics take issue with in the opening segments of the film–notably the long scenes at Bilbo Baggins hobbit-hole, where the dwarves plunder his pantry before the journey begins. These scenes construct Bilbo as a character who is light-footed, quiet, well-mannered and  loves the home and all it portends– warmth, good food, creature comforts, love of family–while loathing the thought of adventures, which he describes as “Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things” which “make you late for dinner.” He falls decidedly on the “private” side of the public/private split–the side which has been coded as feminine. This is made all the more apparent when the dwarves come thundering in, with huge appetites, little manners and raucous ways. As noted here, they’re “purely masculine characters” who “resemble nothing more than adolescent boys on an adventure; setting off without any thought as to how the journey will go and what they will do once they arrive at their destination.”

Betwixt the feminized Bilbo and the masculinized dwarves is Gandalf, a gender-fluid wizard who sometimes acts like your stereopytical stern father or uber-warrior and other times takes on a traditional maternal role, nurturing Bilbo and the dwarves. While this piece claims Gandalf’s staff is phallic and the dangerous ring is feminine, as is the evil dragon, I think the film muddies such binary reads of gender.

Gandalf rarely takes on the role of warrior in the film and often is positioned in the background, sitting or leaning, looking thoughtful–in contrast, for example, to the hyper-masculine Thorin, whose patriarchal ancestry is repeatedly emphasized.
Bilbo, the indisputable hero of The Hobbit, has both lines of his ancestry focused on. In the novel, Belladonna Took is the only female mentioned and is framed as the person from whom Bilbo has inherited his adventurous side. (I wish the film would have emphasized this more. Not doing so seems a missed opportunity, as this is one of the only ways a female actually in the text could have been featured.)

Bilbo’s father’s side is the more “traditionally Hobbit” side, with love of home and loathing of adventure emphasized (another instance of gender-bending expectations that the film does not highlight). Bilbo, at one point in the film, insists ““I am not a Took, I am a Baggins,” arguing he’s more like his “feminine” home-loving father than his “masculinized” adventurous mother. The fact that he identifies more with his homebody dad leads him to understand why Thorin, who leads the journey, doubts him, prompting him to admit, “I would have doubted me too … I am not a hero … or a warrior.” He also admits “I miss my books and my armchair and my garden … that is home … and that is why I came back as you don’t have a home … it was taken from you …but I will help you take it back if I can.”

Here, Bilbo emphasizes why he is willing to fight when necessary–for the sake of “home” – and not a homeland mind you, but a hobbit hole, a place with a well-stocked pantry and nice dishes. This, as well as his small stature and pacifist mentality, makes him an unlikely hero, one who not only worries more about doilies and teacups than adventure, but also willingly admits, “I have never used a sword in my life,” and is quick to apologize and/or own his weaknesses.
But, like the undervalued more-than-half of humanity (yes, women), Bilbo is capable of far more than Middle Earthlings give him credit for. Indeed, he can be read as the “better man” who does not cheat, who is opposed to violence, who protects and nourishes rather than destroys and kills.

Yet The Hobbit  has excessive amounts of violence and battle, so much so that I am inclined to agree  with the Los Angeles Times review  that “all this violence gets increasingly wearying as all those minutes unfold.” However, though some scenes go on a bit too long, the battles undertaken are not ones of conquest or empty valor, nor driven by greed for power or wealth. It is a quest that asks more for “loyalty, honor, a willing heart” than for  victory or plunder. “True courage is about knowing not when to take a life … but when to spare one,” advises Gandalf. Boyens, one of the screenwriters, even suggests we read the dwarves as “part of a Diaspora, the loss of the homeland, the way that they wandered in the wild, the great longing and yearning…”

Indeed, there are many political allegories one can glean in Tolkien’s work, but the texts don’t exactly shout out feminism. However, this first Hobbit film, drawing on something that does not go against the reading of the book, does tease out a critique of masculinity–particularly of traditional masculinity and its links to bravado, heroism, and war-waging. In perhaps the most feminist exchange of the film, Gandalf shares with Galadriel the feminist tenet most famously espoused by Margaret Mead–that small, everyday acts can change the world:

I have found that it is the small things, every day deeds from ordinary folk, that keeps the darkness at bay. Simple acts of kindness and love.

So, while it may be mega-light on the female character quotient and heavy on battle scenes, the film adaptation nevertheless pleases this feminist viewer. Not only does it critique gender norms and celebrate gender bending, and not only does it beautifully depict halfling heroism, wit and intellect, but it also earns bonus points for condemning racist language such as “Dwarf-scum” and for not, (thank you screenwriters!) adding any unecessary heteronormative romance elements.

As Gandalf proclaims in the film, “all good stories deserve embellishment,” and the filmmakers do embellish the adaptation with a female hobbit here and there in the shire, as well as with the addition of Galadriel. Though I would personally love an all-female rendition of the film someday, I appreciate this version has stayed true to the text while still slyly suggesting Bilbo may be more of a Bilbette–and that while macho warrior types have it all wrong, Joss Whedon types recognize a true hero when they see one, and that hero can be female or male, heterosexual or otherwise, human or hobbit.
Enjoy your holidays, my fellow halflings, and may your pantry be as full as Bilbo’s was before the dwarf raid and your meals as full of life and merriment as the one he and Gandalf shared with them at the outset of An Unexpected Journey.

Taken from here.
 

by Hannah Soo Park

One look at Steve Carell's plasticky mullet for "The Incredible Burt Wonderstone" was quite the tease on its own, but now we've got the movie's first trailer to get us in on all the tacky Vegas action — and by "action," we're referring to what looks to be the ultimate face-off between our two favorite Steves (Carell and Buscemi) and a very Criss-Angel-inpsired Jim Carrey.
Watch the trailer below!


In case you were blinded by the velvety bedazzled costumes or Carrey's fire tricks to make out an actual storyline, the trailer is a sneak peek at Carell and Buscemi as old-school Vegas magicians, Burt Wonderstone and Anton Marvelton, whose credibility and popularity are threatened when the duo begins to lose its audience to Carrey's cooler, "new-age" character, a fellow illusionist who doesn't wear a costume (or shirt, for that matter), but apparently makes up for it with stringy ombre hair, a multitude of goth rings and the aforementioned firey spectacles. To fight for their reputation as the city's magician kings, however, the two must overcome their secret loathing of each other.
To pack a little more comedic punch, the movie has its fair share of funny-movie alums. Buscemi and Carell aside, Alan Arkin, Jay Mohr, Olivia Wilde and James Gandolfini also make appearances in the film.

Directed by Don Scardino — who's worked on TV favorites, like "30 Rock," "2 Broke Girls" and "Law and Order" — and co-written by John Francis and Jonathan M. Goldstein, "The Incredible Burt Wonderstone opens on March 15, 2013.

Taken from here.

 

Every traveler who has ever stayed at a hotel can relate to checking in at the hotel front desk. If you are traveling out-of-town, you are probably exhausted and edgy from your trip, and you may also be uncomfortably weighed down by cumbersome baggage. Under these circumstances, it's easy to forget that the person at the other side of the desk is a human—rather than an anonymous extension of a brand or of a large hotel chain.
read more

Taken from here.
 

As a follow up to last year’s fashion book gift guide, we rounded up the best fashion books from 2012, jotted down a little description and pointed you in the right direction of where to buy.
Continue reading »

Taken from here.

She's going to record it with Tony Bennett, who says it will “reaffirm that she's one of the best jazz singers that anyone's ever heard.”
Tony Bennett has told Billboard that he's going to record an album of jazz duets with Lady Gaga after he finishes work on Viva Duets and she releases her upcoming record ARTPOP. "It's going to really reaffirm that she's one of the best jazz singers that anyone's ever heard," says Bennett. He first sang with Gaga on a version of "The Lady Is A Tramp" that came out on his record Duets II last year. They're currently in the process of selecting songs and will work with arranger/orchestrator Marion Evan on the album recording. Source: youtube.com

Gaga has showed off her jazz vocal chops in concert over the past few years. Here's her take on the standard "Orange Colored Sky" at Radio 1's Big Weekend in England last year...

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View Entire List ›

Taken from here.



On both sides of the camera, Jodie Foster has worked almost exclusively in movies for the past few decades. But television’s actually where she got her start. As a child actress in the ’70s, she appeared on several TV shows before Taxi Driver turned her into a movie star; as a director, her first gig was a 1988 episode of Tales From the Darkside titled “Do Not Open This Box.” Now she’s looking to return to the medium once more, with the female-centric mob drama Angie’s Body for Showtime. More details after the jump.

Deadline reports that Angie’s Body will follow “a shrewd, sexy and, when necessary, lethal woman who runs a family-based crime syndicate.” Rob Fresco (Heroes, Crossing Jordan) is on board to write, while Foster will direct. In addition, both Fresco and Foster will executive produce with Russ Krasnoff.

Gangster dramas aren’t terribly uncommon, but the fact that Angie’s Body will center around a woman should help set the show apart from other shows and movies in the subgenre. While a female mobster character isn’t unheard of in Hollywood, for every O-Ren Ishii there are a dozen Vito Corleones and Tony Sopranos. Showtime also seems like a particularly good home for the series, as it’s got a strong track record with antiheroines on shows like Homeland, Nurse Jackie, and Weeds.

After making her directorial debut on Tales From the Darkside, Foster followed up with the feature films Little Man Tate and Home for the Holidays in the ’90s. Last year’s The Beaver marked her first directorial effort in sixteen years. Foster is said to be concentrating on her filmmaking career these days, but she hasn’t abandoned acting completely: She was last seen onscreen in last year’s The Beaver and Carnage, and stars in next year’s Elysium with Matt Damon and Sharlto Copley.

• TV Bits: ‘The Transporter’, ‘Dexter’, ‘The Walking Dead’, ‘The Mindy Project’, ‘Ben and Kate’, Peter Berg
• TV Bits: ‘Archer’, ‘Bob’s Burgers’, ‘Community’, ‘Arrested Development’, ‘Sons of Anarchy’, ‘Boardwalk Empire, ‘Homeland’, ‘The Walking Dead’
• TV Bits: ‘Arrested Development’, ‘Treme’, ‘Hannibal’, ‘Game of Thrones’, ‘Homeland’, ‘Grimm’, ‘Sons of Anarchy’, Bryan Fuller, J.J. Abrams, Guillermo del Toro
• TV Bits: ‘Dexter’, ‘Boardwalk Empire’, ‘The Big C’, ‘Battle Royale’, ‘Dr. Horrible’, ‘American Horror Story’
• TV Bits: ‘Hannibal’, ‘Mockingbird Lane’, ‘Dexter’, ‘Homeland’, ‘Modern Family’, Stephen Merchant, and More
• TV Bits: ‘Breaking Bad’, ‘Star Trek’, ‘Street Fighter’, ‘Pushing Daisies’, ‘Dexter’, ‘Hell on Wheels’, ‘Treme’, Ronald D. Moore

Taken from here.

This oldie but goodie gets the stock photo interpretation it has always deserved.

I want a girl with a mind like a diamond.

I want a girl who knows what's best.

I want a girl with shoes that cut.

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View Entire List ›

Taken from here.



As I’ve said before, I’m not a huge fan of theme-ing your wedding around a book intended for pre-teens. But you know, whatever. To each his own. And the reason I’m saying that is because one couple has taken this concept so much farther, farther than I ever guessed it could go, that it makes the notion of a Harry-Potter themed wedding look downright conservative: the couple in question changed their last names to Cullen upon getting married, in honor of Edward Cullen of “Twilight” fame.

Abigail Kirk and Andy Weeks got married in England in February. It’s the bride who is responsible for the “Twilight” obsession, being apparently the biggest fan in the world, but in a surprising twist, it’s the groom who suggested the name change:

The die-hard fan, who tied the knot in a Twilight-inspired wedding, claimed it was Mr Cullen who first came up with the idea. Although he has seen some of the films, he has never read any of the Twilight saga’s four romance-themed novels.
‘One evening as we were planning the big day, he said, “Let’s change it to Cullen” and it sort of stuck,’ she said.

This reminds me of getting a tattoo with your girlfriend or boyfriend’s name, only somewhat worse. This is the name you’re going to give your kids. This suggests an unhealthy obsession with something that is not real. You’re passing this name on to future generations, and it’s taken from a fad book with utterly fictional characters that will probably be forgotten in five years.

Not to mention the fact that it kind of smacks of both parties taking another person’s name altogether, as if one of them, I don’t know which one, might not prefer to be marrying somebody else. Somebody that doesn’t exist.

Related posts:

• Gallery: Artist Envisions What Movie Villains Would Look Like In Their Twilight Years
• Turn Your Family Into Twilight Characters With These Stickers For Your Car
• Party Favors: How Much Do You Like Twilight?

Post from: TheGloss

Taken from here.

[Editor's Note: And they're off! The Race to the Kodak Theater has officially kicked off with The Hunger Games' Jennifer Lawrence revealing this year's nominees this morning from Beverly Hills, CA. Did your favorite flick get a nod? --Morgan]

The nominees for the 84th annual Academy Awards were announced this morning.

Jan. 24, 2012 - Hollywood, California, U.S. - Jennifer Lawrence and Tom Sherak during the 84th Academy Awards Nominations Announcement, held at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Samuel Goldwyn Theater, on January 24, 2012, in Beverly Hills, California.(Credit Image: © Michael Germana/Globe Photos/ZUMAPRESS.com)

Martin Scorsese’s “Hugo” leads the pack with 11 nominations, which includes a nom for Best Picture as well as Best Director.

“The Artist” is right on the heels of “Hugo” with 10 nominations, with Brad Pitt’s “Moneyball” and the movie “War Horse” receiving six noms each.

Taken from here.

Listening to great music always boosts my mood–and my productivity. Here are my picks for the best albums for wrapping Christmas presents:

12 DAYS OF ALBUMS:

• 1. A Charlie Brown Christmas by Vince Guaraldi Trio
• 2. Merry Christmas by Mariah Carey
• 3. Christmas by Michael Bublé
• 4. Under the Mistletoe by Justin Bieber
• 5. A Very She & Him Christmas by She & Him
• 6. Bing Crosby: Christmas Classics by Bing Crosby
• 7. The Greatest Holiday Classics by Kenny G
• 8. The Christmas Collection by Frank Sinatra
• 9. Four Christmases (Music from the Motion Picture) by Various Artists
• 10. A Holiday Carole by Carole King
• 11. The Classic Christmas Album by Tony Bennett
• 12. A Christmas Together - John Denver & the Muppets by John Denver

If you are tired of Christmas music, here are a few alternatives that will rock your wrapping.

• Teenage Dream (Deluxe Edition) by Katy Perry
• 21 by ADELE
• Valentine's Day (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) by Various Artists (Ignore the title, this album rocks any time of the year.)
• 1 by The Beatles
• Rocket Man - Number Ones by Elton John
• The Very Best of Neil Diamond by Neil Diamond
• Elf (Music from the Motion Picture) by Various Artists (Okay, I lied... this is still a Christmas album)
• Mylo Xyloto by Coldplay

~ Chris Olson
Writer and illustrator

Momathon Blog: the 24/7 mommy marathon–on two feet or four wheels

• Mommy Bloggers Connect

Elvis Costello Doesn't Want You To Buy His New CD:

Elvis Costello is sick of the music industry charging exorbitant amounts of money for his music, so he's sticking it to the man. I love when artists do this. Badass.

He wrote this blog post explaining why people shouldn't buy it:

Via: joemygod.blogspot.com

Taken from here.

Giving a book as a present is a given in our family. Our sons are four and six, and their bookshelves are overflowing with amazing books. I thought perhaps I would share some great books -- from picture books to beginning chapter funnies to some non-fiction finds -- that you might want to wrap up and put under the tree this year. As an added bonus, I included a series of holiday themed books you might want to check out before Christmas Eve is upon us!

My, or, our new favorite picture book is Stuck by Oliver Jeffers. We bought it for our younger son’s birthday last month and it has been a big hit. In short, a little boy gets his kite stuck in a tree and then starts throwing everything he can find up into the tree to get his kite un-stuck. As you might imagine, everything he throws gets stuck. Including the fire department.

I’m a sucker for any book that includes fire departments, so it was an instant favorite. Both of my sons enjoy giggling through the many things tossed into the tree. The book provides the added bonus of many lovely illustrations to look at (and giggle at) for hours on end. ($10.36 at Amazon right now.)If you have a pink-loving girl (or boy!) in your house, you may want to pick up Pinkalicious: The Princess of Pink Treasury. Yes, a treasury of all things pink. It is not, however, a treasury of the main books (think Pinkalicious, Purplicious, etc), but of smaller stories. The books included in this hardback treasury are School Rules, Pinkalicious and the Pink Drink, Pink Around the Rink, Tickled Pink, and Pinkie Promise. If you bought all five of those books separately, you would pay over $20.00. The treasury is currently $13.05 on Amazon and comes with an audio CD of all five stories. Bonus!

Are you a blogger? Then your kid probably needs this book: My Mommy Is a Blogger by Sommer Poquette. We were lucky enough to get a review copy this summer, and it has remained on our living room shelf of “currently reading frequently” books. The story features a child who takes her mom to school on career day. It’s really a neat way to educate your children on what the business side of blogging is all about and answers questions about why your blogging work is important to the family. As an added bonus, you can give it to people who ask you, “But how is it a job, really?” like the teacher in the book. My favorite part of the book? When the little girl introduces her mom as a “booger” instead of a blogger. Awesome!

Does your child love If You Give a Mouse a Cookie or If You Give a Pig a Pancake or If You Give a Moose a Muffin? Or, you know, any of those books? Then you definitely need to pick up the newest release, If You Give a Dog a Donut. These books are always good for some belly laughs, and not just from the kids. In the newest book, we obviously get to follow a dog around on a delightful and, as per usual, exhausting adventure. As an added bonus, maybe this book will help your child (or, you?) stop feeding the dog table scraps. Or, at the very least, donuts. It’s currently $8.49 for the hardcover new release, which would make it a great addition to your long-lasting family library.

For your kiddos just starting to read chapter books, I have to tell you that we are in love with Captain Underpants and his hilarious series. There’s something kind of awesome about watching your six-year-old run into the room in underoos and socks and yell, “Tra-la-LA!” We recently bought box set of the first four books and were delightfully surprised when the box it comes in makes a “Tra-la-LA!” sound when you open it. If your reader has already made it through that series, The Adventures of Super Diaper Baby is written by the same author and is just as hilarious. In fact, the next book, Super Baby 2: Invasion of the Potty Snatchers might make you giggle-snort during an evening read-along.

As far as non-fiction goes, the hands-on set of either gender might enjoy these three suggestions. Both the LEGO Star Wars Character Enclycopedia and Harry Potter: Building a Magical World are books I want as a grown woman, but kids are sure to enjoy them as well. Under our tree this year, in addition to those two, will also be The Big Book of Science Experiments. The age range is from 8-12, but I have a little dude who loves science, so both his dad and I are going to be working with him on some of these during the cold winter months to come. What’s better than a non-fiction book that gives you something to do when there’s nothing else to do? Fantastic.



If you’re looking specifically for holiday themed picture books, I could honestly go on for hours. However, I’ll give you one book that actually results in a whole series of holiday book suggestions. Our favorite book is The Firefighter’s Night Before Christmas. It’s not new (2002) or anything shiny, but it’s a great way to personalize a story that everyone already knows and loves. Best part? There’s a whole bunch of these books! There’s The Teacher’s Night Before Christmas, The Nurse’s Night Before Christmas, Librarian’s Night Before Christmas and, another favorite, The Soldier’s Night Before Christmas. (And many others, including, uh, something about Rednecks? Hmm.)



That’s a lot of book suggestions for the younger set, but I think it’s pretty good. A bunch of great new picture books, two different (hilarious) sets of chapter books, some non-fiction must-haves and some Christmas books that your family will treasure for generations to come. I’m like the Santa of book gift ideas, though I do apologize that the gift guide doesn’t come with money to purchase all of those. So just pick one or two favorites and give your child the gift of reading this holiday season. There’s nothing better.

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Family Section Editor Jenna Hatfield (@FireMom) blogs at Stop, Drop and Blog and The Chronicles of Munchkin Land. She is a writer, editor and photographer.

Sad Women Are The Prettiest: On Lars Von Trier’s Melancholia:

Inspired because Lars Von Trier was “tired of making comedies” Melancholia is a terribly good looking movie about the end of the world. And wow, Kirsten Dunst looks spectacular in it. She works that wedding dress like it was some sort of ethereal, poltergeist beauty meringue (it’s a little puffy, is what I’m saying, but that does not diminish her looking magnificent for even an instant). In between looking beautiful she finds time to utterly self destruct at her own wedding and then sit around tables murmuring things like “the Earth is evil; life on Earth is evil; no one will miss us because we are alone”. She also manages to cheat on her fiance on her wedding day, and ditch her seemingly very carefully planned reception to go have a bath.

Have I mentioned how poignant and lovely she looks doing it? She is absolutely spectacular to watch, like some sort of rapidly approaching death star.

Which is surprising, because Charlotte Gainsbourg‘s character is certainly the easier one to relate to. Which is to say, she has a child, and husband, and is not really keen on the impending apocalypse. You know, like most people. Most people would prefer the world not end today.

And frankly, there is something fundamentally unlikable about Kirsten Dunst’s character, insofar as she seems to be miserable from a fairly privileged position. She’s getting married. In a castle. To Alexander Skarsgard. And being congratulated upon being very good at her job. There really appears to be very little in her life that should be causing her to flee to the bathtub because the world has become too difficult. I found myself, at various intervals, wanting to grip her by the shoulders and shake her and tell her to pull herself together.

But then, almost every scene Kirstin Dunst is in is remarkably memorable, and the ones Charlotte Gainsbourg are in, well, they aren’t. That’s not to say she isn’t good in them, it’s just that she will not, I don’t think, stick in most viewers minds in quite the same way Dunst does. I don’t think the reason for that is that Kirstin Dunst is fundamentally lovelier than Charlotte Gainsbourg, or a better actress, but her character does have the glamour that is imbued upon characters – particularly women – who are unhappy.

Culturally, we romanticize sad women in a way we don’t happy women. Zelda Fitzgerald. Eddie Sedgwick. Marilyn Monroe (especially Marilyn Monroe). There are probably other women just as pretty, but people are less inclined to think about the sublime beauty of Mary Tyler Moore or Doris Day or any of the other women who seem okay. Perhaps that goes along with the way men seem less invested in a woman’s sense of humor because when we see people with a positive outlook on the world, people who seem functional, we assume they need us less. And they probably legitimately do need us less, even if what we think they need us for is to shake them until they see that their life is fine. They certainly do not need anyone to give them a bath as Kirstin Dunst’s character does.

Now it’s possible to say that Kirsten Dunst is more memorable because in the context of the movie, Kirsten Dunst is right to be sad. The world is ending. Charlotte Gainsbourg’s character doesn’t want to acknowledge that because she has things to lose. Since Kirsten Dunst’s character’s only emotion seems to be a sense of doom, she’s able to see actual doom clearly. And, I suppose at some point, the world is always ending, for all of us. In that way, perhaps Kirsten Dunst’s character stands out more because we like to think of ourselves as being savvy enough to understand such things.

Or maybe it’s just that Kirsten Dunst spends a good portion of the movie sunbathing naked against a painterly palatte. Either/Or!

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Post from: TheGloss

Taken from here.

It’s an unusual rags to riches story that takes a two-year spiritual break in the fiery heroine’s trajectory from theatrical call-girl to Empress of Rome, but Theodora of Constantinople was the least usual of heroines.

Not only did this sixth-century young woman jettison a theatrical career that saw her the most successful actress of her day by the age of fifteen – to run away with a lover who was the governor of Libya – but when he summarily dumped her she travelled into the Egyptian desert, there to experience a major religious conversion. For the twenty-one years of her reign as empress beside her husband the Emperor Justinian, Theodora consistently opposed not only her husband, but the mainstream Church’s view on the very nature of the Christ –- she gave a voice to the more esoteric faith of the eastern Christians, especially those in Syria, Egypt and the Levant. The Orthodox Church still regards her as a saint. While the very few Theodora stories that have been passed down to us through history decry her salacious ways and her desire for power, they always also acknowledge her passionate faith.

It’s unexpected to be faithful today. It’s definitely not cool, or interesting. Atheism, certainly in Britain, and possibly in London even more so, is, if not the norm, then easily as usual as agnosticism. I realise this isn’t the case in the USA where your president still ends his broadcasts “God bless America,” but our prime minister would be laughed off screen if he tried that, and though the queen is nominally both head of state and head of the Church of England, everyone knows that those two things came about because Henry the Eighth wanted to wrest power from the Pope and to marry Anne Boleyn. His decision to join divine rule to a new church might have made it easier for him to marry again, it also ensured that no British monarch would ever be taken seriously as "God-given."

When I started researching Theodora for my first historical novel, one of the most interesting things about her was her faith. Faith is an integral part of this powerful, passionate, opinionated character. I don’t believe we should only write what we ourselves have lived, nor am I interested in turning my personal life into fiction. In my past few books I’ve written about a white working class London man of sixty-seven, a young British-Pakistani man of twenty-six, a woman in her thirties living with –- and dying of –- terminal illness, and a fairy princess who cuts out the heart that re-grows daily, in order never to fall in love. I like making things up, and I have loved finding out about other people and other ideas in order to write them. But writing about Theodora has given me a chance to write about a character for whom faith is a central part of life –- as it is for me.

I was brought up Roman Catholic -– the kind you often find in small town New Zealand –- generous, warm, with a large Polynesian population in the church, an outward-looking belief that was as much about good works as anything else. But while I am grateful to have been brought up in a family that understood faith, spirit, I also knew Catholicism wasn’t for me, and so I began my own quest in my late teens. In my early twenties I returned to London where I was born, and here I met the Buddhism I’ve now practiced for twenty-five years, over half my life.

I don’t fit the usual stereotype of a Buddhist –- people generally think of me as engaged, political, loud. I like a drink, I like a party, I like people. But I also crave time alone, peace and solitude, time to myself. The usual writer’s life in fact –- two-thirds of the time working alone, the other third right out there, engaging with readers, talking about work, finding new stories through engagement with others. The Buddhism I practice, a chanting, community-based form, is all about going out into the world, the opposite of the western idea of Buddhism and much closer to the truth the of original Buddha –- who after all, found enlightenment sitting under the bodhi tree, having lived among people for years, not hiding away in some mountain retreat.

Like Theodora, I started in theatre, and theatre work has taught me about discipline –- you do the show whether you feel like it or not, you turn up to rehearsals whether you’re "inspired" or not. I turn up to my desk whether I feel like writing or not. I write whether I have a great idea or not. Most writers find the discipline needed to get yourself to the desk is the hard part; I count myself lucky that twenty-five years of Buddhist practice has given me an understanding of my own discipline. Chanting morning and evening, every day, believing that I can have an effect, if not always on what happens to me, then in my attitude to events, is a major component of my faith.

Eleven years ago, I had breast cancer. I had surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy and was fortunate to keep working all through my treatment -– I needed to work, both because I’m freelance and because I didn’t want to miss out on going with the show to San Diego and New York. I ended the year exhausted, a lot poorer (ouch those insurance costs!), but alive and with three months off-Broadway under my belt. One of the best pieces of guidance I had was from a Buddhist leader who told me, “You do not have your practice to make your cancer better, you have your cancer to make your practice better.” It was strict guidance, but very true. There was no point chanting to be cured, my practice is not magic. I took action myself, consulted doctors and nurses, underwent treatment, and kept on with my Buddhist practice to take care of my spirit –- that is, I was given guidance to see the thing that was happening to me, not as something to run away from, but as a chance to engage more deeply with my own understanding of life. I’m lucky, I survived. I didn’t survive without scars, and there was a price to pay; chemotherapy made me infertile, but I did survive. I lived on so I can do more, be more, share more. Some suggested that, having been ill, I should slow down. My response was the opposite, having confronted my own mortality, I want to make the most of every moment. If that means editing a book while working on a short film while directing a new play while writing a story, then so be it -– I never want to turn down a new opportunity, I firmly believe Yes is bigger than No. (And I always start writing on holiday anyway!)

For me, as for Theodora –- as for all those who lived at her time when Christianity was just beginning to define itself, when the Church was slowly emerging to become a recognised force, when people regularly debated the very nature of the Christ over their jug of wine -– faith is part of my daily life. It may not always match my public persona, it may not always fit into a hugely busy schedule, but it is always there, at the core of my day. I think Theodora’s faith gives grounding to a grand-journey character who might otherwise seem too far removed from our normal lives as readers, just as her actual faith must have given her some stability in a life that was wilder than any of us could imagine. For me, as a writer, with no certainty to my career, no office I have to go to, no boss to report to, no idea where the next idea is coming from until I have it, chanting morning and evening provides a rhythm for my day, a grounding that allows me to fly.

[Editor's Note: To read an excerpt of Theodora: Actress, Empress, Whore and join the discussion, please visit BlogHer Book Club!]

© Stella Duffy 2011

Taken from here.

Question: What would your reaction be if you were hired to work for a failing newspaper, the editor doesn't care for the writers at all, you have a bit of alcohol problem and you can't find your writer's "voice"? Well, you actually have more problems than that but I won't give the whole movie away. However, I just saw The Rum Diary - a movie based on the book by Hunter S. Thompson and that's what's this movie is about, mostly.

Coutesy of FilmDistrict

If I were in a situation like that, my reaction, if you must know, would look like this: I would write about what I love (movies), really hope Karma works because payback's a bitch, have a few glasses of red wine or maybe I should try a gin and tonic, realize most days are like Fridays (best day of the week) because I had my "voice" all along. I would also befriend the staff at the newspaper because that's what creative minds do..find a support system that actually understands you. But this movie isn't about me now, is it?

I must say right off the bat - that the preview I saw for The Rum Diary was bit misleading. It portrayed the film as a comedy or a really offbeat story. Now, don't get me wrong, there were parts where I smiled and even giggled but I would call this a drama. Also, I am unclear why it was also listed as a mystery & thriller by IMDb. I didn't find it to be either.

The Rum Diary is about a man, Jack Kemp played by Johnny Depp, who moves to San Juan to write for a newspaper. He is an unpublished novelist who doesn't have faith in himself as a writer and he's a bit of a lost man. However, when he gets down to Puerto Rico he gets sidetracked when he becomes in involved with some unscrupulous people. Jack Kemp has a bit (understatement) of a drinking problem but apparently everyone on the island likes to drink rum. That's it - no more detail about the story.

I started off liking the film, it was quick, funny and I enjoyed meeting all the characters. However, the movie slowed down a bit towards the middle - to almost a standstill and I got a little bored. In fact, I almost stopped caring about the characters including the lead. I am not sure the vision of the book translated well to the screen but since I didn't read the book I can't be certain. Plus, something was off with the editing of The Rum Diary. It seemed like scenes were either cut short, cut out completely or some just added in to show off the dialogue. (I'll get the dialogue in a minute.)

There was one thing that I loved throughout this film: the dialogue. It was brilliant. I want to leave some quotes here but there were so many I could share that I don't think I could pick just one. Hunter S. Thompson was a stellar writer with his own unique vision of how to describe things. For that alone I would recommend the movie. Plus, Johnny Depp delivered the lines beautifully and in such a subtle way. I really want to see it again just for dialogue.

There is some narration in the beginning and then it picked up again at the end. Not sure why there wasn't much in the middle. I believe it would have helped when the story stagnated. Anyway, if you are writer and if you have ever struggled with it - and you know we all have - this story might just inspire you.

My favorite thing: So many great quotes. Wish I could manipulate words that brilliantly.

My least favorite thing: I got a little bored.

Rating: R

Length: 120 minutes

Review: 5 out of 10

THE RUM DIARY Directed (and written) by Bruce Robinson, GK Films, 2011. Starring Johnny Depp, Giovanni Ribisi, Richard Jenkins, Amber Heard, Michael Rispoli and Aaron Eckhart.

Genre: Drama, Mystery, Thriller

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Taken from here.

Quite a few big possible projects have already come out of the American Film Market (AFM) over the past week, and here’s one more: Jessica Chastain, who has made quite a mark in 2011 thanks to The Tree of Life, Take Shelter, The Help and The Debt, is set to play the late Princess Diana in Caught in Flight. The film would be directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel (Downfall, The Invasion) if it goes forward based on the script by Steven Jeffreys (The Libertine).

But this is not to be a run of the mill portrait of the Princess, but a story of a secret affair she had with a surgeon. Caught in Flight isn’t going to be the most flattering Diana tribute.

Thompson on Hollywood says the film is about Diana’s post-divorce affair with Dr. Hasnat Khan, a respected Pakistani surgeon who was called the “love of her life” by Diana’s friends.

Diana met the doctor in 1995 and their relationship lasted for two years; he broke it off. The secrecy of their affair was based more in his own personal life than her public one: he is a private man who reportedly did not want to suffer the media exposure that would be the result of a public relationship with Diana, and was pressured by his family to marry a Muslim woman.

The TOH piece says that those who have read the script “say that the late Princess is not cast in a particularly favorable light; she is shown as a damaged person who stalks the doctor after he ends the affair.”

As Anne Thompson mentions in her report on the film, a lot of the stuff announced at AFM doesn’t get made; announcements like this are essentially a statement of intent, but financing still has to come together. If things do work out, Caught in Flight would shoot in March 2012 in Pakistan, Angola, the South of France and Paris.

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Taken from here.

Briefly: In September French film studio Gaumont announced the LA opening of Gaumont International Television, a company set up to produce TV shows for the North American market. One of two projects mentioned at the launch of the company was Hannibal, a TV series based on the Hannibal Lecter character created by novelist Thomas Harris in the book Red Dragon, and immortalized on film by Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs. (Brian Cox had played ‘Hannibal Lecktor’ in Manhunter, the original film based on Red Dragon, before Hopkins played the role, but it was Hopkins who turned Lector into a screen icon.)

Hannibal, the TV show (not to be confused with the Ridley Scott movie of the same name from 2001), is written and exec produced by Bryan Fuller. The hour-long drama has now been set up at NBC, and if the network execs like Fuller’s first script the project will skip the pilot stage and go straight to a 13-episode order. We still don’t know much about the story; all that has been said is that the series would “center on Lecter’s early days, namely his time going head-to-head with FBI agent Will Graham.” No casting has been publicly mentioned at this point. [Deadline]

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