Water for Elephants - Sara Gruen (Review)

As a young man, Jacob Jankowski was tossed by fate onto a rickety train that was home to the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. It was the early part of the great Depression, and for Jacob, now ninety, the circus world he remembers was both his salvation and a living hell. A veterinary student just shy of a degree, he was put in charge of caring for the circus menagerie.

It was there that he met Marlena, the beautiful equestrian star married to August, the charismatic but twisted animal trainer. And he met Rosie, an untrainable elephant who was the great gray hope for this third-rate traveling show. The bond that grew among this unlikely trio was one of love and trust, and, ultimately, it was their only hope for survival.
-- saragruen.com
I've been trying for ages to get ahold of this book from the library but it was ALWAYS gone until recently.  This was one of the times that I actually heard about the movie before I heard that it was a book so of course there was probably an entire line of people who wanted it ahead of me.

Anyways, I'm glad I still got my hands on it. It was mysterious, romantic, and thrilling.  I liked that it was really a full circle of Jacob's life.  I love hearing what happens after all the drama of their whole story cools off and how they are years or so later.

I did, however, forget that I didn't take this book out of the Young Adult section.  There was some language and some descriptive scenes that aren't necessarily for the younger crowd.  I feel like the little bit that I've heard about the movie didn't really give me the feel of the whole story.  I knew it would be romantic but I haven't seen a lot about it yet so I thought it would be the kind of love story you wouldn't mind letting your older kids go see. (Which it might be.  I haven't seen the movie yet.)  So I was kind of caught off guard with the language, mystery, and suspenseful part of the book.  I'm not sure if reading the book made me want to see the movie any more than I already did or not.  Maybe just because of the elephant. :)

Overall, Water for Elephants made me laugh and it made me sad.  It threw me through so many loops that I wish I could tell you but that would mean major spoilers and you need to read it yourself!  It was a good read.

'Glee'-ful Inspiration

I'm watching the first show of the second season of the Glee Project right now, because apparently I'm Glee obsessed.  The Glee Project is all about the auditions they hold for new characters on Glee and I like what they keep saying about the creator, Ryan Murphy.  He's not just looking for someone who can sing and dance, he wants someone who makes him want to write a character for them.

Can you imagine writing something in that way?  Holding auditions and then in walks your hero or your protaganist?  Like in a for real, reach out and touch them, kind of way.  It has to be surreal, in a way, knowing that you could possibly be using this real person's attitude and personality into a character for your story/film/show.

Do you think you could do that?  I know a lot of people talk about how fun 'people watching' is and how it's a great way to get characters and storylines started.  Have you ever done that?  What about putting someone into a story that you already have going?  That has to be a little trickier seeing as how you already have a set world and now you have to find a good place for them to go.

Hmmm, this sounds like a fun writing prompt.  I may have to spend some time at the mall.  :)

Summer Time!

Yes, I've been away a few weeks, but now that finals are over and school is out (Sort of.  I'm taking summer classes too.) I can relax for a few weeks and get back to normal for a bit.

What sort of plans do you have for the summer?  As far as writing related stuff goes, I hope to finish last year's NaNo project.  I know, I'm STILL not done with it.  Don't judge me too badly.  Lol.  Then, if I can do that in time, I'd like to do at least one of the Camp NaNo months.  I had another story started that I'd like to finish too.  Somewhere in between there I'd like to write some more poetry for a project I thought about doing, which ties into the planning that I'll be doing for this year's Night of Writing Dangerously.  As of right now I do intend on going to it again this year AND I will be doing a 24 hour 'write-a-thon'.  More on that later though.  :)  And of course, before school starts again, I will be reading as many books as I can.  What's on your reading list?  Any suggestions?

Wow.  That's a lot of stuff seeing it all written out.  I better get on that!  See you later!

Unused Soundtrack Songs

For some strange reason it confused me to find out that artists would write songs specifically for a movie. Maybe I thought that they conveniently came out with a song just around the time a movie was coming out and guy in charge of music was like 'Oh my goodness. That would go perfectly with our movie.'

I was reading an article in a magazine about the music for the Hunger Games movie and it had a few of the artists talking about what they were trying to convey in their song and what parts of the book they took from for inspiration. After thinking about it a bit I thought that it made sense. Big movies like this can afford to have someone write them a song especially for them where as someone like me, who might have just enough to pull off a very amateur looking YouTube video, would just have to hope that they could find something that would make sense to everyone else too. Duh, Sarah.

Anyways, after I saw Hunger Games and kept hearing Taylor Swift's Eyes Wide Open on the radio, which is on the Hunger Games soundtrack, I realized that I didn't remember hearing the song use anywhere in the actual movie. Am I wrong?

It just seems that a sound track is suppose to be music that was used in the movie, right? Otherwise it's kind of a CD based on a book. I don't know, I haven't made enough movies to know better yet. Lol.

Would you have the songs you want for your soundtrack in your movie? Does it matter? Who would you ask to write a song for you?

POETRY SLAM! #15

Better late than never, huh? :) This seems to be a fitting theme since Spring Break ends today. :/ Lol.


Spring Fling

Silly birds, twittering
And gathering grass for nests
Showing off for others
With their brightly colored chests

Funny squirrels, running
And playing tag with friends
Up one tree and down another
In a game that never ends

Its kind of strange what spring does
And how the sun will bring
Each animal outside in their best
To have another spring fling

The Hunger Games..... Movie Review?

Having read the book, The Hunger Games, of course I wanted to see the movie. I always do when books become movies. But, if you couldn't tell from the insinuated long pause from the line of periods and the question mark at the end, I'm a little hesitant to call this a review.

One reason for this is that I'm going to go on a bit of a tangent that has little to do with the movie itself.

I've heard a lot of different thoughts on how people thought Hunger Games was and it was good and bad. Surprisingly enough a lot of the bad came from people who have read the book. At first this didn't make sense but then I saw a comment that said something to the effect that they must have built up their expectations so much that they were bound to walk away disappointed.

EPIPHANY! It's no wonder that a lot of people leave a movie sad. They read the book, love it and certain parts about it, then are upset when it's not in the movie. I don't how many times I've seen a 'book movie' and tried to use the book as a reference. It doesn't work! It's easy to forget that books and movies are two different medias that each have their own set of rules. Books are made to show you things through the words so there will be more scenes in it in order to get the author's point across. In movies, you're already seeing these things played out before you. So some of the scenes that tell you how the character feels and why they feel that way in the book will no longer be needed or could just play a smaller part. If a movie followed a book word for word and scene for scene it would probably come out awkward.

Really, I got to enjoy the movie without fully remembering every detail of the book. I might have mentioned before that after I read a book I forget the details about a few weeks later. I can tell you what the book was about but I can't tell you what the main character's second cousin's little sister had for breakfast, for example. I was free from the 'They missed this line' and 'I wish that part made it in' mayhem in my head.

Now would be about the time that I would say something like this. 'The movie stuck close to the book. They didn't take a lot out and.....' While that all may be true, I've decided to focus more on the movie as a movie not a book's visual aid. So.....

ACTUAL OFFICIAL REVIEW: I thought The Hunger Games was pretty amazing. The actors were on point and quite believable. The thing I was most excited about probably was the costumes which didn't fail to deliver. Katniss' outfits were awesome! The only thing I might mention is that the camera work was a little wobbly in some parts as if the camera was actually there with the characters instead of something that doesn't exist to them. Does that make sense? I thought it was just because we were sitting so close to the screen at first but then I heard a couple people say the same thing. Anyways, to end on a good note, I like the discretion that they used with the music. It was pretty cool that they didn't feel the need to try to add more tension or excitement to every scene with music. Sometime the silence in a scene can build it up just as much if not more.

What did you think about the movie? Was it as good as you expected? Do you agree about judging books and movies differently?

Negative Reviews

I was just about to start on my very late blog post of a book review but I realized that it sounded kind of negative. I didn't hate the book but I wasn't as much in love with it as I thought it was going to be.

I don't know why but I really didn't like the thought of putting a negative sounding review up. Maybe it's because I know someday I'll inevitably have to face negative comments or reviews of my own. I guess if they ever make me feel bad then I'd like to be able to say that I've never made someone else feel that way.

Ummm, I realize that this may make me sound like a bit of a nutcase. Lol. I realize that constructive criticism is valuable and needed but it somehow seems weird when I can't actually give it to the person.

What do you think? Can a review have too much negativity? Too little?