One of the pleasures of living in Los Angeles is that occasionally we get a Hollywood experience, for us it meant that Kelsey and I had a mother-daughter date to the “Breaking Dawn-Part 1″ premiere and after party.  This is our second Twilight series date, we were able to attend the “Eclipse” event also.  This time was better for the fact that we knew it was going to be a terrific night.  Kelsey decided she wasn’t going to scream as much this time, I told her I was, and there was plenty to cheer about.  While I don’t recall any shirt-popping-turning-into-a-werewolf-scenes, the kiss after the vows was worth losing our voices over.  The wedding scene is beautiful.  The pacing was great, Bella’s nerves were appropriate (remember walking a straight line for several yards can be a challenge for her), and Edwards adoration obvious.

In many ways, this was my favorite movie of the series.  For me, the story is about Edward and Bella and everything else is frosting, sometimes too much frosting.  ”Eclipse” arguably may be the better movie, but this is a romance, let’s not make it anything more.  I liked the character development in “Eclipse” but there wasn’t enough Bella and Edward.  With “Breaking Dawn,” given that the bulk of the movie is about their wedding and honeymoon, we get to revel in their chemistry.  Bella gets a backbone in “Breaking Dawn” and I do wish that we would have seen a little more of that interaction between the two of them as she insisted on having the baby.

The reviews, as if they matter, are mixed.  The New York Times liked the movie and thought it was the best of the bunch.  The Los Angeles Times, not so much.  In some ways, it feels like the battle of the directors, which director did the reviewer like best.

In the end, my favorite scene from all four movies is the last 5 seconds of this one, especially given that this is just a pause before the rest of the story is told on November 16, 2012.  Great finish, even Kelsey cheered.

The movie is released on National Book Lovers Day.  Nice to know we have our own day!  Grab your book loving friends and go together, mine is meeting at the theater tomorrow night for a mid-summer night out.

Then I heard about “Midnight in Paris” with it’s mix of art and literature, two of my favorite topics, and I grew intrigued.  I experienced the dubbed conversation movie debacle decades ago, so why not give Woody another chance?  Besides, Owen Wilson is charming, not whiny.   I didn’t have any idea about the plot, so when Zelda showed up I actually gasped and then giggled as Scott joined her immediately once he noticed Zelda talking to a strange male.  From then on it was rapid fire mingling with one great writer or artist after another.  I was trying to guess each character as they appeared, Dali was easy, Man Ray stumped me.

It’s pure joy reveling in the presence of Hemingway, Picasso, Dali, and Gertrude Stein.  The vignettes aren’t particularly illuminating, there isn’t any deep character analysis of the era or the people, just a romp through history exactly how many of us would dream of it.  Hemingway comes off overly macho with a dialogue full of clear, declarative sentences.  Fitzgerald is all charm.  Dali is dreamy and a bit incomprehensible, which pretty much describes his art.  Picasso is temperamental.  Kathy Bates gave Gertrude Stein a camp counselor/motherly aura that I’m not sure I believed, but I’d like to think she was the den mother for all the over-sized personalities.

I found the current story line a bit boring, a man dissatisfied with his contemporary life in Los Angeles (of course LA, the lazy and trite choice).  I impatiently waited to meet another superstar from the past.  ”Midnight in Paris” is the film version of the game ‘who would you invite to dinner if you could ask anyone from anytime?’  There is a message, the movie opens with the question what era would you live in if you could choose?  Owen Wilson answered Paris in the 1920s.  In my head, I answered, right now, right here.  But, I’m older than Owen Wilson.

I haven’t enjoyed a movie this much in ages, I left saying “that was written for me.”  What a surprise that it’s from Woody Allen.  If you love art and literature, this is a movie designed for you, go see it tonight.

[I don't understand why Van Gogh's style is in the movie poster, he doesn't appear, I don't recall that he was referred to, probably just an easy choice.]

One of my favorite examples of customers supporting their local independent bookstore, and it doesn’t hurt that the customer is Tom Hanks!  Fundraisers with unique events are a wonderful and fun way to celebrate reading, meet fellow reader, and support your local independent bookstore.  Katie at Village Books asked to spread the word about this event, I think it’s sure to be a wonderful experience for everyone.

Palisades Village Book Friends*

invites you to a special screening of

You’ve Got Mail

(You know, the one where the little independent bookstore goes out of business?)

with two-time Academy Award winner

TOM HANKS

Tuesday, May 24

Aero Theater

1328 Montana Ave, Santa Monica

Screening begins at 7:30 PM

$250 - includes a wine and hors d’oeuvres reception with Tom Hanks from 6:00 – 7:00 PM, reserved seating at the film, and the post-screening Q&A with Tom Hanks

$100 ($25 for students) – includes refreshments, the screening, and the Q&A with Tom Hanks afterwards. Doors open at 6:30 PM.  (There is a special deal for authors, so contact Katie at katie@pavillagebooks.com by Sunday night to take advantage of it and be included in the program.)

Seating is limited, so buy your tickets today! Tickets sold at the door will be $125!

Tickets can be purchased at Village Books, 1049 Swarthmore Avenue.  Or, send a check payable to Palisades Village Book Friends* to PVBF, P.O. Box 1553, Pacific Palisades, CA 90272.  Tickets will be held at Will Call on the night of the event.  All contributions to PVBF* for this event are tax-deductible. For more information, go to www.palivillagebooks.com Or call Ros Wolf at 310-612-6079 or 310-454-0747

If you can’t make it, but still want to support this special event and very worthy cause, please consider making a tax-deductible gift:

Caldecott Medal – $50  Newbery Medal – $100  Booker Prize – $250  Pulitzer Prize – $500  Nobel Prize – $ _______________(other)

*Palisades Village Book Friends is a non-profit 501 (c)(3) organization formed to promote and support literary events in our community and to ensure the continuation of the tradition started by Village Books of author readings, book signings and other literary events. All donations are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.

‘Manifesto’ is a systematic musical interpretation of political manifestos from four radical organizations:  the International Socialist Congress, the Situationist International, the Black Panthers, and the Zapatista Army of National Liberation.  Gaines describes his work as exploring the relationship “between sound and letter or sound and word.”  He assigned each letter of the alphabet a musical notation, thereby composing a musical piece from a written document.

Visually, along one wall there are four black flat screens each placed on a press board cubed pedestal.  Other than the fact that there were four screens, the set up was reminiscent of many family rooms across the nation.  One at a time each screen scrolls through one of four manifestos with the accompanying music.  Once all four have scrolled and played alone, all four are played together.  On the other walls, a five foot tall sheet of music for each manifesto is framed.  The wooden frames provide a modern simplicity while the size gives an Old World monumentally to each work.  I felt a sense of tension between the warmth of the wood framed ecru paper and the cool starkness of  black technology.  Emotionally, I found the compositions charmingly dated with pencil markings and organic material while intellectually I wondered if the power of the words were subdued by their surroundings.  Do we lose some of their power to encourage us or enrage us in this setting?

Given that the notes aren’t composed musically (the relationship of one note to the next isn’t a product of it’s tone, but the result of the letter it was assigned to), the music is  pleasing.  When it’s played together, it sounds more like a mild Stravinsky than a jumble of notes.  I thought I was listening to a composition of stark contemporary music.  The text and the music fit together so well, Gaines wonders if people don’t believe him when he explains that he didn’t know how it would sound, he was working on the system, not the product.

I wasn’t that surprised, in one form or another the texts are about the same thing, a cry for the release from oppression of one kind or another.  Gaines believes that any text would sound the same, the content is irrelevant.  That may be true, but what sings to my heart isn’t Gaines’ system, but the experience of seeing these expressions of revolt and hearing the voices rise up in an entirely new way.

A live performance of Gaines Manifesto scores will occur at the Hammer on Wednesday, March 16th, if you’re in LA, it should be an interesting evening.

Entering the spacious store from Castro Street in down town Mountain View, California one can quickly get lost sifting through the first rack one encounters on the right which is full of music CD’s.  Yes, music in an antiquarian bookstore.

BookBuyers Used Books and Media is not only an antiquarian bookseller and used bookstore, but also a deep catalogue music store as well. This is the place I travel too when I’m looking for a certain music title or paperback travel book at a reasonable price. The travel section not only has titles by recognized authors such as Bill Bryson and Tim Cahill, but also books written by the famous Jan Morris. I personally enjoy the full bookcase of travel guides where I can pick up a DK Guide to most any destination on Earth for a reasonable price.

Known for their broad Sci-fi and fantasy book collection, this store is frequented by many well-read and therefore well-entertained engineers in Silicon Valley. In addition to having readily available works by Douglas Adams of “Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy” fame they can always locate that hard to find title one may be desperate to reread.

On the antiquarian front, BookBuyers has carried a first edition, English printing of “Harry Potter and the Philosophers’ Stone“ as well as hard to find books on local Architecture, flora or fauna. A lingered glance behind the cash wrap which is on the left as you enter the store, will inevitably surprise, as it is in these hard to reach shelves where the true jewels of the store can be seen.

The atmosphere is one of quiet contemplation and yet this place is always full of browsers and shoppers. It is an especially good place to visit on a cold fall or winter day, as the collection draws you in for certain enjoyment.

The store is lined with floor to ceiling bookcases, which are filled tightly and logically with books. BookBuyers has done a splendid job in labeling the sections and providing enough human help for those of us too short to reach the tall shelves on our own. I often visit this store with my dog in tow as both the town and BookBuyers welcome well-behaved, good mannered pet dogs.

This corner store is nestled in the middle of the main strip, allowing for ample choices of coffee, tea or eateries to settle into after a long bout of browsing for books. Parking is ample inviting you to enjoy the outdoor sunshine with your books and dog in tow.

BookBuyers Used Books and Media

318 Castro Street

Mountain View, CA

Tel:  650.968.7323

At the after party, the talk everywhere was “Loved “Eclipse,” this one is better than the first two!”  Now, regardless of the quality of the movie, that is what everyone would say at the after party, it’s only polite since the producers are plying us with fabulous food and drink while we mill among the celebrities.  However, I’m here to tell you that this time it’s true, and here’s why.

These Vampires are Scary

The Twilight saga sugar coats the vampire violence.  We hear about the back story of some of the vampires, and it isn’t pretty, but it feels distant because the vampire is telling Bella a story.  Rosalie describes how she wrecked vengeance on her fiancee by hunting him down, she tells us that he is petrified, but the reader doesn’t live it.  In the flashback scene, we felt his terror.  In the book Eclipse we learn about the vampire army in Seattle when Bella hears about deaths from her father, or in conversations with the Cullens, or by overhearing a news broadcast.  Meyer tells the reader about the vampire army; the movie (i.e., the screenwriter, Melissa Rosenberg) shows the view how the vampire army is formed and fed.

The opening scene sets a whole new tone.  Victoria’s lieutenant, Riley, is attacked leaving a gallery.  It wasn’t Dr. Cullen saving Edward or Rosalie to become vegetarian vampires, it was a violent attack and I was watching it through my fingers.  There are two scenes of the vampire army attacking ordinary people, like me.   These scenes added credibility to Jacob’s assertions that vampires are evil.  They supported Edward’s insistence that Bella remain human.  They gave the Cullens worthy opponents rather than cardboard ones.  The entire story felt fuller.

I’m thrilled Rosenberg is the screenwriter for ‘Breaking Dawn.’

Don’t Worry, the Romance is Still There

While the violence creates a less girly film (one producer noted that this film is easier for teenage boys to enjoy, since the smart ones know that the place to find the cute teenage girls will be at “Eclipse”), there are still several steamy scenes.  There is one really hot scene, but as we all know, the kids aren’t married yet, so I didn’t have to cover my daughter’s eyes.  During a black carpet (no red carpet for this premiere) interview, the reporter asked Taylor Lautner if he was uncomfortable kissing Kristen Stewart in front of Robert Pattinson?  Lautner said it was odd, but he said it with a fairly mischievous smile on his face.  For me, I thought it was odd to watch, but I guess that comment shows my Team Edward colors.  My daughter was cheering, loudly.

I was expecting a romantic summer movie, and I got one, but I left impressed that this third segment of the saga gave not only told the story, but enlivened it.

• In honor of the opening of the Swedish movie version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, BBC Magazine talks to people who wonder if Stieg Larsson really wrote the books.
• In celebration of spring, take this spring has sprung literary quiz.
• Movie news for The Help, I like the loyalty, hope it lasts.
• Love this ode to the bookstore by Mark Sanborn, especially the shout out to Tattered Cover.

Bookstores serve another, more subtle purpose: they tell us what our fellow human beings are currently interested in or concerned about. Bookstores are a billboard of our preoccupations. Consequently, I make it a point to read the bestsellers lists to identify the zeitgeist of our times. And it is often alarming to consider what people are spending their time reading about.

• Just in case you missed these pictures, check out Ikea creating the world’s longest outdoor bookcase on Bondi Beach.

We all need to refresh our thinking from time-to-time:

I just checked the list of nominations for best adapted screenplay for 2010 and have to admit I haven’t read a single source material.  (I don’t think they’re all based on books, but of course Precious is).   So my pre-Oscar post isn’t directly relevant to this year’s list but I like to think that makes it ageless.

All my life, I’ve loved to read and I’ve eagerly looked forward to seeing movie versions of books I’ve loved, an experience not unlike coming home from a trip alone with your spouse when you walk into your house thinking, “I can’t wait to see my kids!  I love them so much!” and the first few minutes of reunion are, indeed, wonderful . . . and then someone starts whining, someone starts demanding, someone throws up–in short, reality sets in.  So it is with going to see movies based on your favorite books.  The opening titles throw you into a frenzy of delight and anticipation.  And then the movie starts.  And you’re like, “Wait, that’s not what he should look like . . .  She never said that in the book! . . .  They were supposed to go to Italy before getting married . . . Oh, come on, everyone knows she would never do anything like that . . .  Wait, what happened to that whole scene in the park?  . . .  Her mother shouldn’t look that old . . .”  And so on.

We’ve all been there.

Now I know that an hour and a half long movie can’t possibly cover everything that’s in a four hundred page book.  You’ve got to edit.  Scarlett O’Hara lost a couple of kids along the way between novel and movie and I don’t think anyone minded (especially since she was such a lousy mother to them in the book).

In fact, one of my favorite adaptations of Pride and Prejudice is the old Laurence Oliver version, the screenplay of which is so smart and fast-moving that even though it discards huge portions of the novel, it still captures its essence.  Plus . . .  Laurence Olivier as Darcy.   I’m not going to argue with that.  (Matthew Macfadyen, I’m going to argue with, although he redeemed himself in the BBC mini-series of Little Dorrit–an absolutely brilliant adaptation and he’s perfect in that role.  But I know Mr. Darcy and you, Mr. Macfadyen, are no Mr. Darcy.)

Got a little off-topic here, but that’s kind of my point: you get passionate about the books you love and that makes you care a lot about how good the movie adaptation is, especially since it’s hard to get those images out of your head once they’re in there.  I mean, does anyone really picture Harry Potter as looking like anything other than Daniel Radcliffe now?  I don’t recall that HP was originally described as round-faced but Radcliffe is, so now Harry is, in all our minds.  Our imaginations glom onto visual information pretty quickly and then don’t want to let go.  So this stuff matters.

And when a director or writer changes small details it can have huge consequences–some of them wanted (sped up storyline, more immediately graspable motives) and some of them destructive.  I just reread Nabokov’s Lolita for the first time in decades.  I had forgotten what an absolutely incredible wonderful brilliant upsetting intriguing poetic perverse book it was.  I couldn’t put it down and when I finished it–much too quickly–I felt lost and deprived the way you do when you finish a book that completely enthralls you (and by the way, that sadness on finishing a book used to hit me all the time when I was a kid and is so much rarer now, so I appreciate the value of a book that I don’t want to finish all the more).  Anyway, the book lingered in my mind so I went in search of more Lolita and found her on youtube.

Years ago, I’d seen the 1962 Stanley Kubrick version starring James Mason.  A few minutes of revisiting it were enough for me: the censors’ restrictions so declaw the story that it becomes a 17-year-old teenager seducing a sad older man while Peter Sellers as Clare Quilty steals the movie so completely that his charisma far outshines Lolita’s appeal.  Shelley Winters is brilliant and James Mason’s pretty well cast–and the look of the film is great–but it’s nothing like the book.

So I turned to the 1997 Adrian Lyne version.  Dominique Swain makes a far better Lolita than Sue Lyon, since she looks scarily young in scenes and does a good job being both seductress and victim.  And Jeremy Irons is pitch perfect.  Frank Langella is closer to the book’s Clare Quilty than Sellers and the plot follows along the original novel much more closely than Kubrick’s version . . . but that made me all the more aware of subtle differences that change, well, everything.

I won’t bore those of you who haven’t read or seen Lolita recently by listing everything that made me realize why, ultimately, the movie betrays the book: I’ll just give one example.  In the book, Humbert Humbert admits that Lolita gets no sexual pleasure from his constant lovemaking (as she shouldn’t: she’s twelve).  In the movie, Lyne shows his Lolita in the throes of cinematic ecstasy whenever Humbert makes love to her.  (You know: head thrown back, eyes closed, little noises coming from her throat . . . the whole “male directors like women to look transported during sex” thing).  A tiny moment . . . but what a huge difference in meaning: her pleasure takes Humbert from a crass and icky molester to someone having a love affair–albeit with someone young.

So movie adaptations can, with the subtlest of details, change something huge about the book.  That doesn’t mean they fail: sometimes those changes add up to something equally interesting and valid.  Different doesn’t always mean worse.  Sometimes it may even be better: I’ve never read the book that the movie The Graduate was based on, but I’ve always heard Buck Henry’s screenplay made it into something much more meaningful.  There is, in fact, a Hollywood belief that bad books make good movies and vice versa.

So long as they keep making movies out of my favorite books, I’ll keep running to see them in the hopes of recapturing the joy of reading them in the first place.   And I may keep getting disappointed.  But hope springs eternal.

Anyone know who they’re thinking of casting as Peeta and Katniss in The Hunger Games?

2009 National Book Award Winners

The National Book Foundation announced this year’s winner last Wednesday night.  I’ve always been interested in the award winners, but the announcement grew ever more suspenseful watching it on Twitter.  Waiting to pick up my daughter from a New Moon screening, I read each announcement from people attending the event, and then the reaction from the book community.  Prior to the fiction announcement several tweets hoped McCann would win (even people who admitted they hadn’t read the book), and then a cyberspace celebration began.   This years winners:

• Fiction: Let the Great World Spinby Colum McCann
• Nonfiction: The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt by T. J. Stiles
• Young people’s literature: Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justiceby Phillip Hoose
• Poetry: Transcendental Studies: A Trilogyby Keith Waldrop

The Foundation honored Gore Vidal with the Distinguished Contribution to American Letters and Dave Eggers with the 2009 Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community.  Several of the recipients were previously published in The New Yorker magazine.

Over 10,000 people voted in the Best of National Book Awards Fiction and The Complete Stories of Flannery O’Connor won.  I was surprised, I thought Ralph Ellison would win, though I voted for John Cheever.  Flannery O’Connor certainly deserves the award, especially after she lost the year she published A Good Man is Hard to Find.

And Now to the Heart:  New Moon

Through a school charity event, I was able to purchase a ticket for my daughter to see a screening of New Moon last Wednesday.  The deal we made:  she could go to the teen screening as long as she agreed to see the movie with me this weekend.  A girlfriend e-mailed me last night asking to tag along, we both need Kelsey to provide cover for our attendance.

I picked up four girls from the screening and listened to surprisingly well reasoned arguments for Team Jacob and Team Edward.  My daughter won a Team Jacob t-shirt, her new favorite item of clothing.  I thought about telling them who won the National Book Awards (that I just learned on Twitter), but realized that would mortify my daughter.

The Washington Post article nailed the attraction of the Twilight  series for adult women, it isn’t about the writing or the story, but about being a teenager:

It’s a time capsule to the breathless period when the world could literally end depending on whether your lab partner touched your hand, when every conversation was so agonizing and so thrilling (and the border between the two emotions was so thin), and your heart was bigger and more delicate than it is now, and everything was just so much more.

It’s fun to watch my daughter experience that time of life and to re-visit it, just for a couple of hours, myself.