Month: March 2014

Veronica Mars: The Thousand Dollar Tan Line

tanline I need to begin with a confession. My name is Emily and I used to read and write Veronica Mars fan fiction. It’s important to know this in order to understand where this review is coming from. I love the Veronica Mars universe so much that I wanted to spend as much time as possible in it.

That’s exactly what Veronica Mars: The Thousand Dollar Tan Line by Rob Thomas and Jennifer Graham allows us to do. It picks up right after the end of the movie. Veronica has begun to work for Mars Investigations. Keith is still out of commission due to the car accident that took place in the movie and Logan is still deployed and only shows up via email and Skype. Business is slow so Veronica starts the book with plenty of reasons to question her decision to give up a lucrative job as a lawyer in New York for being a PI in her hometown.
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2014 Florida Film Festival: An Evening with Susan Sarandon

FFF2014LogoI had not checked on the Special Guests section of the Florida Film Festival for over a week. I was on the Festival site to check the details on ticket packages and prices for the post on the Passholders Dinner, and thought I’d check to see if any Special Guests had been added to the line up. SUSAN SARANDON IS GOING TO BE THERE!!!!!!!!!! SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!

Okay, just give me a minute to calm down.

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2014 Florida Film Festival: Pre-Festival Passholders Dinner

FFF2014LogoLast night, I went the the Pre-Festival Passholders Dinner. This is an unofficial Film Festival event. After I went on about how I’m not a party kind of person, you might be surprised that I would go to an event where I knew no one. But this particular event is my personal best case scenario for meeting people. It was a sit down dinner in a restaurant. Everyone has a known common interest that it it easy to talk about. I did not know until I got there that I would be the only one in attendance who (1) was attending the Film Festival for the first time and (2) did not know anyone else there. If I had known, I might have been more nervous. The group turned out to be friendly, and I am so glad I went.

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2014 Florida Film Festival: Shorts Program 1: Perfect Day

FFF2014LogoAs I was trying to get a handle on which films I would attend, I didn’t know what to do about the shorts. Two-thirds of the films are shorts. I never watch shorts since I do not usually have an opportunity to watch them, and so I do not care about them much. I am a bit torn between seeing shorts because I won’t otherwise have the opportunity to do so and seeing the feature-length films because that’s what I’m more interested in watching.

I knew I was going to do some research on the shorts to decide which I would see. After all, I found that one short from the Preview Party on YouTube. What if I can find all / most of the shorts on YouTube or elsewhere on the web? Then I can see the shorts on my own and see the features during the Festival. Have cake, will eat! If I am going to this degree of research, of course I’m going to share it with you.

 

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This Week in the Box: Singin’ in the Rain

220px-Singing_in_the_rain_posterNote: This Week in the Box is a year-long series where Sam works through the entire Warner Brothers 50 Film Collection box set. To find reviews of the other films in the series and see the complete list, click here.

With a dozen memorable songs, sharp comedy (both in words and physical), and amazingly choreographed dance numbers, Singin’ in the Rain is the pinnacle of movie musical perfection (if you ask me, which you clearly did, since you’re reading this review).

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The Giver Trailer

This week, a trailer for a movie adaptation of The Giver was released. Before I even watched it, I was repulsed by the very idea. To me, The Giver is too cerebral to make a good mainstream movie. I just couldn’t understand how it could be done. Then I talked myself down.

I’m usually very patient with adaptations. I don’t expect them to be exact copies of the original material. In fact, that would be boring. There is very little point in making an exact copy. An adaptation needs to do something to justify its existence. So I talked myself down and watched the trailer. I mean, it has Meryl Streep and Jeff Bridges. There must be something good about it. Maybe?

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This Week in the Box: An American in Paris

anamericaninparisNote: This Week in the Box is a year-long series where Sam works through the entire Warner Brothers 50 Film Collection box set. To find reviews of the other films in the series and see the complete list, click here.

The first lines in An American in Paris, as the camera lovingly pans over Paris and we see all the famous architecture and tree-lined streets, are “This is Paris. And I’m an American who lives here.” You don’t say! It’s so useful when movies tell you right up front what kind of movie they are.

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This Week in the Box: A Streetcar Named Desire

streetcarnameddesireNote: This Week in the Box is a year-long series where Sam works through the entire Warner Brothers 50 Film Collection box set. To find reviews of the other films in the series and see the complete list, click here. Although I read a whole whack of Classic Literature in high school, and a couple plays were in that mix, I never managed to read anything by Tennessee Williams. Still haven’t, actually. My high school didn’t perform any of his works, nor did any nearby high schools where I might have gone to see a friend perform. Basically, coming in to this, I was a total Tennessee Williams neophyte. Except I wasn’t. Because I saw Blue Jasmine last summer, purely for awards-season reasons, as Cate Blanchett was talked about as the shoe-in for the Best Actress Oscar (which she won, more than six months later). Continue reading →

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2014 Florida Film Festival: Discussions and Parties and Guests, Oh My!

FFF2014LogoI warned you that I would write a couple of angst-filled posts as I contemplated my schedule during the Florida Film Festival. I really like organizing and planning. I’m not always as good at executing those plans, but it doesn’t stop me from making them!  The process of reviewing the options and putting together what I want to do is a sporting event in and of itself, and part of the fun for me.

I’ve always been like this. My family could tell you about our first trip to Walt Disney World, when I was 19 years old. I had the family running back and forth across the parks, based on guidance from The Unofficial Guide to Disney.  I had a written plan in my pocket and as soon as we got off one ride, I would whip it out and declare where we were headed next.  In that case, the plan definitely worked in our favor.  We came during the busiest week of year — between Christmas and New Year’s — and, thanks to my advanced planning, never stood in line longer than about 20 minutes.  Angsting over planning is how I roll.

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