Friday Five, Or When the Heck Did July Get Here?

1. Dude, I saw the new KARATE KID movie on Monday, and it was awesome! I'm not saying that it doesn't have its faults - the little kid romance might have been better as a friendship, and it's my personal opinion that the film editor could have shaved 12-20 minutes off the film just by cutting out some extraneous scenes. BUT Jaden Smith is so adorable! He's not a very big kid, so when he takes a beating (and he takes plenty - these kids are brutal to one another), you just want to reach into the screen and carry him away from all the bullies. You can't help but root for him.
   
   Also, the screenplay is above average. Whoever wrote it was fully aware of the other movie and did a pretty good job of messing with people's expectations.
   
   
2. Cherries are in season somewhere in the world, and I have recently discovered my love for them. I'm talking the fresh kind - not the ones that come out of the jar in a florescent color. I think I've eaten more of them this past month than the last 23 years. Um, and I may or may not have some next to my computer right this second. :-D
   
   
3. I've been way busy recently. (I did try to explain why in my last post.) But I was kind of saddened when I realized that I've only read five books this June: Peter Pan in Scarlet, by Geraldine McCaugheran; The Zahir, by Paulo Coelho, The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, by Avi; The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls; and Shiver, by Maggie Stiefvater. My fav was definitely Charlotte Doyle. Shiver might have beat it except the crazy girl werewolf was named Shelby. It was a little disconcerting.
   
   
4. I had to change the name of the main character for one of my projects (the "E" one - see below). Last week, Some guy that's on the children's NYT bestseller list in three different spots released some sample chapters for his new novel (out in October), and it turns out he named his girl MC the exact same thing. Same spelling and everything. (I won't name names though. Just post links.)
   
   It was sad, but I think I found a new name that I love just as much. Yay!
   
   
5. Obsessed is probably the wrong word, but every week, I make time for So You Think You Can Dance. (This is a new phenomenon for me. I don't usually watch the season as it airs. I usually wait for other people to tell me which routines to watch and then look them on YouTube.) Kent is actually my favorite contestant, personality-wise, but OMG, did you see Alex Wong and Twitch's Hip Hop routine this week????? Words cannot describe the AWESOME.
   
   Here's the video, but watch it fast - I'm sure Fox will make YouTube take down the video sometime soon.
   

Percy, my dear character...

There will always be a place in my heart for the PERCY JACKSON series. It was one of the first series I really got into when I joined a middle grade team at a NY publishing house as an editorial assistant. Actually, I got so into it that I made one of my coworkers read it too, and later I caught her reading it in front of her computer one slow Friday afternoon. Then we ooooo'ed and awwww'ed and complained about having to waiting until The Last Olympian came out. Then it came out, and we ooooo'ed and awwww'ed again - and complained about how there weren't any more books in the PERCY JACKSON series and fretted over whether or not the Kane Chronicles and the new Camp Halfblood series could be as good.

Then I heard that the movie was happening.

(insert fan-girl squealing here)

Then my former coworkers went to the NYC premiere, and I was totally jealous.

Then my new agent invited me to go see it with her when I went to New York a few weeks later, and that made it lots better. :-D

The best part of the movie was watching it with Jo. Actually, I was very afraid that she would be one of those people who disliked talking during movies, or moviegoers being generally loud (once, I had a friend who wouldn't let me sit next to her during a Harry Potter movie opening night, because she said I laughed too loud - I was scarred. Obviously. Since I'm blogging about it now, five or six years later).

Luckily, Jo had no problem with us whispering back and forth about what was cut, who was funny, etc. After I ran to the bathroom, she even told me what I missed without me having to ask. (Is it wrong that this made me heart her forever?)

Other highlights include:

• Grover. This guy is funny! PERFECT comedic timing. I feel like he's been in something else, but I have no idea what. He's a few years older, and a lot more into girls than the Grover of the books, but when I left the theater, I was still giggling over things he said.
  
  
  
• Uma Thurman as Medusa. For some reason, I found this incredibly entertaining. It reminded me a lot of her work in My Super Ex-Girlfriend (which in my mind was a film with a great concept that was tragically executed). Uma does evil well, I must say.
  
  
  
• The special effects. In particular, the rooftop scene with lots of water spewing around (see above) got my wow rating. It made me want to have some sort of epic power on top of Manhattan (or at least to give my main character an epic power).
  

What I wanted from the movie that I didn't get:

• A more awesome Annabeth. LOVED Annabeth in the books. This one was snarky to the point of me thinking that she had PMS for the entire movie.
  
  
• More from the gods. They were big, they were bad, and I think they only got 10 minutes total of screen time. I wanted them to be funny (like Hermes in the books!) and hang out with their kids. I wanted COSTUMES.
  
  
• The Fates to get a shout-out. Who else thinks that Judi Dench would be an awesome Fate? She could have played all three, and I would have gone home singing the film's praises from Penn Station (NYC) to Big Sky (MT). Sigh.
  

All in all though, a very good film. It wasn't the books and didn't have the same level of characterization (or wit), but as my wise and illustrious agent said, "It's a completely different genre." I liked it immensely - much more than other films I've seen recently.

Too true.

Okay, in other news, soon I will alone again in a snowy cabin. My dad and sister are already gone. My mom leaves tomorrow, and my brother leaves on Sunday morning very early. I am sad to see them go, but the idea of being alone with my manuscripts and getting things knocked out is doing a good job of cheering me up/distracting me.

However, let me show you my younger brother, who is wonderfully funny, even when he doesn't mean to be:


Where is his left leg? Well, he stepped off his board into a bunch of fresh powder and thus sank hip deep in snow. Since this little brother happens to be 6'3" (or more), his leg is about three feet long. Which means the snow was really deep.

Obviously, I'm the sweetest big sister in the world - I laughed really hard, took a pic, and shared it on my blog. :-o

(Okay, okay - if my little sister (who reads this blog) thinks this is unkind, she will tell me and I will delete this part of the post. And no one will know except those lucky early readers...)