The Night of the Awards

I can't believe how long it has been since I last updated... So here's a little something.

Let's take books first for a change. I've recently read Eva Ibbotson's Magic Flutes, which I found from Wikipedia as I was going through the list of things inspired by Mozart's fantastic opera. The book tells the story of two people - funny enough, I can't remember their names anymore. However, the male protagonist is a foundling, brought up by a relatively poor woman in London. He falls in love, but the girls family doesn't exactly like his origins nor situation when it comes to money. So, he starts working hard to earn money and reputation to be able to marry the woman he loves. The female protagonist, on the other hand, is the last descendant of an Austrian noble family. She has left her life of rumbling splendour to do what she loves; she works backstage at a little opera company in Vienna. The protagonists naturally meet, and you can probably guess the rest when I tell you it's a romance.

      I liked it, it was a quick read and rather entertaining, seeing as I've been to Vienna once myself and some of the places mentioned were familiar. The main characters weren't that interesting, but then again, they usually aren't. One of the minor characters appealed to me quite a lot, but it might have been because he liked his dogs. (I find myself fond of men who like dogs, like the prince in Deerskin!)

After that I read Melissa Anelli's interesting book called Harry, A History: the True Story of a Boy Wizard, His Fans, and Life Inside the Harry Potter Phenomenon. I'm a heavy potterist myself, having grown up with the books (I was nine when I read the first one and just about 17 and a month when the last one came out), and Anelli is the webmistress of the fansite the Leaky Cauldron. The book is everything the title promises - there's the history of Harry Potter, both of writing and publishing, different sorts of people and cultural side-effects (such as bands and my old-time love, fanfiction) and the life of a fan. The things that stuck with me? Laura Malory, the woman who spoke for banning the Harry Potter books from schools. Anelli's meetings with JKR herself. The unity the fans felt at conventions and other meetings of that sort. I was frequently in need of handkerchiefs, being easily moved.
    As I already said, an extremely interesting book. There's so much I didn't know, for I started to find myself interested in fan culture only about a year or two ago. If you're a potterist, you'll probably cry too. The nostalgia is amazing.

So there's what I've last read. I think. Now I'm rereading Pride and Prejudice, because I wanted to see whether I'd write my essay about it. Turn out the answer is no. I'll probably end up choosing Northanger Abbey anyway. :P

Tonight is the night of the Oscars! I was supposed to go to a friend's to stay up with her - it airs at a time slightly inconvenient, 3-7am between Sunday and Monday - but as she's very busy tomorrow, one of my other friends is coming over to my place. I've got pizza coming, she'll bring some snacks, we'll watch a movie before the pre-Oscars stuff starts (around 1am) and then stay up. Needless to say, I will be skipping Latin tomorrow afternoon. Luckily the introductory course to areal and cultural studies ended last Friday.

I've been under a severe Lynch fever for a couple of days, due to the new interview! (It can be found at Camorr) Let's hope that Republic of Thieves will be out this year! ^^

Have a fun March, everyone!

Love, Wilzo

And the Oscar Goes To...

It has apparently been a while since I've last written... Please excuse me. ^^;

First of all, I want to tell me opinion about the movies I've seen.
The Wolfman would've been alright if they hadn't felt the need to scare the audience every five minutes. The movie itself isn't scary, and even though there were some intestines dropping out from people and severed arms and such, it wasn't disgusting. So, the director had to resort to sudden movements and semi-unexpected loud noises. It took half the experience away, having to keep your guard up in anticipation of a hairy creature jumping from some direction roaring loudly. The music gave it's cues, of course. Plotwise I liked the thing, though I'm still pissed at the woman involved and what happened with her - it would never work that way! Casting was great, Benicio del Toro and Anthony Hopkins did great.

Men Who Stare At Goats, then. I thought they would've had more fun with the whacky, psychic soldiers, but sadly they didn't. It was amusing, and I did laugh, but it wasn't exactly the film experince of the year. Even Ewan McGregor didn't save this movie for me, though it made me giggle hearing him ask "What's a jedi?" I'm not sure most of the audience got the irony, but then again, why should I care? I had fun.
But I'm not going to see that movie again. Jeff Bridges was good, George Clooney was good. Not much more to say about it, I'm afraid.

I also went to Orion to see Pillow Book for the first time. It was strange, and I think it requires several reruns before you really get it, but I fell in love with McGregor's jealous/mad Jerome. If only he didn't attempt to speak other languages... French was alright, but I think he tried Japanese - and if that was Japanese, he shouldn't speak it.


The release of Scott Lynch's third book, the Republic of Thieves, has been postponed again. They're talking 'bout spring 2011, which for me seems way too long. I hope at least Bastards and the Knives is on schedule this year.

The Academy Awards are tonight, and I'm as excited as perusual. This year is a little different - I've never stayed up with so many friends! Usually I've been by myself or one friend at most, but this year we're going to be four or five! :D I'm looking forward to it, it's nice to have company. Here, far far away from Hollywood, the gala starts around 3am, so watching it live is always a little task. I, however, enjoy seeing everything there is, and not the shortened, subtitled version you can see two days later.

I wish best of luck for Mr. Tarantino and his crew. If Christoph Waltz doesn't get an Oscar, no one deserves it.