The One Lovely Blog Award

I cannot tell you how amazed I am that the lovely Tamie from Bookish Temptations has nominated me for The One Lovely Blog Award! I can’t believe it – I feel like Sally Field at the Oscars (dating myself now, lol)!

In accepting this award, it is my pleasure to complete the following:

1. Link back to the blogger who nominated you (tick)
2. Post the blog award image on your page (tick)
3. Tell 7 facts about yourself (see below *blush*)
4. Nominate other blogs and let the nominees know they been chosen (tick).

So I guess I have to let you know some of my deep, dark secrets…

1. Robert Pattinson changed my life. If it hadn’t been for the late lamented RAoR I wouldn’t have this blog. Or be on Twitter, Tumblr, GoodReads… anywhere online! I wouldn’t have my great new job or so many wonderful friends all over the world. So thank you, Rob 😉

GQ Rob – my kryptonite *sigh*

2. I’ve been to only two places in the United States: LA and Hawaii. But I have been to Hawaii three times, and have been to Oahu, Maui and the Big Island. I’ve also been to Australia several times, and stopped over in Fiji once (the airport had enormous cockroaches! *shudder* #notkeentogoback #notafanofmilitaryregimesanyway)

3. I can play the clarinet.

4. I regret not being nicer to the boy I learned clarinet with – he is now VERY important at a VERY big international company and has a VERY nice penthouse in New York. If I had been a better friend maybe he’d invite me to visit… 🙂

5. I used to sell children’s books by party plan – like Tupperware parties – but I never made any money because I bought more for myself than I sold!

6. I have a whole bookshelf devoted to cookbooks.

7. My favourite colour is purple.

I’d like to nominate two other blogs for this award:

Cosmopolis – The Movie Fansite and The Book Hookup. I love the girls who run both these sites, and am honoured to call them my friends. Check them out – they are hard-working and fabulous!

Thank you again, Tamie, so much for my nomination! You are just made of awesome! *mwah!*

 

Update: The Bronze Horseman film

So, things aren’t sounding too good about the likelihood of a movie version of The Bronze Horseman, by Paullina Simons, as we reported here last year.

Ms. Simons has posted this on her blog:

Dear Friends,

And now for some news about the film option of The Bronze Horseman. Things have not worked out quite as I hoped, but that’s only because I can’t see the future and don’t know what’s still ahead. 

At the moment, though, the 18-month option with Andy Tennant’s production company has unfortunately come to an end. After months of no activity at all, we tried to extend the option at deadline time (plus 30 days grace), but we could not resolve the most important issue, and that is whose script to use, mine or Ross’s. I strongly felt and continue to feel that Ross’s vision for the story and adaptation of the book were diametrically opposed to my own. So reluctantly we parted ways, and the rights to the book have reverted back to me. The difference between 2009 and now is that now I have a finished script. Which means that we can now seek and find someone else who gets the story, loves the characters, and perhaps can put his/her passion behind the project to get the film off the ground, so to speak, and onto the big screen, but this time with my script as a condition of development.

I know you are disappointed by this and let down, as you can imagine I am, but don’t be disheartened. Because I remain hopeful and optimistic that great things are just around the corner for our two crazy kids. We have a couple of intriguing prospects we are working on and I will keep you posted as soon as I know something more concrete. In the meantime, you know that Tania and Shura live on inside my heart, especially these days, as I immerse myself in the young doomed life of the two people who once loved each other and who made Alexander.

IMDB still has it listed in the development stage and scheduled for release in 2012, but obviously that’s unlikely now. It had been an interesting proposal with Andy Tennant (Sweet Home Alabama, Hitch, The Bounty Hunter) directing.

As we said before, Henry Cavill (The Tudors) has a lot of support for the role of Alexander Barrington Belov, but is busy at the moment being Superman. I’ve also seen people suggesting Joe Manganiello (True Blood) – he seems too old to me – and, of course, the Facebook page is still up in support of my pick, Robert Pattinson, here. 

Remember, whoever plays Alexander has to live up to this quote: “He was more beautiful than that morning sun.”

For my Tatiana, I’ve been thinking maybe Mia Wasikowska (Alice in Wonderland)?

And so we must wait and hope. Keep track of developments with me on IMDB and on Paullina Simons’ website.

Cosmopolis, by Don DeLillo

• Format: Paperback 224 pages
• Published: 02 April 2004
• Publisher: Pan Macmillan

Back cover blurb:

It’s a stunningly eventful day in the life of Eric Packer, a multi-billionaire who owns a forty-eight-room apartment and a decommissioned nuclear bomber and who has recently married the heiress of a vast European fortune. Sitting in his stretch limousine as it moves across the middle of Manhattan, he finds the city at a virtual standstill because the President is visiting, a rapper’s funeral is proceeding through town, and a violent protest is being staged in Times Square by anti-globalist groups. Eric’s bodyguards are worried that he is a target and, indeed, he is – although the danger, as it turns out, is not from protesters or political assassins but from an anonymous man who lives in an abandoned building.

‘One of America’s smartest and most disturbing writers’ – “The Times”.

‘DeLillo shapes a rhetoric for our age’ – “Observer”.

My review:

OK, so I admit I only picked this book up (figuratively – I read it on my Kindle) because of the announcement last week that the lovely Robert Pattinson is to star in the film adaptation, directed by David Cronenberg, which will begin filming soon. As a result, I read it with GQ HHH pictured in my mind as the protagonist Eric Packer… and what a nice image that was. *sigh*

Robert Pattinson, photographed by Nathaniel Goldberg for GQ, April 2009

But to be honest, I’ve got to hope the screenplay is much better than the book. All the way through I kept thinking Cosmopolis was very much like Martin Amis’ Money, one of HHH’s favourite books, which I loathed. It’s an interesting idea for a book, but it was just so oddly written. I got very confused keeping track of which “he” the author was talking about at times.

Nevertheless, I think it will make a great film, and I’m giving it three cupcakes for potential Pattinson nudity. And if he says “Give me the eggplant” – or preferably “give me the aubergine” – I will die a happy woman!

My rating: 3/5

Related Articles

• Film: Newswire: David Cronenberg, Don DeLillo, and Robert Pattinson, together at last (avclub.com)
• Robert Pattinson to star in David Cronenberg’s Cosmopolis (guardian.co.uk)

The Hunger Games – my casting choices

*May contain spoilers and sarcasm*

On Friday night I finished reading Mockingjay, the third book in the Hunger Games trilogy, and it left me with a lump in my throat and a tear in my eye.

While I was reading it, I couldn’t help think about the plans for turning the series into a movie and who might be cast. At this stage the movie is still in development for Lionsgate with no director chosen yet, although this website has hinted at New Zealander Andrew Adamson (The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe), Susanna White (Generation Kill), Sam Mendes, David Slade (Twilight: Eclipse) and Francis Lawrence (Water for Elephants), among others.

So, here are my suggestions for a few of the lead roles:

Coin: She’s only in the last book, but the whole time I was reading I pictured Mary McDonnell.

Maybe Coin's a Cylon?

Haymitch: In my head, Haymitch is Ray Winstone, although he might be a little old.

President Snow: Smells like blood and roses, so who better than Michael Sheen?

Which leads me to the leads. And honestly, there was only one person in my head while reading Katniss. She’s kick-ass, feisty, but ridiculously indecisive and a lot of times I just wanted to slap her. Sound familiar?

Kniss is Kstew

Gale: Of course, her best friend has to be at home in the woods, be a bit buff, eminently patient but ultimately never the one she really wants. If they had motorcycles in District 12 I’m sure they’d fix them up together.

Always the bridesmaid...

So that would, of course, leave Peeta. Despite the fact quite a few people I know think he would make the perfect Finnick, while I was reading the books all I could think of was how Robert Pattinson was perfect for Peeta. Along with the fact he kind of comes as a package with KStew, Peeta is sweet, kind, decorates cakes and always knows the right thing to say or do. In other words, the perfect man.

Peeta will need that hammock when he has to sleep in the trees

Of course, if he was Finnick, he would have to swim, offer us sugar cubes, wield a trident and wander about in his underwear… wait, maybe Rob could play Finnick as well? 😉

The Bronze Horseman to be made into a film

One of the most exciting things I found out about this week was that The Bronze Horseman, by Paullina Simons, is in development to be turned into a film.

I read the book in 2000 when it was first released here in New Zealand, and I absolutely loved it. My mother gave it to me as a birthday present after she had heard the author interviewed on the radio by leading broadcaster at the time, Paul Holmes. Holmes raved about the book, despite its outward appearance as a bit of “chick lit”. Sure, it deals with themes of love and UST, but set amid the Siege of Leningrad it also has serious themes of war, starvation, cannibalism and the privations of Stalinist Russia.

According to IMDB, the movie is in the development stage and is scheduled for 2012. Movie insider @Larry411 tweeted that it had been at the scripting stage since March 17 and would be directed by Andy Tennant (Sweet Home Alabama, Hitch, The Bounty Hunter).

Already there is huge interest in the project, with Facebook pages set up for casting suggestions. Already Henry Cavill (The Tudors) has a lot of support for the role of Alexander Barrington Belov, but for my money I would like to see Robert Pattinson in a role as challenging as this. A Facebook page has been set up in support of Rob as Alexander here.

Remember, whoever plays Alexander has to live up to this quote: “He was more beautiful than that morning sun.”

As for casting Tatiana, who knows? We will have to watch this space. Keep track of developments with me on IMDB and on Paullina Simons’ website.