Video Sunday: “An alien trinket of unimaginable cultral significance”

See that?  That’s what Video Sunday is all about.  It’s about the basics.  It’s about the essentials.  It’s about folks imitating Werner Herzog reinterpreting Curious George.  Pair it with my recent review of Furious George Goes Bananas, and you have yourself a very George-ish year.  The reader is, of course, not Werner Herzog.  Not unless Herzog has suddenly de-aged some 20+ years.  Still, very good stuff.  Thanks to Chad Beckerman, Gregory K, and Jess for passing it on to me.

Thanks to Jennifer Groves for the link.

What happened to Al Roker, by the way?  Two years ago we had that horrid woman who couldn’t get Laura Amy Schlitz’s name right.  Last year Al was a pro and navigated the talk without difficulty.  Now we’ve two ladies who at least show some interest, but since Al runs the kids book group I would have thought he’d have been the obvious choice again.

Thanks to AL Direct for the link.

So, here’s the thing.  First off, I believe this is the reassure-the-fans edition.  The extra girl character that is one of the stars of the film gets a very brief line at the beginning, then is never introduced or featured again.  They show the drawn characters and then the real ones, even ending the whole kerschmozzle on the diary’s cover.  And there are some interesting details as well.  Greg’s hair does a strange little split at the top of his head, much like his drawn counterpart.  So that’s good.  On the other hand, since Diary of a Wimpy Kid is a book of extremes, I felt like the film should have gone a lot farther in its ridiculousness.  The gorillas that have to shave should look like big hulking teens.  The cheese looks perfect, but there should be more wacky weirdness to the whole thing.  Plus, when they were casting for Greg, Jeff Kinney said that they were looking for "a young Larry David."  Not sure if that’s what they ended up with.  Ah well.  We’ll see how it fares.

Huh!  I’m a little worried that the trailer gives away one of the bad guys, but on the whole this looks like fun.  I do like the casting of Uma Thurman as Medusa since she first got her acting chops in a film where she played Aphrodite.  Can you name the film?

Now I cannot embed it here, but if you get a chance I highly suggest you watch this trailer for a London stage production of Terry Pratchett’s novel Nation that you can watch live in select theaters around the country here in America.  It’s playing January 30th.  So you’ve still some time to make plans.  Thanks to Monica Edinger for the link!

Your off-topic video of the day comes to us via bookshelves of doom.  When I read that it was "Star Wars Made in France" I expected a reinterpretation of the classic sci-fi hit.  What I got instead was dance dance dance!  In the era of Glee, this video could not possibly be better timed.

Thanks to bookshelves of doom for the link.

Filed under: Videos