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January 24, 2010 by Betsy Bird

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

January 24, 2010 by Betsy Bird   2 comments


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.

Now if I hadn’t seen that previous video I would have opened with this one this week.  Do you like David Wiesner?  Would you like to see his next book?  Now you can.  So exciting!

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Thanks to Jennifer Groves for the link.

Of course the big video this week was Rebecca Stead and Jerry Pinkney’s trip to the Today Show to speak briefly about their books.  You can see the full bit here:


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.

Going back in time a little, here you can see a video where in front of your very eyes Jerry Pinkney gets the call from Rita for the first time about his win. 


Thanks to AL Direct for the link.

Movie trailer time!

You may have seen the preview for Diary of a Wimpy Kid.  I’ve given it some thought and come up with some conclusions.  See it for yourself:


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.

The "cute butt" line did make me laugh, though.  Thanks @gregpincus for the link.

It makes for an interesting compare and contrast with The Lightning Thief.  I missed this one in theaters.  Now I can see it in full.

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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?

I am really really enjoying Kidsmomo these days.  That plucky little blog comes up with all sorts of creative ideas in a given week.  Recently they created a kind of Pictionary based on children’s book titles.  I tell you, this is hard.  I wouldn’t know where to begin with half of them.  I guess the trick is to NOT ever draw the book’s cover.  That would be my real inclination when it comes to Esperanza Rising anyway.


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.

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About Betsy Bird

Betsy Bird is currently the Collection Development Manager of the Evanston Public Library system and a former Materials Specialist for New York Public Library. She has served on Newbery, written for Horn Book, and has done other lovely little things that she'd love to tell you about but that she's sure you'd find more interesting to hear of in person. Her opinions are her own and do not reflect those of EPL, SLJ, or any of the other acronyms you might be able to name. Follow her on Twitter: @fuseeight.

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About Betsy Bird

Betsy Bird is currently the Collection Development Manager of the Evanston Public Library system and a former Materials Specialist for New York Public Library. She has served on Newbery, written for Horn Book, and has done other lovely little things that she'd love to tell you about but that she's sure you'd find more interesting to hear of in person. Her opinions are her own and do not reflect those of EPL, SLJ, or any of the other acronyms you might be able to name. Follow her on Twitter: @fuseeight.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Christi says

    January 24, 2010 at 12:13 pm

    “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen”! (Hubby’s a big Terry Gilliam fan.)

  2. Jan says

    January 25, 2010 at 9:57 am

    And none of us can view that at school where it’s blocked.

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