Abducted by vampires

Sorry for the lack of posting.  I got back from my all to brief vacation and have just been keeping busy with work, work and more work.  While on vacation though, I was abducted by vampires.

Just before we left for New York, I purchased the first two Twilight novels.  A co-worker read them and loved them and one of the children’s parents in my class raved about them so I thought I would give them a try.  Plus, I had a Barnes and Noble gift card burning a hole in my wallet.  I’m a Harry Potter fan at heart and didn’t think I’d like the series.  But oh.my.goodness.  I am hooked.

To be fair, I wasn’t crazy about the first book.  Bella (the main character) seemed needy and immature but then again, she was 17.  I guess I’m a little out of touch with the whole teenage crowd.  Well, the books grew on me.  I finished the first one before we left and most of the second one on the way up.  After finishing the second one I went to the local bookstore (my favorite bookstore, With Pipe and Book.  They sell used books and pipe tobacco.  I LOVE the smell in there) but I think they must be retiring soon because they were closed so I had to go next door and buy the next book new.  I thought it would last me the rest of the vacation but  I finished it the next day and had to trek back out (a 25 minute drive each way) to get the fourth and final book.  I finished that one after we got back.

So, that’s four books in the span of one week.  I also watched the movie and I have a new crush on Robert Pattinson.  He is YUMMY.  He can bite me any time he wants.  :o)  Can’t wait to see the next movie that comes out in November.  And with Harry Potter coming out in July I am just way too excited about books and movies that were geared toward children and teenagers.  Oh well.  Everyone has guilty pleasures.

This is the future of cinema?

Hello, My Love,

This past weekend was a busy one. On Saturday, your mother was a supermodel! My company was doing a photo shoot for their fall ad campaign and they chose our center to do it at. They used some of our staff, parents and children to be in it. It was fun to do and I made $50 out of it. Can't wait to see the pictures. So, being $50 richer I took your dad out to dinner and a movie with our friends Diana and Jason. It was a good night but dinner wasn't all that great and the movie was the most offensive piece of trash I've ever seen in my life. We went to see Doomsday. It had the potential to be a really good movie but they made it so gory and bloody and violent that I lost interest in it less than halfway through. The plot was that there was this virus that basically killed all in it's path so the government in England decided to quarantine off Scotland and leave the people to die. 30 years later the virus comes back and they send in a team to go back into Scotland because there appears to be some survivors. Sounded pretty good to me. After watching it though it was nothing more than a rip off of Escape from New York and Mad Max and nowhere near half as good as either of those movies. Even with it being a rip off it could have still been a decent movie but they felt the need to top it off with the most unnessecary gore and violence. It was so bad I had to just close my eyes and not watch it. Then, to top it all off, as we were leaving the theater I noticed several children coming out. I couldn't believe my eyes. Who in their right mind would let a child see this garbage???? There was the most awful violence, swearing and some nudity as well. Needless to say, your mother couldn't keep her mouth shut and made a comment (I'm hoping it was loud enough for these horrible parents to hear) about how awful the movie was and how horrible I thought it was for kids to see that movie and that it bordered on child abuse. That movie would have given me nightmares as a child. No wonder children are so desensitized to violence today. Their parents don't give a damn about what their children watch or they are too lazy to find a babysitter and just bring them along not caring what it is their kids are viewing. Needless to say my love, you will NOT be allowed to see such garbage until you are at least old enough to vote. I hate to use the line my mother used so often but...it's because I'm your mother and I SAID SO!

Frankly my dear, I DO give a damn!

So this post really has nothing to do with getting pregnant or motherhood whatsover but it was something I was thinking about last night as I finished one of my favorite books. Why do filmmakers sometimes drastically change a book when they make it into a movie? Sometimes you can't even recognize the book at all. I realize that sometimes the book is just an inspiration for a movie but for the ones that are supposed to be a visualization of the book...why change it? My favorite book of all time is Gone With the Wind and then Scarlett (written by another author but still very good and very true to the characters) which is the sequel. Then my favorite movie of all time is of course, Gone With the Wind. I know that the book was very long and even though they cut out a lot of things the movie was long as well. BUT...they stayed true to the book and didn't cut out anything too critical. In the book, Scarlett had a child with her first husband, Charles Hamilton and another child with her second husband, Frank Kennedy. They were cut out in the movie. Makes sense since they didn't really play that big a part in the book. They also cut out a lot of the secondary characters from her hometown and some of the secondary plots. Nothing that really changed the heart of the story. Now as far as the made for tv movie for the book Scarlett....that's a different story. They stuck with the removal of Scarlett's two kids from her first two marriages. They weren't vital to the story. They did add Will Benteen, who was cut out in the first movie. He was a soldier who appeared after the war was over and helped out at Tara and eventually married Scarlett's sister Suellen. He wasn't a big deal in the first book to be needed in the movie but he was definitely needed for the second movie. I'll have to rewatch the movie this weekend to refresh my memory but I think the beginning of the movie held fairly true to the story. Once Scarlett goes to Ireland and has the baby is when it starts to stray. The relationship Scarlett develops with her new daughter does not do justice to the book. Then the story goes off on a tangent which ends up with Scarlett being accused for the murder of some Lord even though it was her knocked up maid who was carrying his child. Where in the hell did they come up with that? They had Scarlett on trial and Rhett came and saved her. Ridiculous! This is a women who does NOT need saving! That was what the whole story was about! She gave up her life in America after it didn't work out with Rhett and decided to start a new life in Ireland with her daughter. She built her own town from the ground up for crying out loud! I also didn't like the actress who played Scarlett. I think it was Joanna Waley-Kilmer or something to that effect. First of all....she had BROWN eyes. Scarlett's eyes were green! At least put some colored contacts on! In spite of all it's shortcomings and those of the infinite movies that spawned from books it's still fun to see the characters that started in the back of my mind come to life on the big screen. Even if they don't have the right colored eyes.