Academy Award nominations

Yup, they're out. The only ones I pay attention to, of course, are ones that movies I like have gotten nominated for, so in this case I'm really only interested in four categories:

Sound Mixing: "Apocalypto," "Blood Diamond," "Dreamgirls," "Flags of Our Fathers," "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest."

Art Direction: "Dreamgirls," "The Good Shepherd," "Pan's Labyrinth," "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest," "The Prestige."

Sound Editing: "Apocalypto," "Blood Diamond," "Flags of Our Fathers," "Letters From Iwo Jima," "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest."

Visual Effects: "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest," "Poseidon," "Superman Returns."

If you don't see the trend here...I'm not going to tell you. Anyway, I don't know about Art Direction or Sound Editing or Mixing, but I think Dead Man's Chest will take Visual Effects easy. I haven't seen Poseidon or Superman Returns, but what with a Kraken and Davy Jones and fishy undead pirates and a swordfight on a wheel (though that might be more like a stunt than a visual effect) what more could one ask? Sound Editing in particular I don't know if it'll get, because from what I've read, Letters From Iwo Jima is looking as though it'll win quite a few. Dreamgirls is also right up there, and it's nominated for Sound Mixing, so I think we may have to be satisfied with Visual Effects and possibly Art Direction. Hopefully it's only because this is the second of a trilogy that DMC is not overtly recognized at the Oscars (TTT got nominated for six, I believe, and won two) and when AWE comes out it'll get recognized much like RotK did. I think someone PotC-related, I forget who, has said that if there are any movies they're looking to follow, it's LotR. It made me happy. Don't quote me, though.

~Sil

Ellie

Bible study last night was awesome. I got a hold of Ellie (Bryan and Natalie's baby) almost as soon as I walked in the door and then I got to hold her for practically the whole time. I love that kid. She was six months old on Sunday and she's getting so BIG! And she played with my hair (which was straightened - I LOVE it straightened, if only because then Ellie plays with it) until Natalie took her to feed her. We're going to the Waterpark this friday, which will be fun. Slightly weird though, because there are hardly any sponsors coming. Just Bryan and Natalie, and Tyler's dad.

My little brother's watching Jack-Jack Attack from The Incredibles...I always find that mini-movie slightly disturbing....

~Sil

Gobsmacked

gobsmacked |ˈgäbˌsmakt| adjective Brit., informal utterly astonished; astounded. DERIVATIVES gobsmacking |-ˌsmaki ng | adjective ORIGIN 1980s: from gob 1 + smack 1 , with reference to being shocked by a blow to the mouth, or to clapping a hand to one's mouth in astonishment.

Yes indeed, today's post is called 'Gobsmacked". One, because it's an awesome word, and two, because I heard it used last night. Actually, the person using it was quoting my dad. Cause really, it's pretty unique to him. Anyway, I was thinking about in the shower (sometimes you would not believe the things I think about in the shower) and then I came down to the computer to see what the actual definition was, and it was pretty close. I mean, if gob=mouth and we all know what 'smacked' means, it's pretty easy.

I think I probably spent about an hour yesterday obsessively making up Chapter/Chapter Verse Reference questions from Acts chapter 7. I now know that the word 'lived' only appears in that chapter once, there are eight possible 'your what' questions; and there's a good chance I'll hear a 'what father' question from that chapter sometime at the quiz meet. And it may in fact be a CVR/MA. Yup, I'm just a wealth of knowledge.

~Sil

Quiz retreat - fifteen books

I was a little hopeless - just a little - because I only had time to cram chapters 1, 2 and 3 before the retreat started. But it got better as it went on, and pretty soon I was stealing Everett's Finish the Verses and Josh's Multiple Answers like I usually do. For the uninitiated, that means I was jumping a little faster on FTVa and MAs in order to beat Everett and Josh because those are their favorite types of question. I didn't always get them right, but Josh and I now have a rather amusing rivalry going. So all in all it was a success. We now have two review weeks before the quiz meet, in which I intend to get REALLY good at EVERYTHING. I love review weeks.

We had my little brother's birthday party yesterday. He turned eight. Got some cool stuff, Monopoly and a Lego Bionicle thing and a pair of rechargeable walkie-talkies. We ate junk food all afternoon and then watched Cars and then had supper while watching the other half of Cars. I sort of half-watched the first half of it because I was chatting to Lady Dark Moon from A-U, and it was very enjoyable, but I watched the second half and found it a better movie than I think I thought it was going to be. I thought it was going to be pretty boring, because I have about as much interest in cars in general as I have in...hockey. And everyone reading this knows how I feel about hockey. But it was a pretty good movie.

Found this on Emily's blog and thought I would do it, thanks Emily!

Mark the selections you have read in bold. If you liked it, add a star [*] in front of the title, if you didn't, give it a minus [-]. Then, put the total number of books you've read in the subject line.

*The Chronicles of Prydain - Alexander, Lloyd
Carrie's War - Bawden, Nina
Death of a Ghost - Butler, Charles
Ender's Game - Card, Orson Scott
*Summerland - Chabon, Michael (I put a star by this because it was a good book, if not really my type)
King of Shadows - Cooper, Susan
The Dark is Rising sequence - Cooper, Susan
Stonestruck - Cresswell, Helen
-Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Dahl, Roald
-Matilda - Dahl, Roald (sorry, hated this book. Too...something. Dark.)
Ingo - Dunmore, Helen
The Sea of Trolls - Farmer, Nancy
Madame Doubtfire - Fine, Anne
Corbenic - Fisher, Catherine
*Inkheart - Funke, Cornelia
*The Thief Lord - Funke, Cornelia
The Owl Service - Garner, Alan
Happy Kid! - Gauthier, Gail
Stormbreaker - Horowitz, Anthony
Whale Rider - Ihimaera, Witi
Finn Family Moomintroll - Jansson, Tove
Fire and Hemlock - Jones, Diana Wynne
The Phantom Tollbooth - Juster, Norton
The Sheep Pig - King Smith, Dick
Stig of the Dump - King, Clive
A Wizard of Earthsea - Le Guin, Ursula
*The Voyage of the Dawn Treader - Lewis, C S
Gardens - Lively, Penelope
Goodnight Mister Tom - Magorian, Michelle
The Changeover - Mahy, Margaret
The Stones are Hatching - McCaughrean, Geraldine
The White Darkness - McCaughrean, Geraldine
*Beauty - McKinley, Robin
Sabriel - Nix, Garth
*The Borrowers - Norton, Mary
-Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH - O'Brien, Robert
Z for Zachariah - O'Brien, Robert
A Dog So Small - Pearce, Philippa
Life As We Knew It - Pfeffer, Susan Beth
A Hat Full of Sky - Pratchett, Terry
-His Dark Materials sequence - Pullman, Philip
How I Live Now - Rosoff, Meg
*Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - Rowling, J K
Holes - Sachar, Louis
The Foreshadowing - Sedgwick, Marcus
Marianne Dreams - Storr, Catherine
When the Siren Wailed - Streatfield, Noel
*The Bartimaeus Trilogy - Stroud, Jonathan
***The Hobbit - Tolkien, J R R (and the Annotated one)
*Charlotte's Web - White, E B

~Sil

Star Wars!

We get to play Star Wars in band! It's mostly the theme with a couple other melodies thrown in, and I have bells. Only the part is quite a bit harder than what I've been doing on bells, so I brought them home to practice it. I probably won't actually get to practice it until maybe Monday, because I want to get my school done as fast as possible today so I can do some serious cramming for the quiz retreat, which is tomorrow evening/all day saturday, out at Nakamun. I'll probably postpone a piano practice today or tomorrow, too, and do it on sunday, even though that tends to usually not be a good idea. Anyway, if I don't get some review done I'm gonna be hopeless, and as I don't particularly enjoy being hopeless, I need to review.

My piano recital is coming up...in about a week and a half, I believe, and people are going to be pretty sick of me by the time it's over! I have no less than FIVE pieces, and all of them are four pages long except one. I do get to play Davy Jones, though, which is an awesome song, so it's worth it. What else am I playing....oddly enough, two Sonatas in G, one by Haydn (boy, I could NOT remember how to spell that...thought it was Hadyn) and one by Beethoven; Puck; and Etude Allegro. I wish composers would come up with more creative names for their songs - there must be about a million Sonatas in G out there, and almost as many Etudes Allegro/Andante/Allegretto/Presto etc.

~Sil

P.S. Oh, and the reason for my lately infrequent posting is a good one this time: Blogger hates me lately, it won't load properly. So I'm not abandoning you or anything.

Sleeping in

Slept in today, cause I was up till almost midnight last night. Up until about 10:30 it was babysitting, and then Dad wanted to stay and discuss various things with Mike. First time I've ever babysat for the Lakes, and it went really well. I almost finished my book, too.

Other than that, not much to blog about...still lots of snow, I plan to make snow ice cream today, and youth tonight for the first time in a while.

~Sil

Pirates Pictures!

There are Pirates publicity shots for At World's End now! They're pretty darn cool, you can see them -
here
The top one is all of them, the next one down is Sao Feng (a new character) and we know the rest of them. Barbossa looks awesome, and so does Elizabeth, but Jack and Will...mmm...well, they obviously used the wind machine for Jack's and Will has a singularly odd expression on his face. But oh well, they're pictures!

And...it seems to have stopped snowing. Yesterday there was a bit of a blizzard (dare I use the word! My sister vehemently argued that it wasn't one. This is the same sister who declares beyond all doubt that there is no Loch Ness Monster and never has been one. I disagree) and Dad stayed home from work, and band practice was canceled. Which was good, because I couldn't go anyway. My piano teacher was suitably impressed with my theory mark, but somehow I think she was more impressed that I got Puck memorized over the holidays. I would link to the Classical Music Archives file so you could hear it, but I'm pretty sure you have to be a member. It's free at first, though, so if anyone reading this has some free time, you can register at www.classicalarchives.com, and then post a comment and say you have and I'll tell you where to go from there to hear it. It's a really neat piece, though of course I don't play it as fast as the recording.

Anyway, after that me and my sister spent about two hours at the library, at which point I picked up some of my holds, including a book called Dragons of Autumn Twilight that Lady Dark Moon on Arwen-Undomiel recommended to me. Then we came home and had pizza and watched Yours, Mine and Ours (the old version), which was funny.

~Sil

Snow!

Major snow, we probably got another four or five inches last night. It makes all the dirty stuff piled up on the sides of the road look better.

I missed blogging yesterday because either a) Safari decided it didn't like the Blogger site, b) the Blogger site decided it didn't like Safari, or c) my computer and Safari were both plotting against Blogger. Or some combination thereof. Anyway, it's fine today, and checking my list here I think I said I would update on Christmas presents. So I'm a nerd (funny, how that seems to be a frequent refrain of mine lately. Robyn would agree) and I wrote them all down as they were opened.

From Mom and Dad (so Dad, pay attention so you know what you got me!) - the best one, in my opinion, came from them. A straightening iron. I love having straight hair. And The Slippery Slope, #10 in A Series of Unfortunate Events. We also got stereo headphones for the computer (AWESOME to listen to PotC and LotR music on) and Zoo Tycoon as family gifts.

From Uncle Brad and Auntie Char - A Sony PSP! My brother in particular really likes it, and I haven't bothered to try and get it away from him because I'm really bad at any and all of our three games. But as soon as Third Age is out for PSP I am buying and playing it! I personally also got a little change purse full of candy from them. I actually think I still have some left.

From Uncle Darcy and Auntie Pam - Giftcards and chocolate! I bought Eragon with my giftcard, and next time we go to Indigo I'm buying the Dead Man's Chest soundtrack. The chocolate was this AMAZING stuff, a mix of caramel and pecans and chocolate...it's making me hungry just thinking about it.

From Uncle Scott and Auntie Bonnie - Scarves, fuzzy ones! I love fuzzy scarves. Mine is blue. Also Jolly Ranchers, which I ate so fast my tongue turned an odd shade of blackish-brown.

From my grandparents - money, and their house over Christmas. I would have happily had no gift if it meant staying at Gramma and Grampa's over Christmas. I think it might conceivably be my favorite part of the whole year. Anyway, I bought fun shoes, by Airwalk, sort of like those rubber clog things everyone was so crazy about over the summer. Only more like ballet flats.

From my other grandma - (Get ready) Sorry, Chess, three puzzles and a puzzle roller, Cranium, Mexican Train, Blokus for two, Pictionary, Boggle, Narnia Extended (w00t!), and Dutch Blitz, which I got from Josh as well so now we can play big family games of it. Yay. We've already played Mexican Train multiple times.

I think that's it...oh, and a pair of Christmas earrings and a tiny picture frame from Francesca at youth. And a little snowman candle-jar from my quizzing prayer partner. I don't think I've missed anyone.

Also, I got my theory exam mark yesterday! Grade 2 Rudiments, and I got....*drum roll* NINETY-EIGHT! So, you know, I'm pretty happy with that.

I should go now, though, because I had a great idea for a story last night and I want to have some free time today to write the first part down.

~Sil

Back to blogging

Okay, school's started, and I'm back. I do need to get stuff done, though, so this won't be hugely long.

First of all, to everyone who bugged me to post over the holidays: it's okay, I was going to get around to it. I really was. See? I have already. So for future reference, I haven't forgotten, I'm on a break. That's why I don't post on weekends and why you'll likely not see much of me over spring break. A little bit of bugging is okay, though, it makes me feel wanted. Though really, I'll be here whether anyone wants me or not, so why that matters I don't know.

That was sort of long-winded. Anyway, second thing: a more in-depth review of Eragon.

First scene: Extremely reminiscent of Lord of the Rings. Voice of a character in the background detailing the fall of the dragon riders and the rise of Galbatorix, bla bla bla. At this point we meet Arya, who's riding through the forest in the dark dressed in what can be accurately described as 'not much' and being chased by the creepiest character in the movie, Durza. Just for background - he's a Shade, and as such is a) not human or elven or even dwarven (never a good sign) and b) pretty powerfully magical, but in a bad way. But back to the story. In a nutshell, Arya is carrying one of the last three dragon eggs in Alagaesia and Durza wants it because he's Galbatorix's servant (figures) and Galbatorix wants it, because it was stolen from him in the first place. A dragon egg won't hatch unless the dragon inside feels the presence of the person destined to be its rider, so Arya and the Varden (resistance against Galbatorix's empire) are seacrhing for that person. Wow, we're still on the first scene, aren't we? Better hurry it along. In a smaller nutshell, Durza eventually turns all the forest around Arya to flaming tinder and kidnaps her, but not before she sends the dragon egg somewhere else with magic. Understandably, Durza's not very happy about this. Durza:


At this point it might be valuable to interject with my thoughts about Arya, seeing as she is one of the main characters. Book Arya had black hair and green eyes, and dressed in black leather. She was appropriately disdainful towards pretty much everybody, being an elf princess, and did NOT flirt with anyone *cough* Eragon *cough*. Movie Arya, on the other hand, has red/gold/brown/can't-decide-what-it-is-but-could-safely-be-called-strawberry-blonde hair, blue eyes, and dresses (like I said) in 'not much' - which can be described as an odd sort of one-strap thing that looks like it was melted onto her and wouldn't stop any sort of weapon in a million years for a top, and a skirt for a bottom that likewise wouldn't stop a weapon in a million years. This seems rather impractical for a dragon-egg courier, wouldn't you agree? Seeing as she's gotten saddled with pretty much the most dangerous job the Varden could give her, wouldn't you think more practical clothing and at the VERY least some token chain mail would be in order? But this is a movie, and somehow they don't think like that. This is a picture, so you can see what I'm talking about:

See, you might think you could safely call her blonde, but it changes throughout the entire movie. But despite of all this unfaithfulness to the book, I still liked her. I'm easy to please.

Moving on, we now meet Eragon, his uncle Garrow, and his cousin Roran (who is SUPPOSED to have a fiance-to-be named Katrina, who we all expected to be in the movie and even got her own promotional stills, but inexplicably never made it to the theater) and most importantly, Eragon's dragon Saphira. Who hatches from the egg that Eragon finds while he's hunting - the same egg Arya was carrying. At this point she's about the size of a bread-box and has huge eyes that cover about half of her head, but is still pretty cute. Eragon attempts to feed her and she spills milk all over the place, and decides that rats are more to her taste. Over the next little while Roran leaves, because the Empire (the Empire and Galbatorix are evil, in case I failed to specify) is forcing young men to enlist in the army and he doesn't want to. Eragon's pretty disappointed about this, but Saphira makes up for it. At this point we also meet Brom, a mysterious story-teller who's obviously opposed to the Empire and likes to walk around loudly proclaiming that the dragon riders will return, and thereby getting his chickens stolen by soldiers. Eragon has already realized that he has a dragon and tries to find out more from Brom, who is reluctant to share. Over the next bit MORE evil creatures, the Ra'zac in this case, try to find Eragon and his egg by invading his village at night, torturing his uncle, and generally causing mayhem. Eragon's not there to save him because Saphira (somehow magically grown in about ten seconds to be slightly larger than an elephant) gets upset and carries him off. Eragon arrives back home, finds his uncle dead, and is quite mad and upset, but Brom finds him and tosses him onto a horse while setting his house on fire, because they need to get away quickly. Nothing of great importance happens in the next while - Eragon is mad at Saphira but reconciles himself to her and accepts that he's a dragon rider, starts learning important dragon-rider stuff, and starts becoming less arrogant, which is always a good thing.

Pause here to evaluate Eragon, Brom, Saphira and the Ra'zac.

Eragon - slightly too old, he's only sixteen in the book, but pretty faithful to the story. Blond hair, blue eyes, typical Marty-Sam-ish hero. To anyone who's wondering what on earth a Marty-Sam is, it's a fiction term used to describe extremely stereotypical characters. The female version is Mary-Sue. Basically what it means is that your character is practically perfect in every way, usually Elven, possesser of extreme powers, stunningly beautiful/handsome. Usually has fiery red hair, golden hair, or midnight black hair. Also tends to have either purple, emerald green or otherwise unnaturally colored eyes. Arya can be accurately described as a Mary-Sue, and Eragon's definetely on his way to Marty-Sam-hood. By the second book he's so Marty-Sam you have to shield your eyes - he's even switched races and gone Elven rather than human. Tsk tsk. Eragon:


Brom - perfect. No criticism to make, which is saying quite a bit, and he brings Eragon down a notch or two, because he's insufferably arrogant at the beginning of the story. Brom:


Saphira - also perfect, and brings Eragon down ANOTHER notch or two, which makes him quite a respectable character despite his Marty-Sam-ish tendencies. The special effects used to create Saphira were breathtaking, but I can't find a picture.

Ra'zac - there's only one word to describe these. Bizarre. They look like someone turned over a rotten log, scooped up as many maggots as they could carry, and sculpted something vaguely humanoid with them; but it wouldn't stay together properly so they crossed it with a mummy, gave it burning red eyes and superhuman strength, and called it a Ra'zac. Not extremely pleasant. You don't want to see a picture of these, even though I could probably find one.

I don't remember the movie REALLY well, but it seems to me that nothing really important happens over the next while. We do, however, see several scenes with a helpless Arya being tortured for information by Durza, which somehow she seems to know. Weird. Maybe it's an elf thing, to know things you haven't seen and nobody's told you. Eventually Durza gets so annoyed by her lack of cooperation that he sends Eragon a dream in which the forest is all filled with misty green light, Arya prances in and tells Eragon soulfully that he's the only one who can save her, and prances out again. Eragon is understandably a little confused by this, as he's never seen Arya before, but he's determined to rescue her, which is exactly what Durza wants and therefore the last thing Brom wants. So they have a bit of a fight and Eragon goes off to rescue Arya. At this point you begin to wonder if the fact that he's an adolescent male and she's beautiful has anything to do with his determination. He makes it into the prison where she's being held and has an epic battle with Durza in which he's ALMOST killed, but Brom comes in at the last moment and gets fatally wounded by throwing himself in front of a weapon aimed at Eragon. They escape on Saphira, and oddly enough Arya can't do anything for the wounded Brom except look sad, even though she's supposed to be endowed with amazing powers. Anyway, he dies.

Saphira, Eragon and Arya are pretty dejected about this, but pretty soon it's only Eragon and Saphira that are dejected because some poison that Durza used on Arya suddenly takes effect and the falls to the ground with a despairing cry, that just happens to be Eragon's name. I wasn't very happy about this, because in the book she's far less damsel-in-distress-like. Anyway, they decide they have to find the Varden (which Eragon and Brom had been searching for before) because they're the only ones who can heal Arya, and on the way they meet Murtagh. Murtagh is a very important character in the book, but in the movie they somehow downgrade him to a mysterious figure who Saphira drops out of the sky to land on his head because he'd been following them. Inexplicably, he laughs at this. "Oh haha, I just LOVE being dropped on my head!"

Murtagh - you don't think of him quite this way at the beginning, but he also is regrettably Marty-Sam-ish. VERY cool, though, even with the four-and-a-half seconds of screen time he gets. WAY not enough Murtagh in this movie.


They find the Varden, the Varden heal Arya and lock up Murtagh because he's the son of Morzan, one of the thirteen Forsworn who served Galbatorix. How they know this, we're not sure. But an epic battle is approaching and we meet Ajihad and his daughter Nasuada, who are prominent among the Varden. Ajihad is great, but Nasuada walks in on shirtless Eragon and practically flutters her eyelashes at him, which made me mad because in the book she's far better.

The epic battle ensues and just before it begins Arya...um...zips up the back of Eragon's armor for him because he can't reach (well, it probably wasn't a zipper, but she does something, and that's for sure) and shows him Saphira's armor. Strangely enough, when Saphira emerges she's wearing armor but it's entirely different armor. What, did they have a show set and a usable set? Anyway, in the epic battle Eragon kills Durza and fails to acquire a scar that's very important in the second book, but Saphira is wounded and Eragon blacks out and wakes up to see Murtagh (this is where the other two of the poor guy's four lines are delivered) looking at him. He (Eragon) asks, "Saphira?" and Murtagh, who seems to enjoy freaking him out, says "Some friends can't be replaced." Eragon looks alarmed and then Saphira lands beside Eragon and Murtagh adds, "Luckily some don't have to be."

Now that we've reached the end, Eragon flies off on Saphira to say goodbye to Arya, who is NOT aloof and elf-like but smiles at him, tells him he's a legend and that "tomorrow may see us together again." SIGH. The movie ends with an ominous shot of Galbatorix's huge black dragon, Shruikan, and then fades to Avril Lavigne singing "Keep Holding On." I like that song, even if it is Avril Lavigne + fantasy movie, and if she'd sung at the end of LotR I would have thrown a hissy fit.

Even though this review may have seemed to contradict it - I liked this movie. Not up to the standard of LotR by a very, VERY long shot, and PotC is quite a bit better as well, but respectably good. I did have a lot of fun poking fun at it, though.

~Sil

I'm not dead

...I just got really lazy over Christmas holidays. I promise I'll get back to regular posting on Monday, when school starts again.

As it is, the only real thing of importance that's happened lately (besides Christmas) is a tobogganing accident, from which I have acquired several scrapes in various places on my face, a swollen lip (it's almost gone now) and general soreness. Not fun. Anyway, on Monday and the following week I promise to have:

- A more in-depth review of Eragon
- News of Christmas and the gifts thereof
- Our News Years' party

So stay tuned!

~Sil