Random topic thread

[Sharon]

Rae wrote: "Okay, I have to know. Who else here is buying a case of True Blood? :-) "

Well Rae I gave up blood some years back :)

[Sharon]

He was in Smallville as well
Kyle Schmid
and The Covenant

[Sharon]

the cleaning hunk was funny lol
I didn't know men still wore that type of underwear...yuck lol

[Sharon]

Eugenia wrote: "Sharon wrote: "the cleaning hunk was funny lol
I didn't know men still wore that type of underwear...yuck lol"

Some of them do, LOL. "

ha ha ha

[CaliGirlRae, Mod Squad]

Did you guys hear about the new cover for Liar? Looks like many bloggers and the author herself made enough noise to get Bloomsbury to change it for the hardcover version. Of course Bloomsbury thinks we all just "didn't get" their oh, so clever marketing strategy and misinterpreted their marketing as a not being diverse on purpose.

Uh huh, right.

This week Bloomsbury officials have switched course. “We regret that our original creative direction for Liar—which was intended to symbolically reflect the narrator’s complex psychological makeup—has been interpreted by some as a calculated decision to mask the character’s ethnicity,” Bloomsbury officials said in a statement to PW. “In response to this concern, and in support of the author’s vision for the novel, Bloomsbury has decided to re-jacket the hardcover edition with a new look in time for its publication in October. It is our hope that the important discussions about race and its representation in teen literature continue. As the publisher of Liar, we also hope that nothing further distracts from the quality of the author’s nuanced and accomplished story, and that a new cover will allow this novel’s many advocates to celebrate its U.S. publication without reservation.”

Full story here: http://www.publishersweekly.com/artic...

[CaliGirlRae, Mod Squad]

Np! Wild huh? :-/

[Danielle The Book Huntress , Sees Love in All Colors]

That's really a crying shame. Either the editor/publisher's executive staff are stupid or they think that the people who will buy this book is stupid. Sometimes I feel like I'm screwed either way. Right or wrong, I don't want to read urban lit. It doesn't speak to me. Why is it that I cannot read about Black/AA people who are not in the urban environment? Why can't I read stories that appeal to me with characters who are of my ethnicity.

Sorry, I'm pretty upset right now. Thanks for sharing this article. Sometimes I feel like things haven't changed very much since the Civil Rights Movement after all.

[Sharon]

Thanks for sharing this with us

I cannot believe they would do that..ridiculous!!

[Danielle The Book Huntress , Sees Love in All Colors]

I can only speak to my feelings, Eugenia. That's how I feel.

[CaliGirlRae, Mod Squad]

Danielle wrote: "That's really a crying shame. Either the editor/publisher's executive staff are stupid or they think that the people who will buy this book is stupid. Sometimes I feel like I'm screwed either way. ..."

Indeed. Or it feels like things are being rewound back to the before the laws were put in place. I'm seeing a lot of it happen especially outside of the book industry. Pretty scary stuff.

[Danielle The Book Huntress , Sees Love in All Colors]

Things have not changed that much, unfortunately.

[CaliGirlRae, Mod Squad]

Too true.

[Jenn]

Sooo off topic. For those of you mid 30s and up do you remember 'Roxanne Roxanne'? Please read this. I love this story, never under estimate a determind woman who wants to get an education!

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/q...

[Arch , Mod]

Education is worth fighting for.

[Danielle The Book Huntress , Sees Love in All Colors]

That's incredible and heartening. It really gives me hope that some of my students I had in similar situations will make it though and achieve their goals.

[PT]

Has anyone seen the posters for The Time Traveler's Wife? I think it's really nice. Eric Bana is way hotter now than he was in the days of "The Castle." Has anyone seen that movie? Straight to the pool room. It's really funny. Gets me every time.

[Danielle The Book Huntress , Sees Love in All Colors]

Eric Bana is a cutie. I love Black Hawk Down for all the gorgeous men in it. Does that make me shallow? LOL.

[Jenn]

Danielle wrote: "Eric Bana is a cutie. I love Black Hawk Down for all the gorgeous men in it. Does that make me shallow? LOL."

Not as shallow as I. When I saw him in The Other Bolyen Girl. I thought even though he exiled his first wife and beheaded his second wife he might be worth a shot for all that hottness.!

[Arch , Mod]

Eric looks like a young Richard Gere.

Richard Gere was a hot Navy man, in An Officer and A Gentlman.

[Danielle The Book Huntress , Sees Love in All Colors]

Jenn wrote: "Danielle wrote: "Eric Bana is a cutie. I love Black Hawk Down for all the gorgeous men in it. Does that make me shallow? LOL."

Not as shallow as I. When I saw him in The Other Bolyen Girl. I thou..."

He was incredibly hot-looking in that movie. Hollywood is too nice to the evil Henry VIII.

[Jenn]

Danielle wrote: "Jenn wrote: "Danielle wrote: "Eric Bana is a cutie. I love Black Hawk Down for all the gorgeous men in it. Does that make me shallow? LOL."

Not as shallow as I. When I saw him in The Other Boly..."

I agree. Every time I start hating Myers in The Tutors, he starts looking all hot... And the real Henry VIII was fat and riddled with gout.

[Danielle The Book Huntress , Sees Love in All Colors]

Yeah Myers is completely delicious Henry. I wasn't into him until I saw him looking hot on The Tudors. :)

[CaliGirlRae, Mod Squad]

Danielle wrote: "Yeah Myers is completely delicious Henry. I wasn't into him until I saw him looking hot on The Tudors. :)"

He looks good here: http://i26.tinypic.com/35hpe7l.jpg

I saw him in this one movie called B. Monkey and he had really nice lips. But I agree, normally he wasn't a looker but somehow he's grown into it ever since Bend it Like Beckham and The Tudors.

My fave Tudors guy is Henry Cavill though. Swoon! http://hotcelebs.today.com/files/2009...

[Arch , Mod]

Rae, Henry Cavill is cute.

[Danielle The Book Huntress , Sees Love in All Colors]

Rae wrote: "Danielle wrote: "Yeah Myers is completely delicious Henry. I wasn't into him until I saw him looking hot on The Tudors. :)"

He looks good here: http://i26.tinypic.com/35hpe7l.jpg

I saw him in thi..."

Are you trying to give me a heartattack? (wiping away drool).

Yeah Myers really did grow into being a hottie. He used to be too girly looking for me when he was younger and with the long hair.

[CaliGirlRae, Mod Squad]

Arch wrote: "Rae, Henry Cavill is cute."

He is huh? I want to clone him and add him to my Man collection. :-)

Danielle LOL. Yummy man overload! It's like lots of chocolate, you have to hold on! Hehe. He did have a kind of fem thing going on in his younger years, yeah. Like in that Velvet Goldmine movie (I think it was called?) with Ewan M.

[Danielle The Book Huntress , Sees Love in All Colors]

Yeah, I wasn't loving the Fem look of the early Myers years. Velvet Goldmine. Now that was an INTERESTING movie.

I keep forgetting how cute Henry Cavill is. He's going in my British Actor Male Harem for sure. ;)

[Danielle The Book Huntress , Sees Love in All Colors]

Here's some craptastic news for Marvel fans. Disney bought Marvel. NOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

From JoBlo.com:

Disney buys Marvel! Aug. 31, 2009

Source: JoBlo.com by: Mike Sampson

In a truly surprising Monday morning development, The Walt Disney Company announced that it has purchased Marvel Entertainment for the whopping price of $4 billion. According to the press release, "Disney will acquire ownership of Marvel including its more than 5,000 Marvel characters." Robert Iger, President of Disney said the deal combines "Marvel's strong global brand and world-renowned library of characters including Iron Man, Spider-Man, X-Men, Captain America, Fantastic Four and Thor with Disney's creative skills, unparalleled global portfolio of entertainment properties."

This obviously has a big impact on the future of the Marvel characters. As of now Marvel partners with Universal Studios and their "Islands of Adventure" including rides based on Spider-Man and Hulk. And obviously Marvel has a number of movies in development at studios other than Disney. I don't believe we'll see any big impact on either in the near future but what it means further down the line remains to be seen.

This news is still developing so as we learn more (and what it means to the future of Marvel), we'll update this story accordingly. For now, if you're interested, you can read the full press release here.

UPDATE - On the shareholder conference call, Disney said that all current and future film deals that were negotiated by Marvel will stay in place. They feel those deals were well developed and Disney has no intentions of trying to reclaim any of those properties for their film unit. For the time being. They do believe that it is "in our best interest if over time we ended up as the sole distributor of these theatrical release films."

UPDATE 2 - When asked about the possibility of a Marvel/Pixar team up, it was revealed that John Lasseter met with the key creative staff at Marvel last week and everyone got "pretty excited very fast." They said there is a "definite opportunity" for that kind of collaboration and that "exciting products" will come from that partnership.

[Arch , Mod]

Why did Disney do that? Was Marvel in debt or something? If not, then marvel shouldn't have sold anything to Disney.

[Danielle The Book Huntress , Sees Love in All Colors]

As far as I know, Marvel's doing great. I guess $4 billion dollars was too good to turn down.

[CaliGirlRae, Mod Squad]

Lol Danielle. Everyone on Twitter is freakin' out over the news. They're scared about what this may mean for the amusement park attractions.

[new_user]

I know, I was disappointed when I heard too, but hopefully they'll keep producing good movies. :/ My brother and I were kicking ourselves yesterday because we were contemplating buying Marvel stock a few weeks ago. xD

[Danielle The Book Huntress , Sees Love in All Colors]

I'm scared that they will get their hands into the Marvel movies and mess them up. I hope they don't have any influence over the comics and graphic novels. Too bad about that, NU. Is it too late to buy stock now?

[Arch , Mod]

Danielle wrote: "I'm scared that they will get their hands into the Marvel movies and mess them up. I hope they don't have any influence over the comics and graphic novels. Too bad about that, NU. Is it too late..."

If Disney owns the movies, in the future, I think they will probably mess things up for die hard fans of certain comic books, etc.

[Danielle The Book Huntress , Sees Love in All Colors]

That's what my fear is, Arch. I wish Disney would just mind their business. They have some good products, but not everything should have the Disney taint, I mean stamp. :)

[new_user]

LOL. Best way to eliminate competition is to buy it out. Yeah, the stock has already jumped. Ideal time to buy would have been before the news.

[CaliGirlRae, Mod Squad]

Disney is becoming like Amazon. Big corporate tyrants. :-(

[Danielle The Book Huntress , Sees Love in All Colors]

Yeah, exactly, Rae. I'm afraid they are going to do some creative controlling that will ruin Marvel's product.

[new_user]

Just speaking for myself, I have no quarrel with corporations so long as they're ethical. :)

[CaliGirlRae, Mod Squad]

Watch The Corporation documentary. It'll blow your mind about what happens behind the scenes (although some things aren't completely revealed). Personally, some mindsets at Disney haven't really sat right with me as a whole. Come to think of it some recent mindsets at Marvel haven't either but what can ya do.

Anyway, I'm a die hard PKD dystopian SF lover so corporations will always be shady to me. :-)

[Danielle The Book Huntress , Sees Love in All Colors]

What does PKD stand for, Rae?

[CaliGirlRae, Mod Squad]

Philip K. Dick. One of my fave sci-fi authors. :-) He usually writes man vs society themes in a lot of his stories.

[Danielle The Book Huntress , Sees Love in All Colors]

Oh, that makes sense. I recently got one of his short story books. It has the story for Total Recall, which was recommended to me because I like the premise of the movie but not the execution. I've been meaning to read him. Maybe you could recommend some good sci-fi for this neophyte to the literary side of the genre. Nothing too hard. I can't handle the uber-technical side of the sci fi. Have your read the Takashi Kovacs stories by Richard K. Morgan? Those have caught my interest.

[CaliGirlRae, Mod Squad]

Ooh! That's a good one. We Can Remember It For You Wholesale? (Long name! lol). It's not as trippy as Total Recall I think.

Sure! On the PKD side, I tend to like his shorter works more (although I do want to read his novels eventually). I think you'd really like The Golden Man short story because it reminded me a lot of X-Men since it deals with super humans being shut out of society. Also Minority Report was really good. Not as intricate as the movie but still good. Imposter is another good one (the move is pretty close to it, too).

Even though it runs a bit techie, you'd probably love the Appleseed comics. The movies are simply awesome in their own right (it's what I want in my sci-fi romances) and the graphic novels deal with the same story but have a little bit more to them. Plus they are hilarious. It's hard to describe why but it's just in the witty way the leads talk to each other.

I haven't read the Kovacs novels yet but I really want too. They're on my TBR list once I finally swing back to an SF mood lol. I agree, they do look pretty good. :-D

[Danielle The Book Huntress , Sees Love in All Colors]

I loved Minority Report. Imposter was good but kind of a downer ending. I'm definitely interested in checking out The Golden Man short story. I'll put the Appleseed graphic novels on my tbr list. I have heard you raving about them, so I was curious. I think they might be making the first Kovacs into a movie. I see you recommended some books to me. Thanks!

[CaliGirlRae, Mod Squad]

You're welcome! Wasn't MR awesome? :-D If I come across anymore that you may like, I'll send some your way. I've been on the hunt for more YA SF & Fantasy books featuring characters of color and I'm coming across some good titles that I hope to read soon.

Yeah, the ending to Imposter is still the same in the novella btw. But it is a well written story. Oh! There's also Paycheck which was better than the movie (although I liked that as a separate entity). Let me know what you think of Appleseed and the Golden Man when you come across them. :-)

Yeah! I heard the news over at io9. I need to get on those before the movie comes out! I'm really excited about those because I love me some good cyberpunk stories. :-D

[new_user]

Rae wrote: "Watch The Corporation documentary. It'll blow your mind about what happens behind the scenes (although some things aren't completely revealed). Personally, some mindsets at Disney haven't really sa..."

Well, yes, that's not to say that a lot of corporations are not unethical (you can see where that might engender a lot of resentment against Western corporations then.)

[CaliGirlRae, Mod Squad]

True, if we venture out I'm sure there's a few (maybe a handful? hehe) that have the best interest of the consumer and their workers in mind. Hopefully the smaller ones haven't been souped up by the biggies yet (like a lot of my fave smaller places :-()

[Danielle The Book Huntress , Sees Love in All Colors]

I liked MR a lot despite not being a huge Cruise fan. Very visual and interesting. I appreciate your recommendations. I would love some YA recs in this genre. I will let you know what I think of those stories. :)

[CaliGirlRae, Mod Squad]

Yeah MR was pretty awesomely put together. I wish Spielberg would adapt more PKD works. I'd probably die of happiness lol.

Sounds good Danielle! :-D

As for YA, there's a few goodies on my shelf you can sift through if you like. I haven't read a whole lot of them so it's hard to rec some. But I have a YA shelf here and a shelf featuring main characters of color in the speculative genre.

Most of my YA titles I get from some great online blogs:

Color Online
Ari at Reading in Color
Justine Larbalestier's Blog (YA Author)
Writers of Color 50 Book Challenge LJ Comm