And the Oscar for Best Animated Feature of 2012 goes to...

Thanks to Shanella and Pixar (on twitter) for letting me know that the first official teaser poster for Pixar's 2012 release Brave came out! It's beautiful and intense. The title design, the lighting/sun/sky behind the title design- I'm rendered speechless.

From just the teaser poster and the concept art, it looks like the film will be sort of like Pixar + How to Train Your Dragon + Braveheart + Tim Burton all put in a blender to create a perfect mix of animation + story. :D

And let's see...since this is a Pixar movie:

• It's going to be a treat visually (If the poster can give me chills because of how stunning it looks I'm sure the movie's going to be 100 times more stunning!)
• characters are going to pretty awesome
• the story will probably make us tear up at least a little bit at the end (or as in the case of UP, maybe in the first 5 min)

This is definitely going to be a must see next summer! It really does look fantastic. So fantastic that I'm going to predict that this movie's going to be #5 on my best Pixar movies list! (#5 because Monster's Inc, Toy Story, Ratatouille, and the Incredibles are non-negotiable in my world).

The one thing I'm not looking forward to is the debating that starts whenever a Disney movie comes out. The debates are usually about two things: Princesses and Pixar vs. Disney. (When it comes to Disney princesses and fictional princesses in general, I agree with Meg Cabot. When it comes to the Pixar vs. Disney feud, I think that Pixar rocks and I can never NOT like classic Disney animation soo it's a draw between them for me.)

Hm, I can imagine the headlines already:

"FINALLY Because of Pixar, We Have A Princess We Can All Root For"

"Pixar's Brave Princess Braver than Disney's"

"Brave's Princess is how an animated role model should be"

"Pixar's Scottish Princess Takes the Cake For Best Animated Princess"

"Pixar Princess Beats Disney's Tangled Princesses"

...and etc.

(No, of course I'm not still sore about the Academy Award's Tangled snub...and Tangled's loss to Toy Story 3 for Best Song. Ha ha, what's makes you think that?!).

If anyone's going to see Cars 2 this weekend, have fun seeing the teaser trailer for Brave!

anticipating...

You guys, I just saw that the official blurb for THIS SURE TO BE VERY AWESOME book that I am eagerly waiting for came out, and I had to write about it.

*takes deep breath*

So THIS SURE TO BE VERY AWESOME book is called GOLIATH, by Scott Westerfeld. I can honestly say that this is the most highly anticipated book for me of 2011.

Here’s the new, official blurb that got released onto the Simon & Schuster page:

*Spoilers for the previous two in the trilogy of course*

Alek and Deryn are on the last leg of their round-the-world quest to end World War I, reclaimAlek's throne as prince of Austria, and finally fall in love. The first two objectives are complicated by the fact that their ship, the Leviathan, continues to detour farther away from the heart of the war (and crown). And the love thing would be a lot easier if Alek knew Deryn was a girl. (She has to pose as a boy in order to serve in the British Air Service.) And if they weren't technically enemies.

The tension thickens as the Leviathan steams toward New York City with a homicidal lunatic on board: secrets suddenly unravel, characters reappear, and nothing is as it seems in this thunderous conclusion to Scott Westerfeld's brilliant trilogy.

*******
Please allow me to go all fangirly for a second:

OMGOMGOMGOMG. EEEEEEEEEE!!! AAHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!! *throws confetti* EEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!

*takes a deep breath* Okay, I’m all done now. ;) *phew*

Now that I’ve gotten rid of all of that, I should be able to write rationally:

My review (and hopefully not a gushfest *blush*) for Leviathan is here. When I read it last summer I fell hard for the story, the characters, and omg, the era (EEEeeee WWI era! <-- so much for being rational). I slept with it under my pillow everyday, no joke.*

Then along came the sequel, Behemoth, a couple months later in October and I loved it just as much as I did the first (hmm...I never reviewed this book...maybe I ought to?).

Now, the final book in the trilogy is coming out this fall, and I can hardly wait for it, though the release date has been moving around. First it was sometime in October. Later, SW announced that it would be released the 13th of September, and now apparently, the date has been pushed back a week to September 20th. *sigh*

Some VERY VERY VERY LUCKY people might have already gotten an ARC of this SURE TO BE AWESOME book today in BEA, from 1-2 today, Scott Westerfeld was there signing GOLIATH ARCS. *cries*

But it’s okay. I can wait 117 days. I have waited before for HP, Hunger Games, and other series, so I can definitely wait for this book.

I have predictions for this final novel as to what will happen to Alek with his royal title, Deryn, and certain revelations, but they shall come later, maybe the day before the release date. But Scott Westerfeld told Alan Cumming that the story will have a happy ending, so thinking positively, there will be! Hehehe. Can’t wait to read reviews when they start coming out. :)

* Well for two days, but that’s because I read the book at night and I had to put it somewhere before I fell asleep...

So the Hunger Games Cast Came Out...

So, I've been somewhere else for a while (and totally skipped writing in March-oops) working on the usual- schoolwork, tennis, final exams, worrying about college, and whatnot, but I had to come back to lay out my thoughts about some important news here:

The Hunger Games movie has been cast (but just the main trio though)...

and it was announced back in March that Jennifer Lawrence will be playing Katniss Everdeen!

I’m absolutely thrilled about it because a) She CAN ACT (as seen in Winter’s Bone- Her character is actually very similar to Katniss’s in the movie, and she’s gotten numerous awards/nominations/*Oscar nomination for Best Actress* for the role), b) She went through a grueling audition with Gary Ross, the film’s director, and she passed, so obviously she captured Katniss pretty well, and c) Suzanne Collins thinks she’s awesome.

Yes, I'm very excited to see her as Katniss. :D

Then, just last Monday, castings for Peeta and Gale came out! Peeta will be played by Josh Hutcherson (left), and Gale will be played by Liam Hemsworth:

The good news is that when I read about casting is that I didn’t cry out/scream “What?!!!!” like I did when the Percy Jackson movie casting was released a couple years ago. My first thought was, “Okay, this can work."

And after thinking about it for a while (and seeing fan art), I believe that it actually can.***

I actually don’t know anything about Liam except for the fact that he acted besides Miley Cyrus in the Last Song and I haven’t seen that, so I can’t say anything about his acting, but I think he has the-Gale-look. He’s tall, lean-ish, has a rugged look about him, and I can totally imagine him with black hair, leather-soled boots, hunting gear, and squirrels and rabbits strapped to his belt and around his shoulders, and walking around looking a bit solemn. (And he and Jennifer Lawrence look like cousins! Yay!)

Now about Josh Hutcherson...It’s been amusing, but a little bit more shocking/disturbing to see all the hate he’s been getting (more than the other cast members) because he’s Peeta and not Hunter Parrish or Alex Pettyfer. So I really wanted Hunter to get the role, but for more superficial reasons. (I mean, he LOOKS THE PART already.) But thinking about it now, I'm really happy that Josh got the role, even though he doesn't look like Peeta, who by the way (to non-Hunger Games fans), looks like this:

JH is basically the exact opposite of who Peeta is physically. He’s got brown eyes instead of blue, really dark brown hair instead of blonde, and OMG his hair is definitely not falling in waves over his forehead. But who really looks like Peeta anyway except Hunter Parrish?

The good things about Josh: He's a little more stocky than the others, but that’s what Peeta’s described as right? Stocky not lean. Medium height. Strong enough to haul 100 lb flour bags arond. Soft-looking. Boyish. Not a pretty pretty boy. JH fits each requirement perfectly. All I have to say about his dark hair and brown eyes is that if the LOTR makeup crew transformed dark-brown haired Orlando Bloom into white-blonde haired Legolas convincingly, I have no doubt that the HG makeup crew will be able to do the same.* (There’s nothing a little Hollywood make-up and magic won’t fix!)

About his acting, I’ve seen Josh Hutcherson in almost every movie he’s been in (Zathura, Journey to the Center of the Earth, etc) and he’s a great actor (which is probably why I’m not worried about his casting). He knows about emotions, he knows how to be charismatic, and he’s good with action sequences, so there's no way he won't be able to pull Peeta's role acting-wise. JH beat out Hunter and Pettyfer (and......everyone else who auditioned), so he was much better at being Peeta than everyone else. Gary Ross and Suzanne Collins both said that they knew that he’s perfect for Peeta, that he was their first choice, and that he had great chemistry with Jenn in the screen tests, and I believe them and I have faith in Josh. He wanted this role badly, and he got it, so we should give him a chance and see what he’ll do with the character.**

No director or author wants to purposefully ruin their story, and it sounds like the HG movie team is trying to make the best movie they can. The whole cast (so far) is enthusiastic about their characters and the series (especially Josh :P), they know how big this series is and how much responsibility just landed on their shoulders to get everything right, and since Gary Ross promised to dye each character’s hair their respective hair colors, I don’t think we have anything to worry about. So...thinking optimistically, JH, Jenn, and Liam will of course blow our minds away when we see the movie opening weekend March 2012 of course.***

Meanwhile, we should trust Gary Ross's vision for the movie. He and his crew know more than us about what's going to happen. (Now I'm really excited about the trailer! :D)

Thoughts, complaints, revelations, etc about the Hunger Games movie or something of the sort? Write away below in the comments. :D

*Hey HG Makeup Crew! *Waves* If you guys are reading this somehow, you know I’ve put a lot of expectations on you. Sorry about that, but you will be able to change JH’s hair right? And make sure his hair is falling over his forehead in waves right? Because that’s sort of important to the HG fandom (*cough* and me *cough*). If you don’t change his hair, there’s going to be a lot of angry fans...

** Disclaimer #1: I am NOT JH’s agent who stole Nonie’s Blogger account to put her client in a positive light or a devoted JH fangirl (definitely NOT the latter!). I just think he shouldn’t be judged so quickly and be given a chance. He won over Suzanne Collins (and Peeta’s her character), so who knows? Maybe by the time we see Josh in March, we'll all be saying,"Hunter Who?"

*** If the movie doesn’t turn out so well, and everyone ends up being horrible, then that just means I wasted the whole post (hopefully) boosting everyone's morale about it, but I actually think it’ll turn out well. I think Suzanne Collins being in the movie crew will mean that the movie will go in the right direction and it certainly looks like it is so far. :)

P.S./Disclaimer #2: If the movie doesn't end up being too good, and you've raised your expectations about the movie because of this post, but are disappointed in March, then I am not to be blamed. Personal opinions are opinions of that person alone, and I am just stating mine. Heh.

To appease our appetites for Mockingjay until tomorrow...

Scholastic just released a sneak peek of the first chapter! *hyperventilates*



Just a couple more hours...I think I'll be able to make it. ;)

(Oh, and we all know what Katniss thinks at the end is not going to be true, right? Because if what they think happens to be true...I'll be very, very sad. The good thing is...it's probably not true...)

FLIPPED

I've been wondering what happened to the film, Flipped. The cast and crew shot here in the area where I live all last summer, and before the end of August they packed their bags and left. Almost 10 months later, I started wondering what happened to it. Why were there no stills or trailers or any interviews or anything else concerning the movie anywhere?! I know it's not the most-looked-forward-to movie of the year, but there should've been a press release or something here and there.

So there I was, wondering about the fate of the film, and hoping it wasn't shelved or forgotten, then two days ago, on Steph Su Reads, there was an interview with Wendelin Van Draanen, the author of the book, with a link to her blog. Now, I haven't been on her blog since, um, I think last September, so I just decided to check it out, and oh, guess what? This appeared:

That's right, the theatrical poster for the movie! Ahh, everything is so perfect about it! The tree, the horizon, the "You never forget your first love" caption (which is a little dramatic, but hey, it's a film made in Hollywood :D), Bryce and Julie, and Rob Reiner, who directed the Princess Bride, helmed this project, so it shouldn't be too wrong-He's great at adapting books to films! Well, if you've been reading this blog for a while, you know when I get excited, I get really...ecstatic! Really, really ecstatic. So I guess you can tell that for the rest of the evening, I was in my happy place. :D

Then yesterday evening, GreenBeanTeenQueen, revealed the theatrical trailer-

-sooo...that caused quite an eruption in my house. Of course I had to show it to everyone in my family! The schools, the homes, the trees, they were part of my town, and the cast and crew were here! I am so beyond excited for this movie. The cast looks great, especially Callan McAullife who's playing Bryce. I mean, he's playing the main character, and judging from the few scenes they have here, he's going to be excellent. :) The whole film looks great, the spirit of the story is there it seems, I get why the screenwriters decided to set the story in the 50's (I totally agree with them too), so I'm crossing my fingers hoping for it to be wonderful! And I hope it is a success. Wendelin Van Draanen and her story deserves it...and the cast and crew deserves it I guess, but she is the one who started it all.

*Sigh* Now I wish I visited the sets when they were here! (If they didn't allow me, I would've sneaked in. Just kidding of course, um, I think. :P)

An announcement by Mr. Riordan, and recipes!

The Percy Jackson fan in me was very overyjoyed when she saw the following in her google reader:
- Rick Riordan, the author of the amazing Percy Jackson & the Olympians series, has officially announced the title for the new Camp Half-Blood series! While the cover hasn't come out yet, we do know that Book 1, will be called The Lost Hero, and it will be released on October 12! Here's a little blurb about the book that came from the official press release:

After saving Olympus from the evil Titan lord, Kronos, Percy and friends have rebuilt their beloved Camp Half-Blood, where the next generation of demigods must now prepare for a chilling prophecy of their own:

Seven half-bloods shall answer the call,
To storm or fire the world must fall.
An oath to keep with a final breath,
And foes bear arms to the Doors of Death.

Now, in a brand-new series from blockbuster best-selling author Rick Riordan, fans return to the world of Camp Half-Blood. Here, a new group of heroes will inherit a quest. But to survive the journey, they’ll need the help of some familiar demigods.


Am I excited? Yes, I think a little. Ok, not just a little... A LOT. I can't wait for this series, and I'm just so happy that we'll see a few of the old characters again. I've been so used to waiting for a release of a Percy Jackson book every Spring that now I can hardly believe there'll be none to look out for this May. :( So...yay for the announcement of the new book! I'll be waiting anxiously for Mr. Riordan to post up the cover, and the rest of the information from now on.

Speaking of Percy Jackson, Heather from the Secret Adventures of WriterGirl, posted up a recipe for Percy's Golden Ambrosia. It sounds delicious. (Maybe I'll make these for the release of the new CHB book in the fall. :D) Here's the second one she provided. :)

Eeep!!

Ok, I know I say eep!, or eek! in every other post, but this time I finally do have a really exciting reason to say it for.

The title and book cover for the third and final book of the Hunger Games trilogy has been revealed today by Scholastic! And here it is, basking in all it's glory:

Isn't it so brilliant?! It's so peaceful and majestic...eep!! :-D Mockingjay is coming out August 24th. I don't think I can wait that long...

aaahh!!

*faint*

In 2010, I'm looking forward to...

Books (in the order they come out):

Calamity Jack- Sequel to Rapunzel's Revenge, of my favorite graphic novels of all time. It also happens to be coming out this Tuesday (Jan. 5th). As you can probably tell from the title, the main character is Jack (a thief who belongs to a certain fairytale that involves a beanstalk), who I fell in love with while reading RR, so of course I have to read it as soon as it comes out!

Heist Society (Feb. 9th)- written by Ally Carter (author of the Gallagher Girls series), and it's about clever, teenage thieves. What's not to get excited about? (And isn't the cover just gorgeous?)

A Conspiracy of Kings (March 23)- The fourth book in the Queen's Thief trilogy (but I guess it can't be called a trilogy anymore :P). I LOVED the first three, so I was ridiculously happy when I heard there was a new one coming out! Can't wait to see Gen again, though I read it's mainly about Sophos, another charming character who was first introduced in the Thief. (Hmm...what is it with all these theives? First Jack, Kat, and now Gen.)

Only the Good Spy Young- the fourth book in the Gallagher Girls, but it's about spies, not thieves this time. Coming out June 15th! Just in time for my birthday. :)

Films:

Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief (Look, another thief!)- I hope it'll be good, for Rick Riordan's sake at least. If they mess it up...well...let's not go there yet...

Alice in Wonderland (March 5th)- Tim Burton + Johnny Depp + Roald Dahl + Charlie and the Chocolate Factory= most hilarious movie ever, so Tim Burton + Johnny Depp + Lewis Carroll + Alice In Wonderland should be pretty good.

Toy Story 3- Yay! I can't believe a third one is coming out! It looks like it would be a great movie judging from the sneak peeks.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I - Er, does this need an explanation? I CANNOT WAIT. I know it's going to be my favorite HP movie ever. It'll be torture waiting for the second part to come out in July 2011 though. (I can't believe it's ending....*sob*)

Life:

I can't think of any exciting thing happening to me except that I'm turning 16 this summer. (Actually, I'm more nervous about this than excited, but I guess it's not everday you turn 16).

Oh, and if all goes well, my family might be going to Italy this summer for a couple of weeks.
--------
Looking through the list again, it looks like 2010 will be an epic year full of thieves, traveling, and awesome films! Hopefully, this year will be as good as it looks like. :P

Flipped in Ann Arbor!!!!

Eeeek!! I'm sooooooo excited!!! *takes a deep breath* Ok, I just found out yesterday evening that the movie adaption of Flipped will be shot in Ann Arbor!!!!!!!! They're planning to shoot in Thurston Elementary School, Virgina Park, and Clague Middle School (most of my friends in high school went there!), and several other places!

Flipped, the movie adaption of the book with the same name written by Wendelin Van Draanen will be directed by Rob Reiner (When Harry Met Sally, The Princess Bride) will be directing the movie and it's scheduled to release in 2010. When I checked on IMDB, they've only cast Juli, the adults, and some minor characters, but according to Movieweb, they've also casted Bryce, and he's coming all the way from Australia to play him. :-D

Well, the only problem with this movie adaption so far that I see is that it's being set in the 1950's and 60's! Isn't it supposed to be in modern times?? So will Juli and the rest of the women be wearing skirts and dresses all the time? Hmmm....That'll be wierd.

Well, despite that little problem, I'm very excited for the movie!!! I couldn't believe it yesterday! I was literally jumping up and down! Flipped is one of my favorite books, and who knew back when I first read it that'll get shot in Ann Arbor? Hopefully we'll get to see the shooting. That'll be very cool. :)