Blog
Tag: Movies
Name That Movie Book Trailer
by Danielle
Film / May 16, 2012
Name That Movie
100 Illustrated Movie Puzzles
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classic films movies
At the Movies…
by Siobhan
January 23, 2012
Can a movie adaptation ever be a good as the book? The debate rages on....
Meanwhile, we're quite pleased to see two of our books appearing on the big screen very soon. Sometimes it's nice to just sit back and enjoy a good story without your popcorn-buttery fingers staining the book pages... 
The book: One for the Money by Janet Evanovich
(Available with the movie tie-in cover in paperback and mass market, as well as with the original cover in paperback and mass market.)
Unemployed and newly-divorced Stephanie Plum lands a job at her cousin's bail-bond business, where her first assignment puts her on the trail of a wanted local cop from her romantic past.
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The movie: In theatres January 27, 2012. Starring Katherine Heigl.
The book: Big Miracle by Tom Rose
In small town Alaska, a news reporter recruits his ex-girlfriend - a Greenpeace volunteer - on a campaign to save a family of gray whales trapped by rapidly forming ice in the Arctic Circle.
The movie: In theatres February 3, 2012. Starring Drew Barrymore, Ted Danson, Kristen Bell, Tim Blake Nelson, John Krasinski, and Vinessa Shaw.
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movie trailers movies
Shakespearian conspiracy theories
by Natalia
Current Affairs + Film + History / October 31, 2011
I was pretty excited over the weekend to hear that Roland Emmerich's new movie Anonymous is out. I love me a good Elizabethan costume drama—the clothes, the language, the political intrigue! If you haven't heard of it, the film dramatizes the Oxfordian theory of authorship—the idea that Shakespeare's plays were written by Edward de Vere, the 17th earl of Oxford (who, as various people have pointed out, died several years before the publication of The Tempest).
The film has triggered a positively apoplectic response from the scholarly community; the New Yorker's David Denby calls it a story "so rotten that, as Shakespeare, or, rather, Oxford, might put it, the kites wheel and shriek rather than batten on so foul a carcass."
Personally, I find the authorship question rather silly—I prefer to read the plays for themselves rather than scan them Da Vinci Code-style for hidden clues to their composition. And why fabricate conspiracy theories when so much historically accurate skulduggery exists? If you like your Shakespeare spiced with criminal intrigue yet still backed up by rigorous scholarship, may I suggest:
The Shakespeare Thefts
Stealing the World's Most Famous Book
Click on the cover for more info!
A Lot of Heart
by Jamie
Film / May 25, 2011
Do any movie studios still have any heart? Anthony Lane in recent profile in The New Yorker magazine (May 16, subscription required) thinks so and the answer is Pixar Studios, the makers of Toy Story, A Bug’s Life, Toy Story 2, Monster’s Inc. , Finding Nemo The Incredibles, Cars, Ratatouille. Wall-E, Up, Toy Story 3 and coming to theatres on June 24: Cars 2.
“Most of us, as we leave the theatre, can no more remember which company produced the film we just saw than we could tell you who manufactured the hand dryer in the men’s room. The exception is Pixar, the only studio whose products people actively seek out. Everyone knows Pixar.”
Pixar is based in Emeryville a small town just across the bridge from San Francisco, hometown to Chronicle Books, another company jammed full of talented people who march to their own tune. As with earlier Pixar films, Chronicle is releasing The Art of Cars 2 a gorgeously illustrated book that is filled with storyboard and original art from the new film. Thumbing through the pages of The Art of Cars 2 is the perfect visual accompaniment Lane’s of Pixar.
I am the father of four year-old and so know the Pixar “oeuvre” pretty well. Our favourite is Cars; for my son because he is lover of all things with wheels and for me (who doesn’t even have driver’s license) because the film is about making connections. My son thinks I am over reading the film (“stop talking daddy”), but I will stick to my guns on this.
The friendship between Lightening McQueen and Mater the rusty dump truck is replay of the archetype of the 'Prince and the Pauper' but also what it means to have best friend. While (endlessly) re-watching Cars I am reminded that in the western cannon far more pages have been filled by theorizing about de amicitia or “friendship” than on Eros or sexual love, because in many respects it is more essential. The film connects — race car and dump truck, small town and metropolis, old and young, red states and blue through the social capital of friendship. Wonderful stuff. Or as Doc Doc Hudson says to Lightening McQueen at the end of Cars: “You gotta a lot of stuff Kid!”
J.K. Rowling to Appear on Oprah!
by Dan
Harry Potter / September 28, 2010
©2010 Harpo Productions, Inc./All Rights Reserved
Hot on the heels of her success at Indigo's Teen Read Awards, the amazing J.K. Rowling is going to make her first appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show on Friday! In a wide-ranging interview that took place in a hotel in Edinburgh, Rowling spoke candidly with Oprah about her life and career as well as her journey to becoming one of the most recognizable and popular writers in the world. Rowling, who (as you know) rarely does interviews, also shared her thoughts on the possibility of ever writing another Harry Potter book in the future.
The Sounds of Star Wars
by Dan
Film / September 24, 2010
OK, confession time: There are some pretty big nerds at Raincoast — myself included — and so it was no surprise that joyous wookie roars echoed around the office when the much-anticipated The Sounds of Star Wars arrived on our desks!
In this illustrated history (it contains more than 300 photographs from the series!), legendary sound designer Ben Burtt explains the sounds of the Star Wars universe — from the first films to the animated Star Wars: The Clone Wars series — and an attached sound module with an exterior speaker (and headphone jack) lets you listen to the sound effects! Woo!
And if you are a fan of Stars Wars (and who isn't?), make sure you watch this AMAZING 6 minute film about the book and the guys who created the all those incredible sounds:
Also available from Chronicle Books:
The Art of Star Wars: The Clone Wars
Star Wars Cookbook: Wookie Cookies
Star Wars Cookbook II: Darth Malt and More Galactic Recipes
Star Wars Chronicles: The Prequels
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movies sound effects star wars
PPZ Movie To Start Shooting Next Year?
by Dan
Fiction + Humour / August 13, 2010
We were very excited around here when we heard whispers last year from our friends at Quirk Books that Pride and Prejudice and Zombies was going to be made into a movie. So just imagine our delight when they confirmed that the book was optioned by Natalie Portman, who will produce and star in the film adaptation, and that David O. Russell, who directed and wrote Three Kings and the existential comedy I ♥ Huckabees is writing the script and directing!
Last month at the San Diego Comic-Con, Portman updated MTV on where things are at with the movie:
And if literary mash-ups are your thing, don't forget about Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls, Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, and the latest Quirk Classic Android Karenina!