Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children: The Movie Premiere

It is not every day that you get an invite from 20th Century Fox to see the premiere screening of a new movie, especially a fabulous book made into movie. When I received the invite to attend the Tim Burton Fan Event and screening of Miss Peregrine's Home of Peculiar Children, I knew I had to accept especially since it is my god daughter's favorite book. Last Thursday, September 8th, I found myself at the TLC Chinese Theater in Hollywood with my god daughter and her mother. 

Upon arriving, we received these cool passes that were our tickets in. 

The afternoon/evening would include the ceremony for Tim Burton's Hand and Footprint Ceremony followed by the screening of the movie.

Here is Jax's view of the evening's events:
The night was amazing. Seeing Tim Burton put his hands in the cement was pretty cool (even though I could barely see haha).

I'd say the highlight of my night was meeting Ransom Riggs. I was definitely starstruck when I saw him. I could barely get words out of my mouth because his work just truly amazes me. I've had dreams with his characters and imagined I was there with them. He's just agh! Sorry for lack of a better word, but so freaking amazing. I honestly felt like a movie star.

I also met Deep Roy who was in one of my favorite movies growing up (The Never Ending Story). It was really fantastic. 

The free kid cocktail and popcorn was a plus.

I really enjoyed the movie too.

Honestly, the whole thing was an honor and I had so much fun. Quite possibly some of the most fun I've had in my life! I don't know what other words to use than that it was amazing and awesome.

Thanks Jax for your thoughts on the evening. And  I am definitely with Jax. This was a fantastic evening and Tim Burton did a great job adapting Ransom Riggs' book for the big screen. Make time to see this movie when it comes out at the end of the month.

Check out this trailer with Tim Burton talking about the making of the movie: 

Movie Information: 
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, in theaters September 30
From visionary director Tim Burton, and based upon the best-selling novel, comes an unforgettable motion picture experience.

When Jake discovers clues to a mystery that spans alternate realities and times, he uncovers a secret refuge known as Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. As he learns about the residents and their unusual abilities, Jake realizes that safety is an illusion, and danger lurks in the form of powerful, hidden enemies.

Jake must figure out who is real, who can be trusted, and who he really is.

Starring: Eva Green, Asa Butterfield, Chris O'Dowd, Ella Purnell, Allison Janney, Rupert Everett, Terence Stamp, with Judi Dench and Samuel L. Jackson

Directed By: Tim Burton

Rated PG-13

Facebook | Twitter | Instagram - #staypeculiar

The Maze Runner

Recently, I was invited to join a group of bloggers to attend a screening of The Maze Runner Movie and a Q&A with the cast. Sadly for me, it was held on the Friday of my first week back at school. Instead I offered my spot to my friend, David.  The following is David's thoughts on his time with at the Q&A.

From David:

A few Fridays ago I had the pleasure of taking some time off of work and driving out to the Fox Studios where I had the opportunity to see the upcoming film of The Maze Runner and participate in a Q&A with the young stars of the cast.

Photo of Cast during Q&A - courtesy of Katie Ferguson @pocketofgreen on twitter

The Maze Runner is a book written by James Dashner.  It’s the first in a dystopian trilogy of books that was recommended to me by a friend who had been recommended by another friend so we’ve been buzzing for a while.  When we found out that it was going to be a movie, we were pretty excited.  And not just because we’re big fans of Dylan O’Brien, the actor who plays the main character, Thomas.

If you don’t mind the premise, it’s kind of important because when I talk about a pig, you’ll have no idea what pig I’m talking about.  In the beginning there is Thomas and he is rapidly ascending a metal frame elevator.

This cage-like elevator also contains a squealing pig and other supplies which are delivered to a camp of boys who live in the Glade, surrounded by a mysterious concrete Maze.  Some of the boys run through the Maze trying to find their way out and nobody can remember anything other than their name and that this is not normal.

Watched the movie.  Ate a bagel.  And then there was the Question and Answer session with Ki Hong Lee, Kaya Scodelario, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Will Poulter, and Dylan O’Brien.  The conversation was fun and quite a few thoughtful responses about the craft of acting were tendered. 

The cast was asked if the world runs better with or without adults.  In the Glade, the characters have had to form a self-governing community without adults.  The actual age of the guys in the cast ranged from Blake Cooper who plays 12 as Chuck to Aml Ameen who plays Alby at 28.  Amongst this group they naturally formed a kind of family.

Kaya Scodelario plays Teresa, the only female in the Glade.  She was asked what it was like to be on set with just a bunch of dudes.  Her response was that she never felt like the only girl.  They didn’t behave differently around her, they were dirty and rude – but still polite.  And there were girlfriends and sisters who came to the set.  But she was told by Aml that she was quite laddish anyway. 

Photo Courtesy of @pocketofgreen

It was pointed out that in The Maze Runner, unlike so many other stories about young people in end-of-the-world scenarios, there is no romance.  Quite often you’ll find in books (and their corresponding movies) that a girl will be forced to make a choice between two boys in the most catastrophic of situations.  Ki Hong Lee pointed out that there’s a lot of bromance.  His character Minho and Thomas definitely have a bromance, running around the maze, saving each other’s lives, having a grand time.

Dylan thought it was entirely appropriate. Kids would not be flirting in the situation. Or smooching. And Kaya thought it was honest, to have the freedom to play a side other than perhaps the girl who appears to conveniently be a romantic love interest for the male protagonist. Teresa, like everyone else, is trying to survive. Will Poulter who plays Gally pointed out that not every teenager is in and out of love all the time. He never fell in love as a teenager.  It’s not something that doesn’t have to be in every teen film.

Photo Courtesy of @pocketofgreen

In the film Gally is the closest thing Thomas has to an antagonist, ignoring of course the things in the maze that tries to kill him. Will Poulter isn’t known for playing villains or the bully. He might be best recognized as Eustace Scrubb in the Voyage of the Dawn Treader where he complains a lot and is generally selfish. He described his roles and being a dork, and a member of the audience described him as an underdog, which makes his casting unexpected as it plays against type.

But that’s basically something all of the cast had to play.  None of the characters in The Maze Runner come with a backstory.  They all have to encounter the Glade without memories or knowledge about what is going on or what will happen.  Gally’s motivations can be expressed as a need to control a situation where he very much is not in control.  His need to enforce rule and order contrasts with the impulsive Thomas, whose first instinct it seems is to run into trouble, especially if told otherwise.

There was a lot of running to be done and Dylan and Ki had to run for several hours a day.  Dylan is more of a sprinter and so when you see their performance on screen, they’re not just acting exhausted, they’re appropriately tired.  On set they would run in an abandoned parking lot that was sprayed down to make it look muddy and of course that had the side effect of making the surface slippery and difficult to run on.  There were several falls, especially if they had to sprint around a turn.

There were other hazards in the shoot as well.  Dylan was doing wire work, where he was climbing up the walls of the maze and they kept him up in the air the entire day.  The crew didn’t want to lower him because it would take too much time.  They shook the wall for an effect and some debris fell into Dylan’s eye.  The director instead of having a medic come and interrupt the shoot, took it out himself.

Which would totally freak me out.

Dylan also wasn’t comfortable with with people touching their eyeball but now he is.  Which leads me to believe that if I had something removed from my eye while I was suspended in the air, I too could possibly get used to things like contact lens application.

The cast has been pleasantly surprised by the fans of the film. Right at the start of production they were surprised that they had fans before the movie had even started shooting. They had two people show up the first night they were put up in a hotel and they took a picture with the cast who had not been expecting  A fanbase that is very vocal on twitter and has websites and podcasts eagerly anticipating the movie release.

The Maze Runner movie comes out this Friday, September 19th.  I recommend it and hope that you will go see it and enjoy it.

Synopsis: When Thomas (Dylan O'Brien) wakes up trapped in a massive maze with a group of other boys, he has no memory of the outside world other than strange dreams about a mysterious organization known as W.C.K.D. Only by piecing together fragments of his past with clues he discovers in the maze can Thomas hope to uncover his true purpose and a way to escape. Based upon the best-selling novel by James Dashner.

Rated: PG-13
Starring: Dylan O’Brien, Kaya Scodelario, Will Poulter, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Aml Ameen, Ki Hong Lee
Directed By: Wes Ball
Produced By: Ellen Goldsmith-Vein, Wyck Godfrey, Marty Bowen

Thanks to Katie @pocketofgreen on twitter for sharing her pictures. 

The Giver Movie Review

THE GIVER is based on Lois Lowry’s beloved young adult novel of the same name, which was the winner the 1994 Newbery Medal and has sold over 10 million copies worldwide.  Starring Jeff Bridges, Brenton Thwaites, Meryl Streep, Katie Holmes, Alexander Skarsgard, Cameron Monaghan, Odeya Rush, and Taylor Swift, THE GIVER will be in theaters everywhere August 15th.

SYNOPSIS:  
The haunting story of THE GIVER centers on Jonas (Brenton Thwaites), a young man who lives in a seemingly ideal, if colorless, world of conformity and contentment. Yet as he begins to spend time with The Giver (Jeff Bridges), who is the sole keeper of all the community’s memories, Jonas quickly begins to discover the dark and deadly truths of his community’s secret past. With this newfound power of knowledge, he realizes that the stakes are higher than imagined – a matter of life and death for himself and those he loves most. At extreme odds, Jonas knows that he must escape their world to protect them all – a challenge that no one has ever succeeded at before. THE GIVER is based on Lois Lowry’s beloved young adult novel of the same name, which was the winner the 1994 Newbery Medal and has sold over 10 million copies worldwide. 

Official Movie Trailer:

My thoughts on the movie:

Thanks to Walden Pond Press, my 13 year old niece and I had the opportunity to see the premiere showing of THE GIVER movie but without the crowds and noise of being in New York City.  It was arranged for us to see THE GIVER in Burbank.  For the first hour plus, the audience watched the taped interviews and Red Carpet moments of the cast as emceed by Ben Lyons.  

While we waited for the movie to begin, Jax and I chatted about what it would be like.  We have both read and loved THE GIVER book, but after seeing several movie trailers there was certainly some trepidation.  We settled on thinking about it as something completely different and not a book to movie adaptation. Leading up to the movie we also tried to think of an alternate name to reflect what we most certainly expected to be completely different from the book. However, no luck in renaming it.

Once the movie began, we settled in to watch.  I was glad that in some ways we had forbidden ourselves from comparing and contrasting the book to movie adaptation or we might have done it throughout the whole premiere.  At the beginning, there are things that though they are similar, they also appear quite different.  The age of the characters for one.  No longer is Jonas a twelve year old about to attend the Ceremony of Twelves but he is instead eighteen years old, about to graduate, and be assigned his job for the future.  And rather than ceremonies for the different age groups, there is now only  the Ceremony for 9's and the one for 18 year olds.  

Despite trying to to fight the inevitable making of comparisons, I focused on what I did love. The first time Jonas walks into the home of the Giver, I immediately fell in love with the spiral staircase and the shelves and shelves of books.  The conversation between the Chief Elder as portrayed by Meryl Streep's character, and the Giver portrayed by Jeff Bridges nearly gave me chills. And Jonas as played by Brenton Thwaites as he discovers the truth about his world and also learns about the world of emotions and feelings.  At one point, in the movie, I realized that I had become wrapped up with what was on the screen.  This was a good sign. 

Though different in some ways, the spirit of the book is maintained in the on-screen version and maybe even expanded on a bit. So, what is my verdict and Jax's verdict...It was worth going to see. 

Memories from reading THE GIVER:

Last November, while I was at NCTE '13 in Boston, Walden Media invited a number of authors, teachers and librarians to share about their memories of THE GIVER the book.  As a special treat, I am sharing the video that features Gary Schmidt, Laurie Halse Anderson, Andrea Pinkney, Jack Gantos and Anita Silvey.  If you watch till the end, you will also see some Nerdy Book Club friends.  

I leave you with the video of The Ordinary Human by One Republic - Theme Song for THE GIVER movie:

Paddington Bear Movie Trailer

Based on the beloved children's book by Michael Bond. Arrives in theaters this Christmas.

This Christmas, a small bear will make a big splash. From the beloved novels by Michael Bond and producer David Heyman (HARRY POTTER), PADDINGTON tells the story of the comic misadventures of a young Peruvian bear who travels to the city in search of a home. Finding himself lost and alone, he begins to realize that city life is not all he had imagined - until he meets the kindly Brown family who read the label around his neck that says "Please look after this bear. Thank you," and offer him a temporary haven. It looks as though his luck has changed until this rarest of bears catches the eye of a museum taxidermist.

Director: Paul King

Written by: Paul King

Screenplay by: Henry Paul King

Cast: Hugh Bonneville, Sally Hawkins, Julie Walters, Jim Broadbent, Peter Capaldi and Nicole Kidman

Official Movie Website | Facebook | Twitter

Check out the movie trailer, here...

Arriving in theaters December 25, 2014! http://www.paddingtonbear.com/ From the beloved novels by Michael Bond and producer David Heyman (HARRY POTTER), PADDINGTON tells the story of the comic misadventures of a young Peruvian bear (voiced by Firth) who travels to the city in search of a home.

What do you think?