Coraline Featurettes

All week, IGN.com is showing featurettes of the movie based on Neil Gaiman’s novel Coraline.  You should really check them out.  It looks to be a really great flick. Particularly, check out today’s post, which is titled The Story of Coraline.

I have not yet read Coraline.  The story sounded interesting, but I never go around to it.  Having seen these previews, I’m gonna head to the library and pick it up.

The movie looks visually stunning.  It’s filmed in stop motion and the sets are not computer generated.  Rather, the trees and houses and “puppets” are all models, made by hand.  Think The Nightmare Before Christmas.  In fact, Henry Selick, who did The Nightmare Before Christmas, is making Coraline as well.

Anyhow, check out the videos.  I think this is gonna be a really great movie.  The only bad thing is it doesn’t come out in theaters until next year.

Gaiman’s Death:The High Cost of Living Free

For those of you who like comic books, Neil Gaiman, or both, I thought you’d like to know that Vertigo Comics has the first issue of Death: The High Cost of Living available as a free download. Here is a synopsis of the comic from their site:

From the pages of Neil Gaiman’s SANDMAN comes the young, pale, perky, and genuinely likable Death. One day in every century, Death walks the Earth to better understand those to whom she will be the final visitor. Today is that day. As a young mortal girl named Didi, Death befriends a teenager and helps a 250-year old homeless woman find her missing heart. What follows is a sincere musing on love, life and (of course) death.

I haven’t read it yet, but I have downloaded it read when I get some “free time”. Enjoy!

Gaiman’s 30 Second Scary Story

I just wanted to let all you Neil Gaiman fans know that he wrote a “30 Second Scary Story” and you can read it and listen to him read it here.  Just in time for Halloween.

The House on the Rock

I saw this today on Brass Goggles (a Steampunk blog) and had to share. They linked to a website that has a on of pictures of The House on the Rock, which was featured in Neil Gaiman’s American Gods. I don’t have the words to explain what The House on the Rock is excatly, so just check out the collection of photographs. Here is one example:

(image via http://www.pbase.com/ysic/the_house_on_the_rock)

Fieldtrip anyone?

Stardust “Tourism Guides”

Neil Gaiman posted on his site the other day four YouTube videos from the International release of Stardust. He says they feel more like the movie than the promotional trailers that were released in the States, and I would agree. Check them all out here. This one was my favorite:

Neil Gaiman’s The Books of Magic For Free

I was cruising through Vertigo Comics site the other day and came across their Vertigo #1s site, on which you can download .pdf versions of some of their comics for free. It really is a cool idea and a good way to find new reading material. On that site I found Neil Gaiman’s The Books of Magic for download (since it is Vertigo, the comic is for Mature Readers, whatever that means).

I read on Gaiman’s site that there have been comparisons drawn between The Books of Magic and Harry Potter (The Books of Magic was released first). For example, The Books of Magic are about a kid who wears glasses, does magic, and has a pet owl. In reading the first twenty pages of the book, though, I think the similarities are mostly superficial.

Here is the wikipedia entry for The Books of Magic.

Anyhow, I figured all of you Gaiman fans would be interested in this. Enjoy!

The Endicott Studio Journal of Mythic Arts

I’ve been on a Fantasy/Fairy Tale kick lately, what with Stardust and all. While doing a Google search I came across an excellent web site called The Endicott Studio. The site contains art, articles, poems, and short stories with a myth, folklore, and fairy tale theme. It also contains a quarterly (?) online magazine. As far as I can tell, all the content is free although they encourage donations. Here is a link to their Summer 2007 Issue.

In my brief perusing of the site I came across a few poems written by Neil Gaiman: Boys and Girls Together and The Fairy Reel. In searching for this, I see he actually has four poems in their poetry index. Check those out.

In addition to poetry, they also have short stories there. I particularly liked The Man Who Owned the Moon about an old man who had the moon in a jar and placed it on his windowsill each night.

I don’t know why I’m so interested in these types of stories lately. I guess the world we live in is so drab, and dark, and brooding sometimes that it’s nice to read about magic, and fairies, and old men who have the moon in a jar.

Endicott has been around for 20 years so I am just scratching the surface of what is there. Look around.

Enjoy!

My Thoughts on Stardust (the movie)

My wife and I went and saw Stardust this past Friday, and early anniversary date for us. I convinced her to do the movie portion of our date on Friday because I wanted the movie to do well it’s opening weekend. We left the decently full theater with smiles on our faces and have been talking about the movie since. I will purchase it when it comes out on DVD (which is saying something because I don’t buy DVDs anymore). I would describe Stardust as a sweet movie, one that for a few hours transported me to a different place.  That’s all I ask.

I thought the acting was solidall around. I particularly thought Claire Danes (Yvaine) and Charlie Cox (Tristan), the movie’s two leads, did a particularly good job. My wife and I liked the effects in the movie where Yvaine (the star) lit-up when she was happy.

Deniro’s part was funny, but since I had read about that before I wasn’t overly impressed or unimpressed. The dead princes did add quote a bit of humor to the story, especially in the way they died and how they reacted to their deaths.

There were a few parts that weren’t included in the movie that were in the book. The little hairy man who was in the book, wasn’t in the movie. He is the Tom Bombadil of the story, helping our hero when he first starts on his journey (interesting considering Bombadil wasn’t in the movie adaption of Lord of the Rings either). The movie started Tristan’s journey in a different way.

I would’ve also liked to have seen more in the village of Wall, but I can understand they were trying to move the story along, and this might be superfluous. Oh well.

Mostly, I just want to see this movie again. I spent the first part of the movie compare it to the book. I think I’ll enjoy Stardust even more the second time, having already made these comparisons. As far as reviews go, all you really need to know is that I want to see this movie again. That is very rare for me.

If you haven’t seen the movie, so to the Stardust Movie site, and watch the trailer. They one there is much better than the ones I have seen previously. I suggest you see it soon, though, because with the less than stellar opening weekend it probably won’t be in theaters much longer.

Seeing Stardust Tonight

Well, I’m off for the afternoon.  I’m babysitting my daughter while her mom goes to the dentist.  Tonight we are going to see Stardust (contributing to a big opening weekend, hopefully).  I will tell you how it is.  Have a nice weekend.  If you get a chance, go see the movie.  Down with sequels (except for Indiana Jones, of course)!

Neil Gaiman on NPR

I will have a proper post later today about stuff I have actually been doing. In the meantime, I will post about what I have been posting about for the past few weeks: Neil Gaiman.

Mr. Gaiman was on NPR yesterday talking about Stardust. They have audio up on their site. It was a pretty good interview. Give it a listen. Also, remember Stardust comes out tomorrow in theaters (Friday, August 10).