November Favorites

1) Bite Beauty Discovery Set - I stumbled on Bite Beauty while browsing sephora.com, and it's very exciting to find another natural-y brand. This set has five deluxe sample sized lip colors. Most of them are fairly mild in tint, but one (Pomegranate) has a very bright, vintage red--not sure I'm ready to wear it quite yet. Musk is a soft pink very close to my natural lip color; Fig is a little more pronounced, but also one of my favorites. Shiraz has a little more of a wine tone to its light pink, and Retsina is a nude color. What I like about these is that they don't look like/act like "natural" lipsticks--they're just themselves, made with good ingredients.

2) Perfume - I know this was on my list last month, but I have since acquired these wonderfully-sized samples, along with a few more of the regular little sample bottles. Miss Dior and Flowerbomb are both a little powdery for my tastes, but they're still nice and I do love the bottles.

3) Express Jeans - It had really been too long since I had bought jeans: finding ones that fit right is a task I loathe. What I like about these is that, though they are skinny jean style (I think one of them is even a legging jean), they aren't too tight (at least, even size zero isn't on me). They're also a comfortable, flexible material. I usually wear them tucked into boots.

4) Yerba Mate loose tea - Really, why do Americans never drink loose tea? Oh, that's right, most "normal" stores don't sell it. But there's something entrancing about loose tea--not to mention lots of cute tea infusers. I'm using a boring one right now, but I shall have to change that . . .

5) Mrs. Meyer's Dish Soap - Now, now, there is no rule that I can't include soap in this list. And this soap is worth the attention: I never buy any other kind. This one lasts longer, isn't harsh on your hands, has natural ingredients, and smells nice. And World Market sells it (Target, too, I think, and Whole Foods). I usually buy the lavender.

6) Christmas Decorating - I've decorated two full-sized tree and one tiny one I keep in my room, plus a couple of nativity sets and other trinkets. This picture is a silly vintage mouse I like to bring out.

Breaking Into the Dawn

My over a week's delay in posting my thoughts about Breaking Dawn Part 2 has not, in fact, been because I was unhappy over the movie and needed time to get my thoughts straight. I quite liked the movie and already watched it a second time the Tuesday after it came out. I would have wanted to post that night, but it was a long day. Then Wednesday was pumpkin pie baking day, Thursday was Thanksgiving, Friday was Christmas decorating, and the weekend has been catching up on school work (which I am still not done with--oh, this terribly busy semester). So if I am brief, it is because I have other things that need doing. (In fact, briefness may be just as well: I really shouldn't let these posts get too long, should I?) The advantage is that I shouldn't be spoiling anyone on the movie by now; but just in case, you must click to read on.

Harken Is Coming

Last week, I let you know about Kaleb Nation's upcoming novel, formerly known as the Secret Kaleb Book. Well, guess what? It now has a title, release date, and more detailed summary. Secret Kaleb Book has transformed into Harken.

The release date is less than two months away on January 13 of 2013, which is much sooner than I was expecting. This is for sure one I'll be pre-ordering. Here is Kaleb's announcement video:

I've also been able to catch a bit of the livestream tonight celebrating the title announcement--if you hurry, you may still be able to view some of it on YouTube. And though I could probably say more, I will wait until the preview chapters have been released (which you can sign up for on the readharken website.

Hillywood Hobbits

Infamously, yet also half secretly, one of Hilly and Hannah's videos before the formation of The Hillywood Show was based on The Lord of the Rings. So it's no surprise that they would make a parody for The Hobbit, too. The surprise is just that filming is already over--usually they like to watch a movie first. But the official announcement, which you can see here, identifies the project they have been working on as "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Parody."

Since they have had to work with trailers and other material from the movie that has been released already, I'm picturing this video as focusing on one scene, possibly the scene when the dwarves arrive at Bag End and explain their quest. If that's the case, wow, that's one detailed set to replicate and tons of detailed costumes to put together. And what characters will they be playing? Will Hilly be Bilbo? Will they introduce other characters? How is it going to be structured?

I'm very excited and also very curious; this has potential to be one of their best videos and also one of the videos that widens out their audience.

# Secret Kaleb Book

Kaleb Nation is great at marketing.

If you don't know who Kaleb Nation is, let me just briefly say that he's an author, blogger, and YouTuber--click on his name in the tags at the end of this post to read my other posts about his books and such.

Two years ago, he did a "30 Days to Bran" promotion where he made a video every day for the month leading up to the release of Bran Hambric: The Specter Key. The newest Nation project has been going around the name of "Secret Kaleb Book." You can hear a little bit more about it by watching one of Kaleb's videos on the book here. While it's exciting that the actual title will be revealed in less than two weeks, I think some of us will feel sad about leaving behind our secret, insider nickname. As a way of building up for the novel, people have been tweeting pictures with the name, usually written on their hands, along with the book's slogan of "don't trust anyone." So I had to join in on the writing-on-hands fun, too:

You'll notice that my writing-on-hands skills improved on the second try, though my photography didn't. Anyway, it's exciting to see this happening: it's books approached by the modern audience, a type of marketing that wouldn't have taken place not just two hundred years ago but ten or less.

Pre-Breaking Dawn Thoughts

Before I realized that I would literally not have the time to reread Breaking Dawn before the movie, I decided that, for once, I would skip this step. I've decided that this would only make me more focused on how the movie is different from the book, and that probably isn't the best approach for material like this. Instead, I'll be looking for two things in the movie: tone and characters. I'm sure I will still miss lines and scenes, but I will at least try and keep my "analysis" broad enough that it is focused on the right things.

As far as character, we must obviously see a transformation in Bella, physically and in terms of her maternal instincts. Also along these lines, Edward gets his fatherly side, and he and Jacob become closer in their brotherhood of sorts that began in the first part of the book. Moving further along, Alice becomes a central figure again with her visions and her departure with Jasper. Then comes the tricky part of characterizing so many new faces, though costumes will help this greatly. All these new faces are at least going to look different.

Tone goes through quite a journey--a journey that will probably make this a movie more friendly to audiences than Part 1. First comes the sense of fitting in, then the parenthood, and then the fears. Fears about Renesmee's future, the Volturi, the situation with Charlie, the mass coming together of so many vampires, etc. Then there is the feeling of power in unity, the mental preparedness that allows the Cullens to convince the Volturi. On this note, I'm wondering if that final scene will end up more action-based; it would seem strange to me if it does since Stephenie has talked about how the chess scene book cover represents that it wasn't that kind of battle.

Two other things I am very curious about are Renesmee and Nahuel. What we have seen of Renesmee so far has been wonderful, so I'm getting the idea that these two very important characters will come across just right.

I'll be seeing the movie (early) Friday morning. I make no promises about posting my reaction on Friday: I tend to like to wait until I've watched twice, but I don't know if or when that will be. We'll see.

The Host Movie Poster Reaction

I just bought my movie ticket this morning to see Breaking Dawn Friday morning, but I think I'm actually more excited to see the trailer for The Host before the movie starts (note: I plan on doing a quick pre-Breaking Dawn post later this week). As a little teaser for that, the movie poster for The Host has been released--you can view it at the Twilight Lexicon.

Whew. Now I find myself fangirling over The Host. I'm just insanely curious how this movie will turn out, and the poster is a taste of the final product. Here are the things I noticed, hopefully in the order I noticed them in. While the cast is a bit younger than the novel pictures, they at least do have a bit of age ambiguity--they don't give out "high school drama," at least. There is a very sci-fi tone to the angles the three characters stand at, the colors (the contrast of the neon blue with the earthy, brown tones), and exoticness of the rocks in the background.

Which brings me to another point. Those rocks. They're not going to be the movie's version of Picachu Peak, are they? Because this is where my concern (well, part of it) about this movie is. New Mexico (where some of it was filmed) looks similar to Arizona, but very different to an Arizona native. And when you're dealing with a specific landmark like Picachu Peak, how do you deal with filming in a different state? Did they choose a different peak in New Mexico, or will they be superimposing Picachu Peak onto the New Mexico landscape?

But one of the exciting things about the poster is how remarkably Saoirse Ronan looks like Melanie/Wanderer. When she was cast, my reaction was, "she doesn't fit Melanie's physical description at all." But that's Melanie standing right there in the middle of the poster.