BuzzSugar

Buzz Interview: Curtis Sittenfeld, Author of American Wife

BuzzSugar — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 06:30:44 -0700

This week, author Curtis Sittenfeld's new book American Wife hits book stores near you. The book is inspired by the life of Laura Bush, and a few weeks ago, when I was about halfway through American Wife, I chatted with Sittenfeld about the controversial aspects of the book, how this epic American tale is a departure from her previous two books, and what's going on with the movie version of Prep!

Buzz: This character, Alice Blackwell, is intriguing and sexy, and generally those terms are considered mutually exclusive from the first lady. How did you work around people's ideas of what it means to be the first lady?
Curtis Sittenfeld: I think that all people are complicated and all people have inner lives. I think that a lot of times our view of first ladies is that they’re very stiff or proper or formal but I think they’re people like anyone else. When they’re not in public they probably can relax a lot more.

I know that these characters are based on the lives of George and Laura Bush, and when I read some of the sex scenes, I wondered if you had a hard time going there?
Laura Bush was a starting point for this novel, but there’s so much that we don’t know about her even though she’s a very public figure. And so what I did was invent a character who’s loosely inspired by her but isn’t her. I do not see Alice Blackwell as just, you know, Laura Bush is her name change. I see Alice Blackwell as a distinct person. I know that some readers might feel differently but I don't feel like I wrote sex scenes between George and Laura Bush [laughs].

To learn more about her new book and why she might still write about weird, neurotic girls, read more!

My experience reading the book so far has been to forget it’s Laura, and Alice is her own person to me except when I bump into events that I recognize from Laura’s life. It’s a unique reading experience to say the least. Is that the experience you think people will have? Hope they’ll have?
Well, the way that I conceived of the book, there are four major events in in Laura Bush’s life that I included - you know, one in each of the four sections of the book that are real - and then pretty much everything else is made up. So I would say 85 percent of the book is made up. The characters, the situations, the conversations - and I trust the sophistication and intelligence of my readers and I like when I read a book that assumes my intelligence. So I know that it's a kind of weird hybrid book, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing.

When it comes to women married to men who do things that we don’t agree with, there’s this tendency to implicate them by association. Did you find yourself more sympathetic to a woman like that? This book has made me rethink my ideas of those women’s responsibilities, etc.
Yeah, that is definitely a question that’s really interesting to me, which is: How much is one spouse responsible for another spouse? Or how much does one spouse represent another spouse? And I think it’s an incredibly complicated question and the answer varies a lot from marriage to marriage. But I actually just got married, like, three months ago. So I do think the subject of marriage is probably interesting to me during the time I was writing this. You know, I’m about to turn 33 and you know there are marriages . . . like of course the ideal is to marry for a long time but then sometimes you look at, you know, marriages that have lasted, you know, 30 or 40 years and you think, "Well it lasted long, but I don’t know if I’d want to be in it." But I think it’s a worthy goal for people to try to stay together, but I also think that you have to make compromises.

Yeah, it's such an intriguing question and so far I find myself feeling very sympathetic toward this character who I know will become the first lady and judged by people for her husband. I keep thinking, "Aw, but she's young and falling in love."
Right, well, it’s so hard to guess how anyone’s life will turn out I mean even with, you know people I knew in high school or people I knew in graduate school. Their lives . . . some have taken much different turns than I would have guessed, but you know, that’s what makes life interesting.

Unlike Lee in Prep, or Hannah in The Man of My Dreams, Alice is a grown woman and more mature than either of those young women. Are your characters going to grow up as you continue to grow?
Well, by the end of the book Alice is 61, so she obviously gets to be much older than I am in real life. I think that I don’t feel like I’ll never write about teenage girls or young women again. I mean, I still think that there’s so much material there, so I don’t think my characters will only get older as I get older, although to some extent that will probably happen. I do feel like one of my core readers is probably like the 22- or 23-year-old young woman, and I do hope she does not feel abandoned by this book. You know, like, "What happened?!"

Right! You hit on my initial reaction when the book was in my hands. Which was, "Oh my. This is a big epic book . . . It’s so different from the others."
This is a story and a personality that really captured my imagination, but I’m not determined to only write epics from here on out, you know? I still have room in my heart for neurotic, you know, weirdo girls [laughs].

Oh good - I feel like I can speak for many when I say that’s somewhat of a relief!
Yeah - I promise, I promise!

Finally, are there plans for any of your books to become movies? Do you want that?
Prep was optioned by Paramount, and the option has been renewed, and actually a screenplay exists, which was written by Noah Baumbach - he did Squid and the Whale. I think, you know, it seems like with movies all the stars have to align - every thing has to correspond perfectly for a movie to be made. But I think things are a little bit murky, but I would be delighted if it got made. He is attached as a writer/director. I would be delighted if he were the one who made it. I don’t know, Man of My Dreams was not optioned and this one I think they just started sort of sending it out in Hollywood. I don’t know. It’s not an area where I feel like I have any control, which is kind of liberating.

Source and Source

Remembering Kurt Vonnegut: 1922 - 2007

BuzzSugar — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 09:36:35 -0700

I awoke this morning to the sad news that groundbreaking novelist Kurt Vonnegut died Wednesday at age 84. As reported by the AP, Vonnegut's wife, photographer Jill Krementz, said the writer suffered brain injuries following a recent fall at his home in Manhattan.

Probably best-known for his books Slaughterhouse Five and Cat's Cradle, Vonnegut was truly one of the most important American writers of the 20th century, lending his distinct voice to everything from historical satire to non-traditional sci-fi and laugh-out-loud humor. In fact, I think Vonnegut's stylistic legacy is one of the most powerful influences on many of today's modern novelists.

Throughout my adult life, Vonnegut has been one of my favorite authors, and having the opportunity to hear him speak during my college years only heightened my respect for this sharp and endlessly clever man. Though I would highly recommend the more classic Vonnegut novels, my favorite books of his might be the slightly more obscure Galapagos, which tackles the theory of evolution in a thoroughly absurd way, and the darkly futuristic novel The Sirens of Titan. Any other Vonnegut fans out there? If so, tell me which of his books is your favorite.

Source

Link Time! Omarosa Is Searching For a Husband

BuzzSugar — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 13:30:30 -0800

Omarosa is looking for love with a new reality TV show. But the biggest surprise? The Donald is helping her - Defamer

An Inglourious Basterds prequel is brewing - Marc Malkin

Uh-oh, Mad Men fans. For those romantics hoping for a Don and Betty reconciliation, chances sound grim - Daily Beast

Cobra Starship's new video is a "Hot Mess" - HitFix

Cute Reunion actor Sean Faris is joining The Vampire Diaries - Ausiello Files

Who's your favorite female author? - TresSugar

Holiday movie preview! - Moviefone

Death Cab For Cutie performs "Meet Me at the Equinox" at a Hot Topic store. Teen girls' minds explode. - Stereogum

Twitter phenom Sh*t My Dad Says is being made into a TV show - TV Squad

New York Magazine's 40 songs that define the Brooklyn sound right now - New York Magazine

Link Time! George Clooney Gets Behind A New TNT Show

BuzzSugar — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 13:30:05 -0700

George Clooney is signing on to exec-produce Delta Blues (with an Elvis impersonator cop!) for TNT - TV Squad
January Jones will star in the Nicolas Cage thriller The Hungry Rabbit Jumps - Coming Soon
The Short Circuit remake gets a director - MTV Movies Blog
Those DirectTV ads with Chris Farley and David Spade suffer some backlash - E! Online
Kristin Davis talks the Sex and the City sequel - Hollywood Crush
Lots of photos from this past weekend's CMJ Festival - Stereogum
Weezer and Lil Wayne's collaboration "Can't Stop Partying" is pretty darn catchy - Idolator
Check out this list of the best rock-'n'-roll movies - Rotten Tomatoes
Author Augusten Burroughs is working on two new TV series, one for CBS and one for Showtime - Movieline
Norah Jones plays a pirate in her new music video - HitFix
Just in time for Halloween: The 5 scariest TV episodes ever - TV.com
Plus, 10 girl-power inspired costumes (Bella Swan made the list!) - TresSugar

What to Download: New Music Today

BuzzSugar — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 14:30:14 -0700

It's one of my favorite days of the week: Tuesday! Which means I get to add DVDs to my Netflix queue, along with some brand new tunes for my iPod. So check out today's music releases for what you should download. (And if you like to review albums, don't forget to take a peek at the Music Review Group in the community.)

A smooth ride: Sufjan Stevens takes a breather from his states project with BQE, an ode to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. He originally performed the work to accompany a film about the road, but the music stands on its own as a beautiful orchestral arrangement. Warning if you like Stevens's mellow voice: BQE is all instrumental. Still, it proves that he has what it takes as a composer, and I'd like to see him lend his talents to more of this sort of work. My picks: Movement II: Sleeping Invader, which sounds like a ballet dream sequence, and Traffic Shock, which mixes in clashing electronic sounds like a busy gridlock.

Pretty packs a punch: If you haven't heard of Florence and the Machine, get ready. Florence Welch is the latest spunky Brit singer on the scene, and her debut Lungs already went platinum in the UK. Today, it's available to buy stateside. She's the singer I'd want to be if I had my own band - a woman who wails while banging the tambourine - and her album veers between tough-chick anthems and haunting ballads a la Sarah McLachlan. Make sure you try the hand-clapping, feel-good Dog Days Are Over or the romantic Cosmic Love.

See two more releases when you read more.

Freaky fun: If you're a Flight of the Conchords fan - or even if you're not - you'll want to check out I Told You I Was Freaky, a compilation of music from season two (including three previously unreleased tracks). Sure, half the fun is watching the boys act out each song on the show (and Jemaine's wicked dance moves), but when you listen to the music on its own, you realize just how talented they really are. Each selection could qualify for radio-play - or just a ridiculously fun karaoke night. The album includes favorites like Sugarlumps, Hurt Feelings, and the Emmy-nominated Carol Brown.

Lyrical wanderlust: Jay Farrar of Son Volt and Benjamin Gibbard of Death Cab For Cutie team up on One Fast Move or I'm Gone: Music From Kerouac's Big Sur, an ode to the famous author's work. The two musicians met while working on a documentary about Kerouac and decided to collaborate on this album using words from his novel. It's fitting then that the result feels like a cross-country trip - lazy and laid-back with some twangy country, Americana sound. I'll be adding the title track and California Zephyr to my car playlist.

Where the Wild Things Are: A Passionate Ode to Childhood

BuzzSugar — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 04:30:00 -0700

There's been a bit of a controversy over how to market Spike Jonze's adaptation of Maurice Sendak's classic children's book, Where The Wild Things Are. Is it for kids? Adults? Adult hipsters?

The answer is anyone who wants to feel what it's like to be a child, and not in the fun-loving, no-responsibilities way. As adults, we tend to forget the insecurity and fears we had as kids, which the film's young character Max is in the throes of. There's just enough exposition before the fantasy begins: Max has a single mom (Catherine Keener) and an older sister who has recently outgrown him. His first few acts at home show his innocence and the savage emotions under the surface. He knows it as being "wild."

Where the Wild Things Are isn't a heavy-handed allegory, or an edgy children's movie; it's a loyal tribute to the way kids think and feel. To see what else I thought of the film, just read more.

Max reaches the world of the wild things after throwing a particularly heinous fit, prompting his mother to yell, "You're out of control!" After running away, Max finds himself on a boat that finally brings him to a strange land. This is where the wild things are. The creatures Jonze has created are aesthetic wonders: creepy, hostile, and huggable at once. These aren't Jim Henson's Muppets, but real characters, led by Carol (voiced by James Gandolfini). The rest of the group is comprised of Lauren Ambrose as aloof KW, Catherine O'Hara as prickly Judith, Paul Dano as timid Alexander, Chris Cooper as Douglas, and Forest Whitaker as Ira.

Each creature has a fully realized personality, with flaws and varying temperaments; their faces are so emotive and their dialogue so human that their scenes with Max are as real as those with his mother. This group is not easily classified as friend or foe - they're dysfunctional in their relationships and don't always treat each other well. One of the most successful elements of the movie is the dialogue of the wild things, which is rooted in Max's head.

In many ways, screenwriter Dave Eggers's job was tougher than Spike Jonze's, because it's imperative to remember the way children think. Max's interactions with Carol and his new clan are made up of the kind of things a kid would hear from his parents and peers and then internalize. In fact, in the wild world, Max declares himself king to bring order, and he summons up speeches from the authority figures that he's pulling away from in his real life. Naturally, he's too young to recognize how his subverted position is significant.

Max's relationship with Carol is most telling. As the de facto leader of the group who can't handle sadness, loneliness, or jealousy, he acts out as a mirror of Max while still being his own character. The richness of Carol and the creature cast stays with you; when Max has to say goodbye to his friends, your heart breaks.

Jonze impressed me with his non-conformity; in another movie, Max would have demonstrated the grand lessons he learned from his time on the island, but in this one, he doesn't have to learn anything. He just gets to feel and experience and appreciate his emotionally fragmented new friends. It's devastating as a viewer, especially if you can put yourself back in that childlike place when your feelings were so raw and simple.

Photos courtesy of Warner Bros.

Gus Van Sant and Bret Easton Ellis to Pen The Golden Suicides

BuzzSugar — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 10:31:46 -0700

A couple years ago, the art world was rocked by a pair of deaths when Jeremy Blake and his girlfriend Theresa Duncan committed suicide within days of each other amid allegations of paranoia and harassment by Scientologists. Dubbed "The Golden Suicides" by Vanity Fair, the tragedy attracted attention because of the beauty and glamour of the couple, their friendship with musician Beck, and the mystery surrounding their passing.

Their compelling story is now getting the movie treatment: Gus Van Sant and Bret Easton Ellis are working on a screenplay together for a film based on the Vanity Fair article.

I was personally fascinated by the article and the lives of Duncan and Blake when news of their suicides broke (I'd actually seen one of Blake's exhibits at the SF MoMA years before). I think Van Sant and Ellis will give considerable weight to this dismal subject matter - Van Sant is coming off of Milk, and Ellis is the author of heavy, zeitgeisty tomes like American Psycho and Less Than Zero.

An Education: A Wonderful, World Weary Coming of Age Tale

BuzzSugar — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 05:30:00 -0700

There's very little time left for Carey Mulligan to be an unknown. She plays the central character in An Education, and it's a mesmerizing, star-making turn.

Nick Hornby is behind the screenplay, which follows 16-year-old schoolgirl Jenny as she navigates her strict school-minded parents and the affections of a man twice her age in '60s London. Though some might be turned off by the Lolita-esque premise, this isn't a movie about a May-December romance but the story of Jenny's discovery of the world and adulthood.

To see what I liked about the movie, just read more.

Peter Sarsgaard is the older man, whom he plays with the seductive blandness the role calls for. It's not Sarsgaard's character, David, who tempts Jenny; it's the idea of him. Before David shows up, Jenny has a path set forth by her parents and her English teacher: Oxford.

When David enters the picture by chance, Jenny suddenly has a choice: Oxford or the glamorous life David exposes her to that doesn't require a college degree. She declares her first date with David as the best night of her life. It's easy to see why: fabulous dinners and concerts in London with David's friends, played by Rosamund Pike and Dominic Cooper. Pike is really too worldly looking to be playing such a dim bulb, but she's luminous as a representation of Jenny's possible future.

Jenny soon learns that David’s seemingly easy life may not be what she truly wants, and she finds herself at a crossroads. The movie does an excellent job at making you live the conflict too - it's not obvious what life Jenny will choose, even though a traditional Hollywood movie would make it clear what the "right" thing to do is. Instead, you find yourself in Jenny's shoes thanks to the engrossing performance of Mulligan, whose angelic face and throaty voice shift easily from dedicated student to London sophisticate.

Mulligan's likability is matched only by her Oxford-pushing father, played by Alfred Molina. Some of the most entertaining scenes are those in which Molina is either brusquely insulting one of Jenny's suitors or being entranced by David himself. At first I wondered why Jenny's parents would let her go off so easily with David when I watched the trailer, but it plays out plainly: David is irresistible. Like a snake-oil salesman, that is. He feeds Jenny and her parents what they want to hear, and when things go awry, Jenny angrily confronts her father about how he could have been so seduced by David. This is one of the lessons Jenny learns from her affair with David; that despite education, maturity, and age, authority figures are fallible.

The other authority figures of this movie are compelling as well: Olivia Williams plays Jenny's encouraging teacher (whose radiance can't be hidden by a pair of horn-rimmed glasses) and Emma Thompson has a cameo as a rigid headmistress who seems to take pleasure in threatening Jenny about her future.

However, no one shines brighter than Mulligan. Her Jenny is a strong, bright young woman who never completely loses her way, despite the situation she gets caught up in. It's her performance in An Education you'll be talking about when you leave the theater - and maybe in a few months when awards season begins.

Photos courtesy of Sony Pictures

Are You Interested in the Roman Polanski Arrest Drama?

BuzzSugar — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 11:30:22 -0700

Filmmaker Roman Polanski, who fled the US 32 years ago to avoid sentencing in a statutory rape trial, was arrested last week in Switzerland on the request of US authorities.

Marina Zenovich, the director of the documentary based on Polanski's case Wanted and Desired, has expressed interest in filming more footage of the current happenings, with Brett Ratner coming on to produce it.

There's simultaneous support and protest for Polanski's release, with much of the support coming from fellow filmmakers. The latest is that victim Samantha Geimer, now 45, wants the case dismissed.

Each day brings new developments to the case, but tell me, are you interested in the Polanski matter?

10 Books That Are Better as Movies

BuzzSugar — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 16:30:04 -0700

It's a strange experience when you realize you're enjoying a movie more than you enjoyed the book on which it's based because so often the opposite is true. After all, presumably an author has the advantage because he/she can provide deep insight into characters that actors have to convey with but a glance. Every so often, though, a story makes a lot more sense onscreen. Here I've compiled a list of some stories I'd rather watch than read. What are yours? Just hit "Start" to begin the slideshow.

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