Thinking Ahead: Sing Street is my Valentine’s Day movie pick

Whether you’re going it alone this V-Day, cozying up with a friend, or have a significant other, consider setting the perfect mood with Sing Street. This wonderful film set in 1985 Ireland is a touching, funny, and utterly romantic coming-of-age story that’s all about the transformational power of music and having the courage to follow your heart in life and in art, whether that means telling the girl/boy of your dreams he/she is everything to you or standing up to the bullies of the world. I absolutely loved it. So fight the power, find your voice, tell fear to take a hike, and enjoy!!

The performances are stellar, and so is the music.

Sense and Sensibility: Throwing Shade Edition…& a Giveaway!

In honor of Austen in (mostly) August, one lucky winner will win Emma Thompson’s Sense and Sensibility Screenplay and Diaries plus signed copies of Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict and Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict. Giveaway ends Sept. 10 at 11:59PM EST. Head over to The Book Rat to enter this giveaway.

Every year, Austen in August has an irresistible array of fun activities and an opportunity to connect with fellow book lovers, some of whom are longtime readers of Austen, some of whom have never read Austen and are curious to try. You can join read-along discussions of this year’s featured work, Sense and Sensibility, decide if Jane Austen’s world was really as attractive as you may have imagined, discuss your favorite film and TV adaptations, rank your most beloved and most hated Austen characters, participate in Twitter parties, enter giveaways, and much more.

And if you’ve ever wished your favorite Austen characters could say something like this:

via GIPHY

then check out my guest post, Sense and Sensibility: Throwing Shade Edition.

Lady Susan finally makes it to the screen in Whit Stillman’s “Love and Friendship”

Whit Stillman exceeded all expectations. I’ve always thought Lady Susan would be really tough to adapt, and this film is a triumph of deliciously wicked fun.

What I’m Reading: 11/22/63 by Stephen King

I’ve decided that the definition of “unputdownable” in the OED should now be “11/22/63 by Stephen King.” I have lost sleep and work time racing through yet savoring every word of this masterfully written time-travel, what-if, alternate-reality tale of a man who travels back through a time-warp/rabbit hole in the back of a diner that lands him in 1958, where he must spend the next five years planning how to thwart the assassination of JFK. On the way, there is more of the past to tamper with, survive, and fall in love with–especially because it is where he meets his soulmate. But nothing is ever easy when it comes to changing the past, no sir. The past will do anything it can to stay put. “The obdurate past,” as King puts it. Indeed.

The past is also “harmonic,” according to 11/22/63. In fact, the act of reading 11/22/63 seems to generate its own harmonies, for as I entered the last third of the novel, an ad for the event series based on the work caught my eye on the Hulu home screen. Now I won’t have to feel as sad as I usually would do upon turning the last page of such an enthralling, mind-expanding read. I’ll have eight episodes to look forward to. Am hoping they do this brilliant work justice.

Surviving the Dreaded 14th: 14 ways to survive Valentine’s Day

Has a holiday ever caused so much unhappiness? I’m not talking about how it was when we were kids. Then it was all about giving everyone in class a paper valentine and those little heart candies. Though kids could get mean about that too if left to their own devices, like leaving out the kids nobody talked to.

As adults, we’re supposed to be more equipped to deal with that stuff, but it takes a stalwart sort to withstand the collective anxiety in the run-up to Valentine’s Day, let alone the day itself.

If you’re not in a relationship, the ads for jewels and bouquets and V-Day menus seem to be mocking your lack of a BF. if you’re in a relationship, it’s sadly easy to get caught up in expectations, and there’s nothing less romantic than thinking, ‘what’s he going to get me, and it had better not be cheap or unromantic.’ Or ‘Is he going to take me out, and somewhere good for a change?’ or even worse, ‘Is he finally going to propose?’

It’s enough to make you want to go underground till February 15.

via GIPHY

But don’t despair: you can get through it. Not by hiding and pretending there’s no such thing as the dreaded V-Day. But by embracing the true message behind the holiday and making Feb. 14 your own, empowering, feel-good holiday, regardless of your relationship status.

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Oh, yeah. This sounds familiar.

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Brian Cox, Novelizationist!

http://FunnyOrDie.com/m/93fs

The Novelizationalist with Brian Cox from Funny Or Die