Good afternoon. Gigi the parti poodle here to announce that my novelist’s delightful web site www.musicologyrocks.com is now live. This is a most exciting event which my novelist shall discuss in further detail. I am most delighted about the way my picture turned out on the site. I am at present rather shaggy and need to resume my more groomed appearance. My novelist has invested in a pocket groomer which appears to be less intimidating than the full-sized variant of the contraption. She has also threatened to trim my nails with a sanding apparatus which I am most certainly not looking forwards to. This is what happens when novelists finish one manuscript and are preparing another. Ah, the little burdens one makes for one’s pet. Without further ado, here is my novelist.
The Musicology website is alive and kicking! You can now go to www.musicologyrocks.com and vote for the contestant you think will win the whole shebang! On the site there are also links to my blog here at www.gigicatchesair.com as well as links to both my books Chicane and Musicology: Volume One, Baby! There is also a little blurb about Gigi and me there as well. I will be releasing the second book in the Musicology series Musicology: Volume Two, Kid! this fall. As there is a mystery which starts in volume two, I will put up a second list of people to vote on so you can try and guess who that individual is as well.
I hope you enjoy this comedic satirical book series that takes place over the course of one season on a reality TV show!
This week’s ScreenwritingU Free Class Friday is Analysis of Warrior Nun the Netflix television show. You can register for the class here.
STREAM OF THE WEEK: ARKANSAS-Amazon Prime
I have spent a great deal of time this week trying to figure out why Arkansas is not getting better reception. This is an excellent independent film written (adapted from the book of the same name), directed and co-stared by Clark Duke. It is difficult finding any film these days that isn’t about a superhero, a dysfunctional family or both. This one was a breath of fresh air. I was more than impressed with Duke’s work in all three categories here and I look forward to seeing a lot more of his movies in the future.
The film is about drug runners whose lives are caught in circles. These are not hardened criminals. They are not psychopaths. They are inhabitants of Arkansas who for one reason or another cannot escape…Arkansas. And so, to make a decent living they run drugs. The lead character, Kyle (Liam Hemsworth) is a smart guy with no goals. Kyle is much like Alex Reiger from Taxi. He is a drug runner. Period. He has no ambitions or desires to be anything else and is satisfied to get drunk or not get drunk and survive. When he makes a wise albeit serendipitous move, he finds himself promoted by a boss he has never met named Frog (Vince Vaughn in one of his best performances). He is teamed up with the likeable and intelligent Swin (Clark Duke) and the two of them are to move drugs across state lines. But on the way they meet a park ranger named Bright (the excellent John Malkovich) who stops their truck and tells them they have been reassigned. They will be park rangers as their cover and live at the park each in their own trailer…which are exactly alike. As they begin their life under Bright’s chipper command and are running drugs to different places in the south, Swin chances to meet a nurse named Johnna (Eden Brolin) at the grocery store and is smitten. As the two begin their romance a lose cannon named Nick (Clark’s brother Chandler Duke) who is the grandson of one of their connections throws a nasty wrench into their well-planned out situation and all their lives begin to unravel.
SMART MOVIES FOR SMART KIDS: THE NEVERENDING STORY-Netflix
The Never-Ending Story is a wonderful imaginative fantasy film for kids. Based on the book of the same name by Michael Ende it is a tale about boy named Bastian who does not fit in. He is tormented by bullies at his school and longs for a place where he can be himself and test his mettle. He stumbles into a bookstore one day and the elderly shopkeeper recommends, with warning that is, a book about a place named Fantasia. Bastian begins secretly reading the book in the school attic and finds he must enter the book’s world to save Fantasia from destruction.
Gigi Catches Air 