The 2011 Disney movie "Lemonade Mouth" is the story of how five high school kids accidentally became a sensational band. Olivia, the incredibly shy lead singer and songwriter, narrates the story. Stella, the lead guitarist, is the driving force behind the band. Wen (Wendell), the keyboardist, is also a songwriter and rapper. Charlie is an insanely good drummer. And Mo (Mohini, aka Monu), whose strict parents are from India, plays bass guitar (and sings better than Olivia). In the movie, they all seem to be multi-talented, singing and taking turns playing the guitars and keyboard. Being a musical, we have to suspend a lot of disbelief at the seemingly spontaneous outpouring of song lyrics and music created by the band. But then, that's the story.
In some ways, Disney's 2011 adaptation of the book "Lemonade Mouth", by Mark Peter Hughes, is better than the book. The music is great, if you like rock & roll with a bit of rap. The lyrics are either inspiring or disgusting, depending on whether it is the good band or the bad band playing at the time. Where the book is an experimental collection of narratives from the five main characters, augmented with a couple of chapters collected from seventeen other people, the movie is narrated only by Olivia (but the story seems to be mostly from Stella's point of view).
Disney, of course, whitewashed any possibly offensive details. In the book, Wen stands in front of the class to give his presentation, only to discover that his folder holds a collection of drawings of his father's girl friend, in the nude. In the movie, they are only innocuous photographs from her photography class. In the book, Stella is a six-foot amazon who hacked off her long hair and dyed the remaining tufts green. She is intimidating both by her size and her preference for angry music. In the movie, Stella is short and pretty. In the book, Olivia is fat with unwashed hair and she sings to her seventeen cats. In the movie, she is blond and beautiful and has only the one old cat, the last thing she has of her mother. Then the cat dies (but Wen gives her a kitten at the end). In the book, Mo's relationship with the self-centered Scott, ends badly and she ends up liking Charlie. But in the movie, Scott asks for forgiveness, and (after her classic line, "It's going to take a lot more than 'sorry' to fix this." and she walks away.) they eventually get back together, and he becomes part of the band. (The Disney message being that pretty, white-guys get the girl in the end, right?)
In the movie, the drink of choice is Mel's Organic Lemonade which comes out of the machine in pop-top plastic cans. But in the book, it is frozen lemonade slush dispensed in paper cups (like a snow cone?).
In the book, the music created by the band is very oddball, very indie. Stella ends up playing the ukulele, Mo plays a large acoustical bass (with a bow), Wen plays a trumpet, Olivia sings her original lyrics with a low, gravelly voice, and Charlie plays a collection of odd drums. But in some weird way, it sounds good together, and to everyone who hears it. (???) In the movie, the band and their instruments are mainstream rock&roll with a side of rap.
I really like this movie. I have seen it more than five times, and listened to the music many more times. The theme, that everyone matters, comes across very strong and very clear. And no, they do not win the Rising Star contest. And yes, the audience does stand up and sing their song when they were too broken and sick to sing it themselves. That was inspiring. It reminded me of something God did once. And that God believes in us, because He is our biggest fan and He knows all the words to our songs.
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Books - "Nobody" by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
The January 2013 novel, "Nobody," by Jennifer Lynn Barnes, is a curious combination of young love and science fiction.
Claire, just out of her freshman year, has grown up practically alone, constantly ignored, and always forgotten, even by her own parents. She has almost moved the world trying to be nice, working to be sweet, but it never helps. No matter what she does, she is overlooked. She has lived almost all of her life in imaginary situations, creating scenarios of potential interaction with other people, but they never happen. No on hears her. No one sees her. No one cares.
Nix, now seventeen, was raised as a lab experiment by "the Society." Trained and brainwashed from birth, he exists for one purpose, to kill the "nulls," the homicidal psychopaths, pointed out to him by the society. He is extremely qualified for this job, but barely literate, and cared for by no one. He is so overlooked by the entire world that he can "fade," allowing him to walk through walls and be invisible to everyone.
Told from the alternating point of view of these two characters, this book explores the possible situation that occurs when these two "nobodies" finally find each other, and realize that there actually is another person in the world who can see me, and touch me, and care for me. The result is explosive.
Inspiration for this book might easily have come from the Season 1 "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" episode "Out of Sight. Out of Mind." In it, a young girl is ignored in school to the point where she literally becomes invisible (and goes kind of crazy). Eventually, she is taken in for training as a spy or assassin by some group like the CIA.
And inspiration for this "love-at-first-glance" plot may have come from that of "Romeo and Juliette." They jump into a situation which should have killed them both. But in this case, the two of them survive to live happily ever after.
And inspiration for this "do-I-really-matter" theme could have come from Disney's made-for-TV movie "Lemonade Mouth." The movie was aired two years before the book, "Nobody," was published. Echoes of lines from the movie occur in this book. Also, this book says: "Frozenlemonade. ... Claire's password of choice" when frozen lemonade was the beverage of choice for all the downtrodden, invisible students in the book "Lemonade Mouth," by Mark Peter Hughes. In the movie (12:50) Olivia, hiding in the janitor's closet, reads aloud, "I'm nobody. Who are you? Are you nobody too?" And wryly answers the question, "Huh. Well, that would be a yes." JLB quotes that line from Emily Dickinson on the first page, before the prologue.
However —
Just because you have found the one person in all the world who can actually see you, does not mean it is a good idea to give yourself to him. If the whole world were face-blind, but you found one other person who could recognize you, it does not make that person good. I loved the line in this book: "If there was one thing Claire knew like the back of her own hand, it was the edge of the abyss, and Nix was wearing darkness like sunscreen. SPF 70, slathered thick." But in the end (or middle), Claire cannot resist the urge to "fix" Nix. And through the magic of artistic license, it works out okay. In real life, not so much.
Huh? moments —
1. How old is Claire? The flyleaf says she's sixteen, but page 3 says: "the first day of her fifteenth summer," which would make her fourteen years old. But the book later says she is older than Nix was (14) when he killed his first null. Page 322 says "she was fifteen."
2. Upload/Download. Having worked on an IBM mainframe computer for over 30 years, I can tell you that data is "uploaded" to the larger repository, usually a mainframe or the internet, and data is "downloaded" to the smaller repository, a smaller computer or disk. The largest pile of data is the mountain, and the mountain does not come to Mohamed. Data rolls down the mountain, unless it is pushed or pulled up the mountain. From a mainframe, I would "download" (not "upload") data to my PC and then "download" (not "upload") it to a flash drive. Pages 326 and 327 incorrectly use the word "upload", twice, to refer to moving data down the mountain to an external drive.
I have read and enjoyed this book, "Nobody," several times. I later picked up a different book from the library, and within four pages, the author had waffled back and forth from past tense to present tense, changed points of view by the paragraph, and even inserted the author's own point of view. I gave up that book and went back and reread "Nobody." It is a real pleasure to read a book that is well written, and Jennifer Lynn Barnes does an excellent job of spinning a very readable story.
Claire, just out of her freshman year, has grown up practically alone, constantly ignored, and always forgotten, even by her own parents. She has almost moved the world trying to be nice, working to be sweet, but it never helps. No matter what she does, she is overlooked. She has lived almost all of her life in imaginary situations, creating scenarios of potential interaction with other people, but they never happen. No on hears her. No one sees her. No one cares.
Nix, now seventeen, was raised as a lab experiment by "the Society." Trained and brainwashed from birth, he exists for one purpose, to kill the "nulls," the homicidal psychopaths, pointed out to him by the society. He is extremely qualified for this job, but barely literate, and cared for by no one. He is so overlooked by the entire world that he can "fade," allowing him to walk through walls and be invisible to everyone.
Told from the alternating point of view of these two characters, this book explores the possible situation that occurs when these two "nobodies" finally find each other, and realize that there actually is another person in the world who can see me, and touch me, and care for me. The result is explosive.
Inspiration for this book might easily have come from the Season 1 "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" episode "Out of Sight. Out of Mind." In it, a young girl is ignored in school to the point where she literally becomes invisible (and goes kind of crazy). Eventually, she is taken in for training as a spy or assassin by some group like the CIA.
And inspiration for this "love-at-first-glance" plot may have come from that of "Romeo and Juliette." They jump into a situation which should have killed them both. But in this case, the two of them survive to live happily ever after.
And inspiration for this "do-I-really-matter" theme could have come from Disney's made-for-TV movie "Lemonade Mouth." The movie was aired two years before the book, "Nobody," was published. Echoes of lines from the movie occur in this book. Also, this book says: "Frozenlemonade. ... Claire's password of choice" when frozen lemonade was the beverage of choice for all the downtrodden, invisible students in the book "Lemonade Mouth," by Mark Peter Hughes. In the movie (12:50) Olivia, hiding in the janitor's closet, reads aloud, "I'm nobody. Who are you? Are you nobody too?" And wryly answers the question, "Huh. Well, that would be a yes." JLB quotes that line from Emily Dickinson on the first page, before the prologue.
However —
Just because you have found the one person in all the world who can actually see you, does not mean it is a good idea to give yourself to him. If the whole world were face-blind, but you found one other person who could recognize you, it does not make that person good. I loved the line in this book: "If there was one thing Claire knew like the back of her own hand, it was the edge of the abyss, and Nix was wearing darkness like sunscreen. SPF 70, slathered thick." But in the end (or middle), Claire cannot resist the urge to "fix" Nix. And through the magic of artistic license, it works out okay. In real life, not so much.
Huh? moments —
1. How old is Claire? The flyleaf says she's sixteen, but page 3 says: "the first day of her fifteenth summer," which would make her fourteen years old. But the book later says she is older than Nix was (14) when he killed his first null. Page 322 says "she was fifteen."
2. Upload/Download. Having worked on an IBM mainframe computer for over 30 years, I can tell you that data is "uploaded" to the larger repository, usually a mainframe or the internet, and data is "downloaded" to the smaller repository, a smaller computer or disk. The largest pile of data is the mountain, and the mountain does not come to Mohamed. Data rolls down the mountain, unless it is pushed or pulled up the mountain. From a mainframe, I would "download" (not "upload") data to my PC and then "download" (not "upload") it to a flash drive. Pages 326 and 327 incorrectly use the word "upload", twice, to refer to moving data down the mountain to an external drive.
I have read and enjoyed this book, "Nobody," several times. I later picked up a different book from the library, and within four pages, the author had waffled back and forth from past tense to present tense, changed points of view by the paragraph, and even inserted the author's own point of view. I gave up that book and went back and reread "Nobody." It is a real pleasure to read a book that is well written, and Jennifer Lynn Barnes does an excellent job of spinning a very readable story.
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