The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz

Justin:  Nicole's a big reader of books and I read comic books and graphic novels.  I thought this would be a fun new segment to discuss with each other and you fellow blog readers to get us to open up and challenge our literary tastes.  That way if she sees a graphic novel I like and posted about she might want to read that and vice versa. I told her once a long time ago that I wanted to read more books as a way to whet my appetite for writing my own stories.  In fact, one of the things we used to do when we were developing those feelings was we would read to each other.  We would each take a chapter or two and usually it would be a funny book or some kind of diary and read it to one another in bed.  IT was a great way to open up conversation and ultimately feel so comfortable with each other.  Also I dig the sound of her voice, especially when she would laugh.

I was never really a fan of Baum's tales of Oz until my favorite artist, Skottie Young was going to adapt it for Marvel Comics.  His take on the characters have been really inspiring and this adaption has made giant leaps forward into the realm of children's comics.

It is also the first graphic novel that Nicole ever read...and thus began her descent into geek-dom.  I thought this was a great way to introduce her to the graphic novel format because of its source material, easy to read panels and wonderful illustrations.

Here is the synopsis from Amazon:

The premiere American fantasy adventure gets the Merry Marvel treatment! Eisner Award-winning writer/artist Eric Shanower (Age of Bronze) teams up with fan-favorite artist Skottie Young (New X-Men) to bring L. Frank Baum's beloved classic to life! When Kansas farm girl Dorothy flies away to the magical Land of Oz, she fatally flattens a Wicked Witch, liberates a living Scarecrow and is hailed by the Munchkin people as a great sorceress...but all she really wants to know is: how does she get home? 

So that's my Read This pick for the month, week, day, what have you.  Hopefully Nic can share some of the books she recently read and we can get kind of our own little Oprah's Book Club going on here.  Happy Reading all!!


Nicole:  I love that Oz the first graphic novel I read, it was really good and made me want to explore other graphic novels and comics.

Justin mentioned that I am a reader of books and he's right.  In fact I am currently reading the whole Oz collection.  I'm about halfway through and I love it! There are so many short stories in the collection and it is really neat how they all intertwine with each other.  I am both excited and sad to finish the collection because I want to know know what happens but I don't want this amazing tale to end.

I look forward to the rest of the Oz graphic novels that are coming out as well :o)

We Like This: The Social Network

Justin:  I figured I'd talk about the weekend since it seems all I ever blog about is the movies we watch.  And Nicole blogs about the important stuff, like how romantic I am haha.

Nicole and I had a busy weekend...separate from each other.  She was playing mom this weekend.  Nic was off taking pictures for her younger sisters homecoming and hanging out with one of her good friends from college while I was stuffing my face and celebrating my sister-in-law's birthday.  Also Nic got a haircut and uhhhhh she looks amazing.  I probably told her that once.....every 5 minutes.

 On Sunday we got together to watch part of the 11th Annual Mustang Stampede at St. Rita High School.  We also ran into some old friends from high school, it was like being in band again.  Oh the..good...times?

In the evening we caught a showing of David Fincher's new film, The Social Network, which we both really dug.  If you live under a rock and don't know what this movie's about, it's the story of the people responsible for the rise of Facebook.   I won't get much more into it because that's the set up.  That's all you really need to know.  It's the facebook movie.  I honestly didn't know what to expect.  It wasn't funny or even dramatic but it was a character study of this unique persona, Mark Zuckerberg.  You don't dislike him, but you don't like him.  Its a very tug of war concept with how you view this character.  We both were pretty engaged in the story and admitted to watching it again.  I think the Oscar race has officially begun.  I wouldn't be surprised if we ended up seeing this at the AMC Best Picture Showcase come winter.  Go see this movie!

The Bank Job

The true story of a heist gone wrong... in all the right ways. 

Justin:  We are on a bit of a cops and robbers kick as last week was, The Town and last night's movie was The Bank Job.


Here's a synopsis from IMDB:  Martine offers Terry a lead on a foolproof bank hit on London's Baker Street. She targets a roomful of safe deposit boxes worth millions in cash and jewelry. But Terry and his crew don't realize the boxes also contain a treasure trove of dirty secrets - secrets that will thrust them into a deadly web of corruption and illicit scandal.

I think Nicole enjoyed the film and when I saw this in theaters I thought it was such a well done movie.  Some times interweaving plot lines and character arcs get messy and complicated but this movie tells the story from all angles but manages to keep it together and not fold under itself.  I highly recommend this movie.  Another thing I loved about this movie was the film's poster.  It's sets the tone and look that the film was going for, tense and polished.