So, Hollywood is remaking Akira!

According to the news, “I’m told that for Tetsuo, Robert Pattinson, Andrew Garfield and James McAvoy have been given the new script. For the role of Kaneda, the script has been given to Garrett Hedlund, Michael Fassbender, Chris Pine, Justin Timberlake and Joaquin Phoenix. The two leads are expected to come from that group of actors.”

I know we should all be beyond surprise when Hollywod pulls this, but this total-whitewash nonsense is appalling even for Hollywood, if only because one of the most critically-panned and poorly-performing movies of the last few years was the whitewashed “The Last Airbender,” which alienated its core fanbase long before it drove away casual fans by sucking. You’d think Hollywood would at least be throwing a bone to the source material by putting an actor of Japanese descent on the list. At all. Anywhere. Even for an audition.

But maybe it’s too hard! Maybe nobody in the casting office really knows much about Akira, which is why they’re giving it to any white actor who has ever looked grave in a headshot! Maybe they aren’t aware that Japan even has a movie industry! Does Akira take place in Neo-Tokyo? They don’t know! (Also it probably doesn’t any more; two bucks says it’s New New York by the time the movie comes out.) [ETA: IT ALREADY IS. OH, HOLLYWOOD, I THOUGHT I WAS KIDDING.]

We don’t know the pressure these casting gurus are under! There are literally DOZENS of Japanese actors! Are they expected to just audition people until they find someone who works with the part? This whole mystical task is impossible!

I feel for them. I do. And I want to help. So even though I’ve never seen Akira, and I am seriously under-informed on my Japanese cinema, I went on the internet for ten minutes, and here’s who I found.

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So, Mechanique got a starred review in Publisher’s Weekly! That’s a pretty sweet way to start the week.

Second-best part: The review wraps with the very kind, “Fans of grim fantasy will love this menacing and fascinating debut.”

Best part: After I sent the link to my mom (neeeerd), she called me and said, “I see your book is grim,” like we were in an episode of Prime Suspect and the forensics had just come in.

That makes it sound so serious, doesn’t it? As if statisticians worked through the night to guarantee accuracy of the tally. (On the other hand, “Results” seems like too momentous a word, but “thingee” wasn’t very helpful either.)

I have to say, when I asked for circus stories on my original giveaway post, I didn’t expect some of the responses I got, and really appreciated that people took the time to tell their stories. People have such passionate reactions to (or against) the circus, and it was some fascinating reading.

Bonus points to for the most evocative story, Alexa for doing what we have all wished in our hearts we could do, and who swanned in, disqualified herself, dropped some circus-hate, and then promised to buy a copy of the book as a partial bribe to get me to visit her. It was a rollercoaster of emotions in a two-sentence comment! As a gift, I pretended to buy her a circus ticket, then immediately pretended to tear it up, because it’s not like she’s going to go, is it? Easiest gift ever.

Anyway, the two ARC winners have been chosen, via that random number generator everyone uses.

ARC #1 goes to:

renarossner, who said, “I actually hated the circus as a kid. I was vegetarian and an animal lover and always ended up in tears thinking about the animals…”

I had the same reaction, even as a teensy kid, and so have never seen a circus that involves animals, unless you count footage watched as research for the book. I much prefer the Cirque du Soleil-style all-human antics; any vicarious horror there is usually costume-related and fleeting.

ARC #2 goes to:

Emma from Australia! (Also winner of the “Most Bang for your Buck” award.)

“I have never been to a circus but I have seen and enjoyed Dumbo many times, except for the Pink Elephants on Parade bit, which plays in my nightmares.

Also, my cousin has a unicycle which he rides whenever we visit because, being a teenage boy, he has no people skills. He falls off at least once every visit and we all laugh, so he kind of is a circus all on his own, providing cheap entertainment and fun for the whole family.”

We are not talking about Dumbo, because that movie was the first time I saw my mom cry and I will hate it forever. However, I could really use a cousin with a unicycle, so I’m suitably jealous.

Rena and Emma, drop me a line at genevieve.valentine at gmail dot com and we’ll get started! And thanks again to everyone who participated.

Reader, I saw it.

This was the eighth adaptation of Jane Eyre I’ve seen (not counting the George C. Scott version, which I bailed on like a day player in a skydiving movie). There have been at least twenty adaptations made. There have been abysmal versions and serviceable ones, hysterically off-the-mark ones, ones that are overpraised, and ones that are close to my heart even though they’re deeply flawed and sometimes really terrible (lookin’ at you, Samantha Morton and Ciaran Hinds).

But the thing is that even though it’s been filmed so often, there’s never been a version so good it can be claimed as the definitive version. (Pre-emptive: the 2006 version is often described this way, and it certainly looks good and hits some of the right notes, but there are so many characterization problems and Handsome Rochester issues that from a textual standpoint it’s not the case). Thus, Jane Eyre becomes a one-woman course in the difficulty of adaptation; it seems like a straightforward-enough book, but when you try to bring it to the screen it’s easy to let something crucial slip through the cracks.

This Jane Eyre is also not the definitive adaptation, though Cary Fukunaga managed a movie that does more than just stage scenes from the book, which is where many adaptations stop; this Jane Eyre focuses on Jane herself, in a way not many of the others have. As a character study, it’s a new enough take to have something to say, and though there are some missteps, what it does well it really does well.

Below the cut, more specifics, for those who don’t want to be spoiled about what’s in the attic (it’s a puppy mill).

“The shadows are as important as the light.”

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This weekend, acclaimed director Zack Snyder (Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole) will be releasing his latest film, Sucker Punch.

While plot details are purposely being kept under wraps, we know it’s about a quintet of institutionalized young women in the 1950s who turn to an imaginary land in order to empower themselves to escape. Also, dragons and mech and explosions and shit.

But this is more than just your usual thriller. In an action-movie landscape usually bereft of strong, intelligent heroines, Zack Snyder has introduced FIVE women, each more complicated than the last, and none of them afraid of mech or dragons or frostbite or anything, because it’s only in your own imagination that you’re truly free to wear your cheesecakiest outfits and conquer double standards and whatever else ladies are concerned about.

Under the cut, please find a very serious photo essay about the myriad feminist facets of this new masterpiece from director Zack Snyder, his cowriter Steve Shibuya, production designer Rick Carter, and costume designer Michael Wilkinson.

Rebuttal Essay: The Men of Sucker Punch

FEMINISM. You’re welcome, ladies.