#the astonishing chronicles of Oscar from Elsewhere

[n3rdchi1d]

The children of spindrift!!!! (I purposely left out Victor)

[kanerallels]

I just finished reading this portal fantasy book called "The Astonishing Chronicles of Oscar From Elsewhere" by Jaclyn Moriarty, and the best part-- although the whole book was really good-- was the part where the kid from our world sat all his new friends from the fantasy world down and made them do a group therapy session, thereby accidentally unlocking a magical picnic blanket's abilities

The second best part was probably the one where skateboarding and perfect pitch saved the day

[karathespellbinder]

So. I have this fancy family tree software and I thought I might as well use it, but it was having technical difficulties (or maybe I was the problem?) so here is this super low-quality Mettlestone family tree. Since it's impossible to read, (I just wanted to have a picture in a post for once, lol) I guess just rely on the image description! rip

Basically, I have figured out as best as I can the order of the Mettlestone siblings so I put them in, added their spouses, and added their kids. Oscar isn't in there but like he's an adopted grandkid so that is a bit of an inaccuracy; I'm not sure where he would go though? It was very fun researching the books to find all the ages, though ultimately there was a mostly-in-age-order list in SLV that filled in all the gaps. Before I found that list, I had known that Isabelle, Carrie, and Franny were the three oldest, that Emma and Patrick were at the end, and that Sophy was also a younger child.

kinda crazy they had 12 kids. that's a lot. In case you are wondering, the reason Bronte only had 10 gifts to give but 11 aunts is because Maya & Lisbeth shared a gift!

Also it's really cute that Jacob and Ildi combined their last names to make Mettlestone. Very wholesome.

[rockinlibrarian]

Starting a fresh post because that reblogged content was getting a little long

But @stephsageek tagged me to do this (and you can GO back and read all the reblogged answers here):

Rules: Tag 9 people you want to know better and/or catch up with, then answer the questions below!

Last song: Well, "The Lonely Goatherd" is again stuck in my head since I'm still writing that chapter (I added two more sentences since last time I mentioned it!). I haven't had music on this morning, so the last song I actually listened to was when my clock radio went off, and it was on this eighties r&b ballad I don't know the name of and can't remember the artist, either, but the guy keeps belting out what I think is "find one hundred ways," except my brain always processes it as "five one hundred ways" and I'm always like "why can't he just say five hundred ways like a normal person? Or fifty-one hundred?" and it probably ruins the earnest effect he was going for.

Oh, I guess actually the last song I listened to was that cool stringed instrument I reblogged last.

Three ships: Huh. Five/Viktor is really the biggest I've interacted with lately. And since I am still reading primarily TUA fic the only other (and this time CANONICAL!) ship I'm into there is Lila and Diego (sorry, @stephsageek, I've gone and split up your main ship into two separate ships in response to your own post, oh well!) (I grant you, Five and Lila are my favorite BROTP (ironic turn of phrase there), but that's not what we're talking about. I don't think). So let me cast my nets for whatever are my Biggest Ships of All Time instead, which would be... Howl and Sophie? Yeah, they'd do. You could instead name a property and I'd tell you who (if any) I ship within it. Who else have I written for on AO3? Oh, Melanie and Oliver Bird. Do I ship them or are they just being them (even though that is a flat-out romcom-tagged fic)? The only other non-Gen fic I have there is Tesseract, which will go into the workings of Alex and Kate Murry's marriage a bit quite romantically by my standards, but still isn't really SHIPPING. --I'm not a big shipper, if you couldn't tell, but I DO have ships I care about out there, I promise.

First ever ship: Speaking of the Murrys, Meg and Calvin

Currently Reading: The Astonishing Chronicles of Oscar from Elsewhere, by Jaclyn Moriarty, which has set me off on my how much I just love Jaclyn Moriarty and why don't more people know her raving again. I swear every single character in her books has ADHD and it makes it such a weirdly comfortable world to live in. My kids are like "I KNOW THAT FEELING!" every two paragraphs. She's just so creative and has SUCH a way with chararacters. I'm not fixing that typo, I like it.

Currently watching: I'm actually not sure when the last time I watched ANYTHING was. Not counting videos of cool psychedelic stringed instruments on Tumblr. And cat videos. My son playing Splatoon is what's usually on the TV in the living room, but I wouldn't say I watch all that closely. I just hum along to the music and annoy him.

Currently consuming: Aldi's brand mini wontons mixed with leftover Thai noodles, because why limit oneself to one inauthentic Asian cuisine at a time?

Last movie: again with the What DID I last watch question, which I think means I haven't watched a movie since New Years, the last one of which was STILL (since last I answered the What movie did I last watch question) Arsenic and Old Lace. I got The Music Man out of the library recently because I was quoting "Trouble" at the kids and they didn't know what I was talking about so I have to educate them, but I haven't actually put it ON yet.

Currently craving: Shockingly, not much of anything. Maybe because I just had lunch. Maybe peppermint just to counteract the wontons and Thai noodles.

Tags: do I even know nine people? I don't even know who actually follows me. I'm going to go ahead and tag the last nine people that have interacted with me here, not counting @stephsageek unless she wants to answer all these questions again. @frimframs, @joasakura, @dannypageoflight (that's my brother), @sunnymarbles (that's my youngest kid), @rj-anderson (that's a quite successful author, I don't know why I'm bothering her with this), frimfram and joasakura again, oh, @vovat (that's my friend from college), @e-louise-bates (that's one of my most long-time online friends!), @callmealx (I'm afraid I have NO idea who you are, besides I assume Alx, but that's what this meme thing is supposedly for, after all!) and @rebel-by-default. Is that nine? That's nine. Why hasn't it made Vovat a link? No, none of those suggestions are correct, Tumblr, you fail me.

[look-up-to-the-skies-and-read]

"With teachers, you never know how much education they have."

The Astonishing Chronicles of Oscar from Elsewhere

I love Oscar sm 😭😭 more quotes to come

[accidental-spice]

Thanks for the tag!

Last three films you watched: Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Top Gun: Maverick, and Damsel

Four films on your to-watch list: Pacific Rim (again), Hercules, Risen (again), and Coco

Last three songs/artists you listened to: Walking The Wire by Imagine Dragons, Up All Night by Owl City, and Liar by The Arcadian Wild

Four songs/artists on your to-listen list: Leave Her Johnny by Nathan Evans, Tale of the Shadow by Sail North, Bones by Sail North, and Ceasar by the Oh Hellos

Last three books you read: Fluff With A Side of Treason, by Jenni Sauer, With A Little Luck, by Marissa Meyer, and Kling Klang Gloria by Jenni Sauer

Four books on your TBR: The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown, Cyndere's Midnight by Jeffery Overstreet, The Restorer by Sharon Hinck (again), and The Astonishing Chronicles of Oscar from Elsewhere, by Jaclyn Moriarty (again)

Tagging @misscrazyfangirl321 @trapezequeen @saxifrage-wreath @silverpaintedstars @kazoosandfannypacks @heckin-music-dork @wanderingwolpertinger @dimsilver and anyone else who wants to play!

Thanks for the tag @brekker-by-brekkerr!

Last 3 films you watched: When Harry Met Sally, The Eras Tour film and Argylle.

4 films on your to-watch list: Oppenheimer, The Notebook, Valentines Day and Hidden Figures.

Last 3 songs/artists you listened to: Out Of My League by Fitz and The Tantrums, Little Talks by Of Monsters and Men, and Stolen Dance by Milky Chance.

4 songs/artists on your to-listen list: GUTS, Hippo Campus, Lana Del Rey's latest album and Mitski.

Last 3 books you read: Book Lovers, People We Meet On Vacation and Beach Read, all by Emily Henry.

4 books on your tbr: Funny Story by Emily Henry, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins, and Daisy Jones & The Six + The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, both by Taylor Jenkins Reid.

No pressure tagging @ryder616, @aintinacage, @accidental-spice, @beachesgetpeaches, @redwidow616, @rudikawhy, @gingerpeachtea and @solarisone!

[aion-rsa]

Why the Studio Kept Santa Claus Being in Miracle on 34th Street a Secret

https://ift.tt/3nFyHuv

If you ever sit down to watch 20th Century Fox’s original trailer for Miracle on 34th Street, a few things might appear strange. Right off the bat it’s unique—unprecedented even—to market a new release without any real footage from the film. Other than a few seconds of the movie’s opening titles and an actual shot from the picture’s final seconds, audiences were told nothing about Miracle on 34th Street other than it was “hilarious!” “exciting!” and, dare they say it, “groovy!”

There was of course a reason for this: 20th Century Fox, and more specifically studio head Darryl F. Zanuck, had absolutely no faith in the feel-good holiday movie and didn’t even want the audience to know it was a holiday movie. Zanuck’s insistence that the film open in New York City on June 4 probably added to their skittishness toward the subject matter.

An all-time Christmas movie classic today, Miracle on 34th Street pivots on the marvelous idea that Macy’s shopping mall Santa Claus (Edmund Gwenn) believes he genuinely is Santa—even going by the name Kris Kringle on his identification. And to prove this, he’ll even take the matter to court with the help of a couple of doubting Thomases like his boss, career woman Doris Walker (Maureen O’Hara), and her precocious daughter Susan (Natalie Wood).

An ingenious concept by Valentine Davies, who’d go on to write a book out of his high-concept, and penned for the screen by the film’s director George Seaton, the story enchanted everyone who came across it. Except Zanuck. He didn’t like the concept on the page and was reluctant to greenlight it; and then he liked it even less when he saw Seaton’s cut of the movie.

“[Darryl] Zanuck wasn’t sure it would be a success, so he had it released in June when movie attendance is highest, rather than wait for Christmas,” O’Hara wrote in her memoir ‘Tis Herself. “In fact, the publicity campaign barely talked about Christmas at all.”

Director Seaton’s original pitch was for the film to open in New York City on Thanksgiving, likely in no small part because the movie itself opens during the then quite regionally specific Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. However, Zanuck balked at the idea, believing the film would vanish from theaters quickly.

Some accounts suggest the studio head was knowingly gaming the tiered rollout of theatrical releases in the 1940s—wide releases would not become common until the 1970s—and that Zanuck foresaw the advantage of Miracle on 34th Street playing in major cities during the summer and then trickling down to the smaller and rural parts of the country in the fall. Yet given that Zanuck was reportedly astonished his Christmas movie was doing big business all the way through Christmas, it’s likely he didn’t believe the actual hype his studio plastered in the marketing for the film.

Which brings us back to that trailer. How do you market a Christmas movie where the main character believes he’s Santa without, you know, mentioning Christmas or Santa? The answer was to market a five-minute sketch in which a parody of a studio executive (who seems both as oblivious and ultimately wiser than Zanuck) wanders around the Fox lot hearing studio stars not in Miracle on 34th Street gush about how wonderful it is.

In the trailer, which you can view below, a nondescript boss named Bob rejects Fox’s marketing department for claiming a movie can be both exciting and tender (he insists he doesn’t need to watch it to sell it). However, as he prowls his own studio, he runs into Rex Harrison, the future Professor Higgins himself trying to cut an unconvincing figure as a man’s man. Harrison proclaims, “I never heard laughs like that in the theater before. Don’t miss it… I don’t know if the women will like it, but it’s a great man’s picture!”

Elsewhere, poor Bob bumps into Anne Baxter, who he helpfully reminds audiences just won an Oscar for The Razor’s Edge. After the congratulation though, he’s flummoxed to learn Anne also adored 34th Street but “I don’t know how the men are going to like it [because] it’s a great woman’s picture.”

Finally, the now totally befuddled exec runs into teen star Peggy Ann Garner—just adorably learning to drive—and singer-actor Dick Haymes. Now just what exactly the married with children 30-year-old Haymes is doing in a car with the studio’s teen sensation is never explained. But what is, is that Dick was kept “on the edge of his seat every second” of the film’s last 20 minutes, and that Peggy Ann thought the movie was “really groovy” too.

So Bob finally resigns himself to the fact he needs to watch this sucker, and after he does, he tells us it’s all of those things, and you’ll also love it! Just don’t ask what it’s about!

The secretive marketing campaign carried over to the film’s poster, which put hand drawn portraits of O’Hara and co-star John Payne across 50 percent of the one-sheet, as well as their names above the title. Gwenn’s Kris Kringle, however, is relegated to the background in a brown suit as he hugs young Wood like a dear old grandfather.

Nowhere in any of the marketing are the words “Christmas” or “Santa Claus” even teased. It’s a bizarre gambit for what was so clearly a holiday movie. And yet, it didn’t matter.

Read more

Movies

Why Chronicles of Narnia’s Santa Claus Celebrates Christmas with Weapons of War

By Juliette Harrisson

Movies

Christmas Movies on Disney+ Streaming Guide

By David Crow

When audiences and critics finally saw Miracle on 34th Street for themselves, they were as charmed then as we are more than 70 years later. Gwenn, who’d go on to win an Academy Award for playing Kris, much to Zanuck’s delight (the film also won a screenplay Oscar), instantly became iconic with the kind twinkle in his eye and entirely earnest depiction of a Santa Claus who walks among us. Genuinely, there may be little as endearingly cheerful as watching Gwenn’s St. Nick sing Christmas carols in Dutch with an orphaned immigrant.

Wood’s still convincingly natural performance as the skeptical child who’s made a true believer also made her the child actor of her age and launched her on to a movie star career..

Miracle on 34th Street remains one of the shinier highlights of the Christmas movie canon, and the rare example of a film changing the holiday season itself. Indeed, it was the movie’s actual footage of Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, breathlessly filmed over a few hours during the real 1946 event, that turned the local tradition into a national celebration that would soon be televised from coast-to-coast in the next decade on a newfangled technology called television.

Not bad for a film the studio was afraid to show even one red cap or white whisker of in its ad campaign.

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The post Why the Studio Kept Santa Claus Being in Miracle on 34th Street a Secret appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[theobviousparadox]

Review: The Astonishing Chronicles of Oscar from Elsewhere by Jaclyn Moriarty

Review: The Astonishing Chronicles of Oscar from Elsewhere by Jaclyn Moriarty

The Astonishing Chronicles of Oscar From ElsewhereJaclyn MoriartyAllen & UnwinPublished November 1, 2022 Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads About The Astonishing Chronicles of Oscar from Elsewhere Let me get this straight. I’m on a trip with the following people:1) Bronte, a girl who makes magical ‘Spellbinding’ rings,2) Alejandro, a former pirate/current prince who can shoot arrows and make fire…

[mainsmid]

The books of elsewhere

Rodney, The Hole Story and Littlelight have all been Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) Notable books for Picture book of the year. Kelly Canby is an award-winning, internationally published, illustrator and author of over two dozen books for children. Kelly was born in London, England, but has lived in Australia since the age of three, which is probably around the same age she started playing with pencils and crayons, and it was probably only a few years after that that she decided playing with pencils and crayons was something she wanted to do for the rest of her life.Kelly’s second picture book The Hole Story won the prestigious 2018 Western Australian Premier’s Book Award for Writing for Children, while Littlelight was shortlisted for the same award in 2019. She wants to know exactly what Oscar considered more important than coming to school last week.)From the award-winning Jaclyn Moriarty comes an enchanting tale of cryptic challenges, breathtaking danger and 360 kick flips. (The account, it should be noted, has been written at the request of a small public school's Deputy Principal. Friday at noon, the spell would become permanent, the Elves would be crushed to death and Oscar would be trapped in this magical world forever. That's when Oscar found himself on a quest to locate nine separate pieces of a key, held by nine separate people, in order to unlock a gluggy silver spell that had trapped the Elven city of Dun-sorey-lo-vay-lo-hey. The Astonishing Chronicles of Oscar from Elsewhere is the account of Monday through Friday of last week. Recommended for ages 10+.The magical fourth book in the rich and whimsical world of the Kingdoms and Empires about a non-magical boy called Oscar who finds himself caught up in a surprisingly urgent quest in an even more surprising world.

[n3rdchi1d]

Oscar from elsewhere!!! 🛹🪞

(He is one of my favourite characters ever)

@karathespellbinder

[karathespellbinder]

"We covered the boy with a blanket and Astrid set his plank of wood (the one with the wheels) alongside him, tenderly tucking that in too. It had seemed special to him"

Yes, they just tucked a skateboard into bed. I laughed so hard. In their defense, they had never seen one before lol

pg. 24 of The Astonishing Chronicles of Oscar from Elsewhere by Jaclyn Moriarty

[karathespellbinder]

audiobook fangirling

The narrator for Oscar's chapters is Australian. Just like Oscar. I am so happy rn.

The Astonishing Chronicles of Oscar from Elsewhere by Jaclyn Moriarty

[karathespellbinder]

It’s pretty cool that magic works without the threads now. Kinda like how money used to have actual worth when it was gold coins but now we trust paper to certify wealth or whatever money is?

Bronte says that mages somehow learned how to do the spells without the actual thread—though they can see the thread in their minds!

I also think the thread itself only has powers if a mage with matching speciality uses it. Like a True Mage could never use Shadow Thread to do any kind of magic, because shadow thread can only do shadow magic and only if a Shadow Mage is using it.

[karathespellbinder]

book title abbreviations

I think the abbreviations are funny. Also kind of useful?

EIABM or tEIAoBM- The Extremely Inconvenient Adventures of Bronte Mettlestone

SAWW or tSAtotWW (American title is tWW) - The Slightly Alarming Tale of the Whispering Wars

SPC or tSPoC- The Stolen Prince of Cloudburst

ACOE or tACoOfE - The Astonishing Chronicles of Oscar from Elsewhere

ISLV or tISoLV (American title is tSoLV or SLV) - The Impossible Secret of Lillian Velvet

[karathespellbinder]

Guide to the thread magic of the Kingdoms and Empires series by Jaclyn Moriarty

Colors of thread: | Name of thread/magic:

red and black | shadow thread/magic, dark magic

green and gold | binding thread, spellbinding

blue and silver | bright thread/magic, true magic

[karathespellbinder]

in praise of worldbuilding

Sterling silver foxes. That’s all.