Hello world! My name is Jacob. I'm a Communications Solutions Specialist at Indigo, and I'm new to the blogging team. Every once in a while, I'll have an existential crisis and feel the need to share my thoughts with you all. Luckily, all I think about is film and television...

What I have come to realize over many years of reading books and watching movies is that I love adaptations. I'm always intrigued by how the creative forces behind a movie decide to mould a book to serve their medium. While not every adaptation I've watched has been as good as the book that came before it, they've always been interesting. Adapting a novel is a challenging process, but an exciting one! Julie Kagawa is going through that process for the very first time as her highly anticipated Young Adult novel, The Immortal Rules, has just been optioned by production company Palomar Pictures. The announcement was made this morning, and Julie couldn't be more excited! Her reaction, which can be found on her blog, read: "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

While I was coming up with a topic for my first post, a representative at Harlequin TEEN kindly offered me the opportunity to send a few questions over to Julie and to her producer, Joni Sighvatsson regarding the film.

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Indigo Movies/TV Blog (IMB): This is your first novel that’s being given the film treatment. What aspects of the adaptation process are you most excited and nervous about?

Julie: Um, everything?  It's all so very surreal, and I can admit to knowing virtually nothing about the process, so I guess I will learn it as I go.

IMB: Valhalla Rising. Arlington Road. Brothers. K-19: The Widowmaker. The Immortal Rules seems to stand out against your generally adult-oriented filmography. What inspired you to adapt the Young Adult novel?

Joni: I am not driven by any specific genre and will take an interest in all types of material if the subject matter speaks to me. That said catering to a younger audience is something I am quite familiar with.  Being the co-founder of Propaganda films, which churned out innovative music videos to the increasing visual demands of the MTV-generation and one of the lead producers of Beverly Hills 90210, as well as raising a daughter who is now 17 years-old, I can fully appreciate what incredible impact young-adults have on Hollywood. The fact that The Immortal Rules is a young-adult novel was only part of the equation. The novel appealed to me as extremely well written with unique sensibilities and also something that lent itself effortlessly to cinematic adaptation.

IMB: The last decade has seen the release of a number of vampire books and movies. What is it that makes The Immortal Rules stand out against the rest?

Julie: The Immortal Rules takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where a virus has decimated the human race, vampires have taken over, and humans are kept as blood cattle.  I wanted to return vampires to their original roots as monsters and predators, and now they have no need to hide from the human population.  The Immortal Rules is a dark story set in a bleak, dangerous world, which I hope is enough to set it apart from the rest of the vampire genre.

IMB: Not all novels make a successful transition into film. What lessons, if any, have you learned from the success of recent Young Adult adaptations such as Twilight and The Hunger Games?

Joni: Twilight and The Hunger Games both were challenging, but talented filmmakers were up to the task and delivered strong filmic adaptations.  The transfer of literary material to the screen is always a challenge as the mediums are so different. The successes of both movies are both a blessing and a curse. Twilight changed the young-adult genre and showed that there’s a definite interest from audiences. At the same time, every film based on a young-adult novel will be compared to the massive enterprises Summit and Lionsgate have treated us with. The Immortal Rules is not Twilight, and it’s not The Hunger Games either. Julie Kagawa has created something that can stand on its own, and our business model of creating innovative films at reasonable budgets will not change just because we are entering the young-adult game.

IMB: Can you name any movies that directly influenced your written work?

Julie: Underworld is one of my favorite vampire movies; it has that dark, savage undertone that I tried to capture with The Immortal Rules.  (It also has a kick-ass female vamp.)  And though it's not a movie, I have to mention Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  He was the one who made me love vampires and snarky heroines.  In fact, the inspiration for Jackal, an evil yet charismatic vampire, came from a certain trenchcoat wearing, pale-haired, wise-ass vamp with an awesome singing voice.  Jackal doesn't sing, and he is wholly evil, but his personality is a nod to one of the greatest vampires on television.

IMB: Okay, dream cast! If the film were to be shot tomorrow, who would be your pick to play Allison?

Julie: Oh, I'm sooooo bad at this, lol!  Maybe Devon Aoki from Sin City for Allie, Zac Efron for Zeke and either Jude Law or Ryan Gosling for Kanin?  I'm sure I'm missing someone obvious, but like I said, I'm horrible at this.

IMB: The Immortal Rules will be available in bookstores next week. Is there anything you’d like to say to the readers who will be looking forward to the film’s release upon finishing the novel?

Julie: Thank you, first off, for your support in getting the book this far.  I am just as excited as you are, I hope to see The Immortal Rules on the big screen, and I look forward to taking this journey with you.

Joni: Of course, fans are crucial to the success of any film adaptation. Thanks to the Internet, today’s fans are smarter than ever and know exactly what they want. Their expectations must, and will be, met.

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The Immortal Rules is currently available on indigo.ca. Look for it in all Coles, Chapters and Indigo stores.

The Academy Awards have crowned the year’s best in cinema, and a year ago, who would have thought that the Best Picture winner would be a silent, black and white film set in the 1920s?  Amid tough competition from The Help and Hugo, Michel Hazanavicius’ ode to 1920s Hollywood, The Artist, emerged victorious.

A must-see film, The Artist is full of life, humour, and movement, in a tale made incredibly compelling despite the lack of dialogue.  The film also took home the Oscar for Best Director and Best Actor for Jean Dujardin.  Dujardin’s range of emotions plays out entirely on his face and through his gestures, since he doesn’t have the words to tell the audience what is going on.

 But it is of no consequence because you won’t even notice that the dialogue is missing thanks to his and Best Supporting Actress nominee, Bérénice Bejo’s, wonderful performances set to the Oscar-winning musical score.

Another big winner of the night was Martin Scorsese’s Hugo which, like The Artist, pays tribute to the early era of cinema.  Based on Brian Selznick’s beloved children’s book The Adventures of Hugo Cabret, Hugo won Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, and Best Visual Effects, just to name a few of the film’s honours. Melanie and I loved this movie so much when we first saw it, that we wrote this review. 

Hollywood’s leading lady, Meryl Streep, the Academy’s most-nominated performer with a total of 17 acting nominations, took home the statue for Best Actress for her role as former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady. In a field of incredible female performers, Meryl seemed truly shocked when her name was called to accept the award.  Octavia Spencer won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role as the long-suffering maid Minny in The Help, a character which she fully embodied, completely disappearing into the character.

Canada’s own Christopher Plummer received a standing ovation when he was called to collect his much-deserved award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Hal, a man whom in his final years embraces his homosexuality while battling terminal cancer in Beginners.

2011 was a great year for movies, and the award winners of the evening reflect a broad range of genres and stories.  You can find all of this year’s Oscar-nominated films available on DVD and Blu-ray in our Academy Awards Shop.  In addition, you can also see the complete list of previous Best Picture winners dating back to the very first ceremony in 1929.

Check out the complete list of Oscar winners:

• Best Picture: The Artist
• Actor: Jean Dujardin (The Artist)
• Actress: Meryl Streep (The Iron Lady)
• Director:  The Artist (Michel Hazanavicius)
• Supporting Actor: Christopher Plummer (Beginners)
• Supporting Actress: Octavia Spencer (The Help)
• Adapted Screenplay: The Descendants
• Original Screenplay: Midnight in Paris
• Foreign Language Film: A Separation (Iran)
• Animated Feature Film: Rango
• Cinematography: Hugo
• Art Direction: Hugo
• Costume Design: The Artist
• Documentary Feature: Undefeated
• Makeup: The Iron Lady
• Original Score: The Artist
• Original Song: “Man or Muppet” from The Muppets
• Short Film, Animated: The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore
• Short Film, Live Action: The Shore
• Sound Editing: Hugo
• Sound Mixing: Hugo
• Visual Effects: Hugo

When you see a really good film, the emotional experience you felt while the story unfolded on the screen is a hard thing to shake.  Good films stay with you.  You may remember the feeling of your spine-tingling while you watched The Ring, or the tears of joy you felt watching Forrest Gump for the first time.  Nearly six months after first seeing Take Shelter in a darkened theatre during the Toronto International Film Festival, I can still remember every emotion I went through during the course of this tension-filled, anxiety-driven, emotional movie.

At the heart of Take Shelter is a story about mental illness- both a perceived illness and an actual mental disorder.  When Curtis (Michael Shannon) starts having apocalyptic visions, his anxiety and paranoia are laughed at by the local townspeople, who label him as “crazy” and begin to shun him and his erratic actions.  His wife Samantha (Jessica Chastain) is plagued by worry and embarrassment for Curtis’ increasingly troublesome behaviour.  Is he also suffering from the mental illness which overwhelmed his mother, or are his visions of a coming storm a prophetic vision of the future?  Curtis questions his own visions, unsure of what to believe, and struggles whether he needs to shelter his family from impending doom, or from himself.

Throughout the film the crushing weight of Curtis’ visions both on himself, his family, and the consequences of such an event on humanity is represented in every frame of the film.  Tight, closed shots, dark skies, ominous flocks of birds, and the subtle change in wind direction, all weigh in creating a sense of dread.

Winner of several film critics’ awards, including Best Actor and Actress for Michael Shannon and Jessica Chastain (pictured below at the TIFF premiere) from the Vancouver Film Critics Circle and the Toronto Film Critics Association, Take Shelter is a realistic tale of what it is like to be ostracized from your community for your beliefs.  The ever pressing threat of the all encompassing madness in Curtis is expertly acted by Michael Shannon, who performs with such restraint to avoid jumping into full-blown lunatic territory as his character's obsession with building an underground shelter for his family begins to take over every aspect of Curtis' being.

2011 was the year of Jessica Chastain, thanks to her star-making performances in Take Shelter, her Academy Award-nominated role in The Help, Coriolanus, The Debt and Tree of Life.  Here, as the long-suffering wife to Curtis and mother to young children, she paces the screen with worry, both over her husband’s behaviour and insistence that the end of the world is near, and with being a supportive wife and mother who will do whatever is best for her family.

Take Shelter is the rare film that manages to blend aspects of the thriller, family melodrama, and supernatural-based horror film into one succinct and well-executed film that is a welcome addition to any movie collection.  Love movies about catastrophe and the end of times?  Pair Take Shelter with the upcoming Lars von Trier apocalyptic melodrama Melancholia starring Kirsten Dunst, Kiefer Sutherland and Alexander Skarsgard for a white-knuckled double bill.

Check out the trailers for both films below:

2012 marks the 50^th anniversary of the film, To Kill a Mockingbird.  Based on the perennial high school curriculum book by Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird finally gets a much-deserved high definition upgrade on Blu-ray this week.

As part of Universal Studios’ ongoing 100^th Anniversary celebration featuring re-releases of their most notable films, To Kill a Mockingbird is available on DVD, in DVD/Blu-ray combo pack featuring a digital download copy, and in a limited edition special collector’s version which includes a book on the film’s production.  The Blu-ray disc is packed with over 3 hours of bonus materials on the adaptation and production of the film.

The 1962 adaptation of Harper Lee’s Pulitzer prize-winning novel features two children, Scout and Jem Finch, and their lawyer father, Atticus Finch.  Through their forward-thinking father the children learn about the racism and bigotry that infects their rural community.  When the sensational trial of falsely-accused rapist, Tom Robinson, becomes the talk of the town, Atticus finds himself vilified for trying to defend a black man against his white accuser.  Because their father’s strong beliefs go against the community's thinking, the children become a target for the townspeople’s hatred of Atticus’ beliefs.

Winner of three Academy Awards, including Best Actor for Gregory Peck, the film has found its way onto several of the American Film Institute’s (AFI) “best of” lists including earning the top “Hero” slot on the “100 Heroes and Villains” list for Atticus Finch.

There are several fantastic special features included in the Blu-ray edition.  One of the stand-out extras includes A Conversation with Gregory Peck, a feature-length documentary on the actor who answers audience members’s questions during a screening of the film, as well as follows the actor on outings with various family members.  Also included are Gregory Peck’s complete Best Actor Oscar acceptance speech, feature commentary with director Robert Mulligan and producer Alan Pakula, and a special promotional piece from Universal Studios which details the restoration of their classic films as part of their 100^th anniversary celebration.

To Kill a Mockingbird is a timeless classic that is a must-own for film and book-lovers alike.  Check out the special trailer below detailing the restoration of the new Blu-ray edition.