Here’s a mashup of this year’s best viral videos, as edited by Videogum. Enjoy! Laugh along with me
Author: Simon Page 1 of 15
We’ve gone and bought some K-Pop for our YA music collection (as promised). This is what we have so far;
Alive, BIGBANG
The Second Mini Album, 2NE1
The Boys, Girls’ Generation
Wonder Party, Wonder Girls
Mr Simple, Super Junior
Sherlock, SHINee
All are packaged in amazing cases that aren’t really designed for library shelves (or being handled, to be honest!) so currently they’re kept at the Children’s/YA desk at Central. Just ask, or reserve them! In the meantime here’s the latest teaser from SHINee.
Here are some songs by a few Korean bands. Korean pop is called K-pop! (Also Japanese pop is called J-pop!) It is marked by catchy songs, incredible dancing, and hyper-fashion.
Do you like it? Should the library buy some of their CDs for the teen section? Thanks for your comments below (or on our Facebook page)!
This first group is Super Junior, and the song is called Sexy, Free, and Single. It was only released a week or so ago, so is very new and fresh. Super Junior has about nine or ten members! (I can’t count higher than six.) If you like it you will probably love their older song, Mr. Simple.
Aaand the next track is by SHINee. It is called Lucifer and you know what, it has the best dancing ever. Prove me wrong! It’s a couple of years old, though, but they’ve a newer song, Sherlock, which is also comes highly recommended (by me and some other people).
Another new song is No Mercy, by B.A.P. Click to watch! They are also a (large) boyband with great hair. I don’t know if I like this song as much as the others. Thoughts?
Finally! Here’s AAA’s No Cry No More. It is J-pop, okay.
So don’t forget to comment here or on our Facebook if you have any suggestions.
The Wild are an Auckland alternative hip-hop group. They have not released an album yet! But they have released an incredibly awesome single, Revolution, which may be purchased on iTunes for like, $2 or something? Small change, whatever it is. It came out last year, believe it or not, but because I am old and out-of-touch I have only just discovered it. Anyway, I have embedded the video (for there is a video) below. In fact, their Youtube channel has a lot of decent content. So subscribe to it! Okay!
Here are some new books! We provide so many ideas for things to read it is just ridiculous. Ridonkulous.
Belle’s Song, by K. M. Grant (298 pages) – Belle’s father can not walk thanks to an accident that she was responsible for. It is the 14th century so it is kind of important that he be mobile! So she heads to Canterbury with Chaucer (YES THAT CHAUCER) and handsome squire, Walter, in the hope that the pilgrimage has a miraculous outcome. However Belle is being blackmailed and Chaucer is up to his neck in politics and politics back then could be torturous, if you know what I mean. Hard times!
First lines: ‘Tragedy and opportunity, conspiracies and compulsions. And love. Unexpected love.‘
Wherever You Go, by Heather Davis (309 pages) – Holly’s boyfriend Rob died in an accident, and she has to spend most of her time caring for her sister and her grandfather, who has Alzheimer’s. Her late boyfriend’s best friend, Jason, steps in to help, and her grandfather says he is communicating with Rob’s ghost (who is in fact narrating the story from beyond the grave), meaning Holly has some tough and unexpected decisions to make.
First lines: ‘You’ve been by her side for six months, but she hasn’t noticed you.‘
Legend, by Marie Lu (295 pages) – The USA is now at war with itself; the Republic on one side, and the Colonies on the other. In this dystopian future some kids – one rich, the other not at all! – join together to fight against the injustice that authority has become. Nonstop action, a little romance, the ‘characters are likeable, the plot moves at a good pace, and the adventure is solid’, writes the Library Journal. The first in a series, and written about by us previously here (+ book trailer).
First lines: ‘My mother thinks I’m dead. Obviously I’m not dead, but it’s safer for her to think so.‘
Clockwork Prince : The Infernal Devices Book 2, by Cassandra Clare (502 pages) – Because this is the second book in the second series and I haven’t read any of it, here is the synopsis from the catalogue. Okay! ‘As the Council attempts to strip Charlotte of her power, sixteen-year-old orphaned shapechanger, Tessa Gray works with the London Shadowhunters to find the Magister and destroy his clockwork army, learning the secret of her own identity while investigating his past.’
First lines: ‘The fog was thick, muffling sound and sight. Where it parted, Will Herondale could see the street rising ahead of him, slick and wet and black with rain, and he could hear the voices of the dead.’
Dearly Departed, by Lia Habel (451 pages) – Nora Dearly encounters a ‘crack unit’ of teen zombies. They are the good guys! The bad guys are monsters hoping to boost their evil, foetid ranks. Nora begins to fall for one of the good zombies, Bram, who is ‘surprisingly attractive.’ Not sure if the good guys are decomposing or if they’re somehow frozen in a freshly dead state? Is that still gross? The cover depicts them as a little pale but I can’t see any bones or exposed muscle. Still you have to consider these things. Though not too closely!
First lines: ‘I was buried alive. When the elevator groaned to a stop in the middle of the rocky shaft, I knew that I was buried alive.’
Wildefire, by Karsten Knight (392 pages) – Ashline Wilde is having it harsh at her school – her boyfriend cheated on her and her runaway sister, Eve, has returned to cause trouble. So Ashline starts at a new, private school in California, hoping for a fresh beginning. Buuuuut, Ashline discovers that a group of gods and goddesses have all been summoned to this one particular place. And she is one of them! Soon a war between the gods threatens sunny Blackwood Academy. Don’t know about you but that sounds like just another day for me.
First line: ‘Ashline Wilde was a human mood ring.‘
That’s about it for now! Check back later in the week for some more.
If you tell What do you love? what you love, it will come back with a whole page of different links, tools, pictures, and whatever else Google can find. Cats? Joe Jonas? Sleeping? Those frozen croissants you can get that you bake for 15 minutes and then eat? Just type it in and brrrrrrrowwwwse
Tuesday trailers! Like Hollywood but at home via your public library. And only for a few minutes.
Firstly here is some good (?) news – Fraggle Rock is to be turned into a movie! “Get your cares away!” “The trashheap has spoken!” That’s what you will be saying in a few years, probably.
A new trailer is out for for Mission : Impossible – Ghost Protocol, which seems to have action oozing from every pore.
The Lorax is a film based on the Dr. Suess book (for children, obviously). Until we saw the trailer we didn’t have much hope for this film here at Teen Blog Laboratories, but it actually seems very funny! And nice to look at. And that’s what you want in a film.
Here’s a new featurette for the Twilight Saga : Breaking Dawn. Talking about the wedding or something?
And finally ParaNorman, about a boy who sees dead things? I am not sure what is going on! It is a teaser trailer.
-~~ T H E E N D ~~-
Hey, recently we left a box out in Central for people to recommend to us some new manga titles. They are very popular! We received LOTS of suggestions and if you were one of the people who filled in one of the forms (thanks heaps!) you will be pleased to learn that we have purchased some of the suggested titles. These are some of the new titles that you can already reserve (the links go only to the first volume, so to reserve the others do a title search);
Fairy Tale (vols 1-5) – Teenage wizards! Dragons! One of the best shōnen manga in Japan – as decided by Japan!
Pandora Hearts (vols 1-5) – Published by Square Enix, the studio behind the Final Fantasy series in all its forms. Publishers Weekly say, ‘A sharp eye can find many literary references in this exciting fantasy manga. Oz, the main character, is turning 15 and is all set to be part of a ceremony, only to be dragged into a hellish place called the Abyss, for reasons he doesn’t know. Previously, he was a rambunctious rich boy who didn’t treat his servants well, but the Abyss is supposed to only take the worst of the worst. In this dark and disturbing world he meets a girl named Alice, whom he may or may not be able to trust, but who might be the only way out.’
Blue Exorcist (vol 1-3) – ‘Raised by Father Fujimoto, a famous exorcist, Rin Okumura never knew his real father. One day a fateful argument with Father Fujimoto forces Rin to face a terrible truth – the blood of the demon lord Satan runs in Rin’s veins! Rin swears to defeat Satan, but doing that means entering the mysterious True Cross Academy and becoming an exorcist himself.’ – Catalogue summary.
So that’s a few we’re getting! In addition to more volumes of Bakugan, Dragon Ball Z, and Black Butler. Quite a few people wanted us to get that last one, but we already have the first four volumes! Unfortunately it is often out. But we’re getting more for you.
Imagine a .pdf titled ‘Neil Gaiman Recommends Scary Books to Give Readers This Halloween’. Imagine no longer! For it is a reality.
Did you like my trick/treat? (The trick is that the .pdf is really, really big.)
Anyway, read the rest of the All Hallow’s Read before … it’s TOO LATE
Tuesday already? Man, it feels like the last Trailer Tuesday was only yesterday.
The first trailer is for a game that you either don’t care about or are champing at the bit to play. Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm is the game! It is massively popular. Playing the first Starcraft competitively is a major sport in South Korea, interestingly. ~0Oo~ The More You Know ~oOo~
This game won’t be out until next year sometime.
Here’s a trailer for a film called Chronicle, due out early next year. It looks great! Sort of like Akira, I thought, although a lot of others say it’s like Misfits. I say both!
The trailer now has like 4.5 million views – when I saw it on the weekend it had only a few hundred, so it seems interest is running high. I can not wait to see it!
Don’t forget to watch the second trailer for The Adventures of Tintin. Watch it here in HD and be BLOWN AWAY. Even though it’s not out until just before Christmas here, it has already earnt some very good reviews.
Aaaand did you know that early next year Star Wars 1 : The Phantom Menace is to be re-released early next year in 3D? Each film in the series will be released annually thereafter, in 3D. Not sure if they will be re-edited (maybe get rid of Jar-Jar, or that weird robot waitress in that cafe in the third one, do you remember that? Eeesh) but probably.
~ Le Fin ~
I just feel sorry for whoever has to repair that windowsill 🙁
As keen users of the internet you may already know this! But! In case you didn’t, and you know someone who downloads lots of movies, music, and television shows, then read this:
From the first of September the Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Act 2011 becomes law, meaning that if you’re caught downloading copyrighted material from dodgy places you – or whoever owns your internet connection – could get in a lot of trouble. The new law makes it easier for the copyright holders to get you, basically; you get two warnings, and then, if you’re caught again, you get fined (up to $15,000). Although it begins at the beginning of next month, any alleged infringements made 21 days before then can (and probably will!) be considered a mark against you. This means that any filesharing from the 11th of August will count. That is tomorrow!
Here are some handy links. Do tell people, since any kind of illegal downloading will endanger whoever pays for the internet connection used.
The Act in its entirety
3StrikesNZ
Wikipedia
Stuff news article about the Act
NZGamer article about the Act
There are SO MANY movie trailers out. It is exciting! An exciting time to be into film!
First, and it’s a week old I know, is Tintin, which needs no introduction. Watch it here at the official site!
What? The? Heck? A Glee movie. In 3D, too.
Brian Selznick’s The Invention of Hugo Cabret has been made into a film. It is a kid’s book, sure, but I am certain that it can be enjoyed by all ages. Like Harry Potter, or Lego. Here is the trailer.
Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote the original Tarzan stories. A hundred years ago! That is how old Tarzan is. Burroughs also wrote about John Carter, a man from Earth who ends up on Mars, where he saves the planet’s inhabitants (we don’t seem to have any of the books, sadly). And now a film has been made! Here is the first trailer.
Sherlock Holmes 2: A Game of Shadows now has a trailer. I enjoyed the first Holmes film quite considerably! It was silly, silly, fun, and we all need a little silly fun now and then (FACT!)
There’s still one more trailer! It is for the new Batman film, The Dark Knight Rises. Go here to watch it (some trailers just don’t want to be embedded!). It’s only a teaser, so don’t expect too much. Because really it’s just a man in a hospital bed talking.
~ Le Fin ~
What is Pottermore.com? I do not know. I heard a rumour it had something to do with cellphones, but I forget my source. The Guardian has some theories also. Obviously it is Harry Potter-related, somehow. An online game? What do you think it might be? Comment below and if you’re right (what it actually is will be announced on Thursday/Friday) then we will somehow highlight your prescience. A prize for the ages!
UPDATE: Well now we know what Pottermore is! Kind of! Some sort of e-book shop/fan site I think. Sian got it right, pretty much, in the comments. AWESOME.
Here are the first photos from the Hobbit film, btw. Have you seen any of the actors around the city? I tend to come across them in supermarkets.
So! Here are some film trailers. And a book trailer.
The final Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt2 trailer is out! (We have the first part at the library, in case you can’t remember it? There was a lot of marching about in a forest?) Go Mrs Weasley!
Attack the Block. We love this trailer. Hope you like it too.
Katie Alender’s book, Bad Girls Don’t Die, has a sequel coming out soon. It is titled From Bad to Cursed, and here is its spooky trailer.
The Muppets official trailer!
Tuesday means trailers! The first is a good one. You will tear up! Awww. It is called Chimpanzee, and is due out next year. You can watch it after watching the Rise of the Planet of the Apes, and be all, “eh, apes aren’t all bad.”
The video for Lady Gaga’s newest single, Judas, is due out on the 5th (in the US, so the 6th here?). There is no trailer for it yet, as is so often the case, but she tweeted an image this morning. Sort of a trailer picture? Cast your eyes over it here!
Parodies/mashups of classic novels are all the rage these days, what with Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, or Sense and Sensibilities and Sea Monsters. The latest – The Meowmorphosis – is a mix of Kafka’s Metamorphosis and adorable kitties. If anything, hopefully, it will get people reading more Kafka, whose cheery books are guaranteed to lighten your day.
Sometimes people make their own trailers for things that don’t really exist. Like the romantic comedy version of The Shining, for instance. Very funny! Here’s one that is very new, and very sweet. When Kurt Met Blaine is sort of a Glee version of When Harry Met Sally (an old romantic classic). Oh also, SPOILER ALERT.
Also! Here’s the newest trailer for Immortals, which looks pretty good, right? It’s based on the classic story of Theseus, which can be obtained from your local library.
We’ve started a new YA CD collection devoted to the voice, and mostly the human voice in harmony. I’d recommend these CDs to anyone who’s enjoyed Glee (The Warblers, especially!) or has listened to (and enjoyed) your local college’s barber shop quartet.
An American programme called The Sing Off has just been renewed for its third season and has seen a resurgence in interest in ‘a cappella’ singing, which Wikipedia describes as ‘solo or group vocal or singing without instrumental sound.’ Watch a clip from Nota, the winners of the 2009 Sing Off competition here.
Here are some of the CDs in the a cappella collection!
The Sing Off : The Best of Season 2
Nota, by Nota
The Sing Off : Harmonies for the Holidays
With a Twist, by Straight No Chaser
University A Cappalla!, by Ben Folds
Slow LorisIt is Tuesday! Here is a trailer!
Plague is the fourth book in Michael Grant’s Gone series. The first books, Gone, Lies, and Hunger, tell the bleak yet thrilling! story of a world where everyone over the age of 14 disappear, and the kids remaining develop supernatural powers. This is one of the best trailers I have seen! Do watch!
Hey! Did you know there is a new version of ThunderCats coming out on telly? Did you even know there was an old version? Back in the 80s the original ThunderCats screened on What Now, but people complained about the violence and it was taken off air. How times change. Here’s the trailer.
That’s it for Trailer Tuesday. END
Yes. The Lost Thing has won an Oscar for best animated short. We have the film on DVD should you want to watch it, and we also have the book.
You can watch the trailer here and look! an official website.
