Friday, August 9, 2013

The Spectacular Now: The Movie

On Tuesday, the hubs and I attended a special screening of The Spectacular Now complete with a question and answer session with Athens hometown hero, director James Ponsoldt. It was a fabulous evening to say the least! Hubs and I enjoyed our weeknight date immensely. 

The movie poster for The Spectacular Now. 

We started our night by having dinner at The National in downtown Athens, Georgia. This was the first time either of us had been there and it was wonderful! The National is a little fancier than we normally go for (meaning pricey) BUT it was VERY much worth it! Perfect for our pre-Prom dinner! 

AND...The National is right next door to this place...


Cinè hosted the night's event. We'd never been here either but I was impressed. Cinè is an "art house theater" which means they play educational and festival films. It is a great venue. They hosted this event not only to support The Spectacular Now, which was was filmed in Athens and James Ponsoldt, the director, who is from Athens; but they are also raising fund to get digital projectors to use in conjunction with film. (It is a worthy cause if you are interested check the Cinè website for more info!)

Tickets!

Me and the Mister at the Prom Party!

Cheers! Best cream soda ever.


After the movie Q & A with James Ponsoldt (director) on the left.




Me with James Ponsoldt who was kind enough to speak with me after what I'm sure was a LONG day for him. You could tell he was passionate about making GOOD movies and that he was passionate about Athens!


Me & Mister. One of the best date nights ever!

Alli's Thoughts on The Spectacular Now movie: 

I'd listened to all but the every end of the audio book. I always love when good books are made into movies; sometimes I am disappointed and sometimes I am truly surprised. I was very pleased by what I saw. The movie stayed true to the feel of the book and I recognized some of the dialogue as coming straight from the novel. Some things were a little different but there was mad respect paid to the original written work by author Tim Tharp.  

In fact, when I got the chance, I told Mr. Ponsoldt I thought he did a good job of representing the book. He told me that Tim Tharp had been on set and was pleased with the movie. (Which makes me happy, I often wonder what authors think once their words become movies.)

Like I mentioned before, the movie was filmed in Athens which is practically my own hometown. So I was super excited to see sights I easily recognized. It wasn't over done with our "major landmarks" but if you are familiar with the area, you'll know it's Athens in the movie! (Hometown love!)

The movie itself is a magnificent coming of age story. It is rated R and appropriately so. There is some nudity in a tasteful sex scene, lots of cussing and underage drinking. All these things were pulled directly from the book. The movie is based of a Young Adult novel that deals with some very real issues some teens face. The movie did a great job of portraying the teen experience.

Miles Teller plays the main character, Sutter. I was amazed. Teller always reminds me of a young Vince Vaughn, fast-talking and funny. He WAS Sutter. 

I was really surprised by was Shailene Woodley, who played Aimee. I've seen her in Secret Life before so I just didn't know what to expect from her. But she really sold me and I'm excited to see her in her upcoming roles in Divergent and The Fault in Our Stars (also based on YA novels!).

I really enjoyed our whole experience. I totally want to see The Spectacular Now again and I can't wait to add it to our own movie collection. 

The Spectacular Now opens in more cities today. If you check it out let know what you thought about it! 

Friday, August 2, 2013

Guest Post: C.A. Williams

HAPPY FRIDAY EVERYONE!

 Alli's World has the pleasure of hosting a guest post from C.A. Williams. Just take a look at the cover of this book. Isn't it beautiful?! I asked C.A. about how she got into writing and how this book came to be. I enjoyed hearing about her journey and hope you do too! 



From C.A. Williams: 

Hi, so nice to meet you!

Well, I've always been a huge reader since I was very young. I basically always had my nose buried in a book, and then when they came out with e-readers, that was like heaven! I've always had a love for writing, being on the Journalism staff all throughout high-school. So, I wanted to do something with all of the ideas I had stored in my head that were just waiting to get out. I talked to my husband about starting to write books, which I figured he would think I was crazy, but he said go for it. And it all just took off from there. My first book that I released was Chasing Leah. I did pretty much everything on my own for that book, the editing, finding a pre-made cover, and any kind of advertisement to get it out there. I was shocked at how well it did, I was expecting to maybe sell a few and it definitely surpassed that.


I feel like Chaotic is a little bit different from the other books that I've written so far. I came up with the idea when I first found out I was pregnant, and was having all sorts of crazy dreams. I'm not really into writing the paranormal genre, but that one almost ended up having a little touch of it if I had based it on my dreams. After a lot of back and forth, I decided to go the New Adult route which is really what I love writing. The main character is different from a lot of the typical characters out there, she's not a virgin that's waited to date or whatever until she's in college, and she's not naive.  Della has a bit of a chip on her shoulder, and she's not always the nicest, but eventually you get to see her grow.

The main love interest she has in the book wasn't even in the story when I originally started writing it. I was totally going to give her a happily ever after, but I didn't think she was ready for that yet. This is the first book in the Imperfect Perfection series and while I think some readers might not be happy with the ending, which I guess is a little bit of a cliffhanger, sometimes life isn't always perfect and doesn't have a pretty little bow on it.


BLURB:

Synopsis via Goodreads:

Adelaide McGregor was spinning out of control, in a world of pain that no one knew anything about. She put up a front, displaying a picture perfect girl that everyone wanted to be, but no one was truly there for her. Then she was sent away to live near her grandparents due to bad behavior when her mother decided she just didn't want to deal with her any longer. Without a penny to her name and no where else to go, her life was uprooted to North Carolina. Everything seems to be changing for the better with her fresh new start until she meets a guy who flips her world upside down all over again. Sometimes you have to make it through the struggles of imperfection in life for everything to come out as complete perfection, but Della hasn't quite learned that lesson yet.

Imperfection Book One
Released: May 10th 2013
Purchase: Amazon




About the Author
C.A. Williams lives in Michigan and is married to her high school sweetheart. While being a stay at home to her two boys she likes to read and write in between cleaning up messes and being a short order cook. Cori always had a love for books since the time she first started reading and started swapping books with her mom when she got a little older. Her love for reading turned into a love for writing and Cori has enjoyed every second of it. Thanks to all of her readers!



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