"Now we will tesser, we will wrinkle again. Do you understand?" "(sigh) Ok. I get it!"
January 15, 2011 12:17 PM   Subscribe

 
That was unexpectedly hilarious. Some of those kids have a really good sense of comedic timing.
posted by lilac girl at 12:30 PM on January 15, 2011


I remember being somewhat traumatized by that book.
posted by JHarris at 12:33 PM on January 15, 2011


"Whatever, robot."
posted by Judith Butlerian Jihad at 12:36 PM on January 15, 2011 [12 favorites]


I was really impressed by those kids' acting. This was awesome.
posted by six-or-six-thirty at 12:41 PM on January 15, 2011


"You see this string, and this insect..."

"Okay, I get"
posted by justkevin at 12:43 PM on January 15, 2011 [9 favorites]


That was unexpectedly hilarious.

That's exactly how I was going to describe it in the post, but a little mystery is nice.

I'm kind of bummed they didn't work in a crack about Mrs. Murray perched on forlorn and distant on her stool in her cold lab and making bunsen burner stew, but Mr. Murray's one-liner is awesome.
posted by loquacious at 12:44 PM on January 15, 2011


It's like those MTV Max Fisher plays!
posted by Bigfoot Mandala at 12:44 PM on January 15, 2011


That was great. This is the kind of thing I expect to do with my kids one day.
posted by spiderskull at 12:46 PM on January 15, 2011 [1 favorite]


"what about the power of love?"

oh this is a delight.
posted by The Whelk at 12:48 PM on January 15, 2011


Great kids, great video.
posted by jiawen at 12:59 PM on January 15, 2011


I wonder whose parents the adults are. I think they're awesome for doing this with their kids.
posted by ocherdraco at 1:01 PM on January 15, 2011


Was that a rolled-up jumprope in a jar?
posted by Gator at 1:01 PM on January 15, 2011


"I'm not going to solve any of your problems."

Okay, this was utterly charming. Thanks for posting!
posted by hippybear at 1:08 PM on January 15, 2011 [2 favorites]


I love that book. This video, however, was a complete abomination.
posted by PuppyCat at 1:08 PM on January 15, 2011 [3 favorites]


These kids are better than Amy Chua's kids.
posted by escabeche at 1:09 PM on January 15, 2011 [34 favorites]


I never thought of the Murrys and Calvin O'Keefe as children, ever, so it's a bit weird to be reminded that they are.
posted by infinitewindow at 1:16 PM on January 15, 2011


Metafilter: I'm not going to solve any of your problems.
posted by honeydew at 1:17 PM on January 15, 2011 [3 favorites]


PuppyCat needs a hug.

Thanks, loq, this was awesome.
posted by pineapple at 1:21 PM on January 15, 2011


Awesome. Do it again. But this time, with bunnies.
posted by scalefree at 1:24 PM on January 15, 2011 [1 favorite]


Totally fab. I lol'd.
posted by kimdog at 1:27 PM on January 15, 2011


Those same kids should do the entire Dark Tower series in 90 seconds. Somebody get my agent on the phone.
posted by digitalprimate at 1:28 PM on January 15, 2011 [1 favorite]


This totally makes me want to read the book again. Although I remember liking A Wind in the Door better.
posted by neushoorn at 1:29 PM on January 15, 2011 [3 favorites]


Alright, that was pretty funny.
Wasn't there a weird sequel where someone rode a unicorn through time to stop a some dictator from being a jerk?
posted by Uppity Pigeon #2 at 1:47 PM on January 15, 2011 [1 favorite]


a complete abomination... of cool
posted by edgeways at 1:53 PM on January 15, 2011


I love this video. That book, however, was a complete abomination.
posted by disillusioned at 2:00 PM on January 15, 2011 [1 favorite]


If there's one thing I really loathe, despise, and abominate, it's unnecessarily extreme reactions to things.
posted by hermitosis at 2:07 PM on January 15, 2011 [12 favorites]


I love that book. This video, however, was a complete abomination.

But in an awesome way.
posted by dubitable at 2:24 PM on January 15, 2011


That's awesome. I loved WiT as a kid (but was confused and saddened by the sequels). Then I read it again as an adult to my kids and realized there's only one really good "part": the interactions with IT. The rest is so (transparently) hyper-religious it's amazing. (And it's also amazing that I didn't consider it religious at all as a kid. Really says something about how ultra-mega-hyper-religious my childhood must have been.)
posted by DU at 2:26 PM on January 15, 2011


Wasn't there a weird sequel where someone rode a unicorn through time to stop a some dictator from being a jerk?

That was the third book, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, and that someone was teenage Charles Wallace.
posted by dubitable at 2:26 PM on January 15, 2011 [2 favorites]


This was wonderful. My only quibble is that I wish Calvin had also identified himself as a sport.
posted by theBigRedKittyPurrs at 2:29 PM on January 15, 2011 [1 favorite]


I mostly remember the sequel where Sandy and Dennys meet Noah

That would be Many Waters, the fourth book in the series that begins with A Wrinkle In Time. There are also other books about Meg and Calvin's children, particularly their daughter Polyhymnia (Polly). Madeleine L'Engle was pretty much my favorite author as a shy, moody, bookish teen.
posted by booksherpa at 2:41 PM on January 15, 2011


These kids are better than Amy Chua's kids.

At this sort of stuff especially since she doesn't let them do drama.

They could work on the soundtrack, I suppose.
posted by Joey Michaels at 3:04 PM on January 15, 2011


Loved it. The "Mrs. Who" kid reminds me of Marlys.

I re-read A Swiftly Tilting Planet in the bathtub not long ago -- it's a short and tiresome read. I adored it and clung to it as a kid, but it's so ham-fisted and innocently racist now.
posted by Countess Elena at 3:11 PM on January 15, 2011


fantastic! I looooooooved those books soooo much as a kid (a nerdy be-spectacled girl at that) this makes me want to read them again :)
posted by supermedusa at 3:15 PM on January 15, 2011


That was unexpectedly awesome. And yes, those kids have better comic timing than most adults!

WiT scared me as a kid. I think it's because I read it about the time we visited some modern-era Catholic church with the back of the altar painted up with hundreds of birds' wings and eyes. Which I imagined IT to be, I guess.
posted by notsnot at 3:21 PM on January 15, 2011


No. No no no no no. Meg is brunette and wears glasses, critically. Charles Wallace is plumper and sturdier and very very solemn. Mother is a scientist, not a soccer mom. No.
posted by thinkpiece at 3:22 PM on January 15, 2011 [5 favorites]


They could work on the soundtrack, I suppose.

And come up with something better than "Telstar?" Not if they had a dozen tiger mommies.
posted by Iridic at 3:23 PM on January 15, 2011 [2 favorites]


I suggest a video for the 1980s surrealistic masterpiece, Sideways Stories from Wayside School.
posted by iamck at 3:32 PM on January 15, 2011 [9 favorites]


These kids need to do Ender's Game!
posted by kneecapped at 3:32 PM on January 15, 2011 [2 favorites]


Buggers!
(missed that)
posted by kneecapped at 3:34 PM on January 15, 2011


Good lord, that's just great. Mrs. Benson and I are re-reading the books right now (WiT is on Kindle. For some reason Wind in the Door is not) and LOVING THEM.

We're gonna do The Trumpeter of Krakow for our 90-second Newberry.
posted by elmer benson at 5:02 PM on January 15, 2011


Also, awesome credits sequence.
posted by elmer benson at 5:04 PM on January 15, 2011


Those same kids should do the entire Dark Tower series in 90 seconds. Somebody get my agent on the phone.

The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.

Roland reached The Dark Tower and entered the door marked ROLAND.

Ka.

Stephen King suggests not reading any further.

The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.
posted by crossoverman at 5:06 PM on January 15, 2011 [4 favorites]


Looking forward to Ulysses.
posted by gallois at 5:13 PM on January 15, 2011 [1 favorite]


Camazotz Boy's dancing during the end credits was fantastic.
posted by sklero at 5:31 PM on January 15, 2011


As someone who actually worked on the film version of The Dark Is Rising, I can assure you all that this charming video Loq linked is nowhere near the level of a true filmic YA-adaptation abomination.

Yes. It was a paycheck. Also the Golden Compass one. Who the hell thought they were getting a trilogy out of that? "And then we'll do the one with the particle physics and the wheeled giraffes and the ex-nun teaching kids about sex! It's the next Harry Potter franchise!"
posted by fairytale of los angeles at 5:46 PM on January 15, 2011 [11 favorites]


I like how in 1962 the Newberry winner was science fiction, and the next year it was ultra-realist It's Like This, Cat.
posted by infinitewindow at 5:49 PM on January 15, 2011


WiT scared me as a kid. I think it's because I read it about the time we visited some modern-era Catholic church with the back of the altar painted up with hundreds of birds' wings and eyes. Which I imagined IT to be, I guess.

That's just Proginoskes. He won't hurt you.
posted by fairytale of los angeles at 6:04 PM on January 15, 2011


As someone who actually worked on the film version of The Dark Is Rising,

Oh god, really? I'm so sorry. I remember shrieking in horror just from seeing the trailer. It remains one of my favorite books (series) from my kidhood.
posted by rtha at 6:18 PM on January 15, 2011


That was the third book, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, and that someone was teenage Charles Wallace.

I just read the Wikipedia article, which means it's the first time in my life that I even remotely understood the plot. I read the book repeatedly as a kid and never had a clue what happened at the end.
posted by nev at 6:56 PM on January 15, 2011 [1 favorite]


Nev, I had to reread A Swiftly Tilting Planet a number of times before I found it understandable or even enjoyable, and I love L'Engle's work. I think it was early adulthood before I didn't find it a slog.
posted by booksherpa at 7:14 PM on January 15, 2011


Nev, I had to reread A Swiftly Tilting Planet a number of times before I found it understandable or even enjoyable, and I love L'Engle's work. I think it was early adulthood before I didn't find it a slog.

What? What?! I've reread it every four years or so since I was eleven and it's all crystal clear and awesome!!

. . . actually, I just tried to type up a summary, and it didn't make very much sense at all. But . . . kything! The birth of a unicorn! Ananda! Gaudior! Matthew Maddox and Madoc and Mad-dog Branzillo and Mama O'keefe! And stormy attics! SO good!

Nitpicks for this link: Calvin is a redhead (a sport! in two ways! Because his family sucks and is stupid!) and tall and Meg has unkempt hair and glasses and is none of the beauty she'll grow into though she stupidly eventually fails to become a brilliant scientist because she was intimidated by her mom and doesn't want to make Poly feel bad about herself, which is lame, but I guess irrelevant. Charles Wallace should really look about three, since he's six but repeatedly cited as being small for his age. And Calvin is already in high school and Meg needs to be awkwardly fourteen, and not pretty and blonde and ten. Still, these kids are adorable.

I just realized that this series was probably my Harry Potter, even if the last book was terrrrrible. Too bad L'Engle never saw fit to tell us what happened to Charles Wallace.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 7:52 PM on January 15, 2011 [2 favorites]


I think he joined the FBI and changed his name to Dr. Spencer Reid. Everything else is an elaborate cover story.
posted by fairytale of los angeles at 8:02 PM on January 15, 2011 [3 favorites]


Related: An Open Letter to Madeleine L'Engle
posted by naoko at 8:14 PM on January 15, 2011 [3 favorites]


(Hmm. Think I might have figured out why an accurate depiction of Meg is so important to me.)
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 8:19 PM on January 15, 2011


Madeline L'Engle was my hero and a huuuge influence me, I read and re-read everything she wrote.

This was hilarious and charming and smart, even if these kids don't *quite* look their parts.
posted by desuetude at 8:37 PM on January 15, 2011 [1 favorite]


...Kramer?!
posted by threeants at 8:40 PM on January 15, 2011


You guys are a TOUGH crowd - that was awesome. (And Arm of the Starfish FTW).
posted by armacy at 10:37 PM on January 15, 2011


Loved this. And although the kids look wrong for the parts they're playing, who cares? These kids read the book and understood it and loved it enough to make a video about it. What were they supposed to do, call a casting agency?
posted by harriet vane at 10:47 PM on January 15, 2011


that was awesome. (And Arm of the Starfish FTW).

Agreed. L'Engle was pretty damn amazing. Criticize her for proselytizing, but "lesbians are people too" was a pretty groundbreaking lesson for a YA writer in, what, the '70s? And this video had a spunky cast and sharp writing. (As opposed to the TV version with Alfre Woodard and a whole host of crazy going on.)

I read it about the time we visited some modern-era Catholic church with the back of the altar painted up with hundreds of birds' wings and eyes. Which I imagined IT to be, I guess.

Well, that's silly. IT was a brain. The angels were the big ol' eye/wing agglomerations.
posted by kittyprecious at 12:06 AM on January 16, 2011


Under the current copyright regime A Wrinkle in Time will pass into the public domain in 2057, according to this chart and this 1990 renewal record. (I was curious because if she, or whatever corporate entity owns the copyright, had forgotten to renew for just another two years it would be in the public domain right now.)
posted by XMLicious at 12:32 AM on January 16, 2011


(Hmm. Think I might have figured out why an accurate depiction of Meg is so important to me.)

Good news is Hope Larson agrees. Graphic novel version of AWIT due late 2012.
posted by dw at 12:50 AM on January 16, 2011 [1 favorite]


No. No no no no no. Meg is brunette and wears glasses, critically. Charles Wallace is plumper and sturdier and very very solemn. Mother is a scientist, not a soccer mom. No.

Yeah, my family's not perfect either
posted by the noob at 1:29 AM on January 16, 2011


These kids are just too sharp for L'Engle. I want to see them take on The Hunger Games or The White Mountains next.
posted by happyroach at 2:07 AM on January 16, 2011


I sort of instinctively knew not to go bck and re-read those books as an adult. I don't think I had the ritical faculties to take the piss out of something the way the kids in this video do at that age. But my family treated sarcasm like swearing so I had to grow into it late.
posted by Space Coyote at 3:00 AM on January 16, 2011


You know what is really cool? That video production is now cheap and portable enough that kids can make movies like this in their own front yards. All things considered there's some fairly sophisticated cinematography going on in here: they clearly thought about how they were framing their shots, blocking scenes with lots of actors, lighting for effects, editing for comedic timing... some of the students in my university film program didn't have nearly as much visual sense as these kids do.

When this generation grows up and takes over hollywood movies are going to be so awesome
posted by ook at 6:16 AM on January 16, 2011 [2 favorites]


ook, that's very interesting.... I never thought that the kids actually directed the film. I assumed they were simply the actors, given a script and told what to do.
posted by pineapple at 8:11 AM on January 16, 2011


YES. My only complaint is that Calvin isn't a redhead, because Calvin is my favorite redhead, the redhead that initiated a lifelong love of redheads, but that's okay. Work with what you have. It makes me want to go back and re-read the books. Especially since I never realized there was any religious proselytizing in A Wrinkle in Time.
posted by good day merlock at 9:33 AM on January 16, 2011 [1 favorite]


Especially since I never realized there was any religious proselytizing in A Wrinkle in Time.

Well, as she was an Episcopalian and universalist, there's no fire-and-brimstone there. I never took her proselytizing to be evangelistic.
posted by desuetude at 12:33 PM on January 16, 2011


What? What?! I've reread it every four years or so since I was eleven and it's all crystal clear and awesome!!

Eh. I remember trying several times. I'd reread the trilogy (only ever read Many Waters once, and it DOESN'T COUNT as part of the series, dammit - Meg and Charles Wallace only at the very end? Please.) and read ASTP all the way through, because it was L'Engle, and Charles Wallace, and Meg, and so it HAD to be good. But it wasn't, it was just confusing and disjointed, until sometime in my 20s. There was a time that I finally reread it and it made sense for me. It flowed. I understood what was going on. I didn't flip back and forth between Charles Wallace sections to try to understand connections. I'm guessing that the relationship stuff made more sense to 24 year old me than 14 year old me.

A Ring of Endless Light was always my favorite, anyway.
posted by booksherpa at 1:44 PM on January 16, 2011 [1 favorite]


Especially since I never realized there was any religious proselytizing in A Wrinkle in Time.

L'Engle is less evangelistic about her beliefs in her books than Philip Pullman is in his. Hell, if L'Engle is proselytizing, JK Rowling is the Jerry Falwell of children's literature.

Seriously, it's like everyone is looking for the bogeyman in everything nowadays. L'Engle is guilty of religious proselytizing in that she is an Episcopalian and her books contain those horrid, shocking Christian themes -- love, courage, loyalty, friendship -- that are in the Bible... and almost ALL of the children's literature canon, from Rowling to Lewis to Blyton to Dahl to Tolkien &c &c &c.

I mean, for chrissakes at least she doesn't have a lion prancing around saying "HAVE YOU FIGURED OUT I'M THE CHRIST METAPHOR IN THE BOOK YET?" every five pages.
posted by dw at 3:29 PM on January 16, 2011 [7 favorites]


I mean, for chrissakes at least she doesn't have a lion prancing around saying "HAVE YOU FIGURED OUT I'M THE CHRIST METAPHOR IN THE BOOK YET?" every five pages.

I feel like this is the point where most people's childhoods die - once they realise what Aslan is.
posted by crossoverman at 3:54 PM on January 16, 2011


I was raises so ....religiously haphazardly that I didn't even get that until i was well into my teens.

I was legit excited in recent history cause I'd get to go to a Catholic mass and I'd never seen one in person before.

"Wait isn't your family catholic?"
"Yea we were just ...really lazy."
posted by The Whelk at 5:27 PM on January 16, 2011 [1 favorite]


I feel like this is the point where most people's childhoods die - once they realise what Aslan is.

I don't know if it's "where my childhood died"—but I certainly do remember every detail of the moment as a teen when I put it all together. It was a light bulb popping for certain.
posted by pineapple at 10:13 PM on January 16, 2011


I do wonder how L'Engle's inclusion of Christian references comes across to those of faiths other than Christianity, but I've never heard complaints from that quarter. The really strident objections seem to come from staunchly conservative evangelicals horrified at witches and possibly even humanism rubbing shoulders with Bible verses.

Second place goes to irreligious folks weary of Christian-ethnocentrism, but as dw points out, there are far more irritating targets among our childhood novels for that. "ISN'T ASLAN AWE-INSPIRING JUST LIKE CHRIST? GET IT?"
posted by desuetude at 10:22 PM on January 16, 2011


I was raised mostly Jewish, but none of her inclusions bothered me save for those in An Acceptable Time. Quotes from scripture are fine. Nice pastors are fine. Christian values like loyalty and honesty and love and goodness? Wonderful.

Protracted debates about whether you can pray to Jesus after going back in time to the era before his birth? Not really quite so down with that.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 9:17 AM on January 17, 2011


It's no The Dark Knight Kills Christmas, but I found it amusing. *applauds*
posted by The ____ of Justice at 12:47 AM on January 18, 2011


I want to see the 90-second Island of the Blue Dolphins. I'm interested to see if they can fill up 90 seconds.

Most boring book ever.
posted by cereselle at 9:50 AM on January 18, 2011


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