The year 2011 was about par for the movie industry: the movie-going public lined up for cinematic gems like Hugo and The Artist—and they also came to see movies that were frankly, not so good. The great movies of 2011 have mostly been given their due, commemorated with various awards, and praised by critics and civilians alike. As for the top 10 worst movies of 2011? Well, let’s run them up one more time:

1.     Jack and Jill

In the movie, Adam Sandler plays the lead roles of Jack and Jill. Jack is a commercial director who gets surprised by a visit from his twin sister. The sight of Adam Sandler playing the role of Jill in drag was tortuous, to say the least.

2.     Bucky Larson: Born to be a Star

2011 is simply just not a good year for Adam Sandler—he also wrote this aside from starring in it. A movie about a loser dreaming of becoming a porn star: not really that amazing, not even in theory.

3.     Sucker Punch

Those who enjoyed the generous shots of nubile flesh attired in rompers, short skirts and other articles of clothing which can titillate a Japanese businessman’s fancy may disagree with this nomination but really, Baby Doll? Oh, come on.

4.     Zookeeper

Kevin James absolutely kills on the small screen, but in this movie, he ends up being comedic road kill. It’s supposed to be a kiddie flick so the unfunny adult-theme jokes and wisecracks are just outré.

5.     Red Riding Hood

The Grimm brothers are shuddering in their graves. The twisted interpretation of a classic fairytale went horribly wrong. Amanda Seyfried was beautiful though.

6.     Your Highness

The Oscar curse strikes again! After winning the elusive gold statue for Black Swan, you’d think Natalie Portman will have more sense than to get involved with this vapid excuse of a screenplay. The male leads’ portrayal did not help too.

7.     Trespass

Nicole Kidman plays the role of discontented wife to Nicolas Cage’s diamond broker. Husband heavily mortgages their home unbeknownst to his wife. Their house is invaded by non-scary characters that couldn’t terrorize their way out of a paper bag. And it shows: Kidman and Cage are just going through the motions, even when they are waiting for the axe to fall.

8.     The Human Centipede II: Full Sequence

Somehow, the people behind this movie got so busy packing in the gore that they forgot to provide a plot. The only demographic that could love this one are boys who are going through the phase when they find anything disgusting fascinating.

9.     Breaking Dawn

Yes, we know, this is part of the wonderful Twilight saga. But while Breaking Dawn promised to deliver the long-awaited consummation of the human girl-vampire lover love story, it was strangely tasteless and unappetizing. And let’s not forget to mention the lackluster performance of the Cullen clan around the fading Bella. When the hybrid baby finally came, it actually felt anticlimactic, to tell you the truth.

10.  New Year’s Eve

Unfortunately for the impressive roster of stars that have been crammed into this flick, it turned out to be even worse than Valentine’s Day. And that is saying something indeed.

Eric Pratum works for the teen development website Empower.me, where teens earn money while learning, getting better grades, and finding things they love.

I had the privilege to interview Lehua Parker, author of One Boy, No Water. It’s a very fun read, especially if you have middle grade children! Enjoy getting to know a little more about Lehua and her incredible book!

You grew up in Hawaii. How does your childhood compare to Zader’s?

In many ways, Zader and the gang are really a reflection of me, my friends and the things we did growing up. The series is chock full of inside jokes, everything from names and places to the adventures we had. Most kids in Hawaii grow up exploring tide pools, suffering through Summer Fun programs, flying kites, eating shave ice, and surfing. A lot of sixth graders apply to private schools for seventh grade in the hope of getting a scholarship or financial aid; that pressure is very real. Lua, hula dancing, the people living in Lauele town—all of the cultural aspects—are pretty typical of island life. Bullies who picked on someone just because they could were common when I was a kid, but that may be changing.

What do you think Zader’s strongest quality is?

That’s a tough one because I don’t think Zader recognizes it yet. One of the major themes in the series is family and what it means to call someone brother, mother, son, or uncle. Zader’s salvation or fall is going to rest with how he defines these relationships. He’s intensely loyal to family, so of course this is where both his greatest strengths and weaknesses are.

You do a fantastic job of portraying the Hawaiian culture. When you moved out of Hawaii, was it a culture shock for you, and how did you adjust?

Even though I’d spent more time on the mainland—what islanders call the continental United States —than most kids from Hawaii do, it was still a huge shock to go to college at BYU, Provo. I often misread social situations because I didn’t know the unspoken rules like a girl doesn’t ask a guy to dance, play racquetball, or to hang out at the movies unless she sees wedding bells in their futures. In Hawaii my best friends had always been guys who were buddies, not boyfriends, so I thought nothing of calling three different guys on a Saturday and meeting one to play volleyball in the morning, studying in the afternoon with another, and attending an evening play with a third. And did I mention these guys lived together? Like I said, I was clueless when it came to a lot of the social norms. I kept slipping into Pidgin, especially in the dorms or when I was tired, which confused everyone since I looked like I came from California, not Hawaii.

You’ve been visiting Hawaii recently. Would you ever want to move back there?

This summer was the first time we took our family back to Hawaii in five years. I was seriously homesick for the islands—jonesing for the food, the beach, the music, the people. As much as I was at home there, this time it hit me hard how foreign everything was to my kids, particularly my daughter. Things that were no big deal to me were often scary or uncomfortable for them. They didn’t know all the simple tricks that make life easier, like leaving your flip-flops upside down on the beach so they won’t burn your feet when you wear them later. It made me think back on how often I’ve been vaguely uneasy living on the mainland. Things like zippers on coats trip me up all the time; in fact I have a hard time remembering to wear a coat or toed-shoes when there’s snow on the ground. Socks? Gloves? Forget about it. It all comes down to our upbringing and I think the earliest years leave the greatest impression. This realization crystallized a couple of things for me. As much as I like to say I’m chucking it all and going to live in a tent on the beach, there’s no way I could move back to Hawaii until my kids are grown. It simply wouldn’t be fair to them.

Do you love to play in the water? What’s your favorite thing to do?

I am a total water baby. If there was a way to play in the water all day without getting a sunburn, I’d never leave the ocean until the sun started to set. My favorite vacations before our kids were born were SCUBA diving trips to remote places where all there was to do was to eat, read, or sleep until the next dive. If I could start my life over, I’d probably be a marine biologist, an underwater photographer, or dive boat operator living in a shack next to the world’s most amazing reefs.

How long did it take you to write the book before Jolly Fish Press picked it up?

It depends on when you start counting. The genesis of the Niuhi Shark Saga was in a movie I saw when I was seven about a boy with a shark’s mouth where his back should be. It’s the kind of image that tends to stick in an overactive imagination and over the years I thought about it often.

About eight years ago, I started playing around with a complicated braided novel for adults called Like One Fish Out of Water. I wrote a lot in a short period of time, mainly to amuse myself and avoid housework. I knew it had problems, not the least of which were an ill-defined target audience, more story than any one book could hold, too many points of view, and dialogue in Hawaiian Pidgin which I was certain no publisher would touch. Since I didn’t know what I was going to do with it, it was easy to set it aside for seven years when life got busy again.

A year ago I found myself at loose-ends again and starting thinking about taking pieces of the adult novel and turning it into a MG/YA series. At the same time through a chain of coincidences no one would believe I ended up pitching it to Executive Editor, Christopher Loke. Based on his interest, I submitted a package to Jolly Fish Press and outlined what I’d planned, thinking I’d get some good feedback, nothing more. When they came back with a five book offer a couple of weeks later, I didn’t believe them, especially when they wanted it with Pidgin. I actually called Chris on the phone to ask him why.

With the knowledge that the Pidgin dialogue was a go, the target audience was MG/YA, and that the story could span five books, I sat down and wrote One Boy, No Water in about two weeks last December, taking about 12,000 words from the adult manuscript and adding another 45,000 words and a plot to characters I’d lived with a long time. Knowing what I was going to do with it made all the difference. It’s not the typical journey to publication, I know.

Brief Bio

Lehua Parker is originally from Hawaii and a graduate of The Kamehameha Schools and Brigham Young University. So far she has been a live television director, a school teacher, a courseware manager, an instructional designer, a sports coach, a theater critic, a SCUBA instructor, a poet, a web designer, a mother, and a wife. Her debut novel, One Boy, No Water is the first book in her MG/YA series the Niuhi Shark Saga. She currently lives in Utah with her husband, two children, four cats, two dogs, six horses, and assorted chickens. During the snowy Utah winters she dreams about the beach.

Contact Info

Facebook author page: www.facebook.com/LehuaParker
Blog: www.LehuaParker.com
Twitter: @LehuaParker
Goodreads: Lehua Parker

Since it is close to Halloween, my thoughts of late have turned toward memories of previous Halloween celebrations. There’s a lot of good times, so maybe I’ll post something later about certain memories. But in today’s post, I wanted to talk specifically about how I became so fascinated with vampires.

My earliest memory relating to the blood-suckers was when I was very little. Not sure exactly, but I was probably around five or six. My dad also loves Halloween (it’s probably where I got it from!), and would dress up as Dracula every year. He did this neat party trick with fangs. I remember talking to my dad, staring into his face, and he responded normally. Then I glanced away for less than a second, and when I looked back at my dad, he had this mad gleam in his eye. Then he smiled and revealed fangs that had not been there before, and lunged forward to “nibble” on me. It was really more like tickling me, but you get the idea. Apparently, he could talk while hiding the fangs in the roof of his mouth. Whenever someone glanced away, he’d push the fangs into place and scare the crap out of them. However, it didn’t scare me and my brother. In fact we loved it and would ask him to do it over and over again. I even remember thinking that my dad really was a vampire and didn’t understand why my friends thought that they were scary!

So, with my dad’s cultural influence, I was exposed to the idea of vampires at a young age and watched plenty of vampire movies growing up.

The time that I actually became obsessed over vampires was in the fifth grade. That was the year that I began to read voraciously. I found a young adult author that I liked, named Christopher Pike. After reading most of his books, I discovered that he had written a vampire series, called The Last Vampire. And boy, let me tell you, I was totally obsessed with vampires after that. I pretended that I was a vampire. After all, I had pale skin, rather long incisors, and my hair and nails grew pretty quickly. (I know that doesn’t exactly scream vampire – but when I was a kid, it was enough of a stretch. :))

Of course, I then broadened my vampire literature and read everything I could about the mythical creatures. I absorbed everything, from the classical Dracula to the Ann Rice books. From all of my “research”, I created my own version of vampires and what they were capable of. I imagined how they were created in the first place and what the culture was like.

I’m happy to tell you that I no longer obsess over vampires like I did as a child. I still enjoy reading about them and other paranormal creatures, but I’m a lot more calm about it. I no longer try to pretend like I could be one of them. Instead, I create characters who actually are vampires.

I know I’m not the only one out there who had an obsession growing up. There are plenty of people who obsess over witches and fairies and werewolves. So what’s your poison? What type of character excited you the most when you were a child? It doesn’t have to be something paranormal. Maybe you were obsessed with ballerinas or Jackie Chan. I’d love to hear about it in the comments!

You may remember when I posted about how much I love Friday the 13th a few months ago. Well, Halloween totally trumps Friday the 13th! And since it’s officially October, I’m getting very excited for my favorite holiday (don’t worry – I love Christmas, too. But I consider Christmas to be in its own category. Therefore, logic dictates that Halloween is the best.;)).

Interestingly enough, my husband didn’t like Halloween at all when we were first married. When I told him what an enthusiast I was, he was half convinced that I was some crazy, satanic devil worshiper. This was actually a good experience, as it taught me how to make this holiday fun for people who don’t like to get scared. I was also able to turn my husband to the dark side a little (a task I continue to work on) and he’s warmed up to Halloween over the years.

So the purpose of my blog today? To motivate you all to get into the Halloween spirit! It can be so much fun at this time of year. The weather is changing, you can put up some very creative decorations, enjoy reading some creepy stories. So many things! My brain is about to explode with all the fun things I get to do this month. But I’ll just leave you with a few ideas. Something for each age group and scary preference. Fair enough?

Let’s start with family oriented activities. Something I like to start at the beginning of October is Boo Your Neighbor. You can Google it and find printouts that explain everything to your neighbors when you deliver the goodies. What you do is make a plate of Halloween goodies for a couple of different neighbors and leave them at their front step. When they receive them, they put up a picture you provide with the plate, telling others that they’ve already been Booed. Then, they make copies and take a plate of goodies to two more neighbors. Kids especially get into this activity, but it’s something everyone on the block can enjoy.

Something else a little more on the tame side would be to go to a corn maze. Some of them are “haunted”, but it’s on a very low scale and nothing you would get frightened over.

Of course, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the haunted houses. These are on a higher scare level. They are a bit pricey, but so much fun! I’m always amazed at how inventive those guys get. What a fun way to make a living. On this same note, most amusement parks do a haunted theme and are a lot of fun to attend at this time of year.

If you’re on a budget, you can always check out a scary book from the library. You could go for a classic, like Dracula or Something Wicked This Way Comes, or you could branch out to the newer books. If you don’t normally read this type of genre, I would recommend authors like Tami Hoag, Kim Harrison, or Patricia Briggs. They have scary elements, but their books are more about intense plots and character dynamics. My publisher is actually having a short story writing contest this month. If you’d like to read something Halloween-ish but don’t have the time for a full novel, you can click here to read the short stories, then vote for your favorite. My story is called Death by Proxy. You should read it and tell me what you think.

As for movies, well, let’s just say I could write an entire blog on movie recommendations alone. But any classic Hitchcock will do. The original movie, Nosferatu is one of my favorite vampire movies. They even made a movie about the making of this one, called Shadow of the Vampire, because the main actor was such a creepy vampire.

I’ll leave off with only those few suggestions. But really, there’s so much more! I might write another blog about the fun kinds of things you can do for a Halloween party. If not, look on Pintrest. It’s Halloween-party-heaven!

Water…it’s such a common commodity yet we couldn’t live without it. Perhaps because of its vital nature, there have been many films made about water, or featuring water, as the central theme. Whether a romance or a drama, pictures with water as a central character are fairly common and most of them critically acclaimed. Here is a recap of a few of the most popular cinema features of recent years; you may want to add one or more to your list of must-watch films.

Water (2005)

This picture takes place in the 1940s in the cultural capital of India, Varanasi. The action follows a group of impoverished widows who are all living in the same ashram. One of the widows, who is only seven years old, rails against the social restrictions of women in her situation and over time falls in love with a man who is from the highest Indian caste as well as a follower of Gandhi. The water is a river that represents freedom from their oppression. This Canadian film won 13 awards including the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film 2007.

Like Water For Chocolate (1992)

This Mexican film relates the romance between main characters Tita and Pedro, who are in love with each other but forbidden to marry. Set in the last century, it depicts the strict social mores of the time. The film’s title refers to a Mexican expression that relates the inferiority of something because a hot chocolate drink can be made with milk and thus taste rich, or water, which dilutes the flavour. It can also refer to the passion between two lovers. In this picture, based on a debut novel by Laura Esquivel, it probably references both meanings. It earned 11 awards from the Mexican Academy of Motion Pictures.

Water For Elephants (2011)

A travelling circus is the setting for this romantic drama. It takes place during America’s Great Depression and follows a veterinary student as he gains employment with the circus to heal the show’s star performing horse. He also enters a dangerous love triangle involving the cruel circus owner’s wife. The film’s title refers to the protagonist’s duties in caring for the elephant who takes the place of the horse as the show’s star. Although it received mixed reviews, this picture won three major awards.

Lady in the Water (2006)

This mystery/thriller was written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan. It focuses on the superintendent of a complex of flats who rescues a young woman from the swimming pool. Later he discovers that she isn’t what she seems and he must rescue her again from creatures determined to keep her in the “Blue World” of stories from whence she came. Critics loathed the movie and it was actually voted as the Worst Film of 2006.

These films featuring water in the titles and plot lines are just a handful of those you may wish to watch if you are intrigued by water. Whether you prefer a mystery, a romance, or a drama, you will find plenty of pictures based on water in addition to the ones outlined here. Why not rent a handful this weekend and enjoy your own water cinema marathon?

Damien Higgins writes for Eden Springs, the UK’s No. 1 bottled water cooler supplier. Eden Springs office coolers provide a refreshing drink at work.