Blog Post
The Last Man Alive
by RiponGood
I Am Legend starring Will Smith just opened. It's based on a story of the same name by Richard Matheson. In both the movie and story, Robert Neville survives a deadly disease that has wiped out most of mankind. Most, if not all of those remaining have been turned into Darkseekers, vampire-like creatures. Neville spends his time trying to find a cure for the disease as well as trying to survive in the hostile, post-apocalyptic world. This isn't the first time I Am Legend has been made into a movie. You can see Charlton Heston battles violent, light-sensitive albino mutants as he tries to find a cure for humanity in The Omega Man.
Actually, the story reminds me a lot of a book I'm reading by Max Brooks, World War Z. It's the oral history of those who survived a terrible virus that turned people into mindless zombies! The book is well written and is very thought provoking.
Blog Post
Animal Lovers
by lola
My new discovery is the great animal video footage available from the Woodland Park Zoo. The zoo is located in Seattle, Washington, and houses many animals native to the Pacific Northwest. Watch the typical day of Keema and Denali, two twelve-year-old grizzly bears, on the Bear Cam. Check out footage of the new baby Gorilla born to Amanda and Vip in October. Or enjoy watching short clips of wallabies and butterflies.
Learn more about animals on the zoo website or at the library. Some of my favorite titles are Koko's Kitten and Grizzly Bears.
Blog Post
A Christmas Carol
by french_film_grl
Well, it is that time of year again....
I am surrounded by versions of my favorite author, Charles Dickens, amazing tale of proverbial proportions, A Christmas Carol.
This is a wonderful story illuminating life, love, selfishness, and redemption.
Through a spiritually induced epiphany, Ebenezer Scrooge, a crotchety miser, is transformed into a life embracing gleeful fellow. Those who know him can hardly believe the overnight transformation, and declare it a miracle!
Tiny Tim's famous line, "God Bless Us, Everyone!", is whiskey sauce on the bread pudding!
Enjoy.
Blog Post
Superbad New to DVD
by Jessenma
Following in the footsteps of Can’t Hardly Wait and Dazed and Confused, and inspired in part by Super Troopers, is Superbad new to DVD. Although it covers familiar territory, namely the adventures of high school friends at the end of their senior year, complete with untouchable, popular girl love interest and the requisite epic parents-are-out-of-town house party, it is still well worth checking out.
Brought to you by the creative minds behind Knocked Up and 40 Year-old Virgin, the writers again found the perfect balance between bawdy humor and sentimentality to produce comedy gold. This movie features some familair faces including Seth Rogen and Michael Cera of Arrested Development fame who, it seems, tapped into his inner George Michael to once again play the fumbling nice guy foil to his scheming, hormone-filled counterpart. The best performance, however, was by new-found talent and industry outsider Christopher Mintz-Plasse who plays Fogell, aka. McLovin. Endlessly quotable and ferociously funny, this movie is a must-see.
Blog Post
My Secret Addiction
by John J. Madonna
For several years, I suffered from addiction. My poison came not in a bottle, but in the form of biopics about musicians. The cheesier and made-for-TV-ier, the better, I felt. Sure Walk The Line and Ray honoured Johnny Cash’s and Ray Charles’s musical legacy while making them appear as three dimensional humans, but these movies didn’t do it for me. In fact, the past few years, Hollywood has left my addiction far from sated. But good news for me and everyone else with this disease (that’s right, CDC, addiction is a disease; live with it!) Jake Kasdan, son of U of M alum Larry Kasdan, has teamed up with Judd Apatow and filmed Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story.
When I watch a biopic, I need awkward lines of dialogue from characters oddly self-aware of the history being made around them like in The Buddy Holly Story (“Hey, Buddy, where’d you learn about overdubbin’.”) I want dramatizations of acid trips done in an utterly unrealistic fashion, like in The Beach Boys: An American Family. Oh, just thinking about Brian Wilson yelling “There’s a spider on my face!” still makes me lose it. And, please, the main character’s best friend, needs to be a rat, like Michael Jackson’s was (at least, according to The Jacksons: An American Dream.) I cut off watching bad biopics cold turkey last year when my addiction got too expensive (my Comcast promotion ran out, so VH1 Classic would have cost me, like, thirty bucks extra per month. No thanks.) As you can imagine, Dewey Cox comes as welcome news to me. It also incorporates another one of my favourite things about these movies: finding actors to portray famous people, no matter how much they don’t actually look the part.
With the talent in front of the camera, like dramatic actor cum comic force John C. Reilly in the titular role, I’m just hoping this isn’t an awful Scary Movie-style spoof, where each scene parodies directly famous scenes in other movies, rather than the overall themes of biopics. But given the talent behind the camera and Apatow’s hot streak (spanning Freaks and Geeks in ’99 to Knocked Up and Superbad today,) I’m hoping Dewey Cox will join with the likes of Spinal Tap and The Rutles in the realm of fictional rock superstardom.
Blog Post
One Streetcar at least still exists
by Maxine
Today, December 3, is the 60th anniversary of Tennessee William's play, A Streetcar Named Desire. The play opened on Broadway at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on this day in 1947. Jessica Tandy played Blanche Du Bois and newcomer Marlon Brando played Stanley. Streetcar was as successful as his previous play, The Glass Menagerie. It ran for two years and won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Brando was an overnight sensation and the play's first performance received a twenty minute standing ovation.
Blog Post
Doctor Zhivago
by french_film_grl
This time of year always makes me think of the film Doctor Zhivago. The winter comes, and I have visions of fur bearing Omar Sharif standing alone with Julie Christie in a beautiful abandoned ice house.
This epic movie, based on the novel by Boris Pasternak, was origianlly released in 1965.
Doctor Yuri Zhivago, played by Omar Sharif, is a man torn between two women. Although married, Yuri meets nurse Lara, played by Julie Christie, and falls in love with her. The chaos and inhumanity of the Russian revolution add a tragic feel to this movie.
Doctor Zhivago was update in 2003 as a miniseries, starring Sam MacLintock as Yuri, and Keira Knightley as Lara. Check out this version as an updated alternative to the original.
Once banned in the Soviet Union, this film is undoubtedly one of the world’s most famous love stories. It is a must see for your winter movie watching!
The official FFG rating of this film is a 10.
Blog Post
Dexter
by jaegerla
If you haven't been watching Dexter, you should definitely give it a try. It's a great series that premiered last year on Showtime. Not everyone out there subscribes to Showtime, though, which is where the library comes in. The first season of Dexter is based off of Darkly Dreaming Dexter, a book by Jeffry Lindsay, and the upcoming seasons correspond to the remaining sequels. The library carries the DVD's of the first season as well as the book series itself. Talking about the plot is tricky as it would ruin all the fun to reveal too much, but this much can be said: the show centers on a seemingly emotionless monster, a man that has been grooming his entire life to appear as human and likeable as possible, in order to mask his addicted lifestyle.
This is definitely a darker story than most, however it is admirably told and finely acted (with Michael C. Hall cast in the lead role). There are many angles to look at both the book and show series from, but it definitely centers on justice. Dexter is essentially a superhero that enjoys killing. This post may have been a little much for a Monday morning. But believe me, if you enjoy mysteries in general, you'll probably dig Dexter.
Blog Post
Snowflakes, snowflakes, everywhere!
by manz
Sure, they’re in the air, but they’re also in books and films right here at the library. Local artist Thomas L. Clark, aka Dr. Snowflake, makes the loveliest snowflakes! Check out his books to see intricate examples of the magic you can create with just paper and scissors: The Tree in the Garden, A Twinkling on the Roof, and Of Gifts and Days, among others. He also has a video with demonstrations.
For instructions there’s Paper Snowflakes For All Ages, and for the science oriented there’s Snowflakes, Sugar and Salt: Crystals Up Close and Snowflake Bentley (also on dvd), the story of a scientist who photographed snowflakes to study their formation. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!
Blog Post
New DVD's
by Maxine
Following are a few of Amazon's new releases on dvd that we have at the Library: (Descriptions are from Amazon.com)
Ocean's Thirteen:
"It's bolder. Riskier. The most dazzling heist yet. George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon and more reteam with director Steven Soderbergh for a split-second caper that stacks the deck with wit, style and cool."
Amazing Grace:
"From the makers of Ray, AMAZING GRACE tells the inspiring story of William Wilberforce and his passion and perseverance to pass a law ending the slave trade in the late 18th century. Several friends, including Wilberforce's minister, a reformed slave ship captain who penned the beloved hymn Amazing Grace, urge him to see the cause through."
La Vie en Rose:
"Picturehouse and HBO Films present a critically-acclaimed biopic about the legendary international singing icon Edith Piaf, whose voice and talent captivated the world. Starring award-winner Marion Cotillard...in an astonishing performance, the film is a portrait of a remarkable artist born into poverty who survived using the only gift she had ? her voice. Piaf?s tragic life was a constant battle to sing and survive, to live and love, with no regrets."
Paris Je t'aime:
"Walter Salles, Alexander Payne and Olivier Assayas, have come together to portray Paris in a way never before imagined. Made by a team of contributors as cosmopolitan as the city itself, this portrait of the city is as diverse as its creators' backgrounds and nationalities. With each director telling the story of an unusual encounter in oe of the city's neighborhoods, the vignettes go beyond the 'postcard' view of Paris to portray aspects of the city rarely seen on the big screen."