Read it or Weep

Tuesday at the Movies February 7, 2012

Tis the season for movie awards – the Golden Globes, the Screen Actor’s Guild and, of course, the Academy Awards. I usually read all about the contenders, but rarely get to preview them all before the ceremonies. This year I’ve done much better than usual: I’ve seen The Descendants, Moneyball, The Help, The Artist and Midnight in Paris - all good but maybe not great movies, which is usually how I feel about the award winners. The others will have to wait until they come out on DVD at the library.

Speaking of The Artist, did you know that the Director/Actor made a couple of other films together? OSS 117: Lost in Rio and OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies are spoofs of James Bond films and you can check them out at RRPL.

A shout out to Margin Call and The Guard – two small films with big payoffs. Margin Call is a fascinating look at the unraveling on Wall Street and The Guard is about an Irish cop who gets involved, against his will, in stopping a drug smuggling ring. Brendan Gleeson as the guard is very funny.

Here are the DVD releases coming out this week:

Anonymous: Did Shakespeare write his plays or was it some unknown genius?
Twilight Saga, Breaking Dawn, Part I: This one, I hope, doesn’t need a lot of explanation…
Fireflies in the Garden: Family drama with Julia Roberts made in 2007.
Tales from the Golden Age: A Romanian film that pokes fun at the final fifteen years of the Ceausescu regime.
Summer Holiday: Another Romanian film with a more personal story about a male midlife crisis.
Elephant in the Living Room: Award winning documentary about the controversy surrounding raising exotic and wild animals as household pets.
Knuckle: A documentary that looks at the tradition of bare-fisted fighting among the Irish Traveller communities.
Project Nim: Award winning documentary about Nim, a chimpanzee trained to communicate with humans who is ultimately abandoned by them. I think this one would be hard to watch for me.
Downton Abbey, Season 2: Well, if you haven’t heard of this one, you’ve been living in a cave, but it’s enough to know that it’s an Upstairs/Downstairs, Lord/Servant type of show set during World War I in England of course. Lots of characters, lots of plot twists  – pretty addictive.

Happy Watching!

~Dori

Tuesday at the Movies November 29, 2011

OK, OK, I’m a couple of weeks behind, but I’m here this week to catch up and let you know about all the new DVDs that are being added to the library shelves:

11/15
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides: the latest (and last?) in the series with Johnny Depp.
Beginners: A funny romantic comedy with Ewan McGregor and Christoper Plummer.
Larry Crowne: A Tom Hanks/Julia Roberts production about an older student who has a crush on his teacher.
The Tree: Charlotte Gainsbourg returns in a film directed by Julie Bertolucci about a young widow.
Main Street: Written by Horton Foote, this film about a small southern city stars Colin Firth – enough said.
Bellflower: Two friends design weapons for a post-apocalyptic world – flame-throwers, anyone?

11/22
Spy Kids 4: All the Time in the World: Another in the series directed by Robert Rodriguez
Sarah’s Key: Based on a well-loved novel by Sarah Dunant, this stars the always great Kristin Scott Thomas as a modern day journalist researching a family of deported Jews during the Nazi occupation of France.
Super 8: J.J. Abram’s much anticipated movie about a group of kids investigating supernatural occurences in an Ohio town.
Conan the Barbarian: No need to add more.
Devil’s Double: A look at the house of Saddam Hussein through the eyes of the body double of Hussein’s sadistic son.

11-29
FEATURE FILMS:
Crazy Stupid Love: A great cast (Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, Julianne Moore) explore the ins and outs of relationships.
30 Minutes or Less: Comedy about a pizza guy who’s kidnapped and forced to rob a bank – aimed at the teenage boy in all of us.
Our Idiot Brother: Paul Rudd stars as well, you guessed it.
One Day: Based on the best-selling book by David Nicholls, this one is aimed at the romantic in all of us.
The Art of Getting By: Slacker boy meets beautiful girl and his life is changed forever.
Tucker & Dale vs. Evil: A slapstick slasher movie for fans of Shaun of the Dead.
The Future: Hipster Miranda July’s movie about the effects of adopting a stray cat on a couple.
Seven Days in Utopia: A young golfer gets advice from an eccentric rancher in Utopia, Texas.

DOCUMENTARIES:
Sons of Perdition: An inside look at polygamist teens boys who have been banished from their religious community.
Cave of Forgotten Dreams: Werner Herzog films an expedition into the nearly inaccessible Chauvet Cave in France to discover artwork created more than 30,000 years ago.

TV SERIES:
Smallville, Season 10
30 Rock, Season 5
Hot in Cleveland, Season 2

Whew, that was a lot to get through….

Happy Watching!

~Dori

Tuesday at the Movies November 9, 2011

So – here we are – it’s Tuesday! And now we’re back on schedule with the weekly movie posting! Yay!

Did you know that the library has an Indie International Film Series? We subscribe to Film Movement, a film distribution company that selects films from top festivals that would not otherwise get released. We started the series in 2010 and have shown films that have been featured at the Cleveland International Film Festival.  And we eat popcorn! Please join us on Monday, November 14th in the auditorium to watch this month’s film: Protektor. It’s from the Czech Republic and is about a Czech journalist who joins a Prague radio station that broadcasts Nazi propaganda in order to protect his Jewish wife, but his collaboration with the Nazis causes his marriage to spiral downward. Check out this review from the Hollywood Reporter.

Now onto the weekly DVD releases:

The Change-Up: This one came and went quickly, but it’d probably be a fun one to watch at home.
Atlas Shrugged, Part One: Based on Ayn Rand’s novel of the same name – hasn’t gotten many good reviews, but it’s a must see if you’re a fan of the book. Part Two is due out in 2012.
Page Eight: A Masterpiece Theatre production directed by David Hare with a great cast and a fascinating story about an MI5 officer who receives a file with potentially damaging information about the Prime Minister.
Putty Hill: An indie flick about a working class family and their community in Baltimore who gather together to mourn a young man’s untimely death. Roger Ebert calls it, “…A great, deep, powerful new Indie film.”
The Sleeping Beauty:  French provocateur Breillat continues her deconstruction of classic fairytales.
Life in a Day: When viewers were asked to upload a video onto YouTube of what happened in their lives on July 24th, 2010, 80,000 people responded. To make this documentary, producer Ridley Scott and director Kevin Macdonald sifted through 4,500 hours of film. Can you imagine?

Happy Watching!

~ Dori

Monday…er…I Mean Thursday at the Movies November 3, 2011

Well, my plans for a Monday Movie blog have gone astray after only one week and I can only blame it on one thing: Halloween! I took the day off to celebrate, so now I’m a wee bit behind, but…not to worry, I’m here to catch up. And since we’re talking schedules, the movie postings are making a permanent move to Tuesdays. And if that’s as clear as mud, not to worry, it’ll all make more sense next week.

Now onto the fun stuff! This week’s new DVD releases at RRPL will please a variety of fans:

Cars 2 – for the kid in all of us.
Water for Elephants - based on Sara Gruen’s book of the same name. I know there are a ton of fans of the book, but I haven’t heard too many positive things about the film – I’d love to hear your opinion. 
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan - another movie  based on a well-loved book. This one was a joint Chinese-American effort, so it’s in both languages.
An Invisible Sign - Jessica Alba stars in this indie film as a math teacher. Believable?
The Last Mountain - a documentary about the fight between a coal mining company and a local community.
Tabloid – another documentary and Errol Morris’ latest is the strange tale a former Miss Wyoming who is charged with abducting and imprisoning a young Mormon Missionary.
How the States Got Their Shapes, Season 1 – a series from the History Channel which follows correspondent Brian Unger as he travels the U.S. making irreverent observations about how people think, speak, and act, and discovering their surprising connections to geography.
Californication, Season 4 – I’ve never watched this series, but I’ve heard good things.

This is also a good time to let you know about a new Warner Home Video policy which will affect when RRPL is able to loan Warner films:

Warner Home Video will no longer distribute theatrical releases to libraries or home video rental stores until 28 days after they release the movies for sale at retailers.

For example, the DVD Crazy Stupid Love is due out at retail stores this week, but the library will be unable to release it for loan until November 28th. This policy will also affect the forthcoming films Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 as well as The Hangover, Part II.  Questions? Please give us a call and we’ll do our best to explain.

Happy Watching.

~ Dori

Summertime and the Movies are Easy… July 16, 2011

What movies to watch this summer with two adults and two teenagers in the house?  I know a lot of folks go to the local multiplex for the latest blockbuster, but we’re looking for a few DVDs to watch from our comfy couch.  I’ve thought about a series – last summer, my brother, son and I watched all the Alien movies over a week.  My son enjoyed the action and aliens, and my brother, of course, Sigourney Weaver.  And now that the last Harry Potter movie has been released, I know that it’s been popular to make a night or two (or three) of it and revisit all the past films, but we’ve seen all the films fairly recently. Maybe The Matrix? Or Back to the Future?  We watched the first Planet of the Apes, but I’m not sure I can sit through the rest (can you believe that they actually made four more movies?!).

In the meantime, we’ve watched a few oldies but goodies: Harold and Maud, The Shining (my son wanted to watch some classic horror films) and Breaking Away. Next up are a few Hitchcock films and some Bill Murray classics like Stripes and Meatballs.

Another month and late nights of movie watching will end, but at least we’ll have a few fond memories of screaming, laughter and lots and lots of popcorn.

~ Dori