Reference@TBML

Little Seen Gems

Every year many movies are missed by viewers.  It could be there was no money in the advertising budget, the movie didn’t land in a big distributor, or maybe it wasn’t a popular commercial property.   Whatever the reason, here is a list of only a few of our little seen gems.

Ping Pong Playa 
When a champion ping pong player gets hurt, his brother C-dub, a gansta-rapper wannabe, must face off against a devious rival player in the ping pong tournament of the year. With help from some unusual kids, C-dub just might be up to the challenge. DVD Fiction Pin

Angel A
An inept scam artist tries to end his life in the Seine, but ends up rescuing a beautiful, mysterious blonde instead.  This was directed by Luc Besson, whose previous work includes, La Femme Nikita, Leon: The professional and The Messenger.  This fable, filmed in black and white is a visual treat.
DVD Fiction Ang

The Lookout
A high School golden boy becomes brain damaged after a devastating car crash.  Unable to remember anything for any length of time, he works as a night janitor in a bank.  A leader of a gang planning to rob his bank uses him to gain access to the bank.  When he realizes he is just being use, he tries to stop the robbery, which causes events to go awry. DVD Fiction Loo

The Fall
In a 1920’s LA hospital, Roy Walker, an injured stuntman tells a fantastical tale about 5 mythical heroes to a little Alexandria a fellow patient. This film is a visual orgy of bright colors, unique shapes and special effects.  DVD Fiction Fal

Brick
Brick is Dashiell Hammet-type mystery set in a California High School. Inventive dialogue and images abound.  DVD Fiction Bri

Baghead
When four friends gather in a cabin to write a screenplay for a horror movie featuring a man wearing a bag over his face, mysterious things happen and soon they see that their character has become real. DVD Fiction Bag

Ashes of Time – Redux
Ouyang Feng is a heartbroken and cynical man who spends his days alone in the desert. He connects expert swordsmen with those seeking revenge and willing to pay for it.  Ashes of Time –Redux is the re-edit version of Kar Wai Wong’s  1994 Ashes of Time.  The film is visually stunning. DVD Fiction Ash

Dear Frankie
Dear Frankie is a witty and touching tale about a mother's efforts to protect her son from the truth about his father.  DVD Fiction Dea

When did you last see your Father?
A 40-year-old writer visits his dying father. He begins to relive the memories of the past - both good and bad - and he is forced to realize that his once "immortal, invincible and infallible" father is human after all.  DVD Fiction Fat

EV

Wild Saturday @ Branigan Library

Come and celebrate the opening of Where the Wild Things Are with us!  Maurice Sendak's classic book, Where the Wild Things Are is now a major motion picture and we want to have some fun.  Join us for wild stories, activities, and we'll even make our own wild things! 

This event is open to children of all ages.

So come and join us on Saturday, October 17th at 10:30 AM.

Please contact the Children's Department ( 528-4225) for more information.

Notable Documentaries @ TBML

The label "Documentary Film" was coined in the 1920s by filmmaker John Grierson as a way to refer to some of the nonfiction or instructional films that were being made at the time. Grierson felt that a well-made documentary film strives to teach while at the same time having a strong emotional impact on the viewer.  Even though documentary film is considered nonfiction, the story is presented though the filter of the filmmaker; this is what makes documentary film an art form.  The filter could be the filmmaker's attachment to the subject, the limits of time, lighting, sources or the equipment used.  Often cited as the "first" documentary, Robert Flaherty’s documentary Nanook of the North made in 1922 is a great example of this filter.  Because of the limits of the equipment used, Flaherty had to do things such as remove the roofs of the igloos to film the interiors. He also had the Inuit use their traditional weapons during the filming of a hunt as opposed to the rifles they were currently using and thus making it a staged event in order to “marry ethnology with drama in the hopes of securing the attention of the viewer”.(Robert and Frances Flaherty: a documentary life, 1883-1922 By Robert J. Christopher, Frances Hubbard Flaherty, Robert Joseph Flaherty, pg. 387).

Thomas Branigan Library’s collection contains many fine older documentaries as well as some recent award winners.  Below is a short list of some of the titles.  For a more current list stop by Media and pick up the Notable Documentaries@ your Library 2008-2009 brochure.

A Time for Burning  1966  - The pastor of an all-white Lutheran church in Omaha, Nebraska tries to get his congregation to reach out to their fellow black Lutherans, only to find a wall of resistance among his church. 

Hearts and Minds  1975 - Examines the American involvement in Vietnam, and is a chronicle of the war from a psychological perspective.

Scared Straight!  1978 - Scared straight! profiles a unique juvenile crime-prevention program at New Jersey's Rahway maximum-security prison, recounting the day seventeen teenage lawbreakers spent inside the prison with the some of New Jersey's most dangerous criminals.

Best Boy  1979 - Philly Wohl, is a cheerful and lovable 52 year old who's been mentally handicapped since birth and still lives with his parents. When his cousin, filmmaker Ira Wohl, questions what will happen to Philly once his elderly parents can no longer care for him, the family embarks on a mission to help Philly become more independent.

The Times of Harvey Milk  1984 Documents the life, career, and assassination of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay person elected to public office in San Francisco. Milk was shot to death, along with Mayor George Moscone, by city supervisor Dan White on Nov. 22, 1978.

Eyes on the Prize  1987 is an epic and masterful 14-hour documentary series about the Civil Rights Movement.

Anne Frank Remembered  1995 This documentary features vintage newsreel footage, photographs and a rare home movie to look beyond the celebrated pages of Anne Frank's diary.

Deliver Us from Evil  2006 A documentary about the confessed pedophile priest Oliver O'Grady and attempts by the Catholic Church to cover up his actions.

Visit the Media Department for the complete brochure or download it here.  Download Documentary pathfinder

--EV

The Hollywood Blacklist

With the death of Bud Schulberg earlier this month and his illuminating obituary in the New York Times, we've been revisiting the darker years in Hollywood and the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC). 

The Hollywood Blacklist had its roots in the perceived threat of real and imagined links between the U.S. entertainment industry and Communism.  In 1938, HUAC chairman Martin Dies released a report on the pervasiveness of Communism in Hollywood.  The panic gradually began to escalate until 1947 when the first group of identified Hollywood Communist sympathizers were called to give testimony in front of HUAC.  Of the 43 called, 19 refused to give testimony as they felt it a violation of their First Amendment rights.  Ten of the nineteen, now known as the Hollywood 10, were found in contempt of Congress and given citations by the House of Representatives.  Immediately following, the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) voted to make all members swear to a non-communist pledge and the MPAA chairman declared that theten would be suspended without pay until cleared of all charges.  More actors were called before congress; some named names (like Bud Schulberg and Elia Kazan) and others refused to testify and were blacklisted.  The Hollywood reached its height from 1952-1956 and finally began to break around 1960.

Those interested in reading more online might consider visiting the PBS page on Elia Kazan (in conjunction with their "Miller, Kazan, and the Blacklist: None Without Sin") which features: essays, timelines, and video commentary.  The Mesa County Library District (in Grand Junction, CO) has a very nice website dedicated to blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo and the Hollywood Blacklist.  The Media Resource Library at UC-Berkley has a comprehensive website dedicated to the Hollywood Ten and provides mini-biographies of the ten members.  And of course, Wikipedia provides a good background (but by no means 100% authoritative) on the topic as well as a comprehensive list of all blacklisted industry members.

Here at our own library, we have a few memoirs regarding the Hollywood blacklisting.  Consider checking out:

The Red and the Blacklistby Norma Barzman

Hollywood Exile, or, How I Learned to Love The Blacklist by Bernard Gordon

Touch and Go by Studs Terkel

Anything Your LIttle Heart Desires by Patricia Bosworth

Also, Stuart Woods gives the Hollywood Blacklist the fiction treatment in Beverly Hills Dead.

And, since this is Hollywood we are talking about, there are bound to be films made on the subject:

Sydney Pollack's The Way We Were uses the HUAC hunt for communists as a backdrop for this love story.

Blacklisted screenwriter Walter Bernstein wrote the Woody Allen vehicle The Front which explores the atmosphere during the blacklist.

Scandalize My Name, a documentary narrated by Morgan Freeman takes a unique perspective on the blacklist and how it affected African American members of the entertainment industry as well as the Civil Rights Movement.

And of course, George Clooney's more recent Good Night, and Good Luck chronicles newsman Edward R. Murrow's conflicts with HUAC. 

BES

80's Movie Nostalgia

With the abrupt passing of the iconic 80's movie director, John Hughes, we here at TBML have been having a bit of an 80's movie flashback.  We recently updated our 80's classic (and not-so-classic) pop culture collection with some new DVDs.  So stop on by and check out a few of these gems:

E.T.  (1982)

Empire of the Sun  (1987)

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off  (1986)

Flashdance  (1983)

Ghostbusters 1 & 2  (1984 and 1989)

Goonies  (1985)

Harry and the Hendersons  (1987)

Heathers  (1988)

Honey, I shrunk the kids  (1989)

Short Circuit  (1986)

BES

A Media Dispatch: Patron Suggestions

Suggestion boxes are a tried and true way to get feedback from the people we are serving.  The Media Department has kept a suggestions box since 2005 and has received all kinds of requests and comments.  While going over these suggestions, we noticed that several were repeated over and over again.  Here are a few (with responses) from the vaults:

Why don’t you buy the latest blockbuster movie releases?
 The number one reason we do not chase the latest and greatest movie releases is money.  The library’s media budget is small and has to pay for movies as well as audio books and music. Additionally, the goal of our media department is to complement the big commercial video rentals, not compete with them.  To read more about what the library collects read Media collection development policy, click here.

Why can’t you shelve the CD audio books separately from the tape audio books, or keep the DVDs separated from the VHS tapes?
There are two main reasons; one is that our space is quite limited and breaking out items into separate areas eats up more space. And secondly (and more importantly), we are a library and libraries tracing back to their inception are about classifying and organizing collections.  They are organized to allow anyone to locate any specific item by using the key (the library catalog) breaking these item apart by format creates confusion as to exactly where the item is located.

Why don’t you shelve the fiction by genre?
 Shelving by genre can get very messy very quickly.  Just assigning one genre can be too subjective.  For example, what I consider a horror film someone else might consider just a mystery. Shelving by title is straightforward and there is no confusion as to where the movie might be. Again, the library gives you a key to the shelves and that key is the library catalog.  In the case of movies, you can search by genre, title, and author (which in the case of a movie can be an actor, the director, or the producer).

Why aren’t you adding new audio books on cassette to the collection?
The companies which produce audio books are no longer offering new titles on cassette.  See this post for more information.

Please can you get Rosetta Stone?
No, the reason being Rosetta Stone is a software to learn a language and is licensed for home use not for the multi-use check out of a library. 

Why can't you give me a paper list of every DVD the library owns?
We do not generate paper lists because a paper list would be expensive to print.  There are currently over 1000 Fiction DVDs in the library collection and it would be incorrect the moment it is printed (items are constantly being removed from and added to the collection daily).

Why can’t I get a list of new items?
The library generates several monthly lists of items.  This "Featured Items" list is available through our catalog or from the "Catalog" link on the Library's Home Page Library.  Click here to see the lists.

I suggested that you buy a movie.  What happened to that suggestion?
All media suggestions are reviewed and if we deem a movie as fitting within our collection guidelines and we have the money, we buy it.  If you make a suggestion and you want to know what happens to that suggestion, please, please, PLEASE attach your name and a way to contact you.  Also, consider using this form to suggest a purchase.  If we decide to purchase a media item and we have your name, we’ll put you on hold for the item—it’s that easy! 

EV

Revisiting Karl Malden

One of Hollywood's legends passed away a week ago on July 1st.  Karl Malden, a mainstay of the silver screen passed away at the venerable age of 97.  A Gary, Indiana native, Karl Malden is perhaps best known for his Academy Award winning role in A Streetcar Named Desire.  Read his obituary in the Los Angeles Times to find out more about his long life.

As a way to stay cool and save some bucks, check out one of Malden's flicks from the library today.

Fighting the Fires of Hate

From May 20, 2009 thru July 15, 2000 Branigan Cultural Center will be hosting an exhibition entitled “Fighting the Fires of Hate: American and the Nazi Book Burnings.”

In collaboration with the exhibition, Thomas Branigan Memorial Library will present two films dealing with Nazi Germany; one is a documentary and the other is an Academy award winning feature film.

The first film, The Architecture of Doom, features never-before-seen film footage of Adolph Hitler and the Nazi Regime.  The film illuminates the Nazi aesthetic in art, architecture and popular culture.  This documentary traces Adolph Hitler's path from failed artist to creator of a world of ponderous kitsch and horrifying terror.  

The second film, The Counterfeiters, is the 2007 Academy Award winner for Best Foreign Language film.  The movie tells the true story of a little known secret Nazi plan called Operation Bernhard.  The purpose of Operation Bernhard was to destabilize the United Kingdom by flooding its economy with forged currency produced by inmates at Sachsenhausen concentration camp.  The film is rated R and is in German with English Subtitles.
 
Both films will be shown at 12:30 PM. The Architecture of Doom will be shown on June 15, and The Counterfeiters will be shown on June 16 at the Branigan Cultural Center, 501 North Main Street in the Downtown Mall.  Please call 528-4014 for more information.  See you there!

EV

Final Flick of Film Festival to Screen on Saturday

On Saturday, 30 May 2009, the Soul of a People Film Festival concludes with a showing of O Brother, Where art Thou? The location will be in the Dresp Room at Thomas Branigan Memorial Library. Show time is at 2:00 pm and admission is FREE.

This movie by the Coen brothers is a masterfully comic re-telling of Homer’s Odyssey, set in 1937 Mississippi.  In it, three escapees from a chain gang are pursued across the literal and mythic landscape by an implacably determined sheriff and an assortment of far from normal other characters. If you have never seen this film, you have missed a treat! If you have seen it before, you will definitely want to enjoy it again!

Previous movies in the series also focused on the Great Depression.  On Saturday the 24th, the Festival kicked off with the classic 1940 film version of John Steinbeck’s 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath starring Henry Fonda and Jane Darwell. Fonda’s daughter Jane starred in the movie on Saturday the 23rd—Sidney Pollack’s 1960s film They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? about a dance marathon in 1930s California.

This Film Festival is part of the local presentation of Soul of a People: Writing America’s Story, an exhibit focusing on the New Deal’s Federal Writers’ Project of the 1930s.  This is presented by the NMSU Libraries, with the collaboration of Thomas Branigan Memorial Library and the Branigan Cultural Center.

Soul of a People: Writing America’s Story is a major documentary about the Federal Wri-ters’ Project produced by Spark Media, a Washington, D.C.-based production and outreach company specializing in issues of social change. Soul of a People is being broadcast this fall on the Smithsonian Channel HD.

Soul of a People programs in libraries are presented by the American Library Association’s Public Programs Office and are supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities: great ides brought to life.

MAP

Summer Books to Movies Film Series

Get out of the heat and spend Wednesday nights at TBML for the Books to Movies Film Series.  Beginning June 3rd, TBML is pleased to offer this series of movies adapted from books.  Listed below are the movies and the books from which they were adapted.  Watch the movie first and see how the book stacks up!  Or, if you can't wait for it, read the book and then watch the movie.  However you go about it, happy reading and viewing!

June 3
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
Movie and Book

June 10
Children of Men
Movie and Book

June 17
Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist
Movie and Book

June 24
No Country for Old Men
Movie and Book

July 1
Wanted
Movie and Book

July 8
Secret Life of Bees
Movie and Book

July 15
Let the Right One In
Movie and Book

July 22
Brick Lane
Movie and Book

July 29
Spiderwick Chronicles
Movie and Book

All movies are free and open to the public.  All movies begin at 6 PM.

Please contact Elise Vidal at 528-4014 for more information.

EV