20th Century Women

Fri, 04/28/2017 - 9:45am by manz

It’s the story of a woman. It’s the story of a boy. It’s the story of a mother and son trying to get by in Santa Barbara in 1979.

Annette Bening shines as Dorothea, a woman in her mid-fifties raising her teenage son Jamie alone. She worries about this and feels she isn’t connecting with her son, so she recruits the tenants living in her house to help raise him. This includes the punk, artist, feminist Abbie (Greta Gerwig), the house handiman William (Billy Crudup), and Jamie’s female best friend Julie (Elle Fanning). They form a make-shift family all offering Jamie different points of guidance. Some goes as planned, some not – but that is life.

The Academy Award nominated 20th Century Women is beautiful and dreamy, and I can’t get the voiceover narration out of my head, particularly the ending, where we find out what the rest of their lives entail. This is one of my favorite films I’ve seen in a while and it has stuck with me since I watched it.

Sequels, Remakes and Series to catch up on before Summer!

Thu, 04/20/2017 - 3:50pm by katrina.

We’ll soon be entering the season of big summer blockbusters, and with it comes many extensions, offshoots and remakes of existing movies and series. Summer 2017 will bring us a new "Alien" movie, "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2," a remake of "The Mummy" starring Tom Cruise, a young Spider-man and many more! Check out this list of movies to watch before their descendants hit the big screen.

Or if you want to read the source material for a film you might see this year, check out this list of book adaptations coming to theaters.

Throwback Thursday: Annie Hall Turns 40

Thu, 04/13/2017 - 1:55pm by manz

Annie Hall was released in April 1977 and seems to be a favorite Woody Allen film for many. I’m not a huge Allen fan and find most of his films annoying, but I enjoyed this funny, awkward, witty, and utterly charming romantic comedy.

The film spans the rise and fall of the relationship between Alvy Singer (Woody Allen) and Annie Hall (Diane Keaton). The film is full of the usual onslaught of Allenesque conversations and observations, but it’s the 70s and there are iconic New York film locations and high fashion to be noticed.

In 1978 the film won four of the five Academy Awards it was nominated for, including: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, and Best Original Screenplay.

Los Angeles plays itself (Anderson [2003] 2014)

Mon, 04/10/2017 - 12:11pm by henrymo@umich.edu

Maybe we live in Ann Arbor, a semi-dense municipality with a population of 118,000 and ranked as the most educated city in the U.S., so why would we be interested in a film about L.A., the sprawling concrete jungle that is home to 3.9 million and the interstices of Hollywood? Well for starters, this essay-film/documentary offers a fascinating analysis of the city behind the facade. It is a critique of the decay of Los Angeles in and through cinema.

Accordingly, director, Thom Anderson (professor at the California Institute of Arts) presents a study of how the city has been interpreted, represented, and obliterated through the movies. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the critique reveals the failings of cinema to capture the true essence of a place as experienced by residents far removed from the screen. The film seeks to reclaim the city from cinema, and in so doing seeks to save cinema in itself.

Los Angeles plays itself (2003) was not released commercially and was originally only seen in film festival screenings and through file-sharing. Since garnering a larger audience, the film has won critical acclaim and was recently remastered in 2014.

Professor Anderson uses footage from what seems to be hundreds of films (and television shows) spanning from the 1920s to 2001, which are reassembled with his own shots of Los Angeles into a comprehensive, inside, and cinephilic perspective. The film is organized into two parts covering numerous themed essays around brilliant and lucid analyses of the city. These include the city as backdrop and character, past and future, high and low tourism, and modernist architecture and simulacrum that reveal the socio-economic conditions of the times. Although part one of the film at times drags on - when dealing with architecture - the second part is where it all comes together - when addressing urban planning.

In part two, Anderson's critiques become a fascinating historical recount of Los Angeles' public transportation system and the automobile, aqueducts and infrastructure, and working class and non-white neighborhoods. He takes the viewer from a Singing in the Rain Los Angeles to a Boyz in the Hood Los Angeles (see Mike Davis 2014).

In the finale, it is evident that Los Angeles plays itself is a celebration of cinema born of the city and not the other way around. Although the film is a few notches below the poetics of Italo Calvino, it seemingly serves as a tribute to his novel Invisible Cities (1978).

Here are a handful of the prominently featured and celebrated works in Los Angeles plays itself that are well worth brushing up on:

Dragnet (television series: 1951-1959)
Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (2003)
Blade Runner (2007)
Chinatown (1974)
Killer of Sheep (1977)

The Great War on Film

Tue, 04/04/2017 - 9:54am by amy

This Thursday, April 6, marks the 100th anniversary of America’s entry into World War I, the great European conflagration born of a rapidly changing world order. Many who study this historical period and its aftermath draw parallels to our current time, with the not-so-subtle reminder of that old adage, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” But what can we learn from cinema -- that new populist 20th century art form that came of age just after the Great War? Turns out quite a bit. Here's a chronological list of some of the best that cinema has to offer about "the war to end all wars":

J’Accuse (1919)
Big Parade (1925)
Wings (1927)
All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
Road to Glory (1936)
Grand Illusion (1937)
Sergeant York (1941)
Paths of Glory (1957)
Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
Gallipoli (1981)
A Very Long Engagement (2004)
The White Ribbon (2009)
War Horse (2011)
Testament of Youth (2015)

Plus a few nonfiction titles:
World War I in Color (2005)
World War I: The Great War (2006)
The War: A Ken Burns Film (2007)
The Great War (2017)

NEW Themes !! - Stories-To-Go 2017

Tue, 04/04/2017 - 9:28am by ryanikoglu

NEW SETS are ready for check-out !
There are 11 new Stories To Go THEMES, 4 sets of each theme ... added in 2017.
Each Themed set includes 5-7 books, 1-2 DVDs, perhaps a CD ... especially for use with kids ages 2-7 years old.
These sets are for easy "Grab and CheckOut" by Parents, Grandparents, Child Care Providers, and Teachers.
Every SET includes an Activity Folder with songs, fingerplays and activities to extend the theme with your children.

The NEW 2017 themes are as follows:
ALPHABET ABC-XYZ ... Reading Readiness.
COUNTING ... especially beyond 10. Math Readiness.
NIGHT TIME ... what's going on while I am in bed? Early Science.
UNDER your FEET ... what's going on underground? Early Science.
SEQUENCING & PATTERNS ... Math Readiness.
SHAPES & COLORS ... School Readiness.
GOOD MANNERS ... Early Social Skills.
HEALTHY HABITS ... food, activity, teeth, hygiene. Early Science.
BUGS ... small living things. Early Science.
MOVING DAY ... when you are moving to a different place it is a Big Change. Social Skills.
RECYCLING/ GARBAGE ... Reduce ... ReUse ... Recycle. Early Social, Science and Ecology.

2 or 3 things I know about her : 2 ou 3 choses que je sais d'elle (Godard 1967)

Sun, 04/02/2017 - 3:51pm by henrymo@umich.edu

This 1967 French film by Jean-Luc Godard is part of the Criterion Collection and asserted by film critic Amy Taubin to be one of the greatest achievements in cinema. The film is largely a critique of Charles De Gaulle's Politics of Granduer, an economic infrastructure project in the mid-1960s in Paris that tore up the inner city with highways relocating the upper-middle-class into monstrous housing complexes in the outer arrondissements. In particular, Godard captures a social phenomenon of the time in which one in two housewives living in these high-rises had turned to part-time prostitution in order to maintain the self-necessitated class status.

2 or 3 things I know about her captures the banality and alienation of the bourgeoisie by following 24-hours in the life of Juliete Jeanson (Marina Vlady), a mother and housewife who traverses her own violation through that of Paris and the Vietnam War. Ultimately, the film is a critique of the fragmentation of capitalist society, as expressed through the indifference of "objects" such as cleaning products, magazine advertisements, fashion shopping, finger nail polish, children, and especially sex with strangers.

The film is perhaps most notable for its radical departures from narrative form through its documentary-essayist style, 360-degree camera pans, non-synchronous sound, seemingly random dialogue, and percussive editing. Godard's own voice is in the film, whispering in first-person to the viewer and off-screen to the actors via earpieces who are responding directly, often breaking the fourth-wall.

For those interested in urban planning this film gives a rare window into De Gaulle's Paris, which conjures urban histories from Haussmann's Paris (1850s-1870s), Robert Moses' New York City (1920s-1960s), and Lúcio Costa's and Oscar Niemeyer's Brasilia (1950s-1960s; excerpt from The Shock of the New narrated by Robert Hughes). The preface to David Harvey's book Rebel Cities offers a good setup for this film and even mentions it! (here is a link to an interview with Harvey).

Finally, if you enjoy French essay films, you may also appreciate Chris Marker's works, such as his 1977 film A Grin without a cat. Amusez-vous bien!

Library Space Camp!

Fri, 03/31/2017 - 4:14pm by PizzaPuppy

Looking for something fun to do during Spring Break? We'll be hosting Library Space Camp on Thursday, April 6th from 1-3 PM, with special guest Astronaut Tony England!

Join us in making astronaut helmets, creating space-related crafts, running a science experiment, launching straw rockets, watching videos from the International Space Station, and even meeting a real astronaut! We'll have some of our Tools out on display to interact with, including our telescope and our Mars globe. We'll also have a book display filled with many different space books and movies to check out.

Can't wait until the event? In the mood for more space stuff? Take a look at the Smithsonian's Space! The Universe as You've Never Seen It Before or Space: From Earth to the Edge of the Universe for awesome space facts. Learn from Profesor Astro Cat's Frontiers of Space or see what it takes to become an astronaut with How to Be a Space Explorer. We also have great movies about space. Check out Destiny in Space, filmed in space by astronauts. Tour the International Space Station with NASA ISS: A Tour or learn about The Planets with one of America's favorite science guys, Bill Nye!

Eraserhead Turns 40!

Mon, 03/27/2017 - 10:31am by manz

It’s an epic year for anniversaries in film, so why not celebrate Eraserhead, which is epic in itself.

Released in March 1977, Eraserhead was David Lynch’s first length feature film. Briefly, Henry Spencer (played by the late, great Jack Nance – who was a Lynch favorite) and a woman live together with their infant child, who is an alien-lizard-like creature that won’t stop screaming. Enter the Lady in the Radiator, the Man in the Planet, and the Beautiful Girl Across the Hall…. And well, you’ve got full on Lynch madness happening in the greatest, most disturbing way.

The film is bizarre, creepy, dark, surreal, dreamlike, and horrifying, and definitely leaves something in your stomach after viewing. Upon release, the film wasn’t all that, but it has since proven its cultural significance and is an important film in the history of cinema. Plus, David Lynch!

Power Rangers!

Thu, 03/23/2017 - 3:40pm by PizzaPuppy

The new Power Rangers movie hits theaters tonight! Go Go Power Rangers!!

If you have Power Rangers fever, rest assured that the library has plenty to keep you entertained.

We have the official movie novelization if you can't wait to see what happens in the new movie.

For early readers, we have books such as Mega Mission, Meet the Rangers, Rangers Unite, Samurai Strike, and Armed for Battle.

Give our Power Rangers graphic novels a try with series like Super Samurai and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers

We also have a great selection of the many television series that make up the Power Rangers universe, including the original Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Mighty Morphin Alien Rangers, MegaForce, Super Megaforce, RPM, Zeo, Samurai, Super Samurai, Time Force, Jungle Fury, and Dino Charge. We even have the 1995 original movie.