Ages 18+.
Blog Post
Remaking Gene Wilder
by amy
Poor Gene Wilder: Two of his films, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971) and The Producers (1968), are getting remade this year. First, Johnny Depp stars as Wonka in the upcoming Tim Burton film Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (which Burton is careful to claim is not a remake--but we know better), then Matthew Broderick takes on Leo Bloom in the upcoming film version of The Producers.
Fortunately, we'll always have Wilder's inimitable Dr. Frankenstein ("it's pronounced Fronkensteen!") in Young Frankenstein, and as for Wilder's performance as Willy Wonka--particularly his rendition of "Pure Imagination"--well, as Astaire says to Rogers, "They can't take that away from me...."
Blog Post
Triplets of Belleville
by amy
As this year's Tour de France heats up, check out the The Triplets of Belleville, the 2003 animated film about a bicyclist kidnapped from the Tour, a film Roger Ebert calls "creepy, eccentric, eerie, flaky, freaky, funky, grotesque, inscrutable, kinky, kooky, magical, oddball, spooky, uncanny, uncouth and unearthly....It's one of those movies where you keep banging your fist against your head to stop yourself from using the word 'meets,' as in Monsieur Hulot meets Tim Burton, or the Marquis de Sade meets Lance Armstrong."
Blog Post
The Historian
by amy
This morning Diane Rehm interviewed Elizabeth Kostova, winner of a UM Hopwood Award for the Novel-in-Progress. Kostova is the author of one of this summer's hottest reads, The Historian, currently #2 on the New York times bestseller list.
Blog Post
The Murder of Emmett Till
by amy
It's been 50 years since the brutal murder of Emmett Louis Till, a fourteen-year-old black Chicago youth who was slain in Money, Mississippi, in 1955. On July 14, the Library will hold a screening and discussion of the PBS American Experience documentary The Murder of Emmett Till. More library materials on Emmett Till.
Blog Post
Stardust
by john
This gem of a novella is about a young man, Tristran Thorn, who promises a fair maiden that he will fetch a fallen star for her from beyond a wall that is crossed only once every nine years during a magical flea market. The wall (which resides in a rural English town named Wall) separates our world from the land of Faerie. During his travels, Tristran encounters witches, goblins, upset trees, feuding brothers, and farting hair-balls. Eventually, he uncovers his true heart's desire.
Stardust is an adult fairy by Neil Gaiman, author of Neverwhere, American Gods, and other highly stylized fantasy novels. He is also the creator of the DC Comic Sandman series. I sat down and read this book in about 5 hours.