How to Choose a Movie

Step 1: Pick the title of a movie you feel like watching in your head. For example my favorite movie of all time is Frida (the cinematography is gorgeous and I am sucker for biography type stuff). Or pick a favorite actor or director. (Director is my favorite way to search!)

Step 2: Go to http://www.imdb.com/, that is the Internet Movie Database. (Don't worry your going to love it!).

Step 3: Once you are at IMDB type the name of your movie into the search bar and click the "Go" button.

Step 4: IMDB will have a list of movies, actors, directors, or other items you are looking for. Click on the correct one.

Step 5: Every imaginable detail about this movie will be presented to you, including cast, trailers, quotes and more. If you scroll to the bottom of that page it will list recommendations. For example they recommend if you like Frida, you will enjoy:

Step 6: Go to the Mukwonago Community Library catalog and start requesting your movies.

Step 7 is Optional: Get some popcorn for your movie night!

Mmmmm...I love New Documentaries!

Did you ever notice that watching or reading something that is popular gives you something to talk about with people? I hear on a constant basis..."Did you catch the latest American Idol performance"...or "Have you read this Stephen King book?".

I love having something to be able to talk about with people. I also like to start a conversation, which is why I am a documentary junkie. I'll be honest when I say I get a lot of my movies from Netflix because my home television is my computer. But working at the library gives me a lot of great ideas on what documentaries to watch or even checkout.

Time Out New York really did an excellent job pulling together some controversial and educational material. Check out their top 50 documentaries of all time here.

Otherwise here are some new titles available from the Mukwonago Community Library! If you click on the title it will take you to a trailer about the documentary! Enjoy!

Ronald Regan: An American Journey

Experience the astonishing political career of one of the most influential and popular political figures of the past three decades with this in-depth look at Ronald Reagan, the 40th President of the United States. This remarkable, feature-length look at Reagan's achievements is packed with incredible archival footage including highlights and news coverage from his groundbreaking speeches and debates as well as the major world events he faced in office. I think Mr. Regan can speak for himself about an exciting documentary!

Superbowl XLV Champions: The Packers (sorry no legal trailer).

Celebrate the champions of Super Bowl XLV, the Green Bay Packers, and follow the team from their first snap to the final gun of Super Bowl XLV. See the most anticipated and watched sporting event of the year. Complete with highlights from the regular season, playoffs, and the big game itself. Contains hours of Super Bowl coverage and behind-the-scenes action. If you are going through football withdrawals, check this one out!

"Waiting for Superman"

Provided is an engaging and inspiring look at public education in the United States. This documentary has helped launch a movement to achieve a real and lasting change through the compelling stories of five unforgettable students such as Emily, a Silicon Valley eighth-grader who is afraid of being labeled as unfit for college, and Francisco, a Bronx first-grader whose mom will do anything to give him a shot at a better life. Included are featurettes, and commentary. This is a powerful documentary especially during our own states conversation about the importance of teachers and education. Hard to get title, so place a hold!

Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking

British physicist Stephen Hawking explores the mysteries of the universe, discussing the possibility of aliens, time travel, and how the universe began. Seriously...if you like Star Trek...you might like this.

The Tillman Story

Pat Tillman chose to walk away from a multimillion-dollar football contract and join the military for no other reason than he felt it was the right thing to do. Documented are the facts surrounding the way the military manipulated his tragic death in the line of duty into a propaganda tool. If in addition to watching this documentary read up on Wiki Leaks, and you can have some interesting conversation about censorship.

Wisconsin in the Movies

I don't know about you...but I have been reading about Wisconsin in the news everywhere the last few months. Every national or trade magazine is talking about politics....well let's try something lighter on for size this evening!

I came across this older OnMilwaukee.com article about movies filmed in Wisconsin. Did you know that a section of the Blues Brothers movie was filmed on 794? Check out this brief article to get some ideas about your next flick...then you can point and say "hey that's us!"

The author doesn't mention television like That Seventies Show or Happy Days!

Enjoy!

Gobble Up Some Great Movies @ Your Library this Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving is a great time to share thanks and food with your loved ones. Try a new tradition this year by watching a Thanksgiving themed movie. Below are a few suggestions for you to Gobble up! Have a Happy Thanksgiving from everyone at the Mukwonago Community Library!


Thanksgiving Themed Movies

Rant or Rave: The Godfather

A commonly held believe amongst avid readers and book lovers is best summed up by the catch phrase: "Don't judge a book by its movie." Movies rarely manage to capture the magic, richness and character development of books, and many movie adaptations of good books are mediocre or even dreadful.

Another popular and widely held catch phrase is: "It is the exception that proves the rule."

The Godfather, by Mario Puzo, is the exception that proves the rule-- the movie IS better than the book. Indeed, Francis Ford Coppola's 1972 epic film is widely considered one of the finest films of all-time, coming in at #2 at IMDB and at AFI, as well as being in nearly every "best of" movie list ever created. The movie deserves its kudos-- it is brilliant in nearly all of its facets. But what of the book that was its genesis?

Written in 1969, The Godfather is a very good book, but it is most definitely not a great book. Puzo, at his best, captures the Sicilian and Mafioso lifestyles and mindsets extremely well, and there are many aspects of the book that provide additional content and context to the movie. Unfortunately, there is also a fair amount of extra, often comparatively dull, material in the book.

While the majority of the book follows the plot line most of us are familiar with from the movie, roughly a quarter of the book deals with events in Las Vegas and Los Angeles. There, we follow the career of singer turned actor Johnny Fontaine, and also of Lucy Mancini, bridesmaid to Connie Corleone. Only briefly touched upon in the movie, these portions of the book often drag, and the characters frequently come across as more two-dimensional and stereotyped. Part of the difficulty with these parts may actually be that there is no film equivalent for them-- you can't picture Marlon Brando or Al Pacino saying the words.

A nice "extra" for the book is that it spends a little bit more time with Michael Corleone during his time in Sicily and provides more detail and back story to his whirlwind romance and wedding there. Additionally, the story of how Vito and the family finally manage to bring Michael home from Sicily safely is also intriguing and much more clearly defined in the book. And we spend a little more time with Kay and with Mama Corleone.

Overall, however, the book too often spends time on minor and even irrelevant topics, losing some of the pace and muscle of the movie. So, a qualified Rave for the textual version of The Godfather. It is certainly well-written and worth reading, both on its own merits and because it will help "fill in" some of the details that the film brushes past, but it is also most definitely the exception to the rule. The movie surpasses the novel in nearly all respects.

Rant or Rave: The Colour of Magic

The Colour of Magic is Terry Pratchett's very first Discworld novel. There have been more than 30 since that one. I love them all. They very in their flavor and overall enjoyability, but that range is from good to absolutely fantastic. At his best, Pratchett is in my top five favoritest authors. At his worst, he is still better than the majority of authors I have read in my life. Oh, and as you might guess from the spelling, he is British.

But this isn't a Rant or Rave about the book, which is frankly one of the weakest of the Discworld books, but of the made for TV movie of the book, also British. I enjoyed it thoroughly. I haven't read the book in many years, so my enjoyment wasn't overly colored by my perception of the movie's "accuracy", but it definitely captured the feel of Pratchett's world and it's overall satiric and ironic over- and undertones.

The heart and soul of the Color of Magic (American spelling) is the Luggage, Twoflowers and Rincewind. And the movie pretty well nails all of those quite nicely. The acting is very good, the CGI and other effects are good, occassionally great, and the script and pacing work quite well.

So, a big rave for The Colour of Magic. An even bigger rave for Terry Pratchett and the Discworld books. If you haven't read them and enjoy British humor (along the lines of Monty Python or, perhaps, Eddie Izzard), then I strongly recommend them to you. They are all extremely funny, and the best of them are also highly satiric, lampooning such things as Death, the Cinema, Anthropology and Mythology, Economics, Race Relations, Police forces, Art, Music, War, and... well, probably a little bit of everything else as well.

Rant or Rave: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

I enjoyed the Harry Potter series quite a bit. I don't fully embrace them as enthusiastically as some, and exactly why Harry was such a HUUUUGGGEEE hit is still unclear to me, but they are very well written, the characters develop extremely well during the series and the general tone and character of the books got better as they went along.


Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, book #6, was probably my favorite of the series. I loved the gradual revealing of Voldemort's past, the interaction of Harry with Dumbledore, and the ending was absolutely riveting.


But I approached the movie version of the book with considerable reluctance. Overall, the movies had failed to live up to the books. Not that surprising, most movies fail to live up to their books, but the thing that always made the Potter movies at least pretty good representations of their written originals was the absolutely terrific casting of the movies. With one, glaring exception. When Michael Gambon took over the role of Dumbledore in movie three after the death of Richard Harris, that casting went from just about perfect to pretty darn poor.


Gambon never fit the role in movies 3, 4 and 5, alternating between abrasive arrogance and fidgeting impatience. He never conveyed the sense of quiet confidence and compassion that is so central to the Dumbledore personae and which Harris achieved seemingly effortlessly.


Which was the central reason for my concern over movie #6. The Half-Blood Prince involves Dumbledore far more often, and more signficantly, than any of the previous books. With that in mind, and my serious reservations over the casting of Gambon as Dumbledore, I really wasn't expecting much from the movie.


So I put off going to The Half-Blood Prince but this past weekend, finally broke down and went to see it. I was pleasantly surprised when Gambon seemed rather more like Dumbledore than I had ever imagined possible. He was actually quite good in the role. And the movie itself found a good pacing, rolling in enough of the multiple plot lines of the book to make it a rich experience without losing the overall flow of the story. The cinematography reflected the darker, more somber atmosphere of the sereis by book number six, but there was enough of the book's good humor to leaven the darkness and dread. As always, the acting was stupendous.


And then came the finale. And I was sooooo disappointed. The rest of the movie had well captured the tone and tenor of the book, so by the time the climax came around, my initially lowered expectations had begun to rise. This was a good movie, one that was not always "true" to the book in literal terms, but was a very good big screen adaptation of it, along the lines of Peter Jackson's treatment of The Lord of the Rings.

So, I was really looking forward to the conclusion since, as I mentioned above, I thought the ending to book six was just riveting. But they CHANGED it. I won't go into detail, but I can't figure out WHY. There was no reason to do it, and the changes they made weren't insignificant ones. Rather, they were substantial changes, and not a single one of them made the movie better. Dreadfully disappointed.


Rant or Rave? I really liked the first 90 or 95% of the movie. Big raves for it, with only a few minor complaints. But the ending... urgh. I left the theater thinking, "Boy that could have been a really, really good movie. Why'd they have to screw it up at the end?" So, a big rant against the changes made, for no discernably good reason, at the end.

Rant or Rave: Movie Ratings

I've posted on this previously, but what can I say-- it's an evergreen. So a big Rant on the silliness of movie ratings:

Last Friday I was looking for some movies to watch over the weekend. I settled on Batman Begins, which I have seen, but was curious to watch again after having seen The Dark Knight not too long ago. Batman Begins is rated PG-13. The given reasons? "Intense Action Violence, Disturbing Images and Some Thematic Elements." Why all of the words are capitalized is beyond me, but let us set that aside as a minor irritant.

"Intense Action Violence." As opposed to... "Placid Action Violence"? And what exactly is "Action Violence"? Can you be violent without action? I guess there can be action without violence, though the former seems most often to be connected to the latter, but I really don't think there can be any other type of violence than action violence.

Moving on. "Disturbing Images". More understandable, and less redundant, than "Intense Action Violence" but really what does it tell us? Disturbing how? To whom? Not really all that helpful, but at least you got the gist of what they were attempting to warn you about.

Not so much with "Some Thematic Elements". Huh? Don't all movies have thematic elements? If there were no thematic elements, all you would have is a bunch of random scenes strung together for 90 minutes. You know, like a Jerry Bruckheimer movie-- rimshot! Seriously, is the warning that there are only SOME thematic elements as opposed to an entire movie filled with a coherent, well-established and developed theme? Somehow I don't think that is what the MPAA had in mind when they appended that particular phrase to their rating.

Parents strongly cautioned because of "Some Thematic Elements". That means nothing. Zip, zero, nada. This movie, for example, contains "Some Thematic Elements" but I doubt they'd earn the movie a PG-13. Though you could argue that parents should not allow their children to watch it under any circumstances.

Heck, as previously noted, the rating explanations aren't even consistent for movies within a series where each film varies only slightly from the previous versions. Here's the explanation for the R rating of Saw-- the violent, sadistic, horror flick that has inspired so many recent violent, sadistic, horror flicks: "Rated R for strong grisly violence and language." No weak grisly violence here.

Here's the explanation for Saw II's R rating: "Rated R for grisly violence and gore, terror, language and drug content." So, the grisly violence is no longer strong, but there is gore and terror? But... ummm... I'm pretty sure there was a fair amount of gore and terror in the original, too.

Ok, ok, how about Saw III? "Rated R for strong grisly violence and gore, sequences of terror and torture, nudity and language." Ah... so, the grisly violence has once more been working out, the gore has returned from #2 (pity there was no actual gore in #1), and now there are sequences of terror AND torture. Guess all those poor saps that died horribly in the first two movies weren't actually tortured.

Not so in Saw IV, whose rating is "R for sequences of grisly bloody violence and torture throughout, and for language." Now there is torture throughout, but the violence isn't strong (I doubt that), only grisly-- but it is bloody. No gore though. Bloody, but no gore. Uh huh. And the ever present "language". They really do need to stop talking so much in these movies. What a mishmash of uselessness.

Phah. Phah I say. Rate if you must, but let's stop with the preposterous "explanations".

A Bad Way to Wake Up

A rabid bat was captured in Racine after landing on, waking up, and then biting
a resident, according to city health officials.

Yikes--that is not the way to start your day. What do you think is worse-- waking up with the head of your prize horse in bed with, ala The Godfather, or waking up to find a bat in bed with you and a nice bite for your trouble?

I think the longterm effects of the horse head are probably worse, but I think the immediate "Ayyurrghhh!" factor is greater with the bat.

Should you feel the need to relive the iconic scene from The Godfather, you can now purchase a horsehead pillow:

It retails for $45 and is available from the quirky Kropserkel company. Kropserkel also manufactures gothic armor, Nazgul armor (ala, The Lord of the Rings), nine-foot wide fake UFOs, and replicas of costumes from a wide variety of action/adventure movies.