Neorealism Goes to the Movies in Post-WW II

Here's a few recommended movies made in Italy shortly after World War Two. They were filmed in the style called neorealism out of necessity. The film makers had almost no money or facilities, so they filmed on location, had no makeup, and used mostly nonprofessional actors.

Roma, citta aperta (DVD) Open city / was the first in Roberto Rossellini's war trilogy.

LinkCat:"The loyalties of an impoverished mother-to-be and a parish priest are tested by the German forces which occupy their homeland during World War II." Federico Fellini also worked on this film.

Criterion: "This was Roberto Rossellini’s revelation, a harrowing drama about the Nazi occupation of Rome and the brave few who struggled against it. Rome Open City is a shockingly authentic experience, conceived and directed amid the ruin of World War II."

Paisa (DVD) Paisan / was the second film in the series. Criterion: "Roberto Rossellini’s follow-up to his breakout Rome Open City was the ambitious, enormously moving Paisan, which consists of six episodes set during the liberation of Italy at the end of World War II, taking place across the country, from Sicily to the northern Po Valley."

Germania anno zero (DVD) Germany year zero / was the third film.

LinkCat: "The concluding chapter of Roberto Rossellini's War Trilogy is the most devastating, a portrait of an obliterated Berlin seen through the eyes of a 12-year old boy. Living in a bombed-out apartment building with his sick father and two older siblings, young Edmund is mostly left to wander unsupervised, getting ensnared in the black market schemes of a group of teenagers and coming under the nefarious influence of a Nazi-sympathizing ex-teacher."

Finally, a later film (1962) also shot in the neorealist style and about the same era was Four Days of Naples (not available through LinkCat). It relates the harrowing, enthralling tale of the rebellion of the ordinary people of Naples in September 1944 against the declaration of martial law by German Col. walter Scholl. The German retreat on the fourth day coincided with the American arrival in Naples. The film is on IMDB, but not Netflix.

Do You Like to Move It Move It?

I am reposting this after the heart-stopping win over the Bears (I posted it a week ago after Packers win over Atlanta). How can a game be so lopsided and come down to an INT with less than two minutes to go in the games???

By the way, I hate to mention it, but the Packers need to work on their INT celebrations. The entire state of Wisconsin was first screaming at BJ Raji to tuck the ball away - "Please Mr. Raji, stop waving the ball around before you get in the end zone." And then a few minutes later, I could hear you all screaming - err, quietly suggesting to #37, young Mr. Shields, that he should "Get down, get down, GET DOWN!". (The suggestion was intended not as prelude to boogieing. It meant lay down with the ball before it is removed from your grasp by a person wearing a navy blue and white uniform with orange lettering and trim.)

Seriously, these guys have no clue who Leon Lett is or why he is remembered for a blunder in Super Bowl XXVII (that was 1993). McCarthy should crack out that old tape.

After the Packers game, didn't you feel like dancing? (Sorry about the advertising - it's not mine.)


I LIKE TO MOVE IT ...MOVE IT...
Uploaded by astre. - Explore other animal videos.

Potter Fest Returns to the Monona Public Library - December 29

Potterfest 3

This Wednesday

December 29, 2010
Wednesday 2:30 to 6pm

The Monona Public Library, 2010 Wisconsin Library of the Year, and the Teen Advisory Board present our third annual Harry Potter Fest Saga. Planned and hosted by teens this event is for those in grades 6 to 12. Registration can be done online, by phone: 608-222-6127, or in person 1000 Nichols Road, Monona Public Library.

Potterfest 3

December 29, 2010



Wednesday 2:30 to 6pm

A Book, A Play, A Movie, and a Legacy

Tobacco Road was Erskine Caldwell's most highly regarded book; hailed by the likes of William Faulkner and Saul Bellow. A 2006 Slate magazine review (Erskine Caldwell's greasy hairball of a novel. - By Dwight Garner - Slate Magazine) called it "one of the sickest and most lurid books to have emerged from the literature of the American South. It's about as nutritious as a plate of pork cracklings. You're going to feel a little ill when you get up from this table. And I mean all of this, I think, in a good way."

Tobacco Road depicts the Lester family as the "poorest, whitest, trashiest, horniest family in rural Georgia." They are about as lowdown as human beings can get. Lazy, shiftless, and dishonest, violent, and sex-obsessed. In some ways, Tobacco Road is the anti-Gone with the Wind; no magnolias and romantic chivalry in Caldwell's South. It is also an anti-Grapes of Wrath. The Lesters are stuck in the Depression too and about to be kicked off their land, but it's hard to work up any sympathy for them.

Tobacco Road was turned into one of the most successful Broadway plays of all time by Jack Kirkland and later a movie (starring the alluring Gene Tierney as Ellie Mae Lester). The movie recently aired on TCM and is showing on the Fox Movie Channel on March 26, 2010 8:00 am ET and April 14, 2010 7:00 am ET. The movie (directed by John Ford, who also directed Grapes of Wrath) turns the story into a hillbilly comedy.




The Georgia Encyclopedia entry had this to say about the movie:

Ford and screenwriter Nunnally Johnson (a Georgia native) attempted to preserve the caustic comedy and social protest of the book and play, but the studio overruled them on central issues, specifically the tragic ending. The result was a sentimental burlesque that Caldwell himself disavowed.

Nevertheless, the movie retains enough of Caldwell's sharp edge to draws the viewer in. The characters created by Caldwell became enduring cultural stereotypes of white Southern hillbillies. And it does provide a window into a time and place not too far over the historical horizon, but nearly unimaginable for many.

Netflix: Tobacco Road

Film: The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp

 
Another offering in my occasional listing of movies you should see, but may never have known existed.

Roger Ebert's review The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp:

"[T]he movie transforms a blustering, pigheaded caricature into one of the most loved of all movie characters. Colonel Blimp began life in a series of famous British cartoons by David Low, who represented him as an overstuffed blowhard. The movie looks past the fat, bald military man with the walrus moustache, and sees inside, to an idealist and a romantic. To know him is to love him….

The movie has four story threads. It mourns the passing of a time when professional soldiers observed a code of honor. It argues to the young that the old were young once, too, and contain within them all that the young know, and more. It marks the General's lonely romantic passage through life, in which he seeks the double of the first woman he loved. And it records a friendship between a British officer and a German officer, which spans the crucial years from 1902 to 1942.

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp is a film of balance and insight--a civilized film, which even in a time of war celebrates civilized values. What it regrets is the loss, in two World Wars, of a sense of decency and fair play that had governed the European military classes. Near the film's end, the German refugee corrects the sentimentalism of the old general, telling him from first-hand experience that Nazism is the greatest evil the world has ever known, and saying there is no point in playing fair when the enemy plays foul, if that means you lose, and evil wins."

 

 
My review: Made in 1943, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp is a fascinating, entertaining, and important movie for several reasons. The movie tracks the life of British officer Clive Wynne-Candy (Colonel Blimp) from his return as a hero of the Boer War through his service in the Homeguard during World War Two. 

Although the title is borrowed from the famous British political cartoon character, the portrayal of Blimp here is far more nuanced. Cartoonist David Low created Blimp as vehicle to satirize British upper class stupidity. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger created a Blimp who befriended a German officer in 1903 – after having fought him in a duel. Blimp maintained his friendship with that German, Theodor Kretschmar-Schuldorff, right through WWII after Theo became a refugee from Nazi Germany.


Roger Livesey was marvelous playing Blimp in three stages of his life. Deborah Kerr played three roles: Theo's wife Edith, Blimp's wife Barbara, and finally as the young WTC driver for the aged Blimp. The movie's best performance is turned in by the Austrian actor Anton Walbrook in his role as Blimp's German friend. His monologue, shot as a continuous single scene close-up, to the British Enemy Aliens Act review board explaining why he has left Germany and wants to live in England is genius personified. 


The movie is cinematically brilliant as well. The build up to the duel is masterful. Be sure to watch the Criterion Collection version for the Martin Scorsese commentary as well as the 20 minute documentary.

 

Watching it from this vantage point sixty years after the fact, the movie struck me as a very clever work of war propaganda in addition to being very entertaining. (I'm not criticizing that; it was 1943 after all.) The movie's underlying message was that this new war could not be fought according to a sense of British fair play (mostly an imagined sense anyway). Blimp never gets the message until the movie's ending scene, which lends a strong sense of pathos to his character. 


At the time, however, Churchill was wild and tried to suppress the movie because of its sympathetic portrayal of at least one German. Typical Churchillian blockheadedness – he wanted everyone beat over the head with a simplistic portrayal of all Germans, revealing his upper class elitism by refusing to recognize that most people are smarter than that and will be more effectively taken in by nuanced propaganda. Fortunately, the producer stood behind the movie and played it in his own theaters across England with the pitch "come and see the banned movie."

  ***

Amazon: The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp - Criterion Collection

Netflix: The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp

The film on Criterion Collection web site.

More Old Movies

A few more additions to my list of recommended old movies, mostly B&W and many foreign. (By the way, if you have a subtitle phobia, like I used to have, give it a try. You may find that you get used to it pretty quickly.) My kids are amazed that movies in black & white still exist and refuse to watch them. Previous movie posts: More Movies Off the Beaten Path and Odds and Ends

Le Deuxième Souffle Netflix: "Gangster Gu (Lino Ventura) busts out of prison and flees to Paris, where he's promptly recruited into a crew planning to pull off a daring robbery. Meanwhile, urbane detective Blot (Paul Meurisse) doggedly pursues the fugitive criminal. A riveting heist sequence highlights this moody and atmospheric thriller from master director Jean-Pierre Melville. Bonus features include archival interviews with the director and star." Paul Meuriise also starred in the classic Diabolique (Criterion Collection Spine #35).

Lino Ventura also stars in the excellent story of the French Resistance, Army of Shadows (1969) L'Armée des Ombres.

La Bete Humaine Netflix: "This classic film directed by the legendary Jean Renoir and based on the novel by Emile Zola stars Roubaud as Fernand Ledoux, a train station worker who, enraged that his wife, Severine (Simone Simon), has cuckolded him, forces her to help kill him. Roubaud's co-worker, Jacques Lantier (Jean Gabin), knows the truth, having witnessed the gruesome events unfold, but all he wants to do is protect Severine because he wants her for himself."

The Fallen Idol (1948). Based on a Graham Greene novel, directed by Carol Reed [Our Man in Havana , Mutiny on the Bounty (1962), The Third Man (1949)and starring Ralph Richardson. Amazon's Graham Greene Page

Tunes of Glory (1960). Stars Alec Guinness as a red-headed Scot! Netflix: Lt. Col. Jock Sinclair (Alec Guinness) briefly takes over control of a brigade until the new man for the job, Col. Basil Barrow (John Mills), becomes available. When the elitist and aristocratic Barrow takes over, he's instantly displeased with his lower-class predecessor. The conflict between the two men jeopardizes the harmony of the company and escalates after Sinclair roughs up a soldier he finds with his daughter.

Quai des Orfevres Netflix: "Singer Jenny Lamour (Suzy Delair) is on the brink of achieving notoriety -- but it's not in the music field. Instead, she's embroiled in a tale of intrigue that involves her jealous husband and accompanist, Maurice (Bernard Blier), murdering a man with whom Jenny made seductive eye contact just so she could obtain more gigs."

L'Avventura An Italian film that features the leisured class and their discontents. The "careful pacing" defines languorous. With her stunning screen presence Monica Vitti displays a combination of cool, detached sensuality or even "frosty sensuality" (Child of the Moon: Monica Vitti). First in a trilogy that also included La Notte and L'Eclisse.

The Grapes of Wrath The film is one of the best book-to-movie productions ever. Based on the John Steinbeck book, the film stars a very young Henry Fonda, as well as John Carradine and Jane Darwell (Ma Joad). Directed by the great John Ford (and not one shot of Monument Valley!). Darwell was an amazingly prolific actress.

Au Revoir Les Enfants A haunting tale about a private boys school during WWII in occupied France. Not old (1987) nor in B&W! (Is 1987 old?)

M (1931). Genuinely creepy story of a sex-deviant and serial child-killer played by a young Peter Lorre. Directed by Fritz Lang.

Pie Report

Still waiting word on the money raised at the Monona Pie Party for the Monona public library early literacy offerings, but I can report my personal findings.

Chad Speight's spouse the inimitable Sue Carr told me that Chad baked a pedestrian pecan pie. Huh?! Thought bubble: Geez, Sue's calling Chad's pie pedestrian? Not much of endorsement. And then an even worse thought occurred to me: the pie was made of pedestrians mixed with pecans! I mean, this event is a big deal, but do we need human sacrifice and cannibalism? I was much relieved to learn that he was just having a bit of fun at his own expense. (You know, because of the urban myth that he lost the election because of his support for sidewalks.)

The volunteers did a fantastic job. Phil McDade did a great job auctioneering and causing runaway pie/price inflation. Did he say Sunny Schubert's pie was half-baked? Noooo, I'm kidding, but he did say it was "hand-baked". Ouch! How do you "hand-bake" a pie (or anything else) without burning your fingers off? Just askin'.

I also learned to be careful how many pies you bid on because you will probably win some of them. This thought didn't arise until I had bid on about 49 pies (OK, I bid on seven pies and used the truth/squared exaggeration rule of blogging.). I won two for a mere $12 each and picked up an unclaimed third one for $10. They were numbers 55, 95, and 98. A berry pie concoction, a pumpkin pie, and a walnut/chocolate cookie-pie that is insanely good. The first two are good, but didn't cause an altered state of consciousness. Psst, that's a good web site.

(Apropos of nothing: Check out the Acidemic Film Blog on films that cause altered states or that should be watched while in said state. The blogger describes himself as a "moody pseudo-shaman in semi-recovery".)

I will declare the event a huge success regardless of how much money was raised. Popular? The Main Hall at the Community Center was a bit of a tight fit for all the customers, volunteers, and pies. Curtain call for the volunteers who made this event happen again. Encore! Encore!

Itsy bitsy, teensy weensy suggestion: It would be nice if pies came with a pedigree sheet; who made it, what's it called, the back story, and so forth.

More Movies Off the Beaten Path

Some movie recommendations for those who enjoy, as I do, old B&W films, mostly of foreign origin and generally noir-ish, if not outright desperate.

Many are available free from the library on LINKcat

La salaire de la peur (Blu-ray) The wages of fear / LINKcat - Directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot (Clouzot, H.-G. (Henri-Georges)

Wages of Fear was censored before it was considered safe for Americans to view.

In a small and isolated, hot and dusty Central American village, there's only one thing to do: dream of getting out. An opportunity for escape presents itself, but only to those with nerves of steel. An American oil company has offered to pay big money to get two trucks loaded with nitroglycerin over to a well fire. The catch is that the unpaved terrain contains enough bumps and crags to make the unstable material explode, instantly killing the driver. Nonetheless, the company has many applicants hungry for work, and a quartet of the coolest are chosen. But even these stalwart men will discover that fear of their deadly payload can ignite even the most frozen emotions.

***

Diabolique (Criterion Collection Spine #35) Stars Simone Signoret and Clouzot's wife, Vera, as teachers who plot to kill the headmaster. Plus Charles Vanel. Another masterpiece by Clouzot.

***

Le Corbeau (The Raven) - Criterion Collection

Le Corbeau Netflix

This movie, filmed during the Nazi occupation, got Clouzot in hot water with the Nazis and Vichy, but also got him a four-year post-war ban as a 'collobarator'!

***

The 39 Steps (Criterion Collection Spine #56
The 39 steps (DVD) LINKcat. Early Hitchcock film based on the John Buchan novel that is one of the earliest modern spy novels.

***

The Third Man (50th Anniversary Edition) - Criterion Collection
The Third man (DVD)

Set in post-war Vienna, an American western-adventure writer searches for a friend who turns out to be the king-pin of the Austrian black market. Stars Orson Welles and Joseph Cotten.

***

Scarlet Pimpernel (1934) ~ Leslie Howard and Merle Oberon. Howard's over-the-top play-acting as the foppish Sir Percy Blakeney must be seen. As must the beautiful Merle Oberon.

The Scarlet pimpernel LINKcat

***

Grim life in post-WW Two Italy: Bicycle Thieves (Criterion Collection)
Ladri di biciclette (DVD) Bicycle thieves LINKcat

***

Closely Watched Trains Netflix

Surrounded by but seemingly removed from the violence of World War II, a naïve railroad apprentice (Václav Neckár) working at a train station in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia carves some excitement out of his humdrum existence by exploring his own sexuality. Jirí Menzel directs this Oscar-winning foreign-film classic based on a novel by Czech writer Bohumil Hrabal, who co-wrote the screenplay with Menzel.

***

Osudy dobreho vojaka Svejka (DVD) The good soldier Schweik / LINKcat - and its sequel, Good Soldier Schweik 2: Beg to Report, Sir Netflix Hey, this one is actually funny.

Well-meaning soldier Schweik (Rudolf Hrusinsky) returns in this sequel to the uproarious first film based on Jaroslav Hasek's novel. Europe's own Forrest Gump, Schweik is back in action after causing mayhem galore in the first film. Always ready, willing and able, Schweik ambles through his military days unaware of the serious changes going on about him, successfully wreaking havoc with his superiors and the army despite his good intentions.

***

Fires on the Plain Netflix. Stow away the kiddies for this unrelentingly grim Japanese film on the last days of the war in a Japanese army unit. Come to think of it, put away all sharp objects, too.

In director Kon Ichikawa's harrowing film set in the Philippines during World War II, a Japanese soldier, his emotional and physical resources nearly depleted, endures the vicissitudes of war. Ichikawa, whom some cineastes say was as talented as his better-known contemporaries, including Akira Kurosawa and Kenji Mizoguchi, had a way with infusing light in the darkest places.

***

If you like any of these, take a look at this Listmania from an Amazon reviewer: 40 Favorite Films from the Criterion Collection.

Or check out this excellent blog: The Criterion Contraption

Odds and Ends

Shouldn't that be 'odds and evens'?

Random stuff bouncing around in the cranium and vicinity.

Flann O'Brien is really funny in a quirky Gaelic kind of way. Try The Poor Mouth: A Bad Story About the Hard Life (includes illustrations by Ralph Steadman) about growing up in the Gaeltacht (Gaeltacht - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia).

Visit: Amazon's Flann O'Brien Page and http://www.ralphsteadman.com/

***

The Germans seem to be making a lot of good films lately.

LinkCat: Counterfeiters (DVD) [videorecording]

Netflix: The Counterfeiters

Facing an ethical quandary, Jewish master forger Salomon Sorowitsch (Karl Markovics) must choose between abetting the Nazis and saving his skin in this taut Oscar-nominated drama based on a true story. Assembled at a death camp, a cadre of printers, artists and chiselers -- led by the opportunistic Sorowitsch -- is tasked with counterfeiting currencies to weaken Allied economies. But will Sorowitsch's conscience begin to gnaw at him as the war draws to a close?

LinkCat: Das leben der Anderen (DVD) The lives of others /

Netflix: The Lives of OthersDas Leben der Anderen(2007) R

Set in 1980s East Berlin, director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's debut feature (which earned an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film) provides an exquisitely nuanced portrait of life under the watchful eye of the state police as a high-profile couple is bugged. When a successful playwright and his actress companion become subjects of the Stasi's secret surveillance program, their friends, family and even those doing the watching find their lives changed too.

LinkCat: Nowhere in Africa (DVD) [videorecording]

Netflix: Nowhere in Africa

Shortly before World War II, a Jewish couple and their young daughter emigrate to Kenya from Germany to escape the Nazis. Not all members of the family are happy with this drastic change -- but going home isn't an option. Ultimately, they must all come to terms with a new life in a new continent. Director Caroline Link's epic drama won the 2002 Oscar for best foreign film.

For a quirky, funny and touching foreign movie try the 1968 winner Closely Watched Trains (Closely watched trains (DVD) [videorecording]). It's Czech not German.

Surrounded by but seemingly removed from the violence of World War II, a naïve railroad apprentice (Václav Neckár) working at a train station in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia carves some excitement out of his humdrum existence by exploring his own sexuality. Jirí Menzel directs this Oscar-winning foreign-film classic based on a novel by Czech writer Bohumil Hrabal, who co-wrote the screenplay with Menzel.

Full List of Best Foreign Language Film

***

Raise the beer tax? It was set at $1/barrel in 1933. It was raised top $2/barrel in 1969. The Wisconsin beer tax has not been raised in 40 years. Raising the beer tax to $10/barrel would generate about $50 million in added revenue per year. (If my math is right that means the current beer tax generates all of $12 million a year.)

Yoinks! the WSJ's Scott Milfred likes the idea.

Ok, then did you know that California already taxes medical marijuana sales at 9.5%. Thirteen states have legalized medical marijuana (Wisconsin, of course, is not one of them.). A company called Medical Marijuana Inc. is already in the business of managing these tax transactions.

According to an article in the Atlantic, California State assemblyman Tom Ammiano made his pitch in February, a bill that would legalize the "cultivation, possession and sale of marijuana by people 21 and older." The bill would amount to about $50 per ounce tax on the drug, raising an estimated $1.3 billion for the state of California.

Now, California has about 6.5 times as many residents as Wisconsin (around 36.7 million compared to 5.6M) and I doubt Wisconsinites keep up with California in the stoner department, but still, if a marijuana raised even 1/20th that amount we're talking $65 million in tax revenue per year.

CNN has a chart projecting lower, but still significant revenues ($13.4 million for Wisconsin).

Here is a Slate magazine article on the revenue enhancing qualities of legal marijuana.

Hmmm, instead of $30,000/year free room and board for pot dealers, we turn them into respectable tax-paying business owners. Back when Wisconsin was progressive, it might have happened here. Not anymore.

But think of the increased sales of Pop Tarts!

Help! I'm Bein' Repressed

One of my favorite Monty Python skits in the Holy Grail movie involved a scene here the King is conversing with two of his "subjects" who are working in a field and dispute Arthur's right to be king.

The scene ends with one of the peasants proclaiming:

"Help! Help! I'm being repressed! Now we're seeing it! The violence inherent in the system! Violence inherent in the system!"

Much funnier than the real thing. But if you care to read about oppression and repression, here are some good choices. Some of the fiction gets across the reality better than mere history.

Literature:

The Stalin Epigram: A Novel by Robert Littell. An excellent new book by the author best known for his top-notch novels of spy intrigue. Littell tells the ordeal of the Russian poet Osip Mandelstam under Stalinist repression. Faithfully based on historical events. The photos are of Mandelstam after his first arrest in 1934 and his second arrest in 1938.

First published in 1941 Darkness at noon,by Koestler, Arthur, 1905-1983 portrays the imprisonment and physical and psychological torture suffered by an aging revolutionary in Stalin's purges.

Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman while ranging broadly across the Soviet Union during WW II also covers Stalinist repression and some of the distortions it caused in Soviet science.

The Case of Comrade Tulayev by Victor Serge. The NYRB Books says: "The best novel ever written about the Stalinist purges is also a classic tale of risk and adventure that stands beside Malraux's Man's Fate and Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls."


History:

Political Repression in Modern America: FROM 1870 TO 1976 by Robert Justin Goldstein relates many less-known instances.

It Did Happen Here: Recollections of Political Repression in America by Bud Schultz and Ruth Schultz covers political repression in the US in the 1950's.

Your suggested readings?

“What a wonderful modern age we live in!”

- So said Jack Aubrey (he - or rather Patrick O'Brian - was paraphrasing someone else, but I can't find the original quote.)

The world of watching movies at home is moving toward direct download. If you subscribe to Netflix ® Official Site, you can already download and instantly watch about 12,000 movies (out of their total inventory of over 100,000). If you have the right gizmos, you can watch them your TV.

(Netflix lists some specific devices you can use to watch these movies instantly:
http://www.netflix.com/NetflixReadyDevicesList?lnkce=nrd-l&trkid=425738&lnkctr=nrd-l-m)

Microsoft's XBox is one of the listed devices. However, I also learned yesterday that with some inexpensive software called PlayOn, you can use your PS3 (PlayStation.com - Home) to watch Netflix movies on your TV.

I tried and it works. The download, install, and setup were easy and trouble-free. It did take an hour or so, but mainly because I first updated the PS3 software. (Note: Your PS3 must be connected to the Internet and to your PC.)

Get the software here: Netflix on PlayStation 3

The software also allows you to watch Hulu, YouTube, CBS, CNN, and ESPN for free and Amazon Video On Demand (not for free). (Not sure yet what the deal is with ESPN, CBS, or CNN - I mean who cares, I can already watch them on plain-old-TV.)

Netflix may also be adding PS3 to its lineup: Kotaku - Netflix Interested In The PS3 - NetFlix

But now you don't have to wait.

Absolutely Nothing Happening

No, I have not quit blogging, but as far as I can tell, absolutely nothing has happened in Monona in about two weeks. Enjoy.

So, I've been watching British TV shows on DVD's that I borrowed from the Monona public library. Catalogue: LinkCat

MYSTERY! The Inspector Lynley Mysteries are based on novels by Elizabeth George.
Nathaniel Parker and Sharon Small star. (DVD on LinkCat: Inspector Lynley mysteries. A great deliverance (DVD) [videorecording] /).

"House of Cards" (1990) is a mini-series of British political intrigue. Francis Urquhart will stop at nothing - nothing - to become the Prime Minister. His wife is the only person more coldly calculating than F.U. as he is called by one and all. According to Wikipedia: "The House of Cards trilogy was ranked 84th in the British Film Institute list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes." Stars Ian Richardson.

Masterpiece Prime Suspect PBS is British crime series starring Helen Mirren. Mirren heads a group of detectives in London. Each shows focuses one crime. The show takes on racial and gender issues and the characters are far from saints. Prime suspect. 1 (DVD) [videorecording] /

Watch 'Finding Nemo' at the Monona Pool

Presented by the Monona Parks & Rec Department:

A Flick & Float
Sponsored by Monona Motors

Movie at the Pool: Finding Nemo
Friday August 15th, 6:30 to 10:00 p.m.

Free Popcorn, games and prizes

Join the Monona Parks & Rec Dept at the Pool for a fun family event on Friday, August 15th from 6:30 to 10:00 p.m. Bring your floaties for a great night at the pool. We'll have music, games, and prizes for the kids. There will also be free popcorn available at the concession stand.

Regular admission rates apply, season pass holders come for free!

The movie will start around 8:00 p.m. when it gets dark. Feel free to watch the movie in the pool, or bring some blankets and watch the movie from the pool deck.

City of Monona Parks and Recreation

1011 Nichols Road

Monona, WI 53716

Amazon:Finding Nemo (Two-Disc Collector's Edition)

Netflix: Finding Nemo (Widescreen)

And big thanks to John Disch and Mary Possin for sponsoring this event.

Last Chance for the Foreign Film Series May 9

Next Friday, 6:30 p.m., May 9 at the Monona Public Library is the final Friday film of the spring in the Foreign Film series . Featured: Her Name is Sabine (Netflix review: Her Name Is Sabine). Winner FIPRESCI Award at the 2007 Cannes International Film Festival(FIPRESCI is the International Federation of Film Critics).

If you lived in NYC you could have seen this film in March at the Film Society of Lincoln Center as part of its Rendez-Vous with French Cinema 2008. We'll save you the airfare and the $12 for admission!

Thanks for sponsorship go to the Friends of the Monona Public Library.

Book Reviews and More From the Monona Public Library

Book reviews are just one of the newer features from the Monona Public Library. Check them out at: MOO Reviews (I have contributed a few myself, but most are by our excellent public services librarian Erick Plumb).

Looking for a new book? Check out selected New Arrivals at the Monona Library . Or try the EXPRESS Collection located near the self-checkout machine. You can find some high-demand adult books (both nonfiction and fiction) and DVDs - and possibly avoid a long 'hold' wait. One of my favorite ways to pick up a new title.

Or try Book-Alikes – This personalized service lets librarians throughout south-central Wisconsin give you good book ideas based on other books you have read. These are not computer-generated 'suggestions', but suggestions from real live professional librarians.

You can also book some face time with a librarian: Book a Librarian - Monona Public Library

Adult Movies at the Monona Public Library!

Beginning next Sunday, the library will be, how you say, screening free movies, excuse me, films for adults (grown-ups that is, not the other kind of adult movies).

When: Sunday April 29 at 1:30 PM Premier Film: A Simple Curve (Canada)

From the library web site :

"The Monona Public Library has begun a partnership with Film Movement. Film Movement scours the world's top film festivals each year including Cannes, Sundance, Toronto and New York to select the best, award-winning films from among thousands of qualified entries. Selections are approved by Film Movements panel of Curators who come from such prestigious film institutions as Lincoln Center, the American Film Institute and Roger Ebert's Overlooked Film Festival."

Also showing in the Spring Series:

Sunday May 6: Familia (Canada)
Sunday May 20: Monster Thursday (Norway)

All showtimes are at 1:30 PM

In the words of Inspector Clouseau (Steve Martin), "do you mind, I am trying to watch the flim"!

Last King of Scotland - At Last!

Addendum: I saw the movie today at Westgate and highly recommend it. Whitaker is great as Idi Amin. The place was packed and I saw Dean Bowles in the audience.


The, as they say, critically acclaimed (and oddly named) Last King of Scotland finally wends its way to Madison starting at Westgate this Friday. It's the fictionalized tale of a Scottish doctor who somehow becomes Idi Amin's personal doctor - more or less against his own wishes, but then Idi Amin was not a dictator to whom one said 'no'.

Forest Whitaker won a Golden Globe this week for best actor in a drama for his portrayal of the Ugandan leader.

I've been waiting for this movie to come around ever since I first heard it reviewed on NPR last September.