Hey everyone! Since April is my birthday month, I generally pick one of my favorite movies for us to watch. This time around we will be watching the utterly bizarre Borgman by Dutch director, Alex van Warmerdam. I think it will get us ready for our Summer Series: Directors of the Weird and Wonderful.
Borgman is a 2013 Dutch psychological thriller drama film directed by Alex van Warmerdam. The film follows a vagrant as he and his team turn the lives of arrogant upper-class people into a psychological nightmare. It currently holds an 87% on Rotten Tomatoes and Brian Tallerico, writing for Rogerebert.com, gave it 3/4 stars saying this in his review, "Van Warmerdam is clearly commenting on class issues, however, the social commentary feels like background more than thematic centerpiece. He is way more interested in mood, malevolence, and the general sense of unease that permeates every frame of "Borgman". Like a religious parable designed to present more questions than answers, "Borgman" can sometimes frustrate but it is an accomplished piece of work, driven by a uniquely malevolent tonal balance and two fantastic central performances. It sometimes simmers when I wish it would boil over but damn if it isn't fascinating to watch the water bubble."Through a Lens Darkly
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Monday, April 1, 2024
April Film Club
Friday, March 8, 2024
March Film Club
Happy March everyone! In keeping with past Film Club tradition, I have tried to find a film that is in some part Irish, whether its actors, director, writer, setting, etc. and for this year I have chosen John Crowley's Brooklyn.
Brooklyn is a 2015 romantic period drama film directed by John Crowley and written by Nick Hornby, based on the 2009 novel of the same name by Colm Toibin. A co-production between the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Canada, it stars Saoirse Ronan in the lead role, with Emory Cohen, Domhnall Gleeson, Jim Broadbent, and Julie Walters in supporting roles. The plot follows Eilis Lacey, a young Irishwoman who emigrates to Brooklyn in the early 1950s to find employment. After building a life there, she is drawn back to her home town of Enniscorthy and has to choose where she wants to forge her future.Friday, February 2, 2024
February Film Club
Hey it's February already! Hopefully we're all done with the snow and negative weather, bring on the spring! For the month of February, I've decided to show the Coen Brothers' O Brother, Where Art Thou?
O Brother, Where Art Thou? is a 2000 satirical comedy-drama film written, produced, co-edited, and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen. It stars George Clooney, John Turturro, and Tim Blake Nelson, with Chris Thomas King, John Goodman, Holly Hunter, and Charles Durning in supporting roles. The film is set in rural Mississippi during the 1930s, and it follows three escaped convicts searching for hidden treasure while a sheriff relentlessly pursues them. Its story is a modern satire which, while incorporating social features of the American South, is loosely based on Homer's epic Greek poem the Odyssey.The film currently holds a certified fresh rating of 78% on Rotten Tomatoes and Peter Bradshaw of the Guardian said this in his review, "O Brother, Where Art Thou? has brio, wit, and style, and the whole picture is air-cushioned with appealing comedy and its own unassuming good nature. Simply: this is a film which is impossible to dislike, and moves with an easy, approachable swing through the bleached and steaming landscape of bluegrass Mississippi, with its ornery confidence men and cracker-barrel politicians. It is made with marvelous clarity and fluency, and Joel and Ethan Coen attain a comic simplicity that other film-makers can only dream of."
Tuesday, January 2, 2024
January Film Club
Happy New Year! Here we are, another year, another lineup of great films. Let's get to it! To kick things off, I've decided to show the newest Wes Anderson feature film, Asteroid City.
Asteroid City is a 2023 American comedy-drama film written, directed and produced by Wes Anderson, from a story he wrote with Roman Coppola. It features an ensemble cast, including Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Jeffrey Wright, Tilda Swinton, Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Adrien Brody, Liev Schreiber, Hope Davis, Steve Park, Rupert Friend, Maya Hawke, Steve Carell, Matt Dillon, Hong Chau, Willem Dafoe, Margot Robbie, Tony Revolori, Jake Ryan and Jeff Goldblum. Its metatextual plot simultaneously depicts the events of a Junior Stargazer convention in a retro-futuristic version of 1955, staged as a play, and the creation of the play. It is Anderson's homage to popular memory and mythology about extraterrestrials and UFOs witnessed in the Southwestern desert in close proximity to atomic test sites during the post-war period of the American 20th century.Friday, December 1, 2023
December Film Club
Hey everybody! Christmas time is here and for the month of December I've decided to show something of a more traditional Christmas movie than we have watched in the past, but just off-beat enough to satisfy even my grinch-like sensibilities. We will be watching the John Hughes written, Jeremiah Chechik directed, Christmas Vacation.
Christmas Vacation is a 1989 American Christmas comedy film and the third installment in National Lampoon magazine's "Vacation" film series. Christmas Vacation was directed by Jeremiah Chechik, written and co-produced by John Hughes, and starring Chevy Chase, Beverly D'Angelo, and Randy Quaid with supporting roles by Miriam Flynn, William Hickey, Mae Questel, Diane Ladd, John Randolph, E.G. Marshall, Doris Roberts, Juliette Lewis, and Johnny Galecki, and special appearances by Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Nicholas Guest, Ellen Hamilton Latzen, Brian Doyle Murray, and Natalia Nogulich. Based on Hughes' short story "Christmas '59", that was published in National Lampoon, it tells the story of the Griswold family spending Christmas vacation at home with their relatives and the ensuing mayhem.At the time of the film's release, it received mixed to positive reviews; however, over time, many have cited it as a Christmas classic. It currently holds a certified fresh rating of 70% on Rotten Tomatoes and Variety magazine said of the film, "Solid family fare with plenty of yucks, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation is Chevy Chase and brood doing what they do best. Despite the title, which links it to previous pics in the rambling Vacation series, this third entry is firmly rooted at the Griswold family homestead, where Clark Griswold is engaged in a typical over-reaching attempt to give his family a perfect, old-fashioned Christmas."
We will be meeting Thursday, Dec. 28 at 5:30 pm
Here's a trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLVd4ipC5Lc
Hope to see you there!
Friday, November 10, 2023
November Film Club
Wednesday, October 4, 2023
October Film Club: 12th Annual Crete Library Horror Fest
Hey everyone! It's that wonderful time of year again, no, not Christmas, HALLOWEEN! My favorite time of year also happens to bring my favorite Film Club event: Horror Fest. Following Horror Fest tradition, we will be meeting two nights and watching 4 scary movies. Generally there's a theme across the 4 films, but this year it's just going to be 4 of my favorite scary movies. So without further ado, here are our films for this year:
Wednesday, Oct. 25
4pm: The Wicker Man
6pm: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Thursday, Oct. 26
6pm: Pontypool