New Year New Beginnings
January is named after the Roman god, Janus, with two faces: one looking forward and one back. January is often a time of thoughtful reflection on the previous year and hopeful planning for the one ahead. Many people make resolutions; be healthier, travel more, save some money, finishing incomplete projects, find new love. Now is a great time for some films with late-blooming actors, stories about taking chances, and characters embarking on new beginnings. As usual, DVDs for the films listed are in the IMC collection.
Unforgiven
Did you know that Morgan Freeman didn’t get his first big movie role until he was 52? Throughout his film career, Morgan Freeman has played a wide range of roles, including a Civil War soldier, several detectives, a long-term prisoner, a professor, an inventor, Nelson Mandela, and God. He has also done voiceovers for a number of documentaries. Unforgiven is an early 90’s Clint Eastwood directed film. Freeman and Eastwood star as two aging former gunslingers, Ned Logan and William 'Bill' Munny. Although they have both long ago settled into conventional lives, when Bill loses his wife, and his pig farm starts failing, he talks Ned out of retirement for one last job. The pace of this movie is a bit slow, especially in the beginning, but the acting is phenomenal, the morals very gray, and the action realistically raw and violent. Unforgiven is deep in a way that traditional American Westerns are not, and even if you don’t usually enjoy this genre, I highly recommend this film.
Unforgiven (1992). Starring Clint Eastwood,
Gene Hackman, and Morgan Freeman.
Directed by Cling Eastwood.
Chef
Many New Year's resolutions include travel, spending more time with family and friends, or finding a more fulfilling career. In Chef, Carl Casper (Jon Favreau) does all three. Carl is a divorced dad and chef in a high-end LA restaurant. After a heated argument with the restaurant’s owner over creative differences, Carl quits and goes to see his son and ex-wife in Miami. There he reconnects with an old friend, and with their support launches a food truck business. He takes his new business, friend, and son on a cross country, “foodie road trip,” chronicled on social media by his son. This movie is light and feel-good. It probably won’t be on anyone’s bucket list but if you need a little inspiration, give it a view. Just be warned, you will get hungry; have some good food ready.
Chef (2014). Starring Jon Favreau, Robert Downey Jr.,
and Scarlett Johansson. Directed by Jon Favreau.
Under the Tuscan Sun
Frances (Diane Lane) leaves her cheating husband and takes a trip to Italy where she impulsively buys a decrepit villa, begins renovating, makes new friends, and starts a new life. Under the Tuscan Sun is at first glance a typical movie about rediscovering yourself after a bad break-up- that’s what I thought before I saw it. But amid the fantastic scenery and Fellini film references is a beautiful message that even when you feel like your life is falling apart, you can still have a happy ending; even if it is not exactly the one you thought you were going to get.
Under the Tuscan Sun (2003). Starring Diane Lane,
Raoul Bova, and Sandra Oh. Directed by Audrey Wells.
Blog post written By Amanda Brooks
The Good Lord Bird, James McBride
Recently adapted to television, this novel transforms the historical figures involved in the Harpers Ferry raid into darkly comedic, yet poignant characters. Henry Brown, leader of the uprising, strongarms a reluctant Henry, a 10-year-old slave boy, into joining his mission. In a bid to survive, Henry becomes “Onion,” a former slave girl with a penchant for drink. As Onion grapples with his identity and his desire to escape, Brown struggles with faith in his mission and his belief in the ability of whites and African-Americans to overcome the racism they’re fighting. This controversial historical event gains new depths in the skillful hands of McBride.
Published in 2013 by Riverhead Books.
Recipient of the National Book Award
for Fiction that year.
Check it out at FHG!
The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley (Audiobook, narrated by Laurence Fishburne)
Originally published in 1964, Malcolm X’s autobiography remains essential for understanding the man behind the movement. Malcolm X details his childhood and how he found himself redirected from a path of petty crime to one of leadership and assurance through his Muslim faith. In this, we begin to understand how the creation of the self is a constant act, and how Malcolm X, inspired and empowered, led a movement that is, 65 years later, not yet finished. My favorite version of this classic comes in audio format, narrated by actor and director Laurence Fishburne.
Check it out at FHG!
Published in 1965 by Grove Press. Audio book
version released in 2020 by Audible Studios.
Just Us: An American Conversation, Claudia Rankine
The spiritual successor to Citizen: An American Lyric, Rankine returns to her musings on race in America, imagining conversations with new conclusions, essays on current events, and striking poems that reflect Rankine’s struggle to unpack the rise of white supremacy. This collection takes on the concept of whiteness and tries to provide a new way of connecting with one another in our deeply charged society.
What if what I want from you is new, newly made
a new sentence in response to all my questions,
a swerve in our relation and the words that carry us,
the care that carries. I am here, without the shrug,
attempting to understand how what I want
and what I want from you run parallel—
justice and the openings for just us.
(excerpted from “[What does it mean to want],” included in Just US: An American Conversation)
Published in 2020 by Graywolf Press.
Named a best book of the year by
The New York Times & Time Magazine.
Kindred: A Graphic Novel Adaptation, Octavia E. Butler, illus. John Jennings, adapt. Damian Duffy
One of Octavia E. Butler’s best-loved novels, Kindred, has been adapted into a graphic format. Kindred examines the long-reaching impact of slavery across generations through Dana, a young black woman mysteriously transported from the 1970s to a plantation in the South, pre-civil war. A hallmark of feminist, Afrofuturist sci-fi, this richly imagined graphic adaptation is not to be missed.
Check it out at FHG!
Published by Abrams ComicArts in 2017.
Winner of the 2018 Eisner Award for
Best Adaptation from Another Medium.
Post Written By Sarah Corapi
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