The Short List

The Essex Library’s Summer Film Series kicks off at 7 P.M. on Friday, August 8^th, with BIG NIGHT, the first of six very different movies with a common theme; the starring role of food in the lives of their protagonists. Naturally, we’ll also be serving refreshments! Food and family, food and passion, food and culture; join us on this filmic “cook’s tour” of the world as seen at table.

BIG NIGHT is actor/director Stanley Tucci’s film about two brothers (Tucci, with Tony Shalhoub of MONK) whose Italian restaurant teeters on the brink of bankruptcy. But when they learn a big star is planning to visit their bistro for a multi-course feast, the brothers pull out all the stops, in the hopes that the “big night” will save their business.

Next, on August 15^th, BABETTE’S FEAST centers on a mysterious woman, the banquet she prepares for the people who helped her in her hour of need, and the secret she hides until the end.

August 22^nd , MONSOON WEDDING, director Mira Nair’s spicy extravaganza, plays out during the preparations for an arranged marriage, highlighting different aspects of love and crossing boundaries of class and continent.

In MOSTLY MARTHA, screening September 5^th, German director Sandra Nettelbeck whips up a tragicomic tale about an uptight professional chef whose world turns upside down when she takes in her newly orphaned niece.

Sweden’s charming, witty KITCHEN STORIES is about the oddball relationship between a social scientist and his subject, an elderly farmer whose eating habits he’s been sent to study (Sept. 12^th).

September 19^th we’ll screen the Chinese family drama/comedy that boasts some of the most gorgeous food ever filmed, EAT DRINK MAN WOMAN, in which widower and master chef Chu discovers that no matter how well he runs his kitchen, he’s got no control over his beautiful, libidinous daughters.

All films will begin at 7 P.M., and admission is free. For reservations, please call 767-1560. We’ll save you a plate!

As part of our summer reading theme we’re showing movies every Wednesday from 3-5p.m. in July. Here is the schedule:

July 2 “Antz” Rated PG

July 9 “Charlotte’s Web” Rated G

July 16 “Akeelah and the Bee” Rated PG

July 23 “A Bug’s Life” Rated PG

July 30 “Bee Movie” Rated PG

If you’ve looked at a New York Times Bestseller List or Amazon’s Top 100 List recently, then you know that author Stephenie Meyer’s has tapped a vein with her Twilight Saga vampire series (Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse). The fourth and final book in the series, Breaking Dawn, is being masterfully marketed and is due out on August 2nd. The series, designed for young adults but also very popular with adults, has caught the attention of the Hollywood crowd. Twilight, the movie, starring Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson is due out December 12th.

Richard Morgan’s novel Black Man, “a science fiction thriller, which follows a black, genetically-modified assassin, or Variant Thirteen, in pursuit of a serial killer,” has won the 2008 Arthur C. Clarke award for science fiction. The annual award is presented for best science fiction novel of the year and selected from a list of novels whose UK first edition was published in the previous calendar year.

“There has been a lot of controversy about this year’s shortlist,” Morgan said. “It’s nice to have won against the mainstream contenders because it shows the genre has tremendous self-confidence.”

The shortlist included The Red Men by Matthew de Albuitia, The H-Bomb Girl by Stephen Baxter, The Carhullan Army by Sarah Hall, The Raw Shark Texts by Stephen Hall and The Execution Channel by Ken MacLeod.

This year’s Nebula Awards, sponsored by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, were announced this past weekend at the Nebula Awards banquet in Austin, Tex.:

• Novel: The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon
• Scripts: Pan’s Labyrinth by Guillermo del Toro

Thanks to the Essex Garden Club, we have 5 new DVDs in the Garden Collection:

The Art and Practice of Gardening Hosted by Penelope Hobhouse, a garden writer, designer, historian, lecturer and gardener. Includes: Roses For the Garden; Visions of Nature; The Summer Garden; Design Basics; Planting the Bones of a Garden; and more.

The Best of Ground Force: Garden Rescues A celebration of six years of garden makeovers under the direction of gardener Alan Titchmarsh. Includes rare segments and classic moments from the BBC television series.

Five Secrets of Great Gardening All you need to know to create the garden of your dreams. Five chapters: horticultural design, water management and irrigation, pruning, pest management, propagation.

An Introduction To Landscape Design A beginning presentation on landscape design , including history, design concepts, common styles, performing a site analysis, developing a design program, drawing a plan, and budgeting.

Hometime How-To Guide To Landscaping A step-by-step instruction for installing a new landscape, from planning to planting and adapting basic elements of landscaping to your situation.

April is a time of renewal and reinvention–not in the garden, at the Essex Library! We have a month full of terrific arts programming going on in April: Jenny Tripp’s The Write Stuff program for kids, Victoria Murphy’s Sonnet Programs for adults, the one-woman play The Secret Life Of Louisa May Alcott, and the launch of the Essex Opera Club. That might be enough for some but not for us. In addition to all of the above, Jenny Tripp is continuing her documentary series with 4 fabulous, upbeat films on Sundays at 7p.m. in April:

Ballets Russes : Part history, part love letter, Ballets Russes may be the most purely delightful documentary in years. The movie follows the birth of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo in the early 1930s, an event that eventually led–after years of exhilarating experiments, bitter artistic battles, and exhausting tours–to the establishment of modern ballet around the world. Ballet Russes combines astonishing film footage of fantastical ballets (featuring extravagant sets designed by Salvador Dali and costumes by Henri Matisse) and interviews with surviving dancers in their 70s, 80s, and 90s (ranging from Dame Alicia Markova, who was a prima ballerina with the original Ballet Russe under impresario Sergei Diaghilev, to Yvonne Craig, who went on to become Batgirl in the ’60s tv show Batman); the result is a breathtaking range of scholarship and depth of feeling. The heart of the film is the dancers themselves, who are sly, thoughtful, gossipy, and amazingly youthful in spirit–even the most difficult times are discussed with humor and honesty. Ballet fans will find this an essential document, while anyone who’s never even thought of going to ballet will be completely caught up in these dancers’ passion and wonder.” Amazon.com

Sing Faster: The Stagehands’ Ring Cycle : “Winner of the prestigious Filmmaker’s Trophy at Sundance, SING FASTER is a spirited and comical behind-the-scenes look at Richard Wagner’s beloved “Ring Cycle,” one of the most ambitious and spectacular operas in history. In the tradition of “Noises Off,” this acclaimed film from Academy Award®-nominated filmmaker Jon Else tells the story of Wagner’s epic masterpiece entirely from the point of view of the opera’s unsung heroes - the union stagehands.

Night after night at the San Francisco Opera, a majestic universe of trolls, giants, and magic mountains comes alive before audiences. But when the stage dims, another spectacle unfolds as the highly-skilled stagehands maneuver 1000-pound set pieces in near darkness, with a meticulous choreography no less intricate than that of the opera’s. While the mythical Valkyries on stage seem an improbable counterpart to the stagehands, at the heart of the film is a surprising connection between Wagner’s Norse mythology and the sensibilities of these working people. And as the stage crew offers their own animated interpretation of the “Ring Cycle,” this hilarious and ultimately moving film becomes a meditation on the most basic of human themes: love, greed, power, and redemption.” Amazon.com

Who The #$&% Is Jackson Pollock?: “When Teri Horton, a 73-year-old former long-haul truck driver with an eighth grade education bought a painting in a thrift shop for five dollars, she didn’t know that it would pit her against the most powerful people in the art community and perhaps forever change the way art is authenticated around the world. Who The #$&% Is Jackson Pollock? is a rollicking adventure that documents a 15-year war with the art world’s inner circle, lifts the veil on how art is bought and sold in America and introduces audiences to the funny, profane and utterly unforgettable Teri Horton.” Amazon.com

Life After Tomorrow: ” The award winning Life After Tomorrow, a film by Julie Stevens and Gil Cates, Jr., reunites more than 40 women who played orphans in the original Broadway production of Annie and reveals the highs and lows of their experiences as child actresses in a cultural phenomenon. Once the curtain came down, many found it could be a hard-knock-life, fraught with out-of-control stage mothers, separation anxiety, and worst of all, pubescent growth spurts that could find the moppets being replaced by smaller, younger editions just waiting in the wings. As one cast member in the film remarks, The younger ones are coming to take your place and you’re 12. It’s not like you are getting downsized at 50…you’re 12!. While their lives moved on, the impact of the experience remains. Features behind-the-curtain footage from the original Broadway production and performances with the re-united orphans.” Amazon.com

The Library and the Essex Land Trust will co-host the finale to the Library’s Environmental Film Series by presenting a brief film followed by a discussion about fighting global warming. The event will take place on April 29^th at 7pm in the Library’s Program Room and will focus on what Connecticut residents can do at the local level to halt the impact of greenhouse gases. The film will be followed by a discussion with Josh Friedman, a member of the Connecticut Fund for the Environment outreach team. To register or for more information, contact Paul Greenberg at 767-7355.

If you’ve been paying any attention at all to the recent media, you might have already learned that the Oscars were literally inundated–literally. Movies that were adapted from books took home more than a handful of the golden statuettes last night. The big winner was No Country For Old Men by Cormac McCarthy which was adapted for the screen by those famous Coen Brothers (Ethan and Joel), who, by the way, have recently bought the rights to film Michael Cabon’s The Yiddish Policemen’s Union. Given how good the book is, it could be a great movie. Other books that brought home the gold last night included Atonement by Ian McEwan, The Bourne Ultimatum by Robert Ludlum, There Will Be Blood which was adapted from Upton Sinclair’s Oil! and The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman

Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears A Who will be in theaters in March but you can read the book right now. Lessons in tolerance, responsibility and courage are in full swing here and there’s nothing wrong with that. Who wouldn’t want this dignified pachyderm as a best friend when he stands by the motto: “After all, a person is a person, no matter how small.” And don’t forget Horton’s 1940 debut in Horton Hatches The Egg when he proved true with “I meant what I said, and I said what I meant: an elephant’s faithful one hundred per cent.”

Forget everything you thought you knew about our documentary program coming up in March…here’s the real scoop:

Through the Eyes of Others;

A documentary series, four Sunday evenings in March

The 2^nd, the 9^th, the 16^th and the 30^th at 7 pm at the Essex Library

Documentaries can educate, inflame, propagandize, or sanctify. Also, uniquely, they can take us into other worlds, the closed lives and secret societies that coexist with ours. The four films chosen for this series all provide a glimpse into hidden places. A toxic family tug-of-war is played out against crumbling grandeur. A media circus surrounds a bizarre fratricide down on the farm. Amish teenagers face a dangerous, fascinating passage to adulthood via worldly temptation. And an odd, tragic loner finds himself – but loses his life – through his obsession with grizzly bears. Astonishingly intimate, human-scale and revelatory, these films are quirky gems, like the people who inhabit them. You will never forget them.

March 2^nd, 7 pm

GREY GARDENS

Directors: Albert and David Maysle, 1975

Weirdly compelling, funny, tragic; GREY GARDENS became a cult phenomenon, and even spawned a Broadway musical. Welcome to the world of Big and Little Edie Beale; Jackie O’s eccentric, reclusive cousins. Living together in the moldering splendor of their East Hampton mansion, this toxic mother and her middle-aged daughter spar, reminisce, and eerily entertain us, with all the can’t-look-away fascination of a slow-motion car crash. Not to be missed.

March 9^th, 7 pm

BROTHER’S KEEPER

Director; Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, 1992,

Known by all of Munnsville, New York as harmless hermits, the Ward brothers (also including Lyman and Roscoe) live an 18th-century lifestyle in their tiny, grimy shack, sleeping in the same bed through cold winters and tending daily to their hayfields and livestock. Semiliterate and stunted by minimal exposure to the outside world, the Wards are disheveled children in the bodies of aging men; and when Delbert is charged with suffocating his ailing brother Bill, he’s a prime target for legal manipulation and a media circus that’s immediately drawn to his case. Fascinating and full of compassionate humanity. (As seen on Amazon.com)

March 16th, 7 pm

DEVIL’S PLAYGROUND

Director: Lucy Walker, 2002

Most of us know no more about the Amish than we can glean from books or a casual encounter – which goes a long way to explaining the fascination of Devil’s Playground. The film explores a little-known Amish coming-of-age rite, called Rumspringa. Believing as they do in adult baptism, the Amish require that their young people make an informed decision whether to stay in the community, or to choose the “English” (our) path, and withdraw. For this one time in their lives, Amish youth are allowed to sample freely from the dangerous attractions offered by the modern world; sex, drugs and rock and roll. And they do. The film follows a group of Amish teens struggling with their choices. Moving, surprising, illuminating.

March 30^th, 7 pm

GRIZZLY MAN

Director: Werner Herzog, 2005

Another major Academy kerfuffle occurred when this much-praised documentary was refused Oscar consideration for containing too much archival footage. Hertzog weaves together an extraordinary portrait of a difficult, complex man, amateur naturalist and wildlife advocate Timothy Treadwell. Treadwell, who spent 13 summers filming himself and his beloved grizzly bears in Katmai National Park, slowly unravels mentally until he comes to believe that he has become one of them. His fate, which seems inevitable from the outset, is only part of the story. Hertzog’s combination of Treadwell’s footage with interviews and his own musings make a fascinating film, and bring a strange, alienated, yet ultimately sympathetic man, back to life.