Written by Jon Williams
I’m
admittedly late to the party on this one, but I finally got around to watching Gravity recently. I wanted to see it
in theatres, and now I’m even more irritated with myself that I didn’t. In HD
on a big-screen television, the film looked utterly incredible…I can only
imagine how breathtaking and immersive it was on a giant silver screen. All the
technical awards and accolades the film won for its production and presentation
were well-deserved.
Of course,
humanity facing adversity in the course of space exploration is a plot device
that has been explored time and time again (with Interstellar being the most recent
example). The movie Gravity most
reminded me of in that regard was Apollo 13, the dramatisation of the
ill-fated 1970 NASA mission to the moon. Although Apollo 13 was based on a true story, boiled down, both films have
similar plots: a group of astronauts go into space on a mission that is soon
marred by catastrophe and they have to attempt to return to Earth under
increasingly harrowing circumstances. Interestingly, both films feature Ed
Harris (voice only in Gravity), who also stars in another acclaimed movie about
astronauts, 1983’s The Right Stuff.
Another film
along somewhat similar lines is on the horizon. The Martian, starring Matt Damon, is slated for a November 25
release into theatres. Based on the popular novel
of the same name by Andy Weir, it’s not about an alien from the Red Planet,
but rather about an astronaut abandoned there after an accident leads the rest
of his crew to assume he is dead. Actually only mildly injured, he must then
use what few supplies he has available in an attempt to survive long enough for
a rescue mission to be mounted from Earth. This brings to mind, to a certain
extent, the sci-fi classic Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert
Heinlein, about a human born on Mars coming to Earth for the first time
(although I suppose that’s actually the exact opposite of space exploration).
Some movies
play on our fears of finding hostile (or at the very least dangerous) alien
life on our forays into space. The successful Alien
franchise has been built on this premise, and a new Alien film by District
9’s Neill Blomkamp is in the works. Then there’s Apollo
18, a found-footage film that posits one more crewed moon landing after
the Apollo 17 mission, one that found a very good reason why no one has landed
on the moon since. Another in this vein is Europa
Report, in which a crew is sent to explore the possibility of water and
life on one of Jupiter’s moons.
Of course,
this barely scratches the surface when it comes to tales of humans venturing
into space. There’s much more to explore, including the wide range of Star
Trek shows and movies, Moon,
starring Sam Rockwell and Kevin Spacey, and, of course, 2001
and 2010.
So tell us about some of your favourites, or what’s popular with your patrons,
in the comments section below.
Written by Jon Williams
You’ve heard
about it, and it’s finally here. Today, Fifty
Shades of Grey opens in theatres, following months of anticipation and
controversy. Based on the first of author E.L. James’s trilogy
of novels, the film (itself the first of a trilogy) is expected to win the
weekend’s box office handily, even against strong competition from Kingsman, another new release, plus
holdovers SpongeBob and American Sniper.
Fifty Shades is the first really highly anticipated
movie to open in 2015, but by no means is it the last. Looking at what’s in
store for the year should have moviegoers feeling pretty excited. First up is a
number of reboots, remakes, and reimaginings, including a live-action version
of Cinderella,
directed by Kenneth Branagh, hitting the screen one month from today. This
summer, you can look for an update of the horror classic Poltergeist,
as well as a new version of Fantastic
Four, with Miles Teller, Kate Mara, Michael B. Jordan, and Jamie Bell
as the titular superhero quartet. For Christmas, you can look forward to a
remake of Point
Break that features extreme sports in place of surfing in the original.
And finally, if iconic characters are your thing, you won’t want to miss Mr.
Holmes, which stars Sir Ian McKellan as the world’s
most famous detective in his elder days and dealing with a failing memory.
No North American release date has yet been announced, but it is expected to be out
sometime this year.
If your
favourite franchise isn’t getting a reboot, then chances are good that it’s
getting a sequel, as there are a ton of those on tap for 2015. First on the
docket is Insurgent, coming March 20,
the second in the Divergent
series based on the young
adult novels by Veronica Ross. Staying in the dystopian future genre, this
year will see the conclusion to the Hunger
Games series, as Mockingjay Part
2 debuts in November. The summer a number of blockbusters will have viewers
flocking to theatres for new installments of The
Avengers ( Age of Ultron), Jurassic
Park ( Jurassic World), and Terminator
( Genisys). Daniel Craig takes another
turn as super-spy James Bond in Spectre,
the follow-up to Skyfall.
There will also be new installments for The
Fast and the Furious, Pitch
Perfect, Ted,
and Magic
Mike as the year goes on. And in December, there’s that new Star
Wars movie that has everyone all abuzz.
Of course,
if original fare is more your cup of tea, there’s plenty to look forward to on
that score as well. Later this month, Serena
comes to the screen, starring Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence and based on
the novel
by Ron Rash. March 6 will see the release of Chappie, the story of a robot who gains intelligence and emotions,
directed and written by Neill Blomkamp, known for District
9 and Elysium.
Child 44, in theatres in April, tells
a story of murder and intrigue in the Soviet Union, based on the bestselling novel
by Tom Rob Smith. In May, look for Tomorrowland,
the sci-fi fantasy from Disney starring George
Clooney. Another Marvel movie, Ant-Man,
comes out in July, with Paul
Rudd playing the tiny superhero. And November looks pretty awesome, with
releases including Quentin
Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight,
Disney/Pixar’s The Good Dinosaur, and
the adaptation of Andy Weir’s acclaimed novel The
Martian, starring Matt
Damon.
Naturally,
this is just scratching the surface of all the amazing films coming our way
this year. As always, look to CVS Midwest Tape for these films as they come
available on DVD and Blu-ray, and let us know what you’re looking forward to
seeing.
Written by Jon Williams
Yesterday marked the 170 th anniversary of the
first publication of Edgar Allan Poe’s classic poem “The Raven,” for my money
one of the finest examples of poesy in the English language. The long narrative
poem tells the tale of a man lamenting for his lost love to a raven that he has
inadvertently let into his home. Appearing first in the New York Evening Mirror on January 20, 1845, the
poem is a delight in print, but for the musicality of the language, it must be
heard aloud for the full effect. One such performance can be found on Select
Stories of Edgar Allan Poe, narrated by Chris Lutkin.
That
audiobook also features eleven other classics from Poe, the others being pieces
of his short fiction rather than poetry. Several of them are classic examples
of the style that has led to Poe being known as the “Master of Macabre,” like “The
Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Cask of Amontillado.” As much as he is associated
with the horror genre, though, that was by no means the only trick in his bag. “The
Murders in the Rue Morgue” contains some grisly details, but it’s most notable
for being the first modern detective story. So although this sometimes gets
lost, Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle owes as much to Poe as does someone like, say, Stephen
King (who, in truth, is another writer associated with the horror genre
that writes in a number of styles).
Classic
literature never goes out of style or favour, of course, but merely sits on the
shelf and patiently waits to be discovered by new generations of readers and/or
listeners. And that’s why Dreamscape Media, publishers of the aforementioned
Poe title, is producing a line of classic titles on audiobook with new
recordings that will appeal to longtime literature lovers and first-time
listeners alike. This includes such beloved favourites as A
Christmas Carol and other
Christmas stories from Charles Dickens, The
Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry
Finn by Mark Twain, The
Awakening by Kate Chopin, and The
Wonderful Wizard of Oz and a number of other Oz stories from L. Frank
Baum, to name just a few.
Needless to say, titles like these can add a
great deal of value to your audiobook collection while enriching the lives of
your patrons. SmartBrowse ‘Dreamscape Classics’ on our website for more new
recordings of literature’s canon, or search for any other must-have titles you
need for your collection.
Written by Jon Williams
It’s one of
the hottest topics of today, a conundrum that unfortunately has no easy
solutions and isn’t even easy to discuss. The topic is bullying, and it’s a
situation that occurs far too often. Teachers, school administrators, parents,
and students themselves often deal with it on a daily basis. That was the case
for Carrie Goldman, for whom the bullying of her daughter led her to write a
book that lays out ways to help deal with bullying situations, hopefully before
they start. That book is Bullied,
and it’s an essential guide for anyone who deal with children on a day-to-day
basis.
The one
bright spot is that there are any number of resources, both fiction and
non-fiction, that deal with bullying. The fiction titles can help students—and adults—think
about bullying from different perspectives and perhaps come to terms with its
causes and effects. The non-fiction titles offer anyone who might find
themselves dealing with a bullying situation (from any angle) with practical advice
on how to get through it as peacefully as possible and prevent it from
happening again.
To that end,
Midwest Tape has put together a collection of these audiobook resources that
libraries can put on their shelves for those who need them. Kids
& Bullying: Audiobooks for Conversation can be found via a panel on our
homepage. In the coming weeks, you can look for a number of audiobook
collections like this on a variety of topics. We hope you find them useful, and
that they expose you to some great titles you may have missed. You can let us
know what you think here in the comments.
Written by Jon Williams
If you
watched the Golden Globe awards ceremony on Sunday night—or even if you just
perused the list of winners on Monday morning—you may have noticed something a
little odd on the television side. Despite garnering a fair number of
nominations, the major over-the-air networks (ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC) did not
take home a single award. Instead, the shows celebrated for their excellence
were all from non-traditional, premium cable, or streaming services.
Non-network
stations did quite well for themselves. In fact, the CW, jointly operated by
CBS and Time Warner, was the closest thing to a major network to come away with
the win. The channel, which is generally aimed at a young adult audience, earned
its first major award nomination and win, with Gina
Rodriguez taking home Best Actress in a TV Comedy for her portrayal of the
title character on Jane the Virgin
(which is not yet available on DVD/Blu-ray). Also winning awards were Downton
Abbey (Best Supporting Actress Joanne
Froggatt) and The
Honourable Woman (Best Actress in a Miniseries Maggie
Gyllenhaal); both were produced for British television and aired on this
side of the pond via PBS and SundanceTV, respectively. Finally, FX’s television
reboot of Fargo
won two awards: Best Miniseries and Best Actor in a Miniseries Billy
Bob Thornton.
The
streaming services also won big on the night. Kevin
Spacey, star of Netflix’s powerhouse political show House
of Cards, won the Golden Globe for Best Drama Actor just ahead of the
release of Season 3 on February 27. Following in Netflix’s footsteps of
developing original programming, Amazon had a winner on its hands this year
with Transparent (not yet available),
which took two awards: Best TV Comedy and Best Actor Jeffrey
Tambor. The show’s full first season was made available to users in
September, and it was recently renewed for a second season that will be
released later this year.
The premium
cable outlets also came away with three awards. With fifteen nominations, it
seemed like something of an upset for HBO to end the evening with just one win,
but that’s the way it went down. Their award was for Matt
Bomer’s Best Supporting Actor turn in The
Normal Heart. Also in something of a surprise, the award for Best TV Drama
went to Showtime’s The Affair (not
yet available), which also featured the night’s Best Drama Actress, Ruth
Wilson.
This shift
in where the best shows call home is indicative of a shift in the way viewers
watch television. Fading are the days of being in front of a television at a
certain time on a certain day to catch the latest episode of a favourite show.
More and more, it seems that viewers prefer the freedom of watching episodes at
their leisure, or being able to watch multiple episodes at once, as soon as the
season “starts,” and these non-network outlets are capitalizing on that. Along
those lines, this
column on the Huffington Post has an interesting (if non-scientific) note
on most-recommended series for binge watching, including a breakdown along
gender lines (which, apparently, do not diverge as much as you might expect).
The
takeaway? It’s true: non-network shows are the hottest right now. In addition
to this year’s crop of Golden Globe winners, make sure you’re stocking seasons
of shows like Game
of Thrones, Breaking
Bad, Orange
Is the New Black, and The
Wire for your patrons who just can’t get enough, as well as for those
who don’t have access to those channels or services.
Written by Jon Williams
Working as a
partnership between public libraries and a group of major publishers, LibraryReads
is a program designed to promote librarians’ favourite novels to adult readers
each month. Beginning in September of 2013, each month they produce a list of
ten newly published titles nominated and voted on by librarians across the U.S. That very first list was a winner right off the bat, containing, among
others, the very popular Fangirl
by Rainbow Rowell.
Since the
beginning, 160 novels have been selected by LibraryReads for recommendation to
patrons, with a fresh batch ready to go for the first month of the new year.
With December being somewhat slow for the publication of new titles, instead of
producing a new list, LibraryReads instead came out with their “Favorite of
Favorites,” the very best of previously selected titles. It’s a list of great
books that showcases the great taste librarians have for literature. The
previously mentioned Fangirl made the list, as did another novel by Rowell, Landline.
The list also includes Pulitzer Prize winner The
Goldfinch by Donna Tartt and National Book Award finalist All
the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr.
The book
selected as the overall favourite, though, was The
Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle
Zevin, originally selected for the April 2014 list. The story of a grumpy
bookseller and collector who undergoes a gradual transformation when a young
girl comes into his life, it is Zevin’s eighth novel. Her first, Elsewhere,
published in 2005, was a YA novel dealing with the afterlife. Since then, she
has written for both teens and adults, with Storied
Life being her most acclaimed work to date.
The full
list of LibraryReads Favorite of Favorites can be found in our January
audiobook buyer’s guide, or on our website. And for January, it’s back to the
usual list of ten brand new novels for patrons to check out. This first list is
headlined by such titles as As
Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust, the new Flavia de Luce title from Alan
Bradley, and The
Rosie Effect, follow-up to The
Rosie Project, by Graeme Simison. It also includes The
Magician’s Lie by Greer Macallister, The
Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins, The
Bishop’s Wife by Mette Ivie Harrison, Vanessa
and Her Sister by Priya Parmar, First
Frost by Sarah Addison Allen, and Full
Throttle by Julie Ann Walker.
Interested
in LibraryReads for your library? No problem! Check out the program’s website for materials you can use
to promote each month’s titles to your patrons. While you’re there, you can
find out how to nominate books for the list and participate in selection, if
you don’t already. Help bring your love of books—and audiobooks!—to patrons who
might otherwise miss these great reads.
Written by Jon Williams
The third
and final season of The
Newsroom concluded this past season, bringing an end to HBO’s series
about the perils and challenges of trying to do serious TV journalism in an era
of reality TV and the endless quest for ratings. The lead role of passionate
newsman Will McAvoy was ably handled by Jeff
Daniels (in quite a departure from his other recent appearance as Harry
Dunne in Dumb
and Dumber To), heading an ensemble cast that also included Sam
Waterston, Jane
Fonda, Emily
Mortimer, and Olivia
Munn, among others.
The Newsroom was created by Aaron
Sorkin, who also served as the primary writer for all 25 episodes. Sorkin
started his career as a playwright, and got his start in Hollywood by writing
the play A Few Good Men, adapting it
himself for the movie
starring Jack Nicholson and Tom Cruise. With its famous “You can’t handle the
truth!” line thundered by Nicholson’s character, Sorkin’s reputation as a
writer of smart, snappy dialogue was born. He would then go on to write the
films Malice (currently unavailable) and
The
American President.
From there,
Sorkin would make his first foray into the television world—in more ways than
one. His first series, Sports Night
(also unavailable), was, like The
Newsroom, a show about doing television. Inspired by ESPN’s SportsCenter, the show focused on a
group of people putting together a nightly sports show. The comedy was well
received by critics but scored low ratings (perhaps inspiring one of the
conflicts at the heart of The Newsroom)
and was only on for two seasons. It led, however, directly into The
West Wing, the breakthrough drama starring Martin Sheen as President
Jed Bartlet and focusing on his staff and administration.
The West
Wing ran for seven seasons, ending in 2006, which saw the debut of Sorkin’s
next series, Studio
60 on the Sunset Strip. With it, he returned to the world of television
production, this time looking at a sketch comedy series. However, it garnered
much the same reaction as Sports Night,
and only lasted one season. At that point, Sorkin returned to working for the
big screen, adapting books into screenplays for the hit movies Charlie
Wilson’s War, The
Social Network (for which he won an Academy Award), and Moneyball.
With The Newsroom heading into the sunset,
one of the projects on Sorkin’s horizon is another adaptation for the silver
screen, this time of Walter Isaacson’s biography
of Steve Jobs. He has said recently that he is unlikely to write again for
television; if that’s true, he’s certainly left viewers with some great shows
and memorable moments. Make sure you have his acclaimed work on your shelves
for patrons to explore and enjoy.
|
Contact Us
