Author: Richelle

Music of the ‘Roaring Twenties’!

Richelle

The Roaring Twenties, as we’ve christened them conjure images of smoky jazz clubs, illegal gin joints, and the hustle and bustle of thousands moving into cities for the first time.  If you’re anything like me and spend most of your time living in a time period other than the current era, you might imagine yourself sitting at a small corner table for two while a trumpet blares on stage and a glamorous woman laments over her love life.

Personally, I would take this over a crowded coffee shop surrounded by people all speaking on their iPhones at the top of their lungs to be heard over the blender.

In this case, I prescribe some choice tunes from the 1920s to mellow out your day and carry your blues away.

Louis Armstrong 

A list of music from the 1920s wouldn’t be complete without the addition of Louis Armstrong.  Easily one of the most popular, if not the most popular jazz musician of the decade, Armstrong’s music is capable of cutting through modern inconveniences and transporting the listener to the previously mentioned jazz club.

 

Vintage Music

If you’re looking for a summary of exactly what the 1920’s were about, this is the CD for you.  It has everything from the Broadway hits which became a phenomenon at the time, to the jazz standards which captivated the nation.

 

Sweet Sixteenths : A Ragtime Concert

If you’re in the mood to put on your dancing shoes and break out in the biggest dance craze to happen since the ‘Party Shuffle’, then pick up this CD and experience the phenomena of ragtime!  Particularly ‘The Charleston’ which became so sensational that one man did it for 22 hours straight to break a world record!  (This is not a Sewickley Public Library item.)

 

Back to back: Duke Ellington and Johnny Hodges play the blues.

Though recorded in the 1960s, this CD conjured up the iconic feeling of 1920s freedom of expression and the new modern society in which people were free to explore art and emotion. (This is not a Sewickley Public Library item.)

 

The Roaring Twenties

For a comprehensive look at the music of this magical decade, you’ve arrived at the right place!  This series of CDs will lead you through the nostalgic and beautiful music of the 1920s! (This is not a Sewickley Public Library item.)

 

Look out next week for a musical spot light on the 1930s!

The 1920s – DVDs

Richelle

Here you’ll find a selection of Feature Films and Documentaries. Some of them were filmed during the Roaring Twenties but the majority are either set then or about that time period. We’ve tried to include something for everyone.

Click on the titles to be taken to the Library’s Online Catalog.

The Artist – In late-1920s Hollywood, as Valentin wonders if the arrival of talking pictures will cause him to fade into oblivion, he makes an intense connection with Peppy Miller, a young dancer set for a big break. As one career declines, another flourishes, and by channeling elements of A Star Is Born and Singing in the Rain, The Artist tells the engaging story with humor, melodrama, romance, and–most importantly–silence. (2012, 101min, PG-13)

Enchanted April – London, the 1920s. Lottie and Rose are two married women who share the misery of empty marriages and decide to rent an Italian castle for the spring to get away. In order to save money, they advertise for two other women to join them. (1992, 93min, PG)

The Emergence of Modern America. Roaring Twenties – Explores the enormous social and cultural changes of the 1920s, an era of prosperity, rapid industrialization, social experimentation, and artistic renaissance. (2003, 30min, NR)

The Godfather Part 2 – In the early 1900s, the young Vito flees Sicily for America after the local Mafia kills his family. Vito struggles to make a living, legally or illegally, for his wife and growing brood in Little Italy. There he kills the local Black Hand Fanucci after he demands his customary cut of the tyro’s business. With Fanucci gone, Vito’s stature grows. (1974, 200min, R)

The Grand – Set in Manchester during the 1920’s, John and Sarah Bannerman have labored at great expense to re-open this magnificent hotel. But their excitement is short-lived. While the Grand has no trouble attracting guests, it also seems to have vacancy for trouble. Now the hotel and its staff face homicide, financial ruin, infidelity and foreclosure. And that’s before the doors open. (2000, 401min, NR)

The Great Gatsby – Returning from the battlefields of World War I, an impoverished young soldier learns the love of his life has married into a wealthy family and moved to Long Island’s Gold Coast. Obsessed with rekindling their romance, he reinvents himself as the mysteriously prosperous Jay Gatsby, throws lavish parties at his mansion– and waits for his chance. But when that chance comes, it comes at a price as terrible as it is inevitable. (2000, 100min, NR)

The Informer – The scene is Dublin, 1922. Gypo Nolan stumbles through a foggy Irish night, his brain pickled in whiskey and his soul tormented by shame and fear. Gypo is an informer, a turncoat who betrayed his friend to the British police for 20 pounds. Now he can’t spend the money fast enough, nor can he run from his treachery fast enough as he brawls, brags, swaggers and lies his way toward his fate. (1935, 92min, NR)

The Jazz Singer – The melodramatic story of a Jewish cantor’s son who aspires to be a jazz singer, despite his father’s strenuous objections. (1927, 96min, NR)

Let the Bullets Fly – Set in China during the warring 1920s, notorious bandit chief Zhang descends upon a remote provincial town posing as its new mayor, an identity that he had hijacked from Old Tang, who was a small-time imposter. Bent on making a fast buck, Zhang soon meets his match in the tyrannical local gentry Huang as a deadly battle of wit and brutality ensues. (2012, 132min, NR)

The Painted Veil – Set in the 1920s. A young English couple, Walter a middle class doctor and Kitty, an upper-class woman, get married for all the wrong reasons and relocate to Shanghai. Kitty falls in love with someone else. When Walter discovers her infidelity, in an act of vengeance, he accepts a job in a remote village in China that is being ravaged by a deadly epidemic. He takes his wife along and their journey brings meaning to their relationship and gives them purpose in one of the most remote and beautiful places on earth. (2007, 125min, PG-13)

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie – A teacher in a 1920’s Scottish girls’ school captivates her students with her fascist ideals and free-thinking attitude. (2004, 115min, PG)

Singin’ in the Rain – An affectionate spoof of the turmoil that afflicted the motion picture industry in the late 1920s during the change over from silent films to sound. This title has been repackaged. (1951, 120min, NR)

Swingin’ Uptown – In the 1920s, African-American literature, art, music, dance, and social commentary flourished in Harlem, in uptown New York City. This cultural movement, which redefined African-American expression, became known as the Harlem Renaissance. (2003, 41min, NR)

Their Eyes Were Watching God – A drama set in the 1920s, where free-spirited Janie Crawford’s search for happiness leads her through several different marriages, challenging the mores of her small town. (2005, 113min, TV14)

Wodehouse Playhouse – A collection of the short stories of P.G. Wodehouse, dramatized by David Climie. Many of the stories, set in the 1920s and 1930s. (2010, 210min, NR)

The 1920s – Books for All-Ages

Richelle

Here you’ll find a list of books that are either set in the 1920s or were written during this time. This list is broken down by age but there are many books that can be enjoyed by some or all of the age groups. This list is just a sample of the thousands of books that we can access through the county-wide system. Descriptions were taken from our Literature database; Novelist (click to access from home.)

Click on Titles to be taken to the Catalog

Adult Fiction and Non-Fiction Books (Some may be suitable for teens or even children. Please ask a librarian for help with determining age suitability) 

The Color Purple By: Alice Walker – Two African American sisters, one a missionary in Africa and the other a child-wife living in the South, support each other through their correspondence, beginning in the 1920s.

The Good Earth By: Pearl S. Buck – Wang Lung, a Chinese peasant, rises from poverty to become a rich landowner with the aid of his patient wife in the 1920s.

The Great Gatsby By: F. Scott Fitzgerald – In 1925, The Great Gatsby was published and hailed as an artistic and material success for its young author, F. Scott Fitzgerald. It is considered a vastly more mature and artistically masterful treatment of Fitzgerald’s early themes, which examine the results of the Jazz Age generation’s adherence to false material values. In nine chapters, Fitzgeralds presents the rise and fall of Jay Gatsby, as related in first-person narrative by Nick Carraway.


The Hours By: Michael Cunningham – The spirit of Virginia Woolf permeates the lives of several American readers as evidenced in this trio of tales about the author Woolf, a New Yorker planning a party to honour a writer, and a young mother reading Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway.

The House By: Danielle Steel – A workaholic attorney, Sarah Anderson finds her life transformed by an inheritance from an elderly client and by a magnificent mansion, built in the 1920s by a wealthy Frenchman, a legacy that leads Sarah to architect Jeff Parker.


Middlesex By: Jeffrey Eugenides – Calliope’s friendship with a classmate and her sense of identity are compromised by the adolescent discovery that she is a hermaphrodite, a situation with roots in her grandparent’s desperate struggle for survival in the 1920s.

New World Coming By: Nathan Miller – Miller characterizes the 1920s as a decade full of drinking, dancing, hedonism, and crime. Miller first concentrates on the writer who captured the decade’s insouciance and ennui in The Great Gatsby, periodically revisiting F. Scott Fitzgerald’s self-destructive slide, then returning to recount the period’s social and economic trends. Blacks moved north, women began voting, factories hummed, farms stagnated, stocks inflated, and speakeasies proliferated.


The Sun Also Rises By: Ernest Hemingway – The story of a group of Americans and English on a sojourn from Paris to Paloma, evokes in poignant detail, life among the expatriates on Paris’s Left Bank, during the 1920s and conveys in brutally realistic descriptions the power and danger of bullfighting in Spain.

Tinkers By: Paul Harding – On his deathbed, surrounded by his family, George Washington Crosby’s thoughts drift back to his childhood and the father who abandoned him when he was twelve.

Teen Fiction and Non-Fiction Books (Just because it says teens doesn’t mean adults won’t like them too!)

Harlem Stomp!: a cultural history of the Harlem Renaissance By: Laban Carrick Hill – Explores the literary, artistic, and intellectual creativity of the Harlem Renaissance and discusses the lives and work of Louis Armstrong, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and other notable figures of the era.


How it Happened in Peach Hill By: Marthe Jocelyn – When fifteen-year-old Annie Grey and her “clairvoyant” mother arrive in Peach Hill, New York, in 1924, each finds a reason for wanting to finally settle down, but to reach their goals they will have to do some serious lying and Annie will have to stand up for herself.

The Kat Who Walked in Beauty: the panoramic dailies of 1920 By: George Herriman – A companion to the complete Krazy Kat Sunday series collects rare and unique dailies from the 1910s and 1920s, many of which feature unrestricted layout and pictorial content, in a volume that also includes the first stand-alone Krazy & Ignatz strips and illustrations from the Krazy Kat Jazz pantomime ballet of 1922.

Operation Red Jericho By: Joshua Mowll – The posthumous papers of Rebecca MacKenzie document her adventures, along with her brother Doug, in 1920s China as the teenaged siblings are sent to live aboard their uncle’s ship where they become involved in the dangerous activities of a mysterious secret society called the Honourable Guild of Specialists.

The Star Fisher By: Laurence Yep – Fifteen-year-old Chinese-American Joan Lee and her family find the adjustment hard when they move from Ohio to West Virginia in the 1920s.

Vixen By: Jillian Larkin – In 1923 Chicago, seventeen-year-old Gloria Carmody rebels against her upcoming society wedding by visiting a speakeasy, while her Pennsylvania cousin, Clara, hides similar tastes and her best friend, Lorraine, makes plans of her own.

The Voice that Challenged a Nation By: Russell Freedman – An account of the life of a talented and determined artist who left her mark on musical and social history is drawn from Anderson’s own writings and other contemporary accounts.

White Lilacs By: Carolyn Meyer – In 1921 in Dillon, Texas, twelve-year-old Rose Lee sees trouble threatening her Black community when the Whites decide to take the land there for a park and forcibly relocate the Black families to an ugly stretch of territory outside the town.

WitnessBy: Karen Hesse – A series of poems express the views of various people in a small Vermont town, including a young black girl and a young Jewish girl, during the early 1920s when the Ku Klux Klan is trying to infiltrate the town.

Children’s Fiction and Non-Fiction Books (Adults can like these too!)

The 1920s: Luck By: Dorothy Hoobler – In 1927 the Dixons move from rural Georgia to Chicago, where African Americans have more opportunities, and there Lorraine meets a famous movie actress and her little brother Marcus finds that his artistic talents are useful.

Dave at Night By: Gail Carson Levine – When orphaned Dave is sent to the Hebrew Home for Boys where he is treated cruelly, he sneaks out at night and is welcomed into the music- and culture-filled world of the Harlem Renaissance.

Egyptology: search for the tomb of Osiris, being the journal of Miss Emily Sands, November 1926 By: Emily Sands – Presents information on ancient Egypt in the form of a journal of a young woman who went missing on a trip to search for the tomb of the god Osiris in 1926.

Henry and the Kite Dragon By: Bruce Edward Hall – In New York City in the 1920s, the children from Chinatown go after the children from Little Italy for throwing rocks at the beautiful kites Grandfather Chin makes, not realizing that they have a reason for doing so.

The Little Match Girl By: Jerry Pinkney – An American child of the 1920s who sells matches is visited by some visions which bring some beauty to her brief, tragic life.

An Old-fashioned ABC Book By: Elizabeth Allen Ashton – An alphabet book celebrating the art of Jessie Willcox Smith, whose popular illustrations were featured on the covers of “Good Housekeeping” throughout the 1920s and 1930s.

This Land is your Land By: Woody Guthrie – This well-known folk song is accompanied by a tribute from folksinger Pete Seeger, the musical notation, and a biographical scrapbook with photographs.

Uncle Jed’s Barbershop By: Margaree King Mitchell – Despite serious obstacles and setbacks Sarah Jean’s Uncle Jed, the only Black barber in the county, pursues his dream of saving enough money to open his own barbershop.

Young Fu of the Upper Yangtze By: Elizabeth Foreman Lewis – In the 1920’s a Chinese youth from the country comes to Chungking with his mother where the bustling city offers adventure and his apprenticeship to a coppersmith brings good fortune.

1920s – History and SPL Programs

Richelle

The Decade of the 1920s is our first destination
in our Journey back in time!

Check out our 1920s Board on Pinterest to be taken back to the Roaring Twenties! 

The 1920s were an age of dramatic social and political change. For the first time, more Americans lived in cities than on farms. The nation’s total wealth more than doubled between 1920 and 1929, and this economic growth swept many Americans into an affluent but unfamiliar “consumer society.” People from coast to coast bought the same goods (thanks to nationwide advertising and the spread of chain stores), listened to the same music, did the same dances and even used the same slang! Many Americans were uncomfortable with this new, urban, sometimes racy “mass culture”; in fact, for many–even most–people in the United States, the 1920s brought more conflict than celebration. However, for a small handful of young people in the nation’s big cities, the 1920s were roaring indeed. Source.

Read More About:

The “New Woman”

The Birth of Mass Culture

The Jazz Age

Prohibition

The “Cultural Civil War”

Source Citation: The Roaring Twenties. (2012). The History Channel website. Retrieved 2:48, May 30, 2012, from http://www.history.com/topics/roaring-twenties.

 

Join us this week for these “Between the Decades” Programs.

Summer Reading 2012 Starts Today! – This Program runs from June 4th to August 10th – This year’s Summer Reading Program is so HUGE that it spans the whole of time and space. Look for programs about the mystery of night, history through the years, and our little corner of the world. The library will offer reading incentive programs for All Ages. Visit the Summer Reading Page for more information on how to participate.

#Dear Photo Sewickley – This Program runs all summer long! – Take a Picture of a Picture of the Past – Take a picture of a picture of the past. This summer we’re going to be sharing our memories of Sewickley and surrounding areas through old photographs. The contest will run from Monday, June 4th to Monday, August 6th. Photos can be submitted via Twitter, Instagram, or email. All photos will be posted to our Pinterest Board, and the person who submitted the picture that gets the most likes and repins (combined) will win a night out for 4 at the Dependable Drive-In in Moon Township. Get more information at dearphotosewickley.com. Please register.

Decades Documentaries – The Roaring Twenties (1920s) – Tuesday, June 5 @ 2PM – Just the Facts: Emergence of Modern America: The Roaring Twenties. No Registration is Required. 30 min. Not Rated.

Prohibition Woes? Learn How to Become a Home Brewer! – Thursday, June 7 @ 7PM – Have you ever considered brewing your own been? Even though in 2012 you can legally buy it from a store, beer brewing in the comfort of your own home and with ingredients of your choosing, can be a wonderful hobby. Greg Kamerdze, a self-taught home brewer, will go over the necessary equipment, ingredients for various types of beers, and the process of brewing, bottling, and even kegging your own beer. Please register.

Decades Movies: Brighton Beach Memoirs (1930s) – Friday, June 8 @ 2PM – New York, the 1930s…and a young man’s mind is on the Yankees and sex (not necessarily in that order), as well as trying to deal with his argumentative family. Personal, telling, and touching, Neil Simon’s acclaimed comic memoir stars Blythe Danner, Bob Dishy, Judith Ivey and Jonathan Silverman. (1986, 110min, PG-13) No Registration is Required. The 1920s movie was shown on June 1st. Don’t worry, we’ll catch up in two weeks.

 

 

New Feature Films on DVD – June 2012

Richelle

the artist

Click on the Titles to order the DVDs or Blu-Rays from the catalog.

21 Jump Street– A pair of underachieving cops are sent back to a local high school to blend in and bring down a synthetic drug ring. R. 6/26/12

Act of Valor – An elite team of Navy SEALs embark on a covert mission to recover a kidnapped CIA agent. R. 6/5/12

The Artist – Silent movie star George Valentin bemoans the coming era of talking pictures and fades into oblivion and self-destruction, but finds sparks with Peppy Miller, a young dancer lighting up talkies like no one else. PG-13. 6/26/12. Come watch it at the Library on Thursday, June 28 @ 2PM.

The Assault – Based on a true story, a SWAT team is tasked with storming a high-jacked Air France plane to save its passengers. R. 6/12/12

Bad Ass – A Vietnam veteran who becomes a local hero after saving a man from attackers on a city bus decides to take action when his best friend is murdered and the police show little interest in solving the crime. R. 6/5/12

Big Miracle – In small town Alaska, a news reporter recruits his ex-girlfriend – a Greenpeace volunteer – on a campaign to save a family of gray whales trapped by rapidly forming ice in the Arctic Circle. PG. 6/19/12

Breakway – An ethnic Canadian hockey player struggles against traditional family values and discrimination from mainstream hockey players. PG-13. 6/26/12

The Decoy Bride – When the world’s media descend on the remote Scottish island where a Hollywood actress is attempting to get married, a local girl is hired as a decoy bride to put the paparazzi off the scent. PG. 6/26/12

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance – As Johnny Blaze hides out in Eastern Europe, he is called upon to stop the devil, who is trying to take human form. PG-13. 6/12/12

Tyler Perry’s Good Deeds – Businessman Wesley Deeds is jolted out of his scripted life when he meets Lindsey, a single mother who works on the cleaning crew in his office building. PG-13. 6/12/12

In Darkness – A dramatization of one man’s rescue of Jewish refugees in the Nazi-occupied Polish city of Lvov. R. 6/12/12meets Lindsey, a single mother who works on the cleaning crew in his office building. PG-13. 6/12/12

Jeff, Who Lives at Home – Dispatched from his basement room on an errand for his mother, slacker Jeff might discover his destiny (finally) when he spends the day with his brother as he tracks his possibly adulterous wife. R. 6/19/12

John Carter – Transplanted to Mars, a Civil War vet discovers a lush planet inhabited by 12-foot tall barbarians. Finding himself a prisoner of these creatures, he escapes, only to encounter a princess who is in desperate need of a savior. PG-13. 6/5/12

Journey 2: The Mysterious Island – Sean Anderson partners with his mom’s husband on a mission to find his grandfather, who is thought to be missing on a mythical island. PG. 6/5/12

Kill Speed – A group of young, speed-freak pilots make a killing by transporting crystal meth across the Mexican border in their supersonic planes. R. 6/12/12

Legend of Hell’s Gate – When a curious errand boy catches wind of one of America’s most infamous crimes – the assassination of Abraham Lincoln – he falls in with two desperate men on the wrong side of the law. PG-13. 6/19/12

A Little Bit of Heaven – An irreverent young woman who uses her humor to prevent matters from getting serious has a life-changing visit with her doctor. PG-13 6/12/12

Machine Gun Preacher – Sam Childers is a former drug-dealing biker tough guy who found God and became a crusader for hundreds of Sudanese children who’ve been forced to become soldiers. R. 6/5/12

Mirror Mirror – An evil queen steals control of a kingdom and an exiled princess enlists the help of seven resourceful rebels to win back her birthright. PG. 6/26/12. Come to the Library and watch it on Thursday, July 19 @ 2PM

The Perfect Family – A devoutly Catholic wife and mother has been nominated for one of the church’s top awards. She then goes about trying to prove she has the “perfect” family, refusing to accept them for who they are. PG-13. 6/26/12

Project X – 3 high school seniors throw a birthday party to make a name for themselves. As the night progresses, things spiral out of control as word of the party spreads. R. 6/19/12

Safe House – A young CIA agent is tasked with looking after a fugitive in a safe house. But when the safe house is attacked, he finds himself on the run with his charge. R. 6/5/12

Seeking Justice – After his wife is assaulted, a husband enlists the services of a vigilante group to help him settle the score. Then he discovers they want a ‘favor’ from him in return. R. 6/19/12

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows – Sherlock Holmes and his sidekick Dr. Watson join forces to outwit and bring down their fiercest adversary, Professor Moriarty. PG-13. 6/12/12

Thin Ice – An insurance agent looking for a way out of frigid Wisconsin is blackmailed by an unstable locksmith in the theft of a rare violin that belongs to a retired farmer. R. 6/12/12

A Thousand Words – After stretching the truth on a deal with a spiritual guru, literary agent Jack McCall finds a Bodhi tree on his property. Its appearance holds a valuable lesson on the consequences of every word we speak. PG-13. 6/26/12

Wanderlust – Rattled by sudden unemployment, a Manhattan couple surveys alternative living options, ultimately deciding to experiment with living on a rural commune where free love rules. R. 6/19/12

Wrath of the Titans – Perseus braves the treacherous underworld to rescue his father, Zeus, captured by his son, Ares, and brother Hades who unleash the ancient Titans upon the world. PG-13. 6/26/12

Yankles – About Charlie Jones, a washed up, ex major league ballplayer, and how he gets a second chance at life and love by managing a Jewish, orthodox yeshiva baseball team. PG-13. 6/5/12

Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads!

Richelle

Think you’ve seen it all? Think again. Outside those doors, we might see anything.
We could find new worlds, terrifying monsters, impossible things. And if you come with me…nothing will ever be the same again! – Doctor Who

A Journey…

 

Starting on Monday, June 4th, SPL will be traveling “Back in Time.” We’ll journey all the way back to 1920 and each week, we’ll make our way forward to the 2000s. Remember poodle skirts, bell bottoms, and hammer pants? Even if you weren’t alive when they were popular, if you come with us, you’ll feel like you were there.

Here’s how it works

  • Mondays: we’ll post a brief history of that week’s decade and a list of the “Between the Decades” Programs.
  • Tuesdays: we’ll post a list of books for all-ages that were either written in or are set in that decade.
  • Wednesdays: we’ll post a list of movies/TV Shows/documentaries that are about or set in that decade.
  • Thursdays: we’ll post a list of music from that decade (we welcome guest blogger, Bridget Clark.)
  • Fridays: we’ll share some of the public book reviews from our Online Summer Reading Program.

Two more things before we go

You don’t have to wait until Monday to go back in time! This Friday, June 1, @ 2PM, we’ll be showing our 1920s Feature Film, The Great Gatsby. Stop in to enjoy some popcorn and A/C

<<AND>>

Registration has already begun for our Online Summer Reading Program. This online program allows Adults to share, rate, and review some of the books they are reading this summer. Each book you log also makes you eligible to win one of our weekly prizes ($40 gift cards to local businesses) or a Grand Prize of a Kindle Fire!

 

New DVDs April & May 2012

New DVDs April & May 2012

Richelle

Click on the Titles to order the DVDs or Blu-Rays from the catalog. If the titles do not have links, they are just not in the system yet. Check back soon!

Chronicle – Three high school friends gain superpowers after making an incredible discovery. Soon, though, they find their lives spinning out of control and their bond tested as they embrace their darker sides. PG-13. Release: 5/15/12

Contraband – To protect his brother-in-law from a drug lord, a former smuggler heads to Panama to score millions of dollars in counterfeit bills. R. Release 4/24/12

The Darkest Hour – In Moscow, five young people lead the charge against an alien race who have attacked Earth via our power supply. PG-13. Release: 4/10/12

The Divide – Survivors of a nuclear attack are grouped together for days in the basement of their apartment building, where fear and dwindling supplies wear away at their dynamic. R. Release: 4/17/12

Frozen Planet – From the Emmy-winning team behind Planet Earth and The Blue Planet comes Frozen Planet, the epic tale of two disappearing wildernesses. The Arctic and Antarctic remain the greatest wildernesses on Earth. The scale and beauty of the scenery and the sheer power of the elements are unmatched anywhere else on our planet. NR. Release: 4/17/12

The Grey – After their plane crashes in Alaska, seven oil workers are led by a skilled huntsman to survival, but a pack of merciless wolves haunts their every step. R . Release: 5/15/12

Haywire – A black ops super soldier seeks payback after she is betrayed and set up during a mission. R. Release: 5/1/12

The Innkeepers – After over one hundred years of service, The Yankee Pedlar Inn is shutting its doors for good. The last remaining employees – Claire and Luke – are determined to uncover proof of what many believe to be one of New England’s most haunted hotels. R. Release: 4/24/12

The Iron Lady – An elderly Margaret Thatcher talks to the imagined presence of her recently deceased husband as she struggles to come to terms with his death while scenes from her past life, from girlhood to British prime minister, intervene. PG-13. Release: 4/10/12

Joyful Noise – G.G. Sparrow faces off with her choir’s newly appointed director, Vi Rose Hill, over the group’s direction as they head into a national competition. PG-13. Release: 5/1/12fe, from girlhood to British prime minister, intervene. PG-13. Release: 4/10/12

Love’s Everlasting Courage – Wes Brown joins Cheryl Ladd and Bruce Boxleitner in this heartwarming story adapted from the bestselling “Love Comes Softly” series by Janette Oke. When the wife of a struggling homesteader on the western frontier unexpectedly dies, the man searches for the strength and courage to raise his young daughter – and finds it, with the help of his parents. NR. Release: 5/8/12

Masterpiece Classic: Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks’ epic love story, set against a backdrop of the First World War, became a modern classic when it was published in 1993. Now adapted for the screen for the first time, Abi Morgan has created a riveting, sumptuous masterpiece. Shifting in time between 1910 and 1916, Birdsong is the story of Stephen Wraysford, a young Englishman who arrives in Amiens in Northern France to stay with the Azaire family and falls desperately in love with Isabelle Azaire. NR. Release: 4/24/12

Masterpiece Classic: Great Expectations – An orphan boy meets an escaped convict, a crazed rich woman, a bewitching girl, and grows up to have great expectations of wealth from a mysterious patron, in Great Expectations, Charles Dickens’ remarkable tale of rags to riches to self-knowledge. NR. Release: 4/3/12

Miss Representation  – As the most persuasive and pervasive force of communication in our culture, media is educating yet another generation that a woman’s primary value lay in her youth, beauty and sexuality-and not in her capacity as a leader, making it difficult for women to obtain leadership positions and for girls to reach their full potential. The film accumulates startling facts and asks the question, “What can we do?” NR. Release: 4/10/12

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol – The IMF is shut down when it’s implicated in the bombing of the Kremlin, causing Ethan Hunt and his new team to go rogue to clear their organization’s name. PG-13. Release: 4/17/12

One for the Money – Unemployed and newly-divorced Stephanie Plum lands a job at her cousin’s bail-bond business, where her first assignment puts her on the trail of a wanted local cop from her romantic past. PG-13. Release: 5/15/12

Red Tails – A crew of African American pilots in the Tuskegee training program, having faced segregation while kept mostly on the ground during World War II, are called into duty under the guidance of Col. A.J. Bullard. PG-13. Release: 5/22/12

Sherlock (BBC): Season 2 – Nominated for 4 primetime Emmys, Sherlock is back with Benedict Cumberbatch as Holmes and Martin Freeman as Watson in three new stories. With beguiling performances, witty scripts and some of the most intriguing characters ever created, it’s no wonder that Sherlock has proven to be a worldwide success. NR. Release: 5/22/12

This Means War – Two top CIA operatives wage an epic battle against one another after they discover they are dating the same woman. PG-13. Release: 5/22/12

True Blood: The Complete Fourth Season – Mixing romance, suspense, mystery and humor, True Blood tells the continuing tale of Sookie a human waitress with telepathic gifts – and a so-far irresistible attraction to 174-year-old vampire Bill Compton. NR. Release: 5/29/12

Underworld: Awakening – When human forces discover the existence of the Vampire and Lycan clans, a war to eradicate both species commences. The vampire warrioress Selene leads the battle against humankind. R. Release: 5/8/12

The Vow  – A car accident puts Paige in a coma, and when she wakes up with severe memory loss, her husband Leo works to win her heart again. PG-13. Release: 5/8/12

War Horse – Young Albert enlists to serve in World War I after his beloved horse is sold to the cavalry. Albert’s hopeful journey takes him out of England and across Europe as the war rages on. PG-13. Release: 4/3/12

We Bought a Zoo – Set in Southern California, a father moves his young family to the countryside to renovate and re-open a struggling zoo. PG. Release: 4/3/12

The Woman in Black – A young lawyer travels to a remote village where he discovers the vengeful ghost of a scorned woman is terrorizing the locals. PG-13. Release: 5/22//12

 

Pi Day Pie Baking Contest!

Richelle

March 14th is Pi Day (3.14) and in celebration of this mathematical day, we will be holding a Pie Baking Contest. Bring in a pie that you’ve made and we’ll have an “expert” panel of guest judges pick the best one. Apple, blueberry, or bacon; all pie varieties are welcome! The winner will get bragging rights and a special pi(e) prize. This contest is open to All Ages. Please Register for this program online or by calling the Reference Desk. There is a limited number of entries available!

Contest Starts at 6:30PM on Wednesday March 14th.
You must register if you will be baking a pie.

Doctor Who Discussion Group

Richelle

don't blinkMonday, March 19, 6:00PM

This Group will meet every month to watch an episode of BBC’s Doctor Who (2005.) After the episode, we’ll discuss it. This month: Blink – “Don’t Blink. Blink and you’re dead. Don’t turn your back. Don’t look away. And don’t Blink. Good Luck.” Popcorn and drinks will be provided. Ages 14 and Up.

No registration is needed.