My Weekly Books and Films Update
Linking up with:
Sunday Post (details)
Mailbox Monday (details)
HAPPY THINGS:
1. Volunteer ushering for the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival
2. Starting a new work project
3. Scrub treatment at Pearl Spa (here) - ahhh, so nice. It was my first one to experience and it was glorious ;-)
Author event:
Booksmith hosted a reading, Q&A and conversation with Homay King.
In the '60s and '70s, America's music scene was marked by raucous excess, reflected in the tragic overdoses of young superstars such as Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. At the same time, the uplifting harmonies and sunny lyrics that propelled Karen Carpenter and her brother, Richard, to international fame belied a different sort of tragedy -- the underconsumption that led to Karen's death at age thirty-two from the effects of an eating disorder.
In Why Karen Carpenter Matters, Karen Tongson (whose Filipino musician parents named her after the pop icon) interweaves the story of the singer's rise to fame with her own trans-Pacific journey between the Philippines -- where imitations of American pop styles flourished -- and Karen Carpenter's home ground of Southern California. Tongson reveals why the Carpenters' chart-topping, seemingly whitewashed musical fantasies of "normal love" can now have profound significance for her -- as well as for other people of color, LGBT+ communities, and anyone outside the mainstream culture usually associated with Karen Carpenter's legacy. This hybrid of memoir and biography excavates the destructive perfectionism at the root of the Carpenters' sound, while finding the beauty in the singer's all too brief life.
by Karen Tongson
-Biography, Memoir, Music, Filipino | Goodreads
Library:
(Hugo Marston #1)
by Mark Pryor
-Mystery, France, Paris | Goodreads
FOR my face-to-face group, Foreign Mystery Book Club August pick. Also, just in time for my Paris in July reading pile.
For Review:
by Keita Nagano
-Women's Fiction, Japan
courtesy of author -Thanks! | Goodreads
AND watched: on DVD for Paris in July
Director/Writer: Jessica Hausner
Writers: Géraldine Bajard (dramaturgy)
Stars: Sylvie Testud, Léa Seydoux, Bruno Todeschini
-Drama, France | imdb | my rating: 5
In order to escape her isolation, wheelchair-bound Christine makes a life changing journey to Lourdes, the iconic site of pilgrimage in the Pyrenees Mountains.
LOVED it for the views and prompts on thinking about disabilities and miracles.
AND watched: in theatre
Director/Writer: Joe Talbot
Writers: Jimmie Fails, Rob Richert
Stars: Jimmie Fails, Jonathan Majors
-Drama, San Francisco | imdb | my rating: 5
Q&A with director
A young man searches for home in the changing city that seems to have left him behind.
CAPTURES some of the vibe on the housing situation in current San Francisco. Left the theatre with a heavy heart.
AND watched: in theatre for San Francisco Jewish Film Festival (here)
Director/Writer: Nina Paley
Stars: Barry Gray, Hiram Paley, Nina Paley
-Animation, Jewish | imdb | my rating: 4
Q&A with director
Loosely following a traditional Passover Seder, events from the Book of Exodus are retold by Moses, Aharon, the Angel of Death, Jesus, and the director's own father. But there's another side to this story: that of the Goddesses, humanity's earliest deities. 'Seder-Masochism' resurrects the Great Mother in a tragic struggle against the forces of patriarchy.
COLORFUL imagery of patriarchy vs. matriarchy with a contemporary hits soundtrack.
Director: Rachel Fleit
-Short, Documentary, Jewish | website | my rating: 5
Each year the Hermelin family of Detroit comes together to celebrate Passover by eating gefilte fish. The signature dish becomes a lightning rod in which the Hermelins project their feelings about family, identity, tradition, struggle, loss-and as always, love.
LOVED this short on a family's perspective and tradition story.
Director: Garret Price
-Documentary | imdb | my rating: 5
Q&A with director and producer
A portrait of the extraordinary life and career of actor Anton Yelchin.
ASTOUNDED to learn how much work and dedication this actor had during his lifetime. Makes me want to go on a binge watch of some of his 49 films.
Director/Writer: Kirill Mikhanovsky
Writer: Alice Austen
Stars: Lauren 'Lolo' Spencer, Chris Galust, Maxim Stoyanov
-Comedy | imdb | my rating: 4
Q&A with director
When a riot breaks out in Milwaukee, America's most segregated city, medical transport driver Vic is torn between his promise to get a group of elderly Russians to a funeral and his desire to help Tracy, a young black woman with ALS.
LIKED this chaotic wild ride with quiet reflective moments sprinkled in.
Trautmann (original title)
Director/Writer: Marcus H. Rosenmüller
Writer: Nicholas J. Schofield
Stars: David Kross, Freya Mavor, John Henshaw
-Biography, Drama, Romance, U.K. | imdb | my rating: 5
The Keeper tells the extraordinary love story between a young English woman and a German PoW, who together overcome prejudice, public hostility, and personal tragedy. While visiting a PoW camp near Manchester at the end of WWII, Margaret Friar, the daughter of the manager of the local football team, notices young German soldier Bert Trautmann. Her father is so taken by Bert's prowess as a goal-keeper that he gets him out of the camp to play for his local team. Margaret and Bert's love blossoms despite local hostility and resentment of the German PoWs. In the meantime, Bert's heroics in goal are noticed by Manchester's City Football Club. Rather than going back to Germany like nearly all the other camp inmates, Bert marries Margaret and signs for Man City. His signing causes outrage to thousands of Man City fans, many of them Jewish. But Margaret wins support from an unexpected direction: Rabbi Altmann, a Man City supporter who fled the Nazis, who publishes an open letter opposing the campaign against Bert. Bert's path to acceptance begins and peaks at the 1956 FA Cup Final when he secures victory for Man City by playing on despite breaking his neck. Yet fate twists the knife for both Margaret and Bert. Alienated and alone, Margaret's and Bert's loyalty to each other will be put to the test once more. Heartbroken, Bert wants to give up. Equally heartbroken, Margaret insists that they move forward and that he keeps on playing.
LOVED the power of passions for good that propelled the people in their lives.
Operation Brothers (original title)
Director/Writer: Gideon Raff
Stars: Chris Evans, Haley Bennett, Alona Tal
-Drama, History, Thriller, Africa | imdb | my rating: 4
Q&A with director
Israel's Mossad agents attempt to rescue Ethiopian Jewish refugees in Sudan in 1977.
ONE of those eye-opening films with bits of history.
* comment and TELL me what you have acquired for your shelves recently
Thanks for stopping by :-)
