My Weekly Books and Films Update
Linking up with:
Stacking the Shelves (details)
Sunday Post (details)
Mailbox Monday (details)
HAPPY THINGS:
1. Author event starring André Aciman
2. Getting the taxes done!
3. Starting #luckofthebookish bookstagram challenge for March hosted by @asreadbytina (details)
SHOT of my nightstand with March TBR pile which includes:
The Book of Joan by Lidia Yukanavitch
Health And Fitness Tips That Will Change Your Life by James Atkinson
The Neruda Case by Roberto Ampuero
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
Stephen Florida by Gabe Habash
Bought:
by Roberto Ampuero
-Mystery, Historical, Chile
Amazon | Goodreads
FOR Foreign Intrigue Book Club March pick (here).
Author event:
Booksmith in San Francisco hosted an event with André Aciman with Q&A about Call Me By Your Name and Enigma Variations. Had a delightful evening listening to the origin story for Call Me By Your Name and his thoughts on the film version.
FYI: Watch out for André's appearance in Call Me By Your Name as Mounir.
AND: Psychedlic Furs are on tour this year - San Francisco July 24 (details)
by André Aciman
-LGBTQ, Short Stories
Amazon | Goodreads
Unbagging:
Spring 2018
includes: spring theme
stamps
card stock
printed paper
envelopes
stickers
AND watched: on Netflix
De sidste mænd i Aleppo (original title)
Directors: Feras Fayyad, Steen Johannessen
Writer: Feras Fayyad
Stars: Khaled Umar Harah, Batul, Mahmoud
-Documentary, War, Syria | imdb | my rating: 5
Oscar 2018 nominee
Khaled, Mahmoud, and Subhi volunteered at the white helmets trying to save lives of hundreds of victims at besieged city during the Syrian civil war.
SAD that this happened and continues to.
AND watched: in theatre
Una Mujer Fantástica (original title)
Director/Screenplay: Sebastián Lelio
Screenplay: Gonzalo Maza
Stars: Daniela Vega, Francisco Reyes, Luis Gnecco
-Drama, Chile | imdb | my rating: 5
Oscar 2018 nominee
Marina, a waitress who moonlights as a nightclub singer, is bowled over by the death of her older boyfriend.
ALSO sad film that deals with grief with some beautiful moments.
Nelyubov (original title)
Director: Andrey Zvyagintsev
Writers: Oleg Negin, Andrey Zvyagintsev
Stars: Maryana Spivak, Aleksey Rozin, Matvey Novikov
-Drama, Russia | imdb | my rating: 5
Oscar 2018 nominee
A couple going through a divorce must team up to find their son who has disappeared during one of their bitter arguments.
ANOTHER sad one with unlikable people that is said to be descriptive of current times.
AND watched: online
Director/Writer: Ruben Östlund
Stars: Claes Bang, Elisabeth Moss, Dominic West
-Comedy, Drama, Sweden | imdb | my rating: 5
Oscar 2018 nominee
A prestigious Stockholm museum's chief art curator finds himself in times of both professional and personal crisis as he attempts to set up a controversial new exhibit.
DISTURBING with cringeworthy parts and yet an art exhibit in itself.
DOCUMENTARY:
Traffic Stop (USA) Directed by Kate Davis and David Heilbroner.
Featuring footage caught on a dashcam, TRAFFIC STOP tells the story of Breaion King, a 26-year-old African-American school teacher from Austin, Texas whose routine traffic violation quickly escalated into a dramatic arrest at the hands of a white police officer.
Heaven is a Traffic Jam on the 405 (USA) Directed by Frank Stiefel.
This is a portrait of a brilliant 56 year old artist who is represented by one of Los Angeles’ top galleries. Her body of raw, emotional work reveals a lifetime of depression and mental disorder. Mindy Alper has suffered through electro shock therapy, multiple commitments to mental institutions and a 10-year period without speech. Her only consistent means of communicating has been to channel her hyper self-awareness into drawings and sculpture of powerful psychological clarity that eloquently express her emotional state. Through an examination of her work, interviews, reenactments, the building of an eight and a half foot papier-mache’ bust of her beloved psychiatrist, we learn how she has emerged from a life of darkness and isolation to a life that includes love, trust and support.
Heroin(e) (USA) Directed by Elaine McMillion Sheldon and Kerrin Sheldon.
Once a bustling industrial town, Huntington, West Virginia has become the epicenter of America’s modern opioid epidemic, with an overdose rate 10 times the national average. This flood of heroin now threatens this Appalachian city with a cycle of generational addiction, lawlessness, and poverty. But within this distressed landscape, Peabody Award-winning filmmaker Elaine McMillion Sheldon (Hollow) shows a different side of the fight against drugs — one of hope. Sheldon highlights three women working to change the town’s narrative and break the devastating cycle of drug abuse one person at a time. Fire Chief Jan Rader spends the majority of her days reviving those who have overdosed; Judge Patricia Keller presides over drug court, handing down empathy along with orders; and Necia Freeman of Brown Bag Ministry feeds meals to the women selling their bodies for drugs. As America’s opioid crisis threatens to tear communities apart, the Netflix original short documentary HEROIN(E) shows how the chain of compassion holds one town together.
Knife Skills (USA) Directed by Thomas Lennon.
What does it take to build a world-class French restaurant? What if the staff is almost entirely men and women just out of prison? What if most have never cooked or served before, and have barely two months to learn their trade? KNIFE SKILLS follows the hectic launch of Edwins restaurant in Cleveland, Ohio. In this improbable setting, with its mouthwatering dishes and its arcane French vocabulary, we discover the challenges of men and women finding their way after their release. We come to know three trainees intimately, as well as the restaurant’s founder, who is also dogged by his past. They all have something to prove, and all struggle to launch new lives — an endeavor as pressured and perilous as the ambitious restaurant launch of which they are a part.
Edith+Eddie (USA) Directed by Laura Checkoway and Thomas Lee Wrights.
Edith and Eddie, ages 96 and 95, are America’s oldest interracial newlyweds. Their love story is disrupted by a family feud that threatens to tear the couple apart.
THESE set of films are pretty intense to watch all in one sitting. They were all good and informative in their unique ways.
AND watched: on DVD
Director/screenplay: Stephen Chbosky
Screenplay: Steve Conrad, Jack Thorne
Based on book by: R.J. Palacio
Stars: Jacob Tremblay, Owen Wilson, Izabela Vidovic, Julia Roberts
-Drama, Family | imdb | my rating: 5
Oscar 2018 nominee
Based on the New York Times bestseller, WONDER tells the incredibly inspiring and heartwarming story of August Pullman, a boy with facial differences who enters fifth grade, attending a mainstream elementary school for the first time.
ALREADY knew that I would like this film as I loved the story from reading the book version.
AT this point I have just a couple more films to squeeze in today before the Oscar's.
* comment and TELL me what you have acquired for your shelves recently
Thanks for stopping by :-)
