“The DVD Shelf” Columnist Marianne Darragh is a Whitehorse-based writer who enjoys reviewing movies available at the Whitehorse Public Library.
A flawed character struggles to unravel the threads of a pivotal event, though hobbled by some impediment – amnesia, maybe, or being stranded in a foreign country where everyone speaks an unfamiliar language. It’s a dramatic device of my favourite genre, but suspense thrillers are few and far between these days. In The Girl on …
The mayor of Chicago is mad as a hatter, but the trains run on time. Having been mayor for a couple of decades, Tom Kane is the ultimate power player; he has a lot to say about which councillors get elected and he wields that power like a mace to get them on board with …
“It’s like everybody knows the story,” muses a reporter to her colleague. “Except us.” The journalists of “Spotlight,” a legendary investigative unit at the Boston Globe, won a Pulitzer for a series of revelatory articles on the cover-up of child abuse in the Catholic Church, published in 2002. But as one of the characters ruefully …
It was the short, sharp shock heard round the world – eventually. But in the world of Topsy-Turvy, Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado is being staged for the very first time, and there’s a lot at stake. Before Topsy-Turvy, released in 1999 and available on DVD at Whitehorse Public Library, Mike Leigh was a respected …
The epic saga of immigration is brought to human scale in Brooklyn, a critically acclaimed film based on the novel by Irish writer Colm Tóibín, with a screenplay by Nick Hornby. Released in 2015 and available on DVD at the Whitehorse Public Library, Brooklyn follows a young woman who finds herself part of the Irish …
Young Alex DeLarge and his gang of droogs aren’t choosy about whose lives they wreak mindless havoc on. From the down-at-the-heels to the well-heeled, the young thugs attack indiscriminately, mercilessly and irrationally. One thing leads to another and Alex is charged with murder and sentenced to prison. He’s selected for the fictional Ludivico technique, a …
Panama Papers got you down? Still feeling the chill of tax season? A dose of the 2014 film Foxcatcher, based on a true story and available on DVD at the Whitehorse Public Library, might be just the thing to remind you to be thankful that you didn’t have the misfortune of being born rich and …
Deadly Fascination, or, Better Living with du Pont Read More »
Did Stieg Larsson know his character Lisbeth Salander was destined to achieve the iconic status of a Marvel superhero? Maybe not. In the 2011 American remake of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, available on DVD at Whitehorse Public Library, director David Fincher and screenwriter Steven Zaillian elegantly adapt Larsson’s sprawling Swedish noir to …
In 1918, a young American soldier emerged from the ruins of a military kennel with a frantic, famished German Shepherd and her five newborn pups. Their survival on the battlefield in France was almost miraculous; Lee Duncan, their saviour, kept two of the puppies and named them after dolls worn as lucky talismans – Nanette …
They stayed in the game … They’re the most-famous musicians you’ve never heard of. Merry Clayton’s performance in the Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter” is the exemplar of the memorable riff by the unknown singer at the back of the band – it’s their parts you hum. From manufactured girl groups, to David Bowie; and from the …
Many beloved Christmas films had inauspicious debuts. It’s a Wonderful Life lost money for the studio when it was released in 1946, but television viewings turned it into a bona fide classic 30 years after its release. Similarly, Love Actually has unexpectedly become a Christmas staple in some quarters. Admittedly, I belong in that group, …
No gadgets, guns or trophy girl in sight – John le Carré’s spy universe is stripped of glamour, but all the more fascinating for his intimate knowledge of the inner workings of the inner circle that fought for nebulous ground in the Cold War. The film Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, released in 2011 and available …
Winter is coming. You might say that’s our motto above the 60th parallel, but they’re also words to live by in Winterfell, the northernmost kingdom of imaginary Westeros. The Game of Thrones saga has unexpectedly surpassed cult status, but its mythology may have special appeal for northerners and not just for its keen sense of …
Another comedy that’s not really a comedy – that’s been my reaction to many contemporary films that seem to centre on the sad-clown school of funny, balanced heavily on the side of making me sad, and not in the fun way. So I wasn’t hopeful about Enough Said, a romantic comedy released in 2013 and …
Near the end of his memoir, Chronicles, Volume I, Bob Dylan recalls the seismic effect of hearing Robert Johnson’s album, King of the Delta Blues Singers, for the first time, in the early 1960s. “From the first note, the vibrations from the loudspeaker made my hair stand up. The stabbing sounds from the guitar could …
Living on a knife’s edge isn’t as exciting as it sounds. It can actually be downright tedious, and that’s what Wendy and Lucy captures — the daily grind of staying upright in a treacherous situation. On the way to Alaska with her dog Lucy, Wendy’s car breaks down and it becomes apparent that this trip …
Life isn’t fair. Jobs, Wozniak, Gates, Zuckerberg, and Swartz were, or are, all geniuses on the frontlines of the digital revolution, but only one of them met with the wrath of the American justice system. Aaron Swartz didn’t aspire to be a zillionaire; he was a passionate advocate for keeping knowledge free and accessible on …
In the North, peril can strike anyone in the summer, or the winter. But when Christopher McCandless died at the age of 24 in August, in an abandoned bus near Denali Park in Alaska, apparently of starvation, the response was intensely mixed: bewilderment, contempt, and for some, awe. Many people have known someone bright, charismatic, …
Walt Disney’s magic touch on celluloid created indelible memories for many moviegoers, but it induced tears of rage in P.L. Travers (born Helen Goff) at the Hollywood premiere of Mary Poppins in 1964. At least that’s what she said. Saving Mr. Banks, released in 2014 and available at the Whitehorse Public Library, revolves around the …
An article that appeared in the Washington Post just before Barack Obama’s inauguration as President of the United States, about a butler who had served over 30 years in the White House, inspired screenwriter Danny Strong to write a historical epic viewed from that perspective. The screenplay that resulted was fi lmed as Lee Daniels’ …
Food is a hardworking component of any television or film crew, serving as prop, symbol, characterization, and plot point for numerous scripts. Jerry Seinfeld has a cupboard full of cereal, and pizza-delivery on speed-dial, and when Seinfeld based an entire episode around waiting in line at a Chinese restaurant, it spurred a minor revolution in …
Imagine being able to pick out a child from an assortment of infants and toddlers, as easily as choosing a puppy from a litter or candy from a dish. You might even take two. It sounds like the plot of a fanciful children’s book, but that’s what people could do at certain convents in Ireland …
They did impossible things because they were too young to know they couldn’t, and in the late 18th century nothing seemed more unlikely than convincing the powerbrokers of England to abandon the slave trade. Amazing Grace, a British-American production released in 2007 and available on DVD at the Whitehorse Public Library, is a dramatic account …
No one gets out of paradise unscathed. That’s what Matt King says as The Descendants, a drama set in Hawaii, begins. Matt (George Clooney), a lawyer and descendant of a mixed marriage between a missionary and Hawaiian royalty, knows what he’s talking about. His wife, Elizabeth, lies in a coma in the hospital. He’s not …
It’s not often I give myself an impossible writing assignment but I’m doing so now because I’m intrigued by the challenge. Book reviews often have aim to provide a concise summary and make the reader want to read the book. Not this time. I’m only halfway through Tom Robbins’ non-autobiography called Tibetan Peach Pie, and, …
“We were praying and killing each other at the same time.” — A German soldier reflecting on D-Day Once peace is waged what do we remember about the battlefields? Tales of war can become like the whispering game after a few generations have passed, apart from the “official versions” of the truth. But World War …
Everyone has a doppelganger somewhere in the world, so they say. Sarah Manning, a small-time drifter, sees hers seconds before her double jumps in front of a train. Not one to miss an opportunity, Sarah snatches the bag the tragic woman left behind, and proceeds to borrow her life. It looks like a good score; …
One road in, one road out — that’s Broadchurch, a picturesque town on the Dorset coast of Britain. So when 11-year-old Danny Latimer is found murdered on the shore, the evidence indicates that the killer is a local, hiding in plain sight. Danny’s parents and his teenage sister Chloe prepare a list of suspects that …
There’s at least one struggling musician who doesn’t need Bob Dylan to tell him failure is no success at all. Llewyn Davis is in Greenwich Village in February 1961, with a guitar, a repertoire of traditional folk songs, and a fiercely-held ‘life of an artist’ set of ideals.He also recorded an album that hasn’t sold …
Life doesn’t hold many nice surprises for Norma Rae Wilson. She was widowed at 21 and left to raise two children from different fathers by working in a sweatshop-like North Carolina cotton mill. She finds her fun where she can, dating from the shallow, sometimes treacherous pool of the mill town, trading barbs with mill …
He wakes up as one person and goes to bed as someone else completely; that’s what Bob Dylan said about himself in a long-ago interview. I’m Not There, released in 2007 and available on DVD at the Whitehorse Public Library, is a fittingly non-linear journey “inspired” by some of those lives, and the music Dylan …
The FBI hunt for slippery John Dillinger was the match of the century. He was the bureau’s first public enemy number one during the crime wave of the 1930s. You won’t find out what makes John Dillinger tick in Public Enemies, released in 2009 and available on DVD at the Whitehorse Public Library. Instead, director …
Facebook marked its 10th anniversary this February, a few months before its creator, Mark Zuckerberg, turns 30. It’s not every 19-year-old that changes the world. The success and background drama of Facebook inspired the 2010 film, The Social Network, available on DVD at Whitehorse Public Library. While the film recounts true-life events, it’s not a …
How do you relate to someone after you discover they’ve committed monstrous acts? The generation born in Germany after World War II – who Berthold Brecht called “those who came after” (Nachgeborenen) – faced that question every day. The 2008 German-American film The Reader, available on DVD at Whitehorse Public Library, explores the effect of …
It’s 1842 and Lady Ludlow is appalled to discover that a young woman applying for a position as her maid has learned to read and write. It must not be allowed, she tells her land agent, Carter. “Dissatisfaction will result” she says “and the proper order of the world will be undone.” Ludlow is one …
