2008 Season
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Academy Award Winner: Best Screenplay, Nominee: Best Picture, Actress, Director. Ellen Page is oddly endearing as Juno, a salty teenage
girl whose boredom doesn’t lead her to the mall. Instead, she makes a one-time exploratory trip into the arms of her best friend Paulie Bleeker
(Michael Cera). When Juno discovers that she’s pregnant, she’s forced to grow up fast as she sets out to recruit adoptive parents (Jennifer
Garner and Jason Bateman) for her quickly growing child. A movie of many strengths
including Page’s award-worthy performance,
a pitch-perfect soundtrack, and excellent Fri.
April 11 8:00 pm
direction from Jason Reitman (Thank You for
Smoking), it's Diablo Cody's award-winning Wed. April 16
7:30 pm
first-time screenplay that most especially
makes this such a winning film. "Juno is a coming-of-age movie made with idiosyncratic
charm and not a single false note." - David Denby, The New Yorker. "A fresh, quirky, unusually intelligent comedy." - Roger Ebert (PG-13, 96 min.)
Paul's View: This movie is bristling with vitality and heart, utterly devoid of cynicism, grounded and compassionate, and yes - funny as all get-out.
Forget any pregnant teen flick you've ever seen, because this is one-of-a-kind!
Academy Award Nominee: Best Director, Cinematography, Editing, Screenplay. Celebrated painter and filmmaker Julian Schnabel’s
audacious and deeply personal film is based on the best-selling memoir of the same name. It tells the remarkable tale of Jean-Dominique Bauby
(Mathieu Amalric), the world-renowned editor of French ELLE magazine, who suffered a stroke and was paralyzed by the inexplicable “locked in”
syndrome at the age of 43. Bauby’s only way of communicating with the outside world was by blinking with one eye, and after several dedicated helpers-a string of impossibly beautiful women (Emmanuelle Seigner, Marie-Josee Croze, Olatz Lopez Garamendia, Anne Consigny)--helped him
to 'speak' through this seemingly irrelevant gesture, he began to produce the
words that would form this memoir.
Along the way, as he swam in and Sat.
April 19 8:00 pm
out of consciousness, memories
from his past swelled into the Wed. April 23
7:30 pm
present, resulting in a cinematic
experience that is at once heartbreaking and hopeful. "Thanks to Schnabel’s
poetic interpretation, what could have been a portrait of impotence and suffering becomes instead a lively exploration of consciousness and a
soaring ode to liberation." - Ann Hornaday, Washington Post. "I promise you won’t have a more viscerally emotional experience at the movies this
year." - Lou Lumenick, New York Post. "It's a high-wire act of visual daring and unquenchable spirit." - Peter Travers, Rolling Stone. (PG-13, 112
min., English subtitles) Paul's View: Before I saw this extraordinary film, I thought my gosh, how can a movie about a guy who can only blink hold
anyone's attention? Well thanks to Julian Schnabel's supreme artistry, it does and then some! Trust me.
Golden Globe Nominee: Best Dramatic Film. Image Award Winner: Best Actors. Denzel Washington directs and stars in this uplifting drama
based on a true story set in 1935. A poet and debating coach at tiny all-black Wiley College in East Texas, professor Melvin Tolson (Washington)
sees debating as “a blood sport” and recruits the shrewdest and brightest students for his team, including troubled Henry (Nate Parker), driven
Samantha (Jurnee Smollet), and the 14-year-old prodigy James Farmer, Jr. (Denzel Whitaker). Forest Whitaker (no relation) plays Farmer’s father,
the initially unsupportive president of the school. Bouyed up by Tolson's passion and
disciplined training, the team mounts an impressive winning streak in spite of many
distractions including romantic heat over
the attentions of fiery Samantha (the first Sat.
April 26 8:00 pm
girl on the team) and disturbing incidents
of racism. It all culminates in a winner- Wed. April 30
7:30 pm
take-all showdown with the debate team
from perennial national winner Harvard University. "(The movie) is important, it’s
deeply inspiring, it’s something from our not-so-distant past we must not forget, and
it should be must-see viewing for high school and college students of all backgrounds." - Richard Roeper. "One of the happiest surprises of the
season; it’s marvelously edifying entertainment you should not miss." - Andrew Sarris, NY Observer. "Washington succeeds in making debating
as enthralling as contact sports." - Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer. (PG-13, 123 min.) Paul's View: This is a remarkably engaging and deeply
moving film. I thought it would be an edifying way to wrap up a great season of Library Theatre Films.