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Did you know the Livermore Public Library now offers Kanopy, a free video streaming service? Use your library card to access Kanopy in our Digital Library. Each Livermore Public Library cardholder can stream five films per month. To get you in the streaming mood, our October 2019 Staff Picks newsletter focuses on movies. Make some popcorn and dim the lights!
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What is your favorite film adaptation of a book? Why?It's got to be Die Hard. How many of you know it was adapted from a book titled Nothing Lasts Forever by Roderick Thorp? Rarely does the movie adaptation far surpass the book. I watch Die Hard every year during the holiday season (because it is a Christmas movie, you know that, right). What's not to love about the film? Bruce Willis (when he was still a good actor) playing the iconic Detective John McClane. Who can forget Alan Rickman as the classy villain Hans Gruber? Die Hard rules. Yipikayay...
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What is a book you would like to see made into a movie? Why did you choose that book? The Egg is a 2009 short story by Andy Weir, originally published on his website Galactanet. It is Weir's most popular short story, and has been translated into over 30 languages by readers. I think a good screenwriter and director can further develop this short story and turn it into a movie. Want to know what The Egg is about? Watch this excellent short video.
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What is the best movie you've watched on Kanopy? Iceman (or Der Mann aus dem Eis). This is a 2017 German film. The Ötztal Alps, more than 5300 years ago. A Neolithic clan has settled near a creek. It is their leader Kelab's responsibility to be the keeper of the group's holy shrine Tineka. While Kelab is hunting, the settlement is attacked. Kelab journeys through dangerous and inhospitable terrain seeking vengeance for the brutal massacre of his clan and the desecration of the group's holy shrine. This is a captivating and absorbing revenge drama inspired by the real mummified Neolithic male known as Ötzi, whose shrivelled body was discovered with his tools and clothing in a glacier in 1991.
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What is your favorite film adaptation of a book? Why? I loveThrone of Blood because Akira Kurosawa set Macbeth in feudal Japan, and the change of setting enhances my understanding of Shakespeare's play. Toshiro Mifune is always unforgettable, but Isuzu Yamada steals the show in the Lady Macbeth role.
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What is a book you would like to see made into a movie? Why did you choose that book? Frank Conroy's memoir Stop-Time would make an excellent movie. It is one of the few books that I finished and immediately started reading again. Gus Van Sant would get my vote for director. I would love to see how Van Sant or another director would depict particular scenes from the book, especially since Conroy's writing is so visceral. A film adaptation might also encourage more people to read Stop-Time.
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What is the best movie you've watched on Kanopy? I was surprised by how much I enjoyed Regarding Susan Sontag. The filmmakers made an accessible and balanced documentary about a galvanizing intellectual. This film made me want to read one of Sontag's books.
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What is your favorite film adaptation of a book? Why? And Then There Were None. This is an old Agatha Christie mystery that was made into a movie. I loved the book. It was the book that got me to love books and reading! When I found out that a movie had been made I had to watch it. Yes, it’s an older movie – released in 1945, it’s a great ‘who done it?’ murder mystery. These types of movies aren’t made anymore. Who doesn’t love a great who done it thriller!
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What is a book you would like to see made into a movie? Why did you choose that book? It’s actually a fairly new book, but I fell in love with it! The book is There There by Tommy Orange. The story is based in Oakland, California and is about three generations of Native Americans intertwined between geography, time, and life experiences. It interweaves the life experience of today’s urban youth and two older generations of Native American experiences and lives. I would love to see this book turned into a movie in order for America to be able to see today’s Native American experience and to see Native Americans as people, not only as an imagined part of history and to see our struggles and our everyday experiences. It’s a very well written and crafted novel.
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What is the best movie you've watched on Kanopy? A wonderful documentary I viewed using Kanopy was The Lemon Grove Incident. It is the story of the Jim Crow policy of ‘Separate but Equal’ within the educational system here in California. This case would lead to the desegregation of California public schools. It gives light to the legal case against segregation - Mendez v. Westminster, and the legal case that set precedence to the Brown vs. Board of Education ruling years later that would end segregation in schools throughout the county. Interestingly enough, I recently read an article about the Westminster School District that spoke to this case and the Chicano students and family that brought this case. The Westminster School District dedicated their district office to the Mendez Family! Kanopy has tons of great documentaries and independent films to explore like The Lemon Grove Incident.
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