Make someone's day

Make someone's day tomorrow. I'm not talking Valentines, I'm talking about giving an unwanted book to an underprivileged child.
 
Tomorrow is International Book Giving Day. Please bring in any preloved children's books to the Information Store desk, or SA103, and we will pass them on to a library that we work with in Dedza, Malawi. 

Make someone's day tomorrow!!

Love your library

To celebrate "National Libraries Day" on Saturday, we have put together a display of some of our favourite books, DVDs, CDs and magazines, all available to borrow, for free!

Come in and browse, and remember that all you need in order to borrow is your student card. Most items are available to borrow for 3 weeks, although more in-demand items will be available to borrow for one week.

Stock up on some DVDs and CDs while the weather is so chilly!

DVD Review - Un Chien Andalou (1929)

2013 marks the 30 year anniversary of the death of Spanish director Luis Bunuel. A unique film maker who lead the avant-garde surrealist movement with his work with the moving image.  While in education he became very close with surrealist painter Salvador Dali who he would later work with to make one of the most respected short films of the surrealist movement called Un Chien Andalou, translated as ‘An Andalusian Dog’. Don’t be fooled by its romantic title which falsely promises the tale of a Spanish pooch, what lies within is something quite different; a hand crawling in ants, a woman having her eyeball sliced open and a man dressed  as a nun riding a bike. It is definitely the work of two avant-garde artists and has been persistently studied by academics since its creation in 1929. Chiming in at only 16 minutes long, it certainly packs a punch and is not for the faint hearted.

A consistent feature of the film is a pattern of black and white stripes which appears in almost every scene, whether it be on some clothing or an object in a room or furniture. It was used by Bunuel as a device for creating some sort of solidarity and consistency throughout the film for the sake of the audience. Bunuel also used a series of title cards stating a progression of time, however these jump around from ‘eight years later’ to ‘around three in the morning’ to ‘sixteen years later’ which in itself is confusing. This kind of narrative structure, where an audience is shown a sequence of images loosely linked together was known as ‘dream logic’ and was favoured by surrealists at the time.

Time frames and narratives aside, there are reasons why this film is so famous, the number one reason probably being the infamous eyeball scene. At the beginning of the film, we see a man sharpening a cut throat knife while gazing at the moon. A woman is sitting looking straight into the camera and the man takes the knife, pulls open her eyelid and brazenly slices her eyeball in half, spilling all kinds of horrible fluid on to her cheek. For years people speculate how Bunuel and Dali constructed this scene arguing about where the eyeball came from, but in 1975 Bunuel came out with the truth and said it was the eye of a baby calf and he bleached the fur of the calf so much that it would look like human skin. He certainly did a good job of making this look convincing, even now almost 90 years on it looks real and is probably just as harrowing as the day it was premiered. 

As famous as this scene may be, it is probably not the weirdest thing you’ll see in Un Chien Andalou. How about a man pulling on some ropes with the tablets of the Ten Commandments attached? What if the ropes were also attached to two priests being dragged along the floor? Better still, what if they were then attached to a piano with a dead donkey laying on it? Yes, this all happens. Bunuel and Dali were certainly on a roll when they came up with that little sequence of events.  Overlapping frames and bizarre images makes Un Chien Andalou interesting viewing, whether you like it or not, you certainly won’t see anything else like it. Unique in name and nature and edited in Luis Bunuel’s kitchen, he deserves a round of applause for creating such an unforgettable film which has gone down in film and art history.

Un Chien Andalou can be found in the Information Store DVD Zone at 791.430944. It comes in a box with another film by Dali and Bunuel called L'Age D'or. Maybe you could give that one a try too!

Further Reading in The Information Store

Un Chien Andalou (book) - Book Zone - 791.4372
Belle du Jour by Luis Bunuel - DVD Zone - 791.430944
Salvador Dali 1904-1989 by Gilles Neret - Book Zone - 759.6

A Very Special Christmas DVD Review!

Rather than choosing one of our Christmas DVD's, we've chosen...5 of them!
 
Here is our rundown of all things Christmassy in the DVD Zone.
 

5) Elf

Buddy the Elf is no ordinary Elf. In fact, he’s not an Elf at all. As an infant, Buddy adventurously crawled into Santa’s sack one Christmas eve and was accidentally taken back to the North Pole where he was adopted by one of the Elves. A few years on Buddy is three times taller than everyone else, has no natural capabilities in hand crafting toys and is beginning to question his origins.  Papa Elf tells him that his Father lives in New York City and has no knowledge of Buddy existing as his Mother put him up for adoption and died shortly afterwards. Don’t worry, it gets more cheerful from here.

So off Buddy goes to meet his Father, Walter, who is less than impressed when Buddy arrives at his office in full elf uniform and starts singing to him. Buddy suffers a fair bit of misfortune in New York including getting accidentally drunk in a post room, being hit by a taxi cab and getting into a fight with a toy shop Santa. However, some good does come out of all of this when he meets the blonde haired, blue eyed Jovie, a beautiful little Elf who works at the toy store. However, Jovie has also lost all of her Christmas Spirit, as has the majority of New Yorkers, including Walters wife and son.

 

Christmas Eve is soon upon us and Santa’s sleigh breaks down and crashes into Central Park. The engine is broken and the presents need delivering and the rawkus has attracted quite a crowd of people curious as to what ‘fell from the sky’.  Santa tells Buddy that the only thing to make his sleigh fly is Christmas cheer, and what’s the best way to spread Christmas cheer? ‘By singing loud for all to hear’. Expect a good old rendition of Santa Claus is Coming to Town, a lump in your throat, a warm feeling in your belly and very happy ending.

Will Ferrell is the perfect oversized Elf and his love of Christmas, Syrup and his Father lead him into some quite interesting situations. Predictable yet well executed, Elf will never have the classic status of something like Home Alone, but it is still a great Christmas movie that sets out to do exactly what it wants to do.

 

4) The Grinch

 ‘Inside a snowflake like the one on your sleeve, there happened a story you must see to believe’

It's Christmas in Whoville, and all the Who’s are frantically rushing around doing their Christmas shopping, grabbing bargains and knocking each other over. One of these Who’s, Cindy Lou, becomes frustrated that everyone, even her family have lost sight of what Christmas is all about. Feeling glum. She looks for a distraction and her adventurous little mind stumbles across the story of The Grinch, a hateful creature who lives on Mount Crumpit, overlooking the town. The Grinch hates Christmas, everything about it he loathes and despises, the only thing he seems to tolerate is his dog, Max. Nobody knows the reason behind his hatred, but what we do learn is that his heart is ‘two sizes too small’, withering away inside his green, fluffy chest. 

Cindy Lou wants to find out why the Grinch is so hateful so she speaks to his Mothers. She learns of his unfortunate childhood and the bullying he received at school in front of his childhood sweetheart Martha May. Little Cindy Lou decides that she wants to reignite the fire in the Grinch’s belly so she goes to Mount Crumpit to invite the Grinch to the Whobilation (Whoville’s most important celebration), hoping this might encourage him to show a bit of festive spirit. The Grinch however sees this as an opportunity to get into some mischief, but he ends up enjoying himself and getting involved with the festive activities. Things turn sour when the Mayor proposes to the Grinch’s childhood love Martha with a ring the size of Mount Crumpit and makes a mean joke about the Grinch in front of the whole town. The Grinch then tears the town apart and burns the Christmas tree before returning to his cave to wallow in self pity once more.

Hating the Whos, he builds a sleigh and steals all the presents and trees from every Who in Whoville. Although a successful haul, it fails to dampen the spirits of the Who’s below who start singing. Cindy Lou wants to wish the Grinch a Merry Christmas so ascends the great Mount Crumpit. The Grinch, angered that he hasn’t destroyed Christmas doesn’t notice Cindy Lou and his sleigh starts slipping towards her. A mixture of the singing, the realisation that Christmas isn’t something you can steal and the sight of the endangered Cindy Lou causes the Grinch’s heart to grow three sizes and he saves Cindy Lou’s life.

Not only is this film funny, but in true Dr Seuss style, it has a fairly significant message too. Jim Carrey is hilarious as the Grinch, and young Taylor Momsen perfectly illustrates the innocence of youth through Cindy Lou. It has all the elements of a good Christmas movie; a villain, a hero, a moment when the villain becomes the hero and lots and lots of snow. The glue that holds the whole thing together is the enchanting poetic legacy of Dr Seuss.

 

3) Miracle on 34^th Street - 1947

Set between Thanksgiving and Christmas Day, Miracle on 34^th Street is regarded as one of the greatest Christmas movies of all time. In New York City on the day of the Thanksgiving Parade, the man hired by Macy’s department store to be Santa Claus is intoxicated so the store manager, Doris, hires another man who calls himself Kris Cringle to take his place. This man claims to be the real Santa Clause but Doris, doesn’t believe in the notion of fantasy and has taught her daughter to think the same. Kris Cringle is regarded as insane by the people around him and after an unfortunate dispute with a psychologist; he is despairingly forced into failing a medical exam, proving his insanity. However, people start to see something in him, the improbability of events that occur just don’t add up and even Doris and her daughter start questioning whether he may in fact be the real Santa. Doris hires Fred Gaily, a friend of hers to represent Kris in court where they can fight for his sanity and prove he is the real Santa. All hope seems lost and the light at the end of the tunnel is barely visible, surely what they need is a miracle…

Directed by George Seaton in 1947, it’s a classic Christmas tale and was remade in 1994 by Les Mayfield. For today’s audience, it is very dated.  Even the 1994 version is dated but it's timeless message will always stay the same.

 

 

2) The Muppets Christmas Carol

I could have chosen the normal A Christmas Carol, the animated A Christmas Carol or even, Scrooge but instead I went with The Muppets, as it is one of my personal favourites.

The story, as we all know, is based on the classic tale written by Charles Dickens about a greedy, hateful man called Ebenezer Scrooge. He is horrible to his employees, to his family and he is the most hated man in town. He is visited by three ghosts on Christmas Eve who show him the past, present and the future. Firstly, reminded of his past and the moment he lost his one true love because of his reculsive and negative attitude. He is then taken to the present to Bob Cratchit’s house, one of his employees, who has a dying son called Tiny Tim who just wants his family to be together and happy for Christmas. Here he sees that material possessions and money are not what is making this family happy, but the love they have for one another.  Finally, he is shown the grim reality of what the future holds for him and for poor little Tiny Tim.

It’s the perfect redemption story and other adaptations it can be quite eerie. However, this version is by The Muppets so there is very minimal eeriness and lots more silliness instead. Scrooge is played by Michael Caine, and Bob Cratchit and his wife are Kermit and Miss Piggy. The story is told by Charles Dickens, otherwise known as The Great Gonzo and his pal, Rizzo the Rat. It’s a highly entertaining adaptation of a classic Christmas story and its message is just as clear, albeit slightly devoid of some of the novels more poignant moments.  With plenty of songs to sing a-long to, and moments to laugh out loud to, it’s a great family film that doesn’t get boring, in true Muppets style, when things start to get a bit serious, they just do something stupid to make up for it. 

 

 

      1) It’s a Wonderful Life

A year before Miracle on 34^th Street hit the movie theatres, It's a Wonderful Life enchanted audiences with its beautiful, honest tale of one mans relentless selflessness overcoming all odds. Set in New York, the film follows a troubled young man called George Bailey. George’s family and friends have been praying to the heavens for someone to help him, and so an Angel called Clarence, who is yet to earn his wings, reviews George’s life with the head Angels to decide whether he deserves their help or not.

The film chronologically moves through George’s life from the age of 12 to his present age at the beginning of the film. We see the sacrifices he made as a young man, and how his efforts to travel the world are constantly thwarted by some sort of incident which ends up making him stay. Things repeatedly look hopeful and then everything crashes down around him over and over again. He and his new wife even sacrifice the money saved for their honeymoon in helping the company George started from going bankrupt. George and Mary start a family and his brother, Harry, receives the Medal of Honour for serving in WWII. Things certainly look like they are on the up. That is until the evil Mr Potter, from a rival company, unlawfully acquires money from George and his company goes into bankruptcy. George goes and gets drunk at a nearby bar and after crashing his car into a tree he tries to commit suicide by jumping into a river. However, Clarence the Angel’s moment to shine arrives and he jumps in the river first, knowing full well that George will save him.  Clarence reveals himself to be George’s Guardian Angel, and George tells Clarence he wishes he had never been born, so Clarence shows George what the world would be like if he wasn’t in it. All the good things that happen to George’s family and friends were out of acts of selflessness of George so without him everything goes wrong for everyone.  George learns to value and appreciate what he has, and Clarence allows him ‘to live again’ earning him his wings and George a wonderful life.

Despite a mixed reception on its release, It’s a Wonderful Life appears in the BFI’s 100 greatest films of all time list, and AFI’s and IMDB’s. It’s the epitome of a Christmas movie, it’s heartfelt and emotional yet funny and serious all at the same time. The fact that it’s set at Christmas time is the cherry on top of an already magnificently iced cake.

I don’t know about you, but I’m beginning to notice a theme with these Christmas movies…New York, bad guy turned good, redemption, morals…? Anyway, why not give one of these films a go and invite that warmness into your heart that only a Christmas movie can bring.

 "Welcome Christmas while we stand, heart to heart and hand in hand."

- Dr Seuss (1957)

 

Further Reading in The Information Store:

Elf – DVD ZONE – 791.43

The Grinch – DVD ZONE – 791.43

The Muppets Christmas Carol – DVD ZONE – 791.43

It’s a Wonderful Life – DVD ZONE – 791.43

Miracle on 34^th Street – DVD ZONE – 791.43

Why not take a look at our Christmas display of books by the Issue Desk? We’ve got everything from cookery to crafts!

Happy Christmas Everyone!

Consider yourself invited!

Vince Laws (poet, performer, artist and campaigner) will be giving a talk and performance of his poetry in the HE Zone next Monday (3rd December).

Vince campaigns to remove the stigma of HIV and mental health. He will be in the HE Zone from 12-1pm, please come along and show him your support for some or all of this hour. It looks to be a full on and exciting hour!

http://www.vincelaws.com/cv.htm

Coming soon...Road Safety Week

Watch this space or, more specifically, the seating area in the Information Store next to the newspapers.

Next week we will have a selection of books and DVDs for you to borrow on learning to drive, and most importantly, learning how to drive safely.

The Wellbeing Zone also has a wide selection of leaflets about road safety - pop upstairs and have a look.

DVD Review - 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

November sees in the release of the highly anticipated film The Master. Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson who has brought us such films as Magnolia and There Will Be Blood, The Master is set to be one of the films of the year. What’s so special about it? Probably the most exciting thing is that it has been shot on 70mm film and will be shown in this format, which means that the resolution will be higher, clearer and much crisper. To put it simply, it has been shot on a much larger piece of film within the camera than most other films, so its double the size and double the quality. For those of you who thought IMAX was the best picture quality you were going to see, think again!

This swiftly brings me on to today’s film, 2001: A Space Odyssey, which was famously shot on 70mm, just like The Master, but way back in 1968. This didn’t stop it being a spectacular looking film which earned the film’s director, Stanley Kubrick, an Oscar for visual effects. What perhaps is most remarkable about 2001, is that audiences marvelled at what it was creating as a future world, showing huge space ships spinning through space, high tech gadgets, special anti-gravity shoes and futuristic furniture that no one had really seen before, as science fiction films were not particularly well established at the time. The visual effects were so breath takingly realistic and Stanley Kubrick created them without even using a computer. He used models and manipulation of the film cells to create his effects, an art which has long since bitten the dust. Before Man had even landed on the moon, Kubrick had made a convincing and technologically accurate film about space travel.

Written by Arthur C Clarke and Stanley Kubrick, 2001 starts off on Earth in prehistoric times where we watch a family of Apes or ‘hominids’ as they would rather be known go about their daily lives of hunting, fighting and sleeping. A tall, black, rectangular object appears to them one day and subsequently they learn how to use rocks as weapons and kill animals for food. It was this important discovery that kick started our evolution from ape to man.  We then hop forward a few thousand years to Dr Heywood Floyd who is travelling through space in a large, rotating vessel en route to the moon. We learn that something has been discovered on the moon which is remarkably similar to the object that appeared before the hominids. A great amount of mystery surrounds this object, which they call a Monolith, as it is assumed to be ancient extra-terrestrial intelligence. Dr Floyd and his team are sent to the moon to examine it, only to retreat again after it omits a painful, high pitched screech.

18 months later Dave Bowman and Frank Poole, two young astronauts, are travelling on board the aptly named Discovery spaceship bound for Jupiter for a so called ‘training mission’. Little do they know, they are following up the excavation of the Monolith 18 months previous.  Their space ship is controlled by super computer HAL-9000 who has been programmed to behave and speak like a human, and to act as a friend to Bowman and Poole.  HAL suddenly starts behaving strangely and reporting that communication devices are broken when they are not. Things rapidly go from bad to worse when HAL completely turns on Bowman and Poole and tries to kill them. Bowman escapes in a small pod and travels through a psychedelic tunnel of lights and flies over strange foreign lands in an unsettling and trippy sequence culminating in his arrival at Jupiter alongside our old friend the Monolith. Things get very strange now as Bowman lands in a baroque, French style bedroom. There are no windows, no doors and the floor is made out of light. Bowman goes through a series of stages whereby he moves through the room by looking at older versions of himself, which he then becomes. This progression allows Bowman to rapidise his life and become the ultimate version of himself. He noticeably ages three times until finally he is an old man lying on his death bed where the Monolith appears to him at his feet. He raises his hand towards it and is transported through it as a foetal baby where he is reborn as a master of the universe. I know this may sound like I am making it up, but I promise you this is what happens, it's not the easiest thing to synopsise so I suggest you see for yourselves!

Kubrick and Clarke shared a vision to create the ultimate science fiction movie and this one has it all. Its meaning is hard to decipher, especially of the end, but Kubrick didn’t want everyone to been spoon-fed meanings and philosophies. 2001 is essentially a depiction of the evolution of Man from our most primitive form to our most intelligent, predicting what Man could be capable of doing in the year 2001. Throw in a murderous computer, a few reprises of Strauss’ Thus Spake Zarathustra and a horse painted like a zebra and you’ve got yourself something really quite special.  

Paving the way for great science fiction movies of the future like Bladerunner, The Alien Quadrilogy and even Prometheus, 2001: A Space Odyssey is a ground-breaking piece of cinema that is replicated time and time again in modern culture. Unfortunately, it’s not for everyone. It was poorly received when it was released and gained its fame from a cult following of 60’s youths who found it ‘trippy’ and has been splitting audiences for the past 44 years. I highly recommend it to science fiction fans, Kubrick fans and those of you who enjoy something a little bit different.

The nights are drawing in and the weekends are predominantly rainy, so borrow it from the DVD Zone, snuggle up in the warm and prepare yourself for the ultimate Stanley Kubrick experience…

 

Find 2001: A Space Odyssey in the DVD ZONE at shelfmark 791.43.

 

 

Further Reading in the Information Store:

 

Find other Stanley Kubrick films like The Shining, Barry Lyndon and Full Metal Jacket in the DVD Zone - under 18s beware!

 

Science Fiction Cinema from Outerspace to Cyberspace by Geoff King - BOOK ZONE - 791.43615

 

Stanley Kubrick: Drama and Shadows: Photographs: 1945-1950 - BOOK ZONE - 770.92

DVD review

Ishbel's DVD review

 

As the night's get darker, I have found myself borrowing lots of free DVDs from the Information Store.

 

My colleagues Lucy and Graham recommended a film I wouldn't usually have borrowed: 

 

 “Aileen, life and death of a serial killer” (on shelves at 791.4353)

 

 

 

It made for both thought-provoking and disturbing viewing. It is a documentary about America's first female serial killer, covering her troubled childhood, the violent murders she committed while she was a prostitute, ending with interviews given during her time on death row.

 

The film leads us to question whether the death penalty should be given to someone who appears to be insane. The film gave me plenty to think about, and its message will stay with me for a long time - I highly recommend borrowing a copy. Find it in the DVD lobby area, or ask a member of staff to point you in the right direction.

 

 

Ceremony of Remembrance

Join the space race!

Fed up emailing yourself files from home to college? Try saving files to the cloud.
 
www.dropbox.com/spacerace

CCN is taking part in the "Dropbox space race" - sign up to get free online storage space for you and for CCN, it's free!

I followed their instructions and now have about 30GB of free storage!!

NB  Other cloud storage companies are available...