Malaysian film “Abang Adik” triumphed at the 10th Asian World Film Festival 2024, held in Los Angeles, the United States today, by securing the prestigious Best Film award.The film’s lead actor, Wu Kang-ren, delivered a standout performance as Abang, earning him the Best Actor Award in the Feature Snow Leopard category.
Our product picks are editor-tested, expert-approved. We may earn a commission through links on our site. Why Trust Us?Men’s Health Illustration29 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992)GaumontIn a just world, a Ridley Scott epic would not end up at the bottom of this list—but it’s no surprise that the ugliest of Scott’s historically revisionist works ends up dead last. Released to mark the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus “discovering” the Americas, the film charts his difficult relationship with the Spanish court and the subsequent colonial abuses carried out by him and his successors. Except, in Scott’s version, Columbus (Gérard Depardieu) was mainly a witness to the truly rotten barbarity of European colonialism, rather than a proponent of it. Despite the angelic score by Vangelis and some dazzling frames of “the New World,” the only glimpse of paradise here is from the bliss of the credits rolling.Stream It HereBuy Blu-ray Here 28Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014)20th Century StudiosFor all intents and purposes, Exodus: Gods and Kings is as clunky, boring, and racist as 1492—and thanks to the dark, muddy color palette, it looks far worse. But it triumphs over Scott’s other terrible historical epic for being such a strange, mangled misfire: a cast of recognizable white faces experiment with different degrees of brownface, and in courting a Western religious crowd, the film was denied a release in multiple MENA countries. The most intentional historical reinterpretations are noteworthy: Scott (together with the four credited screenwriters) show the Plagues of Egypt in gruesome, brutal detail, while also offering playful, realistic explanations for each one.Stream It HereBuy Blu-ray HereAdvertisement – Continue Reading Below27House of Gucci (2021)United Artists26Someone to Watch Over Me (1987)Columbia PicturesAfter working for years on Legend, Scott’s next film was much more grounded—a simmering affair thriller about a bodyguard cop (Tom Berenger) and the beautiful rich woman he’s protecting (Mimi Rogers). By the time Legend flopped hard in 1985, this grounded project seemed like a much surer thing—alas, it also underperformed with critics and at the box office. Scott makes ’80s New York look like a glimmering, weeping, concrete majesty, framing Berenger’s cop under strip lights or in shadowy halls to stress the restless loneliness pulling him towards his material witness. But the film never once tries to make its male lead likable, and both the inane love story and the hackneyed thriller plot end up lifeless. One of the most nothing movies of Scott’s career, but after Blade Runner, it’s notable as another instance of broken, brutish cops populating his filmography.Stream It HereBuy Blu-ray HereAdvertisement – Continue Reading Below25Robin Hood (2010) UniversalRobin Hood bookended a decade of moody, bombastic historical epics chasing the crazy success of Gladiator—after Master and Commander, King Arthur, Troy, 300, and Elizabeth: The Golden Age, all the fun had been sapped out of Scott’s Best Picture sword-and-sandal romp. But Scott made an entirely different type of film here: less theatrical or sentimental than Gladiator, but even more cynical of centralized power, with a sharper image and elastic camera moves. But while all these elements are intact in Robin Hood, it’s no fun at all; the film retells the Sherwood vigilante myth by stripping it of all interesting and recognizable details, leaving us with nothing fun and revealing the true limits of grim, grounded historical blockbusters.Stream It HereBuy Blu-ray Here24White Squall (1996)Buena VistaIn 1961, the brigantine “Albatross” was hit by a sudden “white squall” (a horrifically strong windstorm at sea) and swiftly sunk. The sailing ship was host to college-aged young men taking prep courses while learning to sail under Chris “Skipper” Sheldon, and a number of them perished. 35 years later, Scott turned the memoir of “Albatross” survivor Charles Geig into a teen survival film starring Jeff Bridges as Skipper, and the resulting film is like a producer wanted to recreate all the treacly sentiment of Dead Poets Society but thought it needed to be more traditionally masculine. It’s a half-effective but trite coming-of-age story, and you can tell the meticulous order and mechanisms of life aboard a vessel is more interesting to Scott than the inner lives of the bland characters. No joke, the film is most notable for its impact on the QAnon community.Stream It HereBuy Blu-ray HereAdvertisement – Continue Reading Below23Body of Lies (2008)Warner Bros.9/11 affected the development and reception of previous Scott films about military campaigns (Kingdom of Heaven and Black Hawk Down, respectively), but this spy thriller was the first time he tackled the War on Terror head-on. Leonardo DiCaprio plays a CIA agent chasing a terrorist in Jordan, aided by his abrasive, controlling eye-in-the-sky surveillance chief (Russell Crowe, who’s much more comfortable in his role than DiCaprio is in his). Body of Lies features much of the technical agility and finesse of Scott’s modern thrillers, but despite some timely observations about the pitfalls of America’s tech-reliant counter-intelligence, the film only feels marginally less heavy-handed and myopic than your average War on Terror thriller from the 2000s.Stream It HereBuy Blu-ray Here22Gladiator II (2024)ParamountIt’s not really clear, 24 years on, why there was a pressing need for a second Gladiator film, especially as this sequel has so little to say. Gladiator II ishonorably unslavish to Roman history (including appearances of soccer, newspapers, colosseum sharks, and a complete disruption of Imperial Rome’s governance) but dishonorably slavish to the first Gladiator film, giving Maximus a legendary status that smothers any chance for Lucius (Paul Mescal), nephew of Emperor Commodus, to have his own arc. Scott’s filmmaking has changed so much since the first Gladiator; his digital efficiency means that Gladiator II is paced brilliantly for a 148 minute film, but feels more empty as it apes the visual and dramatic highs of its predecessor. The gravest sin of this entertaining but disappointing epic is that every actor (except for Denzel Washington as Macrinus, an ambitious slave-turned-slave owner) feels a little out of step, and Mescal’s naturalistic approach to Lucius’s monotonous rage and righteousness gives us little to hang onto–especially compared to Russell Crowe, whose gladiator performance got him a permanent Movie Star seal of approval.Buy Tickets HereAdvertisement – Continue Reading Below21All The Money in the World (2017) Sony PicturesSure, it may be a bang-average period thriller, but file this one under “narrowly avoided disaster” thanks to the smart decision to reshoot all of Kevin Spacey’s prosthetics-clad scenes as J. Paul Getty with Christopher Plummer—not least because Spacey had just been accused of sexual assault, but secondarily because Plummer is the better actor and those Spacey prosthetics looked awful. Reshooting nine days worth of scenes mere weeks before the film’s premiere is a Classic Ridley Move—responding to a high-pressure challenge with technical prowess and a clear vision of how the finished product will look. Aside from this real-life B-story, this dramatization of the Getty kidnapping is adequate, bluntly scripted but appropriately bitter about America’s consolidation of wealth, featuring a great performance from Michelle Williams (as expected) and a pretty good one from Mark Wahlberg (much rarer). Fun fact: kidnapped heir John Paul Getty III (played here by Charlie Plummer) is the father of actor Balthazar Getty, who appeared as one of the disaffected young men in White Squall.Stream It HereBuy Blu-ray Here20The Martian (2015)20th Century StudiosRidley spent a lot of the 2010s in space, but his bleak, imaginative Alien prequels far surpass this fun but fluffy extension to the Rescue Matt Damon Expanded Universe. After being stranded on Mars and believed dead by NASA, botanist astronaut Mark Watney (Damon) mounts an ambitious survival campaign, which thanks to original writer Andy Weir and screenwriter Drew Goddard is full of one-liners and internet age wisecracks that carbon date the film to the minute it was released. Scott assembled a slick, smarmy, and sure-footed film, but every time the script hits upon the possibility of true, daunting tension, Watney explains just how he’s going to solve it, sucking the joy of discovery from the story. It’s too clean and glick to linger longer than a single watch.Stream It HereBuy 4K UHD/Blu-ray HereAdvertisement – Continue Reading Below19Napoleon (2023)Apple/Columbia23 years after Gladiator, Scott reunited with Joaquin Phoenix for their second collaboration about absolute power eroding a leader’s sense and reason—even if Phoenix threatened to quit both productions. The promise of a longer director’s cut loomed over Napoleon’s release in late 2023, priming audiences to notice where the expansive and expensive French war saga may have been truncated for a theatrical run (Napoleon: The Director’s Cut is available to stream on Apple TV+, running at 204 minutes instead of 158). Napoleon is as textured and off-kilter as many of Scott’s latter historical films (while still feeling like a technically slick and assured beast), claiming to contextualizing the Napoleonic era through his affair with beloved Josephine (Vanessa Kirby), but often settles for an unrevolutionary look at the general’s inadequacies.Stream It Here18 Black Rain (1989)ParamountWas Michael Douglas doing anything in the ’80s apart from being sleazy and vulgar? His lone appearance in a Ridley film capped off a difficult decade for the director, full of lavish expressionism but mangled scripts and compromised productions (his best received work in the ’80s was probably his “1984” Apple commercial). This cross-cultural cop film takes rough, dirty New York cops (Douglas and Andy Garcia) to Japan, where a beleaguered Osaka officer (Ken Takakura) helps them chase down yakuza rebels, even though they have very different ideas of police work. Black Rain is one of those clumsy racist cop movies that accentuates all the worst traits of policing but can’t muster any lasting critiques. Still, Ridley’s action sensibilities give us many reflective water pools, looming buildings, and sprays of dirt from motorbike tires, meaning that, for spells, Black Rain is brutal and commanding.Stream It HereBuy Blu-ray HereAdvertisement – Continue Reading Below17A Good Year (2006)20th Century StudiosStraight after his towering crusades epic Kingdom of Heaven, Scott made an unlikely contribution to the loose British subgenre of “middle-class ennui” dramedies that picked up in the 2000s, off the heels of About a Boy, a couple Bridget Jones films, and just before the transatlantic house-swap classic The Holiday. A Good Year has a snarkier, bitterer tone than those romcoms, elevating the airport paperback material (originally written by Ridley Scott’s Provence neighbor?!) with sharp performances and a restless (read: overedited) visual style. It’s quite a melancholic story: an unpleasant investment broker (played ably by Russell Crowe) travels to his late uncle’s French vineyard estate to lock down a quick sale, but becomes ensnared in a web of memory that has him fall for a curt French waitress (Marien Cottiard). It’s one of the lightest works in Scott’s filmography, but he is in his element pastiching braindead capitalist men and channeling the boomer urge to have a provincial French estate.Stream It HereBuy DVD Here16G.I. Jane (1997)Buena VistaA couple of Ridley films are described as more “Tony Scott coded” by film fans, and this boot camp drama, with its textbook ’90s trappings and liberal shortcomings, is most often cited as being ghost directed by his action maestro brother. The US Navy are strong-armed into trialing female recruitment across all Navy divisions, and in order to make a public failure out of the program, they admit Jordan O’Neill (Demi Moore) into the ruthless, dropout-prone Combined Reconnaissance Team selection program. Every other candidate is treated in a horrifically sexist manner, but wouldn’t you know it, after O’Neill proves herself sufficiently masculine, they come around to her—even if it takes the threat of sexual assault from their strange Master Chief (Viggo Mortensen). Scott is terrific at enhancing the best dramatic beats of a screenplay, so it’s a shame the Libyan coast firefight that closes the film is such a confused dud.Stream It HereBuy DVD HereAdvertisement – Continue Reading Below15Hannibal (2001)Metro Goldwyn Mayer PicturesAfter Michael Mann’s Manhunter and Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs, Ridley Scott is the last actually talented director to helm a Hannibal Lecter movie. Scott’s continuation of the Clarice Starling story (the part now recast as Julianne Moore) was followed by disgraced hack Brett Rattner (Red Dragon) and British filmmaker Peter Webber (has anyone ever watched Hannibal Rising?) While it would be too much of a stretch to call Scott’s Hannibal “good,” it’s the only one of the three bad Lecter films you could theoretically call “good.” Scott shoots the garish, schlocky material with little of the psychological edge of Mann or Demme’s films, but dials up the overblown, theatrical sleaze without losing all of Hopkins’s Oscar-winning horror gravitas. The Ray Liotta brain dinner finale sums up the film’s creepy and trashy appeal—it’s truly beautiful nonsense.Stream It HereBuy Blu-ray Here14Black Hawk Down (2001)Sony PicturesAn accomplished and influential depiction of modern war on film, Scott’s rendition of the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu in the capital city of Somalia is nevertheless an ugly account of US interventionism released a couple months after the September 11 attacks. Looking back 23 years later, the film’s selective perspective on Operation Gothic Serpent set the stage for the ensuing decade of how American culture (poorly) reflected on their ongoing foreign policy. About one hundred recognizable actors led by Josh Hartnett (but notably, no Somali actors) dramatize the calamitous urban firefight, and Scott uses a high-contrast color palette and jarring camera movement and cuts (sometimes shooting with up to 11 cameras at once) to trap us in the battle’s immediate peril. But outside of the effective adrenaline of the fight, Black Hawk Down is a more troubling political document.Stream It HereBuy 4K UHD/Blu-ray HereAdvertisement – Continue Reading Below13The Last Duel (2021) 20th Century StudiosHave you noticed that a lot of Ridley Scott films are critical about French history? Scott’s historical dramas often circle themes of futility and hardship, and this screenplay penned by Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, and Nicole Holofcener turns the punishing misogynistic order of 14th century France into three repeated accounts of an arrogant nobleman (Matt Damon), his more favored rival in court (Adam Driver), and the nobleman’s wife (Jodie Comer) who accuses her husband’s rival of rape. It’s a grueling, sometimes taxing watch about the violence and childishness of chivalric hierarchy, and the Holofcener-scripted third act shakes you awake from the circular, petty squabbles of the medieval men. 30 years after Thelma & Louise, Scott honed in on the maddening injustice women face in the aftermath of gendered violence, this time using his lived-in, mud-caked, and exposed-to-the-elements historical craft to show a real woman’s survival.Stream It HereBuy 4K UHD/Blu-ray Here12Prometheus (2012)20th Century StudiosAdvertisement – Continue Reading Below11Legend (1985)UniversalWhen a post-Blade Runner Ridley Scott wanted to make an original fairy-tale film, it made sense to feature a 21-year-old Tom Cruise wearing a shiny, elven chainmail shirt and basically no trousers (a worthy, impractical successor to the sheer costumes of Blade Runner’s android women). Legend is about the Lord of Darkness (Tim Curry) capturing the last unicorn so he can plunge the land into eternal night—and only a forest child (Cruise), a princess (Mia Sara), and a bunch of high-pitched elves and goblins can stand in his way. The film is oozing with sumptuous, sensory production design (not going to lie, it looks like the type of set that would catch fire) and the initial twinkling mood descends into an oppressive, but intoxicating and sensual third act once Curry’s strangely dom devil purrs in impossibly bassy tones. It doesn’t matter that you don’t understand what’s happening at any given moment—Legend truly belongs to a dream world that hasn’t been replicated in fantasy film since.Stream It Here Buy Blu-ray Here10Matchstick Men (2003)Warner Bros.Okay, now let’s do a silly one. Matchstick Men typifies Scott’s skill at elevating pretty much any entertaining Hollywood script, honing in on key themes or moods with formal agility and delivering an ideal (if not always transformative) version of the story on the page. You can see it a lot in his 2000s work—seriously, the range of genres and tones from his Gladiator to Body of Lies run is almost like he tried to make every type of film in a single decade. Collaborating with Nicolas Cage, the king of locking in, Scott made a supremely entertaining, if increasingly outlandish OCD crime caper about an obsessive, compulsive con man (Cage) who meets his teenage daughter (Alison Lohman) for the first time while planning a long con with his partner (Sam Rockwell). Sandwiched in between films set in war torn Somalia and the fall of Christian Jerusalem, Scott confines us to arid Los Angeles apartments and offices, dialing up his protagonist’s neuroses and hypersensitivity for a delicious and smart-mouthed comedy.Stream It HereBuy Blu-ray HereWatch Next Advertisement – Continue Reading BelowAdvertisement – Continue Reading BelowAdvertisement – Continue Reading Below
Breadcrumb Trail LinksEntertainmentBooksLocal EntertainmentThis time, David Lalonde’s Inspector Jack Butler investigates the death of a local college presidentPublished Nov 22, 2024 • Last updated 32 minutes ago • 5 minute readAuthor David Lalonde holds his new book that has been recently released. John Lappa/Sudbury Star/Postmedia NetworkArticle contentWhen David Lalonde set to writing his debut novel, Death of a Millionaire, it was only natural that the Sudbury resident should draw upon his 30 years of experience as an OPP officer, including the 22 years he spent as a detective-sergeant investigating major crimes.Advertisement 2Story continues belowThis advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.Article contentFor Death of a President, his second instalment in the Inspector Jack Butler mystery series, Lalonde has also tapped into his second career as a professor in Cambrian College’s Police Foundations program.Death of a President finds Detective Insp. Butler in the city of Northbury, a fictionalized version of Sudbury, in the mid-1980s, where he’s called upon to investigate the murder of a local college president, Eleanor Kirkpatrick.Lalonde took a few minutes to participate in The Sudbury Star’s Five Questions feature.Death of a President is available on Amazon.Q: Without giving away too much of the plot, can you tell us a bit about this new instalment in the Jack Butler series?A: Thank you very much for that and for your support: both are greatly appreciated. This novel gives me another chance to show the intriguing and interesting characters and venues that make up our part of the world: Northern Ontario. It is a region full of stories aching to be told.Advertisement 3Story continues belowThis advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.Article contentDeath of a President is the sequel to Death of a Millionaire. It follows the same team of detectives, with a few added characters, as they conduct a new murder investigation. The setting is Northern Ontario, in 1986: a time before the advent of much of the technological and scientific advances we expect and take advantage of today.Regardless, just as in real life, their ability to sort through and manage the complexities of human nature will be the deciding factor in the success or failure of the investigation.This time, Detective Inspector Jack Butler and his team are called in to take over the investigation into the murder of a local college president. The investigation takes place on the campus of Ramsey College, in the fictional community of Northbury. The city is well-served by their local police force, but the victim, Eleanor Kirkpatrick, is not only the ex-wife of a prominent local attorney but also the ex-sister-in-law of the city’s police chief. She was deeper into the world of political and social intrigue in the city than she ever wanted to be, and it seems that’s a type of rejection these folks just aren’t used to.Advertisement 4Story continues belowThis advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.Article contentQ: Your career in law enforcement gave you a great deal of real-life experience upon which to draw while writing your first book. What other events or experiences helped you to write this second story?A: I have had the great pleasure of moving on to a second career since retiring from policing and am now a professor at Cambrian College. I wanted to use a familiar venue when I chose a college as the setting for this murder but that’s all that the fictional Ramsey College has in common with Cambrian. I actually had an expanded version of the old Bell Mansion in mind for the building and then morphed it into something completely different. As far as college life itself, it’s fun to consider this otherwise balanced world and then tilt it a little. The characters who occupy it are purely fictional, though as always, inspired by an amalgam of people I have encountered in various locales throughout my life.Advertisement 5Story continues belowThis advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.Article contentWhen I first plotted the story out, our president at Cambrian was Bill Best, but in a bizarre twist of fate — in terms of the book, that is — he was followed by Kristine Morrissey, our current president. I am happy to report she is alive and well, and that aside from both being beautiful, intelligent women, any similarity between her and my fictional victim is unintended and coincidental. She has taken this all with her customary good humour, but it does seem the security folks on campus are watching me a little more closely these days. Probably just my imagination.Q: You were well underway with writing Death of a President when your first book, Death of a Millionaire, was released in 2023. How was the process different this time around?Advertisement 6Story continues belowThis advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.Article contentA: Death of a Millionaire, which is the first instalment in the series, is very much a police procedural novel that provides an in-depth look at the organization and complexities of a police investigation. It also shows the kind of people that detectives encounter in the shadow world of our province. The book is very detailed and helps to establish context, as well as providing a backstage pass to the intrigue that goes on behind the scenes of a major criminal investigation in Ontario.Death of a President has a much quicker pace, and while still in the police procedural style, is much more of a whodunit. There are clues, right from the beginning, but there are also red herrings throughout, as well. In this novel, I recommend the reader fasten their seatbelt and get ready for a bumpy ride. There are some real twists and turns — just like in real life — but here you can enjoy them from the safety of your favourite reading nook. I hope the readers will also find some good humour, and good living in the mix.Advertisement 7Story continues belowThis advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.Article contentQ: What do you make of the reception to your books so far, both in terms of sales and feedback from readers.A: It has exceeded my expectations in both regards, and the ratings and reviews are excellent. There are many loyal readers here at home, and I am surprised and pleased by the attention it has received in the United States and Great Britain, as well. I guess we’re more intriguing than we give ourselves credit for sometimes.One of the things that has given me the most pleasure is talking with readers who have delved deeply into the characters and situations they find themselves in. They see things that give me new insights into the things I have written.Q: Readers may be eager to learn where Detective Insp. Jack Butler’s career will take him from here. Can you tell us anything about what you’re working on next?Advertisement 8Story continues belowThis advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.Article contentA: Death of a Delilah will be out early next year. It is the third instalment in the series and is set in the autumn of 1986. Much has changed, but as they say, the more things change, the more they remain the same.The team will be called in to investigate the discovery of some human remains, found in an abandoned mine in Northern Ontario. What begins as something simple, and historic, quickly leads to a web of intrigue, muddied by time. As we strive to learn more about our victims, we find ourselves drawn more and more into Canada’s complicated past. That past and the present, our detectives are reminded, are inextricably [email protected]: @sudburystar.bsky.socialX: @SudburyStarArticle contentShare this article in your social networkComments Join the Conversation Featured Local Savings
By Kate Payne, AP News
(Source: The Culture)
“The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison. “Forever” by Judi Blume. “Slaughterhouse-Five” by Kurt Vonnegut.
All have been pulled from the shelves of some Florida schools, according to the latest list compiled by the Florida Department of Education tallying books removed by local school districts.
Recent changes to state law have empowered parents and residents to challenge school library books and required districts to submit an annual report to the state detailing which books have been restricted in their schools. Florida continues to lead the country in pulling books from school libraries, according to analyses by the American Library Association and the advocacy group PEN America.
“A restriction of access is a restriction on one’s freedom to read,” said Kasey Meehan of PEN America. “Students lose the ability to access books that mirror their own lived experiences, to access books that help them learn and empathize with people who … have different life experiences.”
Also, on the list of books removed from libraries are accounts of the Holocaust, such as “Anne Frank’s Diary: The Graphic Adaptation” and “Sophie’s Choice.” So is a graphic novel adaptation of “1984,” George Orwell’s seminal work on censorship and surveillance.
“Everywhere from Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, ‘Slaughterhouse-Five,’ George Orwell,” said Stephana Farrell, a co-founder of the Florida Freedom to Read Project, which tracks book challenges in the state. “If you take the time to look at that list, you will recognize that there is an issue with … this movement.”
“Once again, far left activists are pushing the book ban hoax on Floridians. The better question is why these activists continue to fight to expose children to sexually explicit materials,” spokesperson Sydney Booker said.
The list shows that book removals vary widely across the state, with some districts not reporting any restrictions and others tallying hundreds of titles pulled from the shelves. Farrell of the Florida Freedom to Read Project said that based on the group’s analysis of public records, the department’s report is an undercount because it doesn’t include books removed following an internal staff review, just those pulled following a complaint from a parent or resident.
Farrell believes most Florida parents want their kids to have broad access to literature.
Schools have restricted access to dozens of books by Stephen King, a master of the horror genre known for bestsellers like “It” and “Pet Sematary.” Officials in Clay County also decided that his book “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft” was inappropriate for students.
King, who spends part of the year in Florida, has spoken out about efforts to get his books out of students’ hands, urging readers to run to their closest library or bookstore.
“What the f—?” King posted on social media in August, reacting to the decision by some Florida schools to pull his books from their shelves.
Multiple school districts in Florida have drawn legal challenges for restricting students’ access to books, including Escambia County, which is being sued by PEN America and Penguin Random House, the country’s largest publisher.
Image Credit: FilmMagic
Travel
The most famous book set in every state
Priyanka Rajput
2024-11-22T14:50:04Z
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We identified the most famous book set in every state.
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Poplar Bluff Library Outreach and Programming Coordinator Makayla Harber, Altrusa Service Committee Chairperson Corretta Bishop, Altrusa President Sharon Fraser, and Altrusa Vice President and Secretary Melody Beigle pose with some of the books that have already been donated for the Santa Land Book Drive.
In an effort to give the gift of reading, the Poplar Bluff Municipal Library and the Altrusa Club of Poplar Bluff have teamed up to encourage businesses to collect children’s books. And the prize for the business that donates the most books will be bragging rights.
“We’re trying to foster some friendly competition between area businesses to see who can get the most books donated,” said Makayla Harber, outreach and programming coordinator for the Poplar Bluff Library. “We thought that sense of competition could help make it more fun for the businesses that participate and hopefully also set a new record for the number of books being donated.”
According to Harber, the business that donates the most gently-used or new children’s books will take home a trophy, as well as receiving recognition within the community.
“The drive started on Oct. 1, and we have collected around 400 books at this point,” Harber noted. “We would really like to get more than 1,000 to distribute this year.”
The book drive will end on Nov. 30, and following that, the books will be distributed to children during the Santa Land event Dec. 3, at the Black River Coliseum in Poplar Bluff.
Harber only recently started working for the library and said she is excited to have the book drive set as her first big project.
“I have even offered to come out and personally pick up the books, if necessary,” Harber explained. “And the books can be dropped off here at the library.”
Harber said the books must be children’s books, although not for any specific age group.
“They just need to be general children’s books,” Harber explained. “Either books for little children as well as some for older children. We just hope that what gets donated is in good shape.”
Belper Book Club organiser Jennifer Allsopp, pictured in the Italian city of Florence where she spent a lot of time reading Dante and connecting with the refugee community.A university academic is launching a new chapter in the arts offering of a Derbyshire town.Jennifer Allsopp is one of the driving forces behind Belper Book Club which will meet for the first time on December 4 at No 28 in the Market Place.Monthly get-togethers will continue to be held there on the last Thursday of the month from January 2025.Jennifer, 37, moved to Belper in 2023 after living in Florence and Rome where she worked as a visiting professor for a year. An academic at the University of Birmingham where her primary research concerns refugee policy, she previously worked for two years at Harvard University and more than a decade in Oxford.No 28 in the Market Place will host meetings of the new Belper Book Club from December 4.”I found Belper to be a really thriving small cultural community,” she said. “One of the ‘must haves’ on my moving list was that the town would have a local bookshop so I was thrilled to find Dormouse Books. I was also really excited by the range of events on at the community hub No 28 Belper which includes comedy nights, pop up art classes and foreign language conversation evenings. I was nevertheless surprised to find that such a bustling artsy town didn’t have a book club. I studied literature for my first degree and am a huge bookworm.”I contacted Stephanie Limb, the owner of Dormouse Books who was happy to collaborate so we put some feelers on social media to see if there was any interest – there was! Our post got over 100 likes and lots of positive comments and at the recommendation of the community we chose six books to kick us off that are a mix of classics and modern fiction by local and international authors.”We’re kicking off with Frankenstein since it’s one of my favourite books. People think it’s a horror story which in some ways it is, but it’s also a very romantic tale about the human need for love, care and companionship. Mary Shelley herself suffered greatly in her life including being sidelined by her husband Percy Shelley and undergoing multiple miscarriages and one way of reading the book is to see Frankenstein’s creature as an expression of her own desperate desire to love and be loved – about how when we’re denied that love we can turn in on ourselves and become lonely and bitter. In Frankenstein’s creature – I’m loth to call him a monster – we see that absence of connection and love taken to the extreme. The creature is abandoned by its creator and shunned by the community when it tries to form bonds, an experience that many stigmatised people can relate to today. Most people will have an old school book of the text kicking around at home and because it’s so familiar it seemed a good place to start.”The next session we’ll be reading the latest novel by local author Ian McGregor, Lean Fall Stand which discusses how a couple navigate the explorer husband’s brain injury and then we’ll be covering some award winning international authors including Min Jin Lee and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. We’ll also be reading Wuthering Heights for which we’re planning an accompanying walk in the moors where it was set.Stephanie Limb at Dormouse Books, on the Market Place, has helped to get the new Belper Book Club up and running.”Each month we’ll come together to discuss the book and our thoughts and feelings around it.”We’ve already had around 30 people sign up so we’ll likely break into two smaller groups. Number 28 is the perfect space for an event like this. People can bring snacks and wine and get to know their neighbours in a welcoming environment while exploring new worlds. I can’t wait to get started!”Jennifer is an author whose latest publication documents a year that she spent reading Dante’s Divine Comey with refugees in Italy. She said: “I would never have thought a 21 year old refugee would be moved to tears by Dante’s experience of exile some 700 years ago but that’s the power of the written word – it transcends place and time and gives us a new vocabulary to discuss our own experience through empathising with that of the characters or author. Who knows what the people of Belper will find in their literary travels and what points of connection with cultures past and present.”Continue Reading
Literary legend Louise Erdrich joined Jenna Bush Hager’s book club last month when her latest novel, “The Mighty Red,” was chosen as a pick.Warm and wise, “The Mighty Red” is a polyphonic novel following members of a close-knit North Dakota community in the mid-2000s, many of whom are Indigenous. Kismet, the 18-year-old daughter of Crystal, a single mother, finds herself in a love triangle. She’s between Gary, the heir to a beet farm empire who just proposed, and Hugo, her best friend who happens to be in love with her.Erdrich told TODAY.com the novel was inspired by her first job working at a beet farm when she was 13. “I was part of an all-girl crew, up before dawn. The hard work has given me a lasting sympathy for field labor and for people who work in the sugar industry,” Erdrich said.A member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, Erdrich’s award-winning, best-selling novels center around Native American communities. Her novel “The Night Watchman,” which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2021, was inspired by her grandfather, Patrick Gourneau.Erdrich is also the owner of an indie bookstore, Birchbark Books in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Her 2021 novel “The Sentence” is set at an independent bookstore in Minneapolis).Below, Erdrich answered 10 questions about “The Mighty Red” and her writing career — including whether she plans to write more novels in her “Love Medicine” series and the characters she still misses.TODAY IllustrationOf your many books, is there a book, a character or storyline that has stayed with you the most, or that you’re proudest of? There are parts of each of my books that I like and parts I’d love to change. I’m going to answer this as characters I miss writing the most. Those would be 13-year-old Joe in “The Round House” and Tookie in “The Sentence.” Somehow, who they turned out to be the ones that resonated most for me. Sometimes a character reveals a side of yourself you didn’t know about.Where do you get your inspiration — and when do you know you’ve landed on an idea for a novel? When I say that I start hearing voices, it sounds unreal, but that’s essentially what happens. Lines and phrases take shape, I write them on scraps of paper and tape them in a notebook. Eventually one of those scraps leads to a little more, then a lot more, then a whole world.What is your favorite part of owning a bookstore? Independent local bookstores, like Birchbark Books, bring a lot of comfort to people. Readers have a questing intelligence I really love. That curious bent of mind is something I really value, and the love of books is infectious. I love our customers — selling books is much more than a simple transaction. There are so many favorite things!You compared writing a character to dealing with a “complicated phone bot.” How do you know when the character has come alive? Yes, writing a character really is like working your way through a complicated phone bot until you get a real person on the other end of the line. Sometimes you have to trick your way through the system many times. Getting a character is like hearing a real voice on the other end of the line, someone who will respond even when you say something irrational, or laugh at a joke. What does your ideal writing day look like? I’ve yet to have one — I write at any time and just try to fit writing into a host of other requirements. I suppose an ideal day is when I write something that hits me emotionally.Are you currently working on another book? I always start a new book before I finish a book. That way I have something to look forward to.Which book of yours was the hardest to write? “The Mighty Red” was extremely difficult — I have a whole other book made of back stories that I had to cut.Can we look forward to more ‘Love Medicine’ books? Not out of the question!Do you prefer to write with a computer, old fashioned pen and paper or a combination of both?I write everything out by hand at first, then I edit those pages and at last type the pages into a computer. Then I print the pages out and go back to editing by hand. I don’t edit on a computer because I might lose the old version and I like seeing handwriting again.What was the biggest hurdle that you had to clear to become a published author?Learning how to write a plot. I wrote for women’s magazines like Redbook and Ladies Home Journal when they printed stories and paid well. I thought I was a poet and was doing this to help support my poetry, but in fact, I liked writing stories and kept doing so in more innovative ways, incorporating my love of engaging language and complicated histories. Eventually I wrote “Love Medicine.”
There are dozens of great new shows and movies on streaming this week, including the return of The Sex Lives of College Girls on Max, the animated family film Spellbound on Netflix, and the war drama Blitz on Apple TV+. Also arriving this week are the highly anticipated remake of Cruel Intentions on Prime Video and the return of the true crime satire Based on a True Story on Peacock.
Not sure which new releases to check out? Let us here at Decider help you figure out what to watch this weekend and where to stream it.
New Movies & Shows To Stream This Weekend: The Sex Lives of College Girls, Spellbound, Blitz + More
Mindy Kaling and Justin Noble’s college dramedy The Sex Lives of College Girls kicks off its third season on Max this week with the first of ten weekly episodes. On Netflix, check out the animated adventure Spellbound, featuring the voices of Rachel Zegler, Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem, which drops Friday. And on Apple TV+ you can catch Saoirse Ronan in the new Steve McQueen World War II drama Blitz.
New on Netflix November 22: Spellbound
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Netflix’s animated feature Spellbound doesn’t t just feature an all-star voice cast (on top of Rachel Zegler, Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem, the film also includes Jenifer Lewis, John Lithgow, Titus Burgess and Nathan Lane) but it also boasts new original music from legendary composer Alan Menken. In the film, Zegler plays a young woman named Ellian who has to break a spell that has split her kingdom in two and transformed her parents into monster.
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The students of Essex College are back for another year – at least, most of them are. The big news about season three of The Sex Lives of College Girls is that Reneé Rapp, who plays Leighton, is phasing out her college career and will not be returning as a core cast member. Not to worry, we’ve still got the antics of Kimberly (Pauline Chalamet), Bela (Amrit Kaur) and Whitney (Alyah Chanel Scott) to watch.
New on Apple TV+ November 22: Blitz
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Steve McQueen wrote, produced and directed Blitz, which is out on Apple TV+ this week after a few weeks in theaters. The film stars Saoirse Ronan as a mother who sends her young son (Elliot Heffernan) out of London to stay in the English countryside during the German bombing campaign known as the Blitz, only for her son to run away and try to find her.
WHERE TO WATCH BLITZ
Full List of New Movies and Shows on Streaming This Weekend:
The options above only scratch the surface, so you know that this weekend’s full lineup will have amazing options for what to watch this weekend! For the full breakdown of the best movies and shows to stream now, or if you’re still undecided on what to stream this weekend, then check out the complete list below:
New on Netflix – Full List
Released Thursday, November 21
Maybe Baby 2 (DK) *NETFLIX FILM
Tokyo Override (JP) *NETFLIX ANIME
Released Friday, November 22
900 Days Without Anabel (ES) *NETFLIX DOCUMENTARY
Gold Rush: Seasons 1-2
JOY (GB) *NETFLIX FILM
Pokémon Horizons: The Series Part 4 (JP) *NETFLIX FAMILY
Spellbound *NETFLIX FAMILY
Tex Mex Motors: Season 2 *NETFLIX SERIES
TRANSMITZVAH (AR) *NETFLIX FILM
The Empress: Season 2 (DE) *NETFLIX SERIES
The Helicopter Heist (SE) *NETFLIX SERIES
The Piano Lesson *NETFLIX FILM
When the Phone Rings (KR) *NETFLIX SERIES
Released Saturday, November 23
Arcane: Season 2, Act III *NETFLIX SERIES (new episode)
New on Prime Video – Full List
Released Thursday, November 21
Cruel Intentions (2024) *Prime Video Original Series
Dinner Club: S3 (2024) *Prime Video Original Series
Thursday Night Football (2024) *Prime Video Live Sports
Released Friday, November 22
The Meg (2018)
Released Sunday, November 24
Coraline (2009)
New on Hulu – Full List
Released Thursday, November 21
A Cowboy Christmas Romance (2023)
American Pickers: Best Of: Complete Season 7
Celebrity Renovation: Complete Season 1
Christmas at the Chalet (2023)
Christmas Wars: Complete Season 2
Donnie Loves Jenny: Complete Season 1
Downtown Shabby: Complete Season 1
History’s Greatest Escapes with Morgan Freeman: Complete Season 1
Lost Gold of World War II: Complete Season 2
Merry Magic Christmas (2023)
Mistletoe Match (2022)
Mom’s Christmas Boyfriend (2023)
Roanoke: A Mystery Carved in Stone: Complete Season 1
Secret Restoration: Complete Season 1
The 58th Annual CMA Awards: Special Premiere (ABC)
The Boarding School Murders: Complete Season 1
Ultimate Holiday Feast: Complete Season 1
Released Friday, November 22
Bia and Victor: Complete Season 1 *Hulu Original
Firebrand (2023)
Jim Gaffigan: The Skinny: Special Premiere *Hulu Original
The Good Half (2023)
Released Saturday, November 23
Sausage Party (2016)
Released Sunday, November 24
Southpaw (2015)
New on Max – Full List
Released Thursday, November 21
Human vs. Hamster (Max Original series by Magnolia Network)
Mystery At Blind Frog Ranch, Season 4 (Discovery)
Mysteries of the Abandoned, Season 11 (Discovery)
The Sex Lives of College Girls, Season 3 (Max Original)
New on Disney+ – Full List
Released Friday, November 22
Out of My Mind (Premiere) *New to Disney+
New on Apple TV+ – Full List
Released Friday, November 22
Blitz
Bread & Roses
New on Starz – Full List
Released Friday, November 22
Fat Joe Talks: Episode 108
Released Saturday, November 23
Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City
New on Paramount+ with Showtime – Full List
Released Friday, November 22
Deadlock
Mr. Brooks*
New on Peacock – Full List
Released Thursday, November 21
Based On A True Story, Season 2 – All Episodes – 8 Episodes, 30 min (Peacock Original)*
Clerks III*
Press Start, Season 1 – All Episodes – 6 Episodes, 22 min (Peacock Original)*
Released Friday, November 22
A Novel Noel (Hallmark)+
Released Saturday, November 23
Ambulance*
Christmas on Call (Hallmark)+
I Am Not Your Negro
Released Sunday, November 24
On the Rise: Juju Watkins, Season 1 – Premiere (NBC)
Three Wiser Men and a Boy (Hallmark)+
What Else Is Streaming New This November:
What you see above is just a portion of the new movies and shows you can watch this month if you’ve got more than one streaming service subscription. We update our guides to the new releases on the most popular streaming platforms every month, so you can stay on top of the freshest titles to watch. Here are full lists, schedules, and reviews for everything streaming:
Liz Kocan is a pop culture writer living in Massachusetts. Her biggest claim to fame is the time she won on the game show Chain Reaction.