OFF THE SHELF
Oscar-inspired recommendations in library
By VIRGINIA BRYANT
The Academy Awards were held on Feb. 24. If any of the five films nominated for Best Picture stoked your interest to find out more about the topic or see other films starring
one of the actors, check out the following
library material:
Atonement
Ian McEwan’s Atonement is in the fiction collection, along with his novels Amsterdam and Saturday. If you would like to read more about the experiences of the British during World War II, try searching on the subject term “World War, 1939-1945 Great Britain” in the MATC Libraries Catalog.
Another book of interest might be Dunkirk: Fight to the Last Man, about 1940’s Battle of Dunkirk in France. A terrific
video to check out is The 1940’s House (940.53 1940S 2000), where a modern family
takes on the challenge of domestic life on Britain’s home front in a re-creation of a World War II household.
Juno
The film’s writer, Diablo Cody, has a regular column about popular culture issues in Entertainment Weekly, which you can find in the periodical stacks of the MATC Libraries. The film’s director, Jason Reitman, wrote and directed a film called Thank You for Smoking, a black comedy about the spin industry. To read more about the image of teenagers throughout film history,
take a look at the books in the library Teenage Confidential: An illustrated history
of the American teen (791.43652055 B282) or Generation Multiplex: The image of youth in contemporary American cinema (791.43652054 SH532).
Michael Clayton
Try these other movies about class action lawsuits located in the library, Erin Brockovich, A Civil Action, North Country, and The Sweet Hereafter. The library also has the book A Civil Action (346.73038 H296). The library has several other films featuring George Clooney, as well as the book Good Night, and Good Luck: The screenplay and history behind the landmark movie (791.4372 G646) written by him.
No Country for Old Men
Cormac McCarthy’s novel is in the fiction collection, along with his novels The Road, Blood Meridian, All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing, and Cities of the Plain. Some Joel and Ethan Coen films available in the library include The Big Lebowski (the best movie about bowling, ever), Fargo, Intolerable Cruelty, and O Brother, Where Art Thou? Another great crime film set in the Texas borderlands is Lone Star.
There Will Be Blood
The movie is based loosely on an Upton Sinclair novel. Starting with The Jungle written in 1906, Sinclair wrote about American labor, business, socialism, religion and mental health, all elements clearly evident
in There Will Be Blood. The library has several books written by or about Sinclair. For more about the unhealthy relationship between oil and politics in American history, read Teapot Dome: Oil and politics in the 1920’s (973.914 N77).
A good overview of the turmoil of the oil industry internationally is The Prize: The epic quest for oil, money, and power (338.27282 Y47). If you were totally captivated
by Daniel Day-Lewis’s acting, check out some other films he starred in, including In the Name of the Father, The Last of the Mohicans, and My Left Foot, for which he won the Oscar in 1989.
Persepolis
Persepolis was nominated for Best Animated Feature, and the library has the graphic novels written by Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis (955.0542092 SA253) and Persepolis 2 (955.0542092 SA253P). |
