August 14, 2006

DVD Review: Captain Blood

By the end of August, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest will pass the $400 million mark in domestic box office. But decades before Johnny Depp strapped on a sword and applied kohl eyeliner, another Hollywood heartthrob thrilled audiences with his swashbuckling. Charming, heroic, and devilishly good looking, Errol Flynn became an instant star in the 1935 classic Captain Blood, his first major film role. Flynn plays Peter Blood, a gentleman doctor during the reign of King James II who is condemned to slavery in Jamaica after illegally treating a traitor to the crown. Blood eventually escapes servitude and turns pirate, joining forces with a French buccaneer (a deliciously dastardly Basil Rathbone) and wooing a beautiful maiden (the luminous Olivia de Havilland). Filled with swordplay, romance and a rousing Erich Wolfgang Korngold score, Captain Blood demonstrates why good pirates never go out of style.

Posted by hplreadingcorner at 4:41 PM | Comments (88)

July 17, 2006

Cinema Al Fresco

The annual Chicago Outdoor Film Festival kicks off tomorrow night at Grant Park. For the next seven Tuesday evenings, a different classic film will be projected onto a giant screen. Can’t make it into the city for the show? Check out one or all of the films from the library. The scheduled screenings are:

July 18: Rebel Without a Cause
July 25: Bringing Up Baby
August 1: High Noon
August 8: American Graffiti
August 15: The Apartment
August 22: On the Waterfront
August 29: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

Posted by hplreadingcorner at 10:31 AM | Comments (184)

May 30, 2006

Catch Them If You Cannes

British director Ken Loach’s The Wind That Shakes the Barley, a saga set amid Ireland’s struggle for independence in the early 1920s, won the Palme d’Or award at the Cannes Film Festival this weekend. The Palme d’Or is the top prize given at the festival, and one of the most prestigious awards in cinema. Although The Wind That Shakes the Barley likely won’t be released in the United States until the fall, several past Palme d’Or winners are available for checkout at the library. Here are a few to consider, along with the year they triumphed at Cannes:

1956: Friendly Persuasion
1963: The Leopard
1976: Taxi Driver
1979: The Tin Drum
1993: Farewell My Concubine
1997: Taste of Cherry
2003: Elephant

Posted by hplreadingcorner at 4:36 PM | Comments (518)

April 25, 2006

Lights, Camera, Read!

The summer movie season is almost here, and this year’s slate of would-be blockbusters includes several films based on bestselling books. Interested in comparing the book to the movie? Here are a few of the adaptations you’ll see at the multiplex in the coming months:

May 5: Hoot, based on the children’s novel by Carl Hiaasen
May 19: The Da Vinci Code, based on the novel by Dan Brown
June 30: The Devil Wears Prada, based on the novel by Lauren Weisberger
July 7: A Scanner Darkly, based on the novel by Philip K. Dick
August 4: Flags of Our Fathers, based on the book by James Bradley
August 4: The Night Listener, based on the novel by Armistead Maupin
August 25: How to Eat Fried Worms, based on the children's novel by Thomas Rockwell

Posted by hplreadingcorner at 3:46 PM | Comments (954)