Geoff Manderscheid – SAPL Reader's Blog

Weekend Picks

SAPL Scaries Vol. II

In this cult favorite, modern-day witch Elaine uses spells and magic to get men to fall in love with her. A stylish tribute to 1960s technicolor horror, THE LOVE WITCH utilizes camp and pastiche to depict a feminist revision of the classics of a bygone era.

Karen, a single mother, gifts her son Andy a Buddi doll for his birthday, unaware of its more sinister nature. A contemporary re-imagining of the 1988 horror classic.

Husband and wife Gabe and Adelaide Wilson take their kids to their beach house expecting to unplug and unwind with friends. But as night descends, their serenity turns to tension and chaos when some shocking visitors arrive uninvited.

After years of treatment at a mental institution for the criminally insane, serial killer Norman Bates is finally released. Deciding to move back into his long-dead mother’s infamous old house, he soon finds himself tormented by ‘her’ demands and begins to question his own sanity.

SAPL Scaries Vol. I

Ready for a month of the best strange, deranged, hacking, slashing, haunting, and nightmarish flicks we have to pick from our crypt of scary movies? Be prepared, because they are coming for you!

Enjoy,

When Seth Brundle makes a huge scientific and technological breakthrough in teleportation, he decides to test it on himself. Unbeknownst to him, a common housefly manages to get inside the device and the two become one.

Set in 1982 in the suburb of Blackeberg, Stockholm, twelve-year-old Oskar is a lonely outsider, bullied at school by his classmates; at home, Oskar dreams of revenge against a trio of bullies. He befriends his twelve-year-old, next-door neighbor Eli, who only appears at night in the snow-covered playground outside their building.

A Girl Walks Alone at Night

Strange things are afoot in Bad City. The Iranian ghost town, home to prostitutes, junkies, pimps, and other sordid souls, is a place that reeks of death and hopelessness, where a lonely vampire is stalking the towns most unsavory inhabitants. But when boy meets girl, an unusual love story begins to blossom…blood red.

A newcomer to a fancy ballet academy gradually comes to realize that the school is a front for something far more sinister and supernatural amidst a series of grisly murders. SUSPIRIA is Italian Horror-master Dario Argento’s best-known and most acclaimed film.

Weekend Picks

Autumn Ed.

Each day is an opportunity to add a bit of pumpkin spice to anything, even the movies you’re getting cozy with this weekend.

So, enjoy autumn’s glory, especially when the picks are about to a little spooky over the next few weeks.

When Harry Met Sally

During their travel from Chicago to New York, Harry and Sally debate whether or not sex ruins a friendship between a man and a woman. Eleven years later, and they’re still no closer to finding the answer.

Writer-director Greta Gerwig has crafted a film that draws on both the classic novel and the writings of Louisa May Alcott and unfolds as the author’s alter ego, Jo March reflects back and forth on her fictional life. In Gerwig’s take, the beloved story of the March sisters, four young women each determined to live life on her own terms, is both timeless and timely.

Good Will Hunting

Will Hunting has a genius-level IQ but chooses to work as a janitor at MIT. When he solves a difficult graduate-level math problem, his talents are discovered by Professor Gerald Lambeau, who decides to help the misguided youth reach his potential. When Will is arrested for attacking a police officer, Professor Lambeau makes a deal to get leniency for him if he will get treatment from therapist Sean Maguire.

Based on the true story of Homer Hickam, a coal miner’s son who was inspired by the first Sputnik launch to take up rocketry against his father’s wishes, and eventually became a NASA scientist.

Legends of the Fall

An epic tale of three brothers and their father living in the remote wilderness of 1900s USA and how their lives are affected by nature, history, war, and love.

Weekend Picks

Science Literacy Week Ed.

From some weird fiction to sensational realities, these are but a few films that get us excited about science!

Enjoy,

The exciting adventure of the day we make contact with life beyond Earth comes to the screen with a profound sense of wonder and a dazzling visual sweep that extends to the outer reaches of space and the imagination.

Seth Brundle develops a system to transport objects in a matter of seconds, but when he tries it on himself, Seth’s genes and molecules are accidently fused with those of a fly. At first Seth is elated by his new physical abilities but soon his excitement turns into a nightmare as his insect half begins to take over.

In Gattaca, only the strong succeed and the strong are genetically pre-selected at birth. When one man dares to defy the system, he gets caught in a web of lies, corruption, and murder.

Critically acclaimed filmmaker John Hughes is at it again, giving nerdy computer whiz Ilan Mitchell-Smith and his best friend power to create the “perfect woman”. Like a computer-generated fairy godmother, the duo’s out-of-this-world creation guides the pair through the pleasures and pitfalls of adolescence.

Kris is derailed from her life when she is drugged by a small-time thief. She is unknowingly drawn into the life cycle of a presence that permeates the microscopic world, moving to nematodes, plant life, livestock, and back again. Along the way, she finds another being-a familiar, who is equally consumed by the mysterious presence. The two search urgently for a place of safety within each other as they struggle to assemble the loose fragments of their wrecked lives.

Offbeat Book Club

The Skin We’re In
by Desmond Cole:
A Year of Black Resistance and Power

Print | eBook

Additional “book club only” copies are available at the Adult Information Desk upon request.

The Offbeat Book Club will meet on Sunday, October 25 at 6 PM via zoom. We’ll discuss the book before tuning in to watch the author, Desmond Cole, live in conversation at STARFest.

To find out more about Offbeat or to register for this program, contact us by e-mail at offbeat@sapl.ca or by phone at 780-418-6621.

“The sheer strength of this book arises from its insistent linking of policing, public education, migrant labour, impoverished neighbourhoods, and the fates of refugees. The Skin We’re In is about the interlocking forces besieging Black life in Canada… Desmond Cole is an urgent and essential voice from a generation that will be heard.”

~ David Chariandy, author of Brother.

Weekend Picks

Remembering Philip Seymour Hoffman

Crisp and cozy September weekends are a great time to be entertained by an actor who stole nearly every scene he was cast. This month, make it a September to remember one of the finest actors of their generation, Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Enjoy,

The Talented Mr. Ripley

Jack Goes Boating

Punch-Drunk Love

Mission: Impossible 3

Synecdoche, New York

Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead

A Most Wanted Man

The Ides of March

Money For Nothing

Monday Evening Drop-In Book Club

The Skin We’re In
by Desmond Cole:
A Year of Black Resistance and Power

Print | eBook

Additional “book club only” copies are available at the Adult Information Desk upon request.

The Monday Evening Book Club meets on the first Monday of the month at 7:00 PM via Zoom.

Register to drop-in and discuss this provocative and perspective-shifting book.

“The sheer strength of this book arises from its insistent linking of policing, public education, migrant labour, impoverished neighbourhoods, and the fates of refugees. The Skin We’re In is about the interlocking forces besieging Black life in Canada… Desmond Cole is an urgent and essential voice from a generation that will be heard.”

~ David Chariandy, author of Brother.

Seniors Drop-In Book Club

The Skin We’re In
by Desmond Cole:
A Year of Black Resistance and Power

Print | eBook

Additional “book club only” copies are available at the Adult Information Desk upon request.

The Seniors Book Club meets on the second Wednesday of the month at 2:00 PM via Zoom.

Register to drop-in and discuss this provocative and perspective-shifting book.

“The sheer strength of this book arises from its insistent linking of policing, public education, migrant labour, impoverished neighbourhoods, and the fates of refugees. The Skin We’re In is about the interlocking forces besieging Black life in Canada… Desmond Cole is an urgent and essential voice from a generation that will be heard.”

~ David Chariandy, author of Brother.

Tuesday Afternoon Drop-In Book Club

The Skin We’re In
by Desmond Cole:
A Year of Black Resistance and Power

Print | eBook

Additional “book club only” copies are available at the Adult Information Desk upon request.

The Tuesday Afternoon Book Club meets on the third Tuesday of the month at 2:00 PM via Zoom.

Register to drop-in and discuss this provocative and perspective-shifting book.

“The sheer strength of this book arises from its insistent linking of policing, public education, migrant labour, impoverished neighbourhoods, and the fates of refugees. The Skin We’re In is about the interlocking forces besieging Black life in Canada… Desmond Cole is an urgent and essential voice from a generation that will be heard.”

~ David Chariandy, author of Brother.

Weekend Picks

Get your holds on new and acclaimed films from aroundthe world and make an upcoming weekend a foreign affair.

Leningrad, one summer in the early eighties. Smuggling LP’s by Lou Reed and David Bowie, the underground rock scene is boiling ahead of the Perestroika. Mike and his beautiful wife Natasha meet with young Viktor Tsoï. Together with friends, they will change the destiny of rock’n’roll in the Soviet Union.

A man’s obsession with owning the designer deerskin jacket of his dreams leads him to turn his back on his humdrum life in the suburbs, blow his life savings, and even turn him to crime.

In post-WWII Leningrad, two women, Iya and Masha, intensely bonded after fighting side by side as anti-aircraft gunners, attempt to readjust to a haunted world.

A once-notorious hoodlum named Mr. Six spends the remainder of his life in a lonely hut behind the convenience store that he owns, reminiscing about the good old days and missing his estranged son Bobby. One day Bobby is taken by a group of rich kids after a minor altercation; their leader Kris is the son of a government official. On his son’s behalf, Mr. Six tries to reason with the group but is met with a humiliating defeat.