The Bloomfield Public Library, located at 90 Broad St. in Bloomfield, continues with its film series which hosts two films each week, on Mondays and Thursdays, with the exception of holidays.
The following films start at 12:15 p.m. in the barrier-free Library Theatre. Admission is free and all are welcome. For information, call 973-566-6200.
• Thursday, Feb. 2, “Goodbye Charlie,” 1964, color, 1 hour 56 minutes, not rated. Hollywood writer Charlie Sorrel played by Harry Madden, is shot and killed by Hungarian film producer Sir Leopold Sartori, played by Walter Matthau, when he is caught fooling around with Sartori’s wife, Rusty, played by Laura Devon. Later, passerby Bruce Minton III, played by Pat Boone, comes to the aid of a dazed woman, played by Debbie Reynolds, wandering on a beach. She doesn’t remember much other than directions to Charlie’s residence. The next morning, it all comes back to her: She is the reincarnation of Charlie! After getting over the shock, she convinces her best friend, George Tracy, played by Tony Curtis, of her identity.
• Monday, Feb 6, “When the Bough Breaks,” 2016, color, 1 hour 47 minutes, R-rated. John and Laura Taylor, played by Morris Chestnut and Regina Hall, are a young, professional couple who desperately want a baby. After exhausting all other options, they finally hire Anna, played by Jaz Sinclair, the perfect woman, to be their surrogate. But as time goes on, Anna becomes dangerously obsessed with the soon-to-be-father.
• Thursday, Feb. 9, “Soapdish,” 1991, color, 1 hour 37 minutes, PG-13-rated. A comedy backstage story of the cast and crew of a popular fictional television soap opera. It stars Sally Field, Kevin Kline, Elisabeth Shue, Whoopi Goldberg, Teri Hatcher, Garry Marshall, Kathy Najimy, and Carrie Fisher. Field stars as Celeste Talbert, the star of a declining TV show. To make matters worse, Talbert’s career is thrown into turmoil when her rival, Montana Moorehead, played by Cathy Moriarty, tries to persuade producer David Barnes, played by Robert Downey Jr., to write Talbert off the show.
Kline received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor.
• Monday, Feb. 13, “Barbershop,” 2002, color, 1 hour 42 minutes, PG-13-rated. A day in the life of a barbershop on the southside of Chicago. Calvin, played by Ice Cube, who inherited the struggling business from his deceased father, views the shop as nothing but a burden and waste of his time. After selling the shop to a local loan shark, played by Keith David, Calvin slowly begins to see his father’s vision and legacy and struggles with the notion that he just sold it out.
The barbershop is filled with characters who share their stories, jokes, trials and tribulations.
The critics acclaimed, “Besides bringing on the laughs, ‘Barbershop’ displays a big heart.”
and demonstrates the value of community”
• Thursday, Feb. 16, “The Singing Nun,” 1966, color, 1 hour 38 minutes, not rated. Debbie Reynolds stars in this inspirational true story of a Belgian nun who writes a song for a motherless boy. Young and inexperienced Sister Ann has just arrived at her posting at Samaritan House, a Dominican order located in a disreputable neighborhood of Ghent, Belgium. Through the help of kindly priest, played by Ricardo Montalban, she goes on to become an international pop sensation. With Greer Garson, Agnes Moorehead, Chad Everett, Katherine Ross, and Ed Sullivan. Nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Score.
• Monday, Feb. 20, “Southside With You,” 2016, color, 1 hour 24 minutes, PG-13-rated. Law student Barack Obama played by Parker Sawyers, while working as a summer associate at a Chicago law firm in 1989, tries to win the heart of Michelle Robinson played by Tika Sumpter, a young lawyer at the firm. On their first date, they visit an Afrocentric exhibit at a local art center, attend a community organizing meeting where Obama gives a speech, and view a screening of Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing.” This film about the Obamas is nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival.
• Thursday, Feb. 23, “Shampoo,” 1975, color, 1 hour 49 minutes, R-rated. George Roundy, played by Warren Beatty, is a Beverly Hills hairdresser, who spends as much time sleeping with his female clients as he does doing their hair. Whether they want to admit it, all the women in his life are mostly aware that they are not the only one with whom he is sleeping. Carrie Fisher, in her film debut, said she was cast in the movie mainly through family connections. She said that when Beatty auditioned lines with her, he did it while eating. She also admitted years later in an article she wrote for Rolling Stone magazine that Beatty unsuccessfully propositioned her. Lee Grant won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.
• Monday, Feb. 27, “Paris is Burning,” 1991, color, 1 hour 11 minutes, R-rated. A chronicle of New York’s drag scene in the 1980s, focusing on balls, voguing and the ambitions and dreams of those who gave the era its warmth and vitality. The film explores the elaborately structured ball competitions in which contestants, adhering to a very specific category or theme, must “walk” a fashion model’s runway and subsequently be judged on criteria including the “realness” of their drag, the beauty of their clothing and their dancing ability. Drag is presented as a complex performance of gender, class, and race, in which one can express one’s identity, desires and aspirations along many dimensions. The African-American and Latino community depicted in the film includes a diverse range of identities and gender presentations, from gay men to butch queens to transgender men and women. Winner of the NY Film Critics and National Society of Films Critics Awards as Best Documentary
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