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Christmas Movies

What’s your favorite holiday movie?  Is it White Christmas?  Love, Actually? A Christmas Story?  There are certainly many to choose from.  My ultimate favorite holiday movie is National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacationfrom 1989.  A synopsis from the library’s copy of VideoHound’s Golden Movie Retriever says, “The third vacation for the Griswold family finds them hosting repulsive relatives for Yuletide.  The sight gags, although predictable, are sometimes on the mark.  Quaid is a standout as the slovenly cousin.”  Now that doesn’t sound very promising, does it?  But no matter how many times I have seen it, I swear – every time that darned squirrel flies out of the tree and the family all screams and runs for their lives – I end up laughing with tears in my eyes.  The movie stars Chevy Chase, Beverly D’Angelo, Randy Quaid, Diane Ladd, Doris Roberts, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Johnny Galecki.

On the other hand – if I am feeling sentimental – the Christmas portion of Meet Me in St.Louis, the 1944 musical starring a young Judy Garland along with Margaret O’Brien, Marcy Astor, and Harry Davenport, is sure to bring a smile and a tear to the eye.
Try them both.  Enjoy.  And Happy Holidays.
Scott Handville, Assistant Director

Watch this film!

Return of the Secaucus Seven was released to the theaters in 1980.

Robert Horton reviews the movie for amazon.com: “John Sayles began his commendable directing career with this terrific portrait of 1960s counterculture survivors, now teetering on the brink of turning 30. A homegrown movie all the way, Return of the Secaucus Seven was made for around $60,000 of Sayles’s own money (earned writing horror pictures such as Piranha). An effortlessly funny and thoughtful ensemble piece, Secaucus unmistakably provided the template for the bigger-budgeted The Big Chill: old friends reunite for a weekend to sort through fond memories, old resentments, and new problems. Sayles, longtime producing partner Maggi Renzi, and then-unknown David Strathairn are among the actors. The marvelous back-and-forth patter of the characters and the sprightly pacing show Sayles already had a sure sense of what he wanted on screen, and his mastery of the running gag is in place (the name Dwight won’t ever sound quite the same again). This is the definition of low-budget classic from an indie pioneer.”
In 1997, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.

Academy Awards

As we gear up for the 2016 Academy Awards this weekend, let’s look back at who won the awards 70 years ago in 1947.  Have these winners held the worth of the award throughout the years?    Check them out from the Gardiner Public Library and see for yourself why they were the winners.

Best Director:  William Wyler, The Best Years of Our Lives
Best Actor:  Fredric March, The Best Years of Our Lives
Best Actress:  Olivia de Havilland, To Each His Own
Best Supporting Actor:  Harold Russell, The Best Years of Our Lives
Best Supporting Actress:  Anne Baxter, The Razor’s Edge
 Scott Handville, Assistant Library Director