Films with: Swicord, Robin

Curious case of Benjamin Button

Daisy Fuller Williams is on her deathbed in a New Orleans hospital the day that Hurricane Katrina hits. At her side is her adult daughter, Caroline. Daisy asks Caroline to read to her aloud from the diary of Daisy's lifelong friend, Benjamin Button. Benjamin's diary recounts his entire extraordinary life. The unusual aspect of his life is that he is ages backwards, being born an old man. He is diagnosed with several aged diseases at birth and thus given little chance of survival. He does survive and gets younger with time. Abandoned by Thomas Button, his biological father, after Benjamin's biological mother died in childbirth. Benjamin was raised by Queenie, a black woman and caregiver at a seniors home. Daisy's grandmother was a resident, which is where she first met Benjamin. Although separated through the years, Daisy and Benjamin remain in contact throughout their lives, reconnecting in their forties when in age they finally match up. Some of the revelations in Benjamin's diary are difficult for Caroline to read.

DVD 6556

Little women

Story about the March family of four daughters and a strong mother (Sarandon) who, because her husband is away serving in the Army during the Civil War, must raise her "little women" on her own. The daughters include: spirited Jo (Ryder) who longs for a career as a writer; beautiful and conservative older sister Meg (Alvarado); fragile Beth (Danes); and the romantic Amy (Dunst/Mathis). Through the years, as they become women, the sisters share their most cherished and painful moments of self-discovery as their mother's pride and strength guide them through questions of independence, romance and virtue.

DVD 3002

Little women /

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.

DVD 13324

Matilda

Matilda is a super-smart little girl who is woefully ignored and ridiculed by her self-centered parents. They send her to a school with a mean, bullying principal, where she learns she has special powers that can help her, her friends, and her kind and gentle teacher.

DVD 12327

Memoirs of a geisha

In 1929, a poor fisherman sells his 9-year-old daughter to a geisha house in Kyoto. Chiyo will be an unpaid servant until it is determined if she is beautiful enough for apprenticeship, and the house's clientèle. Run by Mother, the ruling geisha is Hatsumomo, and little Pumpkin her only friend. Trained under strict discipline for a lifetime of entertaining and flattering wealthy men, Sayuri grows up lovely, accomplished, and the target of jealous rivals. Love is no part of this cloistered world, although geisha lore hints that even if they fall in love with clients--the operative word is client, and that love is never free.

DVD 12174