Jordan

Bruna Guedes

Husain Kothari

FRNK

Uendi Prifti

Abdul Hasib

Loughlin Sullivan

Delaney Knopp

Auriel W

Blake Molmen

Dani Shahar

Luis Javier Campos nieto

The Hunger Games Trilogy: these are my issues, let me show you them.Most of the good fiction/fantasy/scifi literature these days is coming out of the Young Adult and Juvenile areas, so every six months or so I round up the new stuff and go on a reading spree. Around two years ago that included the Hunger Games trilogy (thanks to an ARC copy of Mockingjay). I did a review on that for my work newsletter which made me think about it for a good long while. (It wasn’t my best review because we’re encouraged not to say anything bad about the books, the object being to get people to read, not to drive them away.)The first book, Hunger Games, is awesome. Beyond awesome. I loved it and I greatly encourage anyone who hasn’t read it to pick it up now and get to reading! Engaging characters, tight (in both senses of the word) narrative, a plot that, while being far from original, seems shiny and new for all the different spins Suzanne Collins puts on it. It draws out your emotions and engages them, keeps you on the edge of your seat. Highly, highly recommended.The problem is, it’s best if you stop there. I sure wish the story had. At least Hunger Games stands on its own, and after reading the other two in the trilogy, I know that I can go back and just reread the first one and never have to touch the other two to have a complete fulfilling story.That’s not to say that the second book is terrible. Catching Fire is actually pretty good. Not up to the same standards as the first book - it does feel like exactly what it is, the middle book in a trilogy - but not a bad read at all. Basically it both asks and answers the age-old question, “If you could go back and do it all over, knowing everything you do now, would you do anything differently?” Which is intriguing, definitely. But at the same time, it is kind of a rehash of the first book, which is what makes it less engaging. The characters, the politics and the good narrative stop it from feeling tired and dull, and again, it’s a good read, but it’s lost its originality and some of the excitement that made the first book so entertaining.And then there’s the real problem; Catching Fire isn’t a complete narrative on its own. To know the whole story you have to read the third book, Mockingjay.Oh man, Mockingjay. The book that had all the potential to be a wonderful, heart-racing, utterly amazing finale to the trilogy. So much potential; so much fail. The ideas were there, but the execution was...just that. An execution. It’s like everything that would’ve made it a phenomenal book was taken out back and double-tapped.Even a couple years later I’m still somewhat angry when I think about it. Still so disappointed. I keep asking myself, did the author have a word limit she had to adhere to? Was she over her deadline by too much and had to rush? Was she simply bored/tired of this world? What on earth could’ve made her do this?Going against one of the major rules of good writing, Mockingjay is an exercise in telling instead of showing. Nothing big happens in the book that the author isn’t telling us about it instead of giving us the wonderful descriptions of the previous two books. With very few exceptions, events happen off screen and we get an info dump explaining them. That alone was just terrible to read. But then there’s poor Katniss.Remember the spitfire, kick-ass woman of the previous two books, the one who was determined to do whatever she could to survive and thus ensure her family’s survival? Yeah, well, say goodbye to her before reading this last book because you won’t be seeing much of her again.It’s like she just floats through events, letting things happen to her and barely reacting. She just lets herself be used, over and over, turns into something akin to a leaf in the wind. The few decisions she does make often don’t make any sort of good sense and we’re left wondering if this is really Katniss or a robot in a Katniss skin.The introduction of new characters should help things, but the narrative fails there too. The characters (heck, even the old ones we’re familiar with!) aren’t given nearly enough fleshing out; they’re just there. They don’t feel as real, as three dimensional as characters did in the last two books.The combination of all that leaves us with a flat, lifeless book and what amounts to a boring read. You want to get excited, I mean, there are serious, emotional things going on! Or at least they’re supposed to be. Hard to say when you don’t feel it and it’s just words on a page. The originality, excitement and all the drive behind the first two books is just gone. Vanished. And it’s painful to see.Yeah, two years gone and I’m still not over that. Such a let-down.I still encourage people to pick up The Hunger Games, but I barely give the next two in the trilogy more than a cursory mention. I reserve all my glowing praise for the first book and try to pretend the third never happened.

Shakespeare's intertwined love polygons begin to get complicated from the start--Demetrius and Lysander both want Hermia but she only has eyes for Lysander. Bad news is, Hermia's father wants Demetrius for a son-in-law. On the outside is Helena, whose unreturned love burns hot for Demetrius. Hermia and Lysander plan to flee from the city under cover of darkness but are pursued by an enraged Demetrius (who is himself pursued by an enraptured Helena). In the forest, unbeknownst to the mortals, Oberon and Titania (King and Queen of the faeries) are having a spat over a servant boy. The plot twists up when Oberon's head mischief-maker, Puck, runs loose with a flower which causes people to fall in love with the first thing they see upon waking. Throw in a group of labourers preparing a play for the Duke's wedding (one of whom is given a donkey's head and Titania for a lover by Puck) and the complications become fantastically funny.

It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will be busier still.By her brother's graveside, Liesel's life is changed when she picks up a single object, partially hidden in the snow. It is The Gravedigger's Handbook, left behind there by accident, and it is her first act of book thievery. So begins a love affair with books and words, as Liesel, with the help of her accordian-playing foster father, learns to read. Soon she is stealing books from Nazi book-burnings, the mayor's wife's library, wherever there are books to be found.But these are dangerous times. When Liesel's foster family hides a Jew in their basement, Liesel's world is both opened up, and closed down.In superbly crafted writing that burns with intensity, award-winning author Markus Zusak has given us one of the most enduring stories of our time.

From the Booker Prize-winning author of The Remains of the Day and When We Were Orphans, comes an unforgettable edge-of-your-seat mystery that is at once heartbreakingly tender and morally courageous about what it means to be human.Hailsham seems like a pleasant English boarding school, far from the influences of the city. Its students are well tended and supported, trained in art and literature, and become just the sort of people the world wants them to be. But, curiously, they are taught nothing of the outside world and are allowed little contact with it.Within the grounds of Hailsham, Kathy grows from schoolgirl to young woman, but it’s only when she and her friends Ruth and Tommy leave the safe grounds of the school (as they always knew they would) that they realize the full truth of what Hailsham is.Never Let Me Go breaks through the boundaries of the literary novel. It is a gripping mystery, a beautiful love story, and also a scathing critique of human arrogance and a moral examination of how we treat the vulnerable and different in our society. In exploring the themes of memory and the impact of the past, Ishiguro takes on the idea of a possible future to create his most moving and powerful book to date.

Hello, I am Mike Birbiglia and I want you to read my book. Too on the nose? Sorry. Let me dial it back.  I’m Mike Birbiglia and I’m a comedian. You may know me from Comedy Central or This American Life or The Bob &amp; Tom Show, but you’ve never seen me like this before. Naked. Wait, that’s the name of another book. Also I’m not naked as there are no pictures in my book. Also, if there were naked pictures of me, you definitely wouldn’t buy it, though you might sneak a copy into the back corner of the bookstore and show it to your friend and laugh. Okay, let’s get off the naked stuff. This is my first book. It’s difficult to describe. It’s a comedic memoir, but I’m only 32 years old so I’d hate for you to think I’m “wrapping it up,” so to speak. But I tell some personal stories. Some REALLY personal stories. Stories that I considered not publishing time and time again, especially when my father said, “Michael, you might want to stay away from the per­sonal stuff.” I said, “Dad, just read the dedication.” (Which I’m telling you to do too.) Some of the stories are about my childhood, some are about girls I made out with when I was thirteen, some are about my parents, and some are, of course, about my bouts with sleepwalking. Bring this book to bed. And sleepwalk with me.

Dating to the ninth century B.C., Homer’s timeless poem still vividly conveys the horror and heroism of men and gods wrestling with towering emotions and battling amidst devastation and destruction, as it moves inexorably to the wrenching, tragic conclusion of the Trojan War. Renowned classicist Bernard Knox observes in his superb introduction that although the violence of the Iliad is grim and relentless, it coexists with both images of civilized life and a poignant yearning for peace. Combining the skills of a poet and scholar, Robert Fagles, winner of the PEN/Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation and a 1996 Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, brings the energy of contemporary language to this enduring heroic epic. He maintains the drive and metric music of Homer’s poetry, and evokes the impact and nuance of the Iliad’s mesmerizing repeated phrases in what Peter Levi calls “an astonishing performance.”

Prized through the ages for its splendor and its savage, sophisticated wit, The Metamorphoses is a masterpiece of Western culture--the first attempt to link all the Greek myths, before and after Homer, in a cohesive whole, to the Roman myths of Ovid's day. Horace Gregory, in this modern translation, turns his poetic gifts toward a deft reconstruction of Ovid's ancient themes, using contemporary idiom to bring today's reader all the ageless drama and psychological truths vividly intact. --From the book jacket

John Milton's Paradise Lost is one of the greatest epic poems in the English language. It tells the story of the Fall of Man, a tale of immense drama and excitement, of rebellion and treachery, of innocence pitted against corruption, in which God and Satan fight a bitter battle for control of mankind's destiny. The struggle rages across three worlds - heaven, hell, and earth - as Satan and his band of rebel angels plot their revenge against God. At the center of the conflict are Adam and Eve, who are motivated by all too human temptations but whose ultimate downfall is unyielding love.Marked by Milton's characteristic erudition, Paradise Lost is a work epic both in scale and, notoriously, in ambition. For nearly 350 years, it has held generation upon generation of audiences in rapt attention, and its profound influence can be seen in almost every corner of Western culture.

High school nemeses fall in love in this queer YA rom com perfect for fans of Becky Albertalli and Casey McQuisten.After losing spectacularly to her ex-girlfriend in their first game since their break up, Scottie Zajac gets into a fender bender with the worst possible person: her nemesis, the incredibly beautiful and incredibly mean Irene Abraham. Things only get worse when their nosey, do-gooder moms get involved and the girls are forced to carpool together until Irene’s car gets out of the shop.Their bumpy start the only gets bumpier the more time they spend together. But when an opportunity presents itself for Scottie to get back at her toxic ex (and climb her school’s social ladder at the same time), she bribes Irene into playing along. Hijinks, heartbreak, and gay fake-dating scheme for the ages. From author Kelly Quindlen comes a new laugh-out-loud romp through the ups and downs of teen romance.

Alternate Cover edition for ISBN 9781594744761A mysterious island. An abandoned orphanage. A strange collection of very curious photographs. It all waits to be discovered in Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, an unforgettable novel that mixes fiction and photography in a thrilling reading experience. As our story opens, a horrific family tragedy sets sixteen-year-old Jacob journeying to a remote island off the coast of Wales, where he discovers the crumbling ruins of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. As Jacob explores its abandoned bedrooms and hallways, it becomes clear that the children were more than just peculiar. They may have been dangerous. They may have been quarantined on a deserted island for good reason. And somehow-impossible though it seems-they may still be alive. A spine-tingling fantasy illustrated with haunting vintage photography, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children will delight adults, teens, and anyone who relishes an adventure in the shadows.

A thrilling and original coming-of-age novel for adults about a young man practicing magic in the real world.Quentin Coldwater is brilliant but miserable. A senior in high school, he’s still secretly preoccupied with a series of fantasy novels he read as a child, set in a magical land called Fillory. Imagine his surprise when he finds himself unexpectedly admitted to a very secret, very exclusive college of magic in upstate New York, where he receives a thorough and rigorous education in the craft of modern sorcery. He also discovers all the other things people learn in college: friendship, love, sex, booze, and boredom. Something is missing, though. Magic doesn’t bring Quentin the happiness and adventure he dreamed it would. After graduation he and his friends make a stunning discovery: Fillory is real. But the land of Quentin’s fantasies turns out to be much darker and more dangerous than he could have imagined. His childhood dream becomes a nightmare with a shocking truth at its heart. At once psychologically piercing and magnificently absorbing, The Magicians boldly moves into uncharted literary territory, imagining magic as practiced by real people, with their capricious desires and volatile emotions. Lev Grossman creates an utterly original world in which good and evil aren’t black and white, love and sex aren’t simple or innocent, and power comes at a terrible price.

Nine-year-old Oskar Schell is an inventor, amateur entomologist, Francophile, letter writer, pacifist, natural historian, percussionist, romantic, Great Explorer, jeweller, detective, vegan, and collector of butterflies. When his father is killed in the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Centre, Oskar sets out to solve the mystery of a key he discovers in his father's closet. It is a search which leads him into the lives of strangers, through the five boroughs of New York, into history, to the bombings of Dresden and Hiroshima, and on an inward journey which brings him ever closer to some kind of peace.

Published in 1850, Edgar Allan Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart is one of the best known and most memorable short stories ever written. Since there are dozens of commentaries and reviews here and elsewhere on the internet, in the spirit of freshness, I will take a particular focus: obsession with an eye or eyes and compare Poe’s tale with a few others. In The Painter of Eyes by Jean Richepin, we encounter an obscure artist who sells his soul to the Devil in order to paint at least one masterpiece. There is a bit of writing attached to the corner of his great painting that reads: “The Devil has informed me as to the secret of painting eyes. That secret consists of decanting the life from the models one wishes to represent and fixing that life on the canvas. In doing that, one slowly kills the people whose portrait one paints. It is sufficient for me to know that I have made this masterpiece. I commend my soul to the prayers, in case the Evil One does not leave me the time.” The writing ends abruptly since death strikes the artist in mid-sentence - his masterpiece is a self-portrait.In The Gaze another story by Jean Richepin, the narrator peers through the window of a cell at a madman holding his arms spread, head uplifted, transfixed by a point on a wall near the ceiling. The doctor-alienist relates to the narrator how this inmate is obsessed with the gaze of eyes from an artist's portrait. "For there was something in that gaze, believe me, that could trouble not only the already-enfeebled brain of a man afflicted with general paralysis, but even a sound and solid mind." Turns out, the narrator discovers the doctor is also driven mad by these eyes. So much so, the doctor took a scissors to the painting. We read: “In front of me, a fragment of a painting, cut out of a canvas with scissors, showed me a pair of eyes: the eyes of the portrait that the alienist said that he had lacerated, the eyes darting that famous gaze – in which, indeed, the very soul of gold was alive.”The Enigmatic Eye by Moacyr Scliar is a most imaginative tale of a wealthy old man who becomes infatuated with a portrait of an aristocratic gentleman in the town’s museum. And what makes this portrait so infatuating? Why, of course – the gaze of the right eye, which is truly enigmatic. The old man has his close friend steal the portrait from the museum so he can put it in his attic and sit in front of the painting, pondering the enigmatic gaze round the clock. The servants think the old man mad but he could care less – he has exactly what he wants – the portrait with its enigmatic eye right in his very own attic. Unfortunately, something unexpected happens. Due to the attic’s heat and light, the painting begins to fade and then, over time, vanishes. The old man concludes there is only one thing for him to do – he buys some brushes and oils and begins re-painting the portrait, starting with the enigmatic eye. Turning now to Poe’s tale, the narrator insists he should not be taken for a madman; rather, he is dreadfully nervous causing his senses, especially his sense of hearing, to be heightened and sharpened. He goes on to convey how once the idea of killing the old man of the house entered his brain, he was haunted by the idea day and night. And why would he want to kill this old man, a man who never wronged him? We read, “I think it was his eye! Yes, it was this! He had the eye of a vulture – a pale blue eye, with a film over it.” What is it about a human eye, painted or real, when seen by someone who is mentally unstable? Perhaps part of the answer is given by contemporary Argentine author, Ernesto Sabato, when he says that hell is being the object of the gaze of another. Every one of Poe’s sentence is sheer perfection, building tension and suspense. For example, we read how the narrator, lantern in hand, secretly peers in at the sleeping old man at midnight. But then, one night, a noise wakes the old man and he sits bolt upright in bed. And what does the narrator do? We read, “I resolved to open a little – a very, very little crevice in the lantern. So I opened it – you cannot imagine how stealthily, stealthily – until, at length a single dim ray, like the thread of the spider, shot from out the crevice and fell full upon the vulture eye. It was open – wide, wide open – and I grew furious as I gazed upon it. I saw it with perfect distinctness – all a dull blue, with a hideous veil over it that chilled the very marrow of my bones; but I could see nothing else of the old man’s face or person: for I had directed the ray as if by instinct, precisely upon the damned spot.”Anybody familiar with the story knows the narrator’s actions and emotions escalate from this point. What I find particularly fascinating is how the narrator’s obsession and fixation with the eye, once there is no more eye to fixate upon, quickly shifts into a heightened sense of feeling and, of course, heightened hearing. What a tale; what an author – a masterpiece of suspense and horror.*The quotes from the two tales by Jean Richepin are taken from The Crazy Corner a collection of stories translated by Brian Stableford and published by Black Coat Press.

The novel is set during World War II, from 1942 to 1944. It mainly follows the life of Captain John Yossarian, a U.S. Army Air Forces B-25 bombardier. Most of the events in the book occur while the fictional 256th Squadron is based on the island of Pianosa, in the Mediterranean Sea, west of Italy. The novel looks into the experiences of Yossarian and the other airmen in the camp, who attempt to maintain their sanity while fulfilling their service requirements so that they may return home.

'Death has to happen. That's what bein' alive is all about. You're alive, and then you're dead. It can't just stop happening.'But it can. And it has. So what happens after death is now less of a philosophical question than a question of actual reality. On the Disc, as here, they need Death. If Death doesn't come for you, then what are you supposed to do in the meantime? You can't have the undead wandering about like lost souls. There's no telling what might happen, particularly when they discover that life really is only for the living...

In 1967, after a session with a psychiatrist she'd never seen before, eighteen-year-old Susanna Kaysen was put in a taxi and sent to McLean Hospital. She spent most of the next two years on the ward for teenage girls in a psychiatric hospital as renowned for its famous clientele--Sylvia Plath, Robert Lowell, James Taylor, and Ray Charles--as for its progressive methods of treating those who could afford its sanctuary. Kaysen's memoir encompasses horror and razor-edged perception while providing vivid portraits of her fellow patients and their keepers. It is a brilliant evocation of a "parallel universe" set within the kaleidoscopically shifting landscape of the late sixties. Girl, Interrupted is a clear-sighted, unflinching documnet that gives lasting and specific dimension to our definitions of sane and insane, mental illness and recovery.

Thrown in prison for a crime he has not committed, Edmond Dantes is confined to the grim fortress of If. There he learns of a great hoard of treasure hidden on the Isle of Monte Cristo and he becomes determined not only to escape, but also to unearth the treasure and use it to plot the destruction of the three men responsible for his incarceration. Dumas’ epic tale of suffering and retribution, inspired by a real-life case of wrongful imprisonment, was a huge popular success when it was first serialized in the 1840s.Robin Buss’s lively English translation is complete and unabridged, and remains faithful to the style of Dumas’s original. This edition includes an introduction, explanatory notes and suggestions for further reading.

Tyrannical Nurse Ratched rules her ward in an Oregon State mental hospital with a strict and unbending routine, unopposed by her patients, who remain cowed by mind-numbing medication and the threat of electric shock therapy. But her regime is disrupted by the arrival of McMurphy – the swaggering, fun-loving trickster with a devilish grin who resolves to oppose her rules on behalf of his fellow inmates. His struggle is seen through the eyes of Chief Bromden, a seemingly mute half-Indian patient who understands McMurphy's heroic attempt to do battle with the powers that keep them imprisoned. Ken Kesey's extraordinary first novel is an exuberant, ribald and devastatingly honest portrayal of the boundaries between sanity and madness.

WINNING MEANS FAME AND FORTUNE.LOSING MEANS CERTAIN DEATH.THE HUNGER GAMES HAVE BEGUN. . . .In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and once girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV.Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen regards it as a death sentence when she steps forward to take her sister's place in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before—and survival, for her, is second nature. Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender. But if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that weight survival against humanity and life against love.

Exactly one week in the life of a young man named Paterson of Paterson, New Jersey is presented. He lives an extremely regimented and routinized life, that routine perhaps most vividly displayed by the fact that he is able to wake up at exactly the same time every day without an alarm. That life includes eating Cheerios for breakfast, walking to work carrying his brown bag lunch packed in his lunch pail by his wife Laura, having a casual chat with his colleague Donny before he begins his shift driving the #23 Paterson bus for the local public transit company, walking home where he straightens out the exterior mailbox which somehow during the day gets knocked crooked, eating dinner with Laura and listening to her goings-on of the day, taking Laura's English bulldog Marvin - who he would admit to himself he doesn't much like - out for a walk to his neighborhood bar where he has one and only one beer before walking home with Marvin. There are day to day variations which are often the result of how certain other routines associated to him manifest themselves, such as what drama will occur in the relationship of Marie and Everett who are always at the bar together despite her always saying that they are no longer together, or in what form Laura's unique and distinctive design sense will affect Paterson's life directly or indirectly. Paterson's keen observances of what happens around him are largely the bases for the poems he writes, he constantly thinking of these and writing them in his secret notebook whenever he has a spare moment during his day. He is influenced by among others Paterson natives such as

Inseparable best friends and cousins Autumn and Skylar precariously navigate the vulnerability of female adolescence in rural Pennsylvania. When Autumn mysteriously falls pregnant, she's confronted by conservative legislation without mercy for blue-collar women seeking abortions. With Skylar's unfailing support and bold resourcefulness, money to fund the procedure is secured and the duo board a bus bound for New York state to find the help Autumn needs.

Maggie's plan to have a baby on her own is derailed when she falls in love with John, a married man, destroying his volatile marriage to the brilliant and impossible Georgette. But one daughter and three years later, Maggie is out of love and in a quandary: what do you do when you suspect your man and his ex wife are actually perfect for each other?

Thirteen-year-old Ruthie Carmichael and her mother, Rita teeter on the edge of poverty, despite Rita working multiple jobs. When their landlord kicks them out, Rita uses her looks to instantly reel in a boyfriend, who takes them in. Before long, Ruthie convinces her mother to leave and they head East in search of a better life. When money runs out and their car breaks down, they find themselves stranded in a small town called Fat River where their luck finally takes a turn. Rita lands a steady job waitressing at the local diner. With enough money to pay their bills, they rent a house and Fat River becomes the first place they call home. Peter Pam, a transgender waitress, becomes Ruthie's closest friend. The townspeople become Ruthie and Rita's family. Into this quirky utopia comes smooth-talking mortgage broker Vick Ward, who entices Rita with a subprime loan. Almost as soon as Rita buys a house their fortunes change. Faced once again with the prospect of homelessness, Rita reverts to survival mode, and the price she pays to keep them out of poverty changes their lives forever.

Based on the best-selling pair of memoirs from father and son David and Nic Sheff, Beautiful Boy chronicles the heartbreaking and inspiring experience of survival, relapse and recovery in a family coping with addiction over many years.

Big city girl Caroline is new to a small town, she disregards her high school classmates, and then just for kicks starts a sexual relationship with her teacher, Mr. A. Meanwhile, there's a serial killer roaming the town, an industrial fire burning on the outskirts, and Thurston is mourning the loss of his best friend. As Thurston falls in love with Caroline, realities quickly catch up to all characters, and they are all going to have to mature or face the consequences.

Washed-up and broke, an author whose books on mind control were once respected reluctantly helps a couple in deprogramming their daughter from the control of a cult named "Faults." But this assignment turns out to be more complicated than he had expected.

A quirky, coming-of-age dramedy about Scout, a rebellious, slightly bad-ass fifteen-year-old girl from the wrong side of the tracks who convinces a wealthy suicidal mental patient to go on a road trip with her across West Texas to track down her little sister who's been taken by the father who abandoned them. At its heart this is a story about family and how two unlikely misfits come together to create their own family.

Dean lives in Brooklyn and has recently lost his mother. His father Robert is an engineer who lives in the suburbs and is having difficulty adjusting to a life alone. Dean's ex-fiancee Michelle attempts to give back the engagement ring, as Dean has "un-proposed." Dean refuses, suggesting she put it on a charm bracelet. Dean's best friend Brett is getting married. Dean is actually the "second best" man behind Kevin. Brett and Dean were roommates, along with Eric who has flown out from Los Angeles for the wedding. During the wedding ceremony, Dean sees Michelle's wedding date and gets distracted. When asked to produce the wedding ring, he fumbles with it and drops it. Later during the reception, a drunken Kevin finishes up the best man speech. Dean begins his best man speech, but gets rudely interrupted by Kevin, who gets up and starts swinging at Dean..

A satire set in the contemporary art world scene of Los Angeles, where big money artists and mega-collectors pay a high price when art collides with commerce.

2018 film directed by David Robert Mitchell

All of Greenleaf, Indiana is watching this year's telecast of the Oscars as Hollywood heartthrob and local boy made good Cameron Drake has been nominated for his first ever Best Actor Oscar for his latest movie role as a gay soldier. Cameron's high school English teacher Howard Brackett is overjoyed when Cameron wins the award and mentions Howard's contribution in his acting life. That joy turns to horror when Cameron mentions to the worldwide audience that Howard is gay, especially horrific to Howard as he is engaged to fellow teacher Emily Montgomery, a woman with self-esteem issues as she had battled weight issues most of her life before she lost seventy-five pounds for the wedding. Howard's life is totally disrupted as Hollywood media descends on Greenleaf in order to get Howard's story. The rest of Greenleaf also openly wonders if Howard is indeed gay, as he exhibits many stereotypical gay tendencies, such as being neat, and loving music, dancing, poetry and

Two women, who are dissatisfied with the dishonesty they see in dating and relationships, decide to make a pact to spend 24 hours together hoping to find a new way to create intimacy.

Two male English school chums find themselves falling in love at Cambridge. To regain his place in society, Clive gives up his forbidden love, Maurice (pronounced "Morris") and marries. While staying with Clive and his shallow wife, Anne, Maurice finally discovers romance in the arms of Alec, the gamekeeper. Written from personal pain, it's E.M. Forster's story of coming to terms with sexuality in the Edwardian age.

THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI is a darkly comic drama from Academy Award nominee Martin McDonagh (In Bruges). After months have passed without a culprit in her daughter's murder case, Mildred Hayes (Academy Award winner Frances McDormand) makes a bold move, painting three signs leading into her town with a controversial message directed at William Willoughby (Academy Award nominee Woody Harrelson), the town's revered chief of police. When his second-in-command Officer Dixon (Academy Award winner Sam Rockwell), an immature mother's boy with a penchant for violence, gets involved, the battle between Mildred and Ebbing's law enforcement is only exacerbated.

As the Avengers and their allies have continued to protect the world from threats too large for any one hero to handle, a new danger has emerged from the cosmic shadows: Thanos. A despot of intergalactic infamy, his goal is to collect all six Infinity Stones, artifacts of unimaginable power, and use them to inflict his twisted will on all of reality. Everything the Avengers have fought for has led up to this moment, the fate of Earth and existence has never been more uncertain.

2018 film directed by Anthony and Joe Russo

As everybody moves to the beat of Pop music in early-1980s-Dublin, the sensitive teenager, Conor, struggles to cope with a tense family relationship; reconnect with his older brother, Brendan, and, above all, deal with the hostile environment in his new public school. Then, one day, he sees her. Tall, with long chestnut hair, a buttery complexion, and big, dark eyes; an enigmatically beautiful girl standing in front of the school's gate, indolently observing people passing by. To get noticed by the distant girl, Raphina, Conor enlists the help of a group of teenage dreamers to form a band--and, surprisingly--with every lyric he writes, the gap narrows, and with every song he plays, her heart brims with affection. Now, before a sea of opportunities, what does the future hold for a brave love like this?

2016 musical comedy-drama film directed by John Carney

McMurphy has a criminal past and has once again gotten himself into trouble and is sentenced by the court. To escape labor duties in prison, McMurphy pleads insanity and is sent to a ward for the mentally unstable. Once here, McMurphy both endures and stands witness to the abuse and degradation of the oppressive Nurse Ratched, who gains superiority and power through the flaws of the other inmates. McMurphy and the other inmates band together to make a rebellious stance against the atrocious Nurse.

Our filthy hero Gus mutters to himself, just before stealing a white Rolls Royce. He happens upon Ruby, a stunning tattoo artist he's always had a thing for, and waves her into the convertible. The misfits escape the city and into nature, sharing a joint, wondering why things used to be so much cooler in the '70s. Asthma is a modern romance that explores addiction in a fresh and honest way. She warns him not to fall in love with her, but the higher you are the harder you fall.

Ned possesses the unique talent of being able to bring the dead to life merely by touching them. However, the person may remain alive only for one minute, or else someone else dies for them. A second touch will render the person dead again, unable to be revived. Through his connections with PI Emerson Cod, Ned revives his childhood sweetheart, Chuck. The trio, aided occasionally by Olive Snook, helps solve the mysteries of various murders, whose murderer is often surprising.

American fantasy comedy-drama television series

The series follows the life of anti-social, pain killer addict, witty and arrogant medical doctor Gregory House (Hugh Laurie) with only half a muscle in his right leg. He and his team of medical doctors try to cure complex and rare diseases from very ill ordinary people in the United States of America.

A series about a powerful friendship that blossoms between a tightly wound widow and a free spirit with a shocking secret.

A sleuthing, supernaturally infused mystery charting Wednesday Addams' years as a student at Nevermore Academy. Wednesday's attempts to master her emerging psychic ability, thwart a monstrous killing spree that has terrorized the local town, and solve the supernatural mystery that embroiled her parents 25 years ago - all while navigating her new and very tangled relationships at Nevermore.

American horror comedy television series directed by Tim Burton.

A dry-witted woman, known only as Fleabag, has no filter as she navigates life and love in London while trying to cope with tragedy. The angry, grief-riddled woman tries to heal while rejecting anyone who tries to help her, but Fleabag continues to keep up her bravado through it all. Comic actress Phoebe Waller-Bridge stars as the titular character on the series, which is based on Waller-Bridge's 2013 one-woman show of the same name.

A young chef who returns to Chicago to run the family restaurant.

The Byrdes and their teenage kids, Charlotte and Jonah, are, for all intents and purposes, an ordinary family with ordinary lives. Except for the job of Marty, a Chicago financial advisor who also serves as the top money launderer for the second largest drug cartel in Mexico. When things go awry, Marty must uproot his family from the skyscrapers of Chicago and relocate to the lazy lake region of the Missouri Ozarks.

Eve is a bored, whip-smart security services operative whose desk-bound job doesn't fulfill her fantasies of being a spy. Villanelle is a talented killer, who clings to the luxuries her violent job affords her. These two fierce women, equally obsessed with each other, will go head to head in an epic game of cat and mouse, toppling the typical spy-action thriller.

Fukioka Haruhi is a normal teenager going into a school for the absurdly rich. Wandering into the high school's own host club - a group of young boys whose job it is to keep their female clients dazzled and charmed - Haruhi accidentally knocks over an expensive vase with no way to pay for it. The host club's Prince, Suou Tamaki proposes that their new debtor make up for the vase by becominga host in their club. Things appear to be going quite well. The only problem, of course, is that Haruhi is unavoidably a girl.

The Addams Family is not your typical family: it takes delight in most of the things of which normal people would be terrified. Gomez Addams is an extremely wealthy man and is able to indulge his wife Morticia's every desire, whether it's cultivation of poisonous plants or a candlelit dinner in a graveyard. People visiting the Addams Family just don't seem to appreciate the 7-foot-tall butler named Lurch or the helping hand (which is just a disembodied hand named Thing).

A straight-and-narrow young woman is hired to babysit a mega-rich woman child who has been left alone in her daddy's mansion under house arrest.

The Mick centers on Mackenzie "Mickey" Murphy (Olson), a hard-living, foul-mouthed, cigarette-smoking woman who moves to affluent Greenwich, CT to raise the spoiled kids of her wealthy sister who has fled the country to avoid a federal indictment. She quickly learns what the rest of us already know - other people's children are awful.

American comedy television series (2017-2018)

Set in a tropical resort, it follows the exploits of various guests and employees over the span of a week.

American satire comedy-drama television series from 2021's HBO

The owner of a successful video game design company and his troubled staff struggle to keep their hit game 'Mythic Quest' on top.

Drama set within the fictional realms of Charles Dickens critically acclaimed novels, bringing together some of his most iconic characters as their lives intertwine in 19th century London.

A group of terminally ill teenage patients resides at Rotterdam Home, and together they create the Midnight Club. They meet in secret at midnight to tell horror stories. Together the group forms a pact, that whoever dies first would make the effort to contact the rest of the Midnight Club members from beyond the grave.

The story of three unrelated people, who slowly realize that they are dreaming separate parts of a single common dream. Each of them is on a mysterious and highly personal quest - one is searching for his missing girlfriend, one is searching for a lost child, one is looking to cure his catatonic mother - and it is the clues found in their collective dream that come to guide them. The deeper they dig the more they come to realize that their missions touch on stakes that are much larger than their individual agendas.

American supernatural drama television series

A young man wakes up from a 12-year coma to discover new abilities that come to propel him into the middle of a dangerous conspiracy.

Leonie Schmolke

Rutvik

Haley Graham is a former gymnast turned juvenile-delinquent who, after one too many run-ins with the law, is forced to enroll at an elite gymnastics a

Young Caucasian Dan Dunne teaches history and coaches the girls basketball team at a Brooklyn high school populated primarily by black and Hispanic st

In the book Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson, Melinda Sordino is forced into the worst year of her life. Her best friend, Rachel Bruin, has turned agai

Loosely based on Homer's "Odyssey," the movie deals with the picaresque adventures of Ulysses Everett McGill and his companions Delmar and Pete in 193

Coming Of Age Films

movie

Brian Thornberry

Donnie Darko doesn't get along too well with his family, his teachers, and his classmates; but he does manage to find a sympathetic friend in Gretchen

It's the late 1980s. Twenty-seven year old Wall Streeter Patrick Bateman travels among a closed network of the proverbial beautiful people, that close

Sara Goldfarb (Ellen Burstyn) is a retired widow, living in a small apartment. She spends most of her time watching TV, especially a particular self-h

Memento chronicles two separate stories of Leonard, an ex-insurance investigator who can no longer build new memories, as he attempts to find the murd

Mental illness in movies

Dagobah

Queerness and queer horror — which is to say horror that is about or aestheticizes queerness, otherness, sexual deviancy, as experience, metaphor, dream, and nightmare — are embedded in the history of the genre, from Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula to James Whale’s 1935 film The Bride of Frankenstein. From a masked killers (one of which uses a dildo knife) to genderqueer dolls, the films selected for this program elaborate upon and extrapolate from queerness not merely as identity but as aesthetic impulse, rooted in subversion, confrontation, camp, an understanding of queerness as a tool to challenge, or deconstruct, normative ideas in art and society. Drenched in blood, paranoia, and forbidden desire, horror is queer down to the bone. 

An eccentric scientist changes the world with his teleportation technology: when his experiment seems to be going well, Dr. Seth Brundle tests his mac

Nerdy, reserved bookworm Needy Lesnicki, and arrogant, conceited cheerleader Jennifer Check are best friends, though they share little in common. They

Oskar, a bullied 12-year old, dreams of revenge. He falls in love with Eli, a peculiar girl. She can't stand the sun or food and to come into a room s

2008 Swedish horror romance film directed by Tomas Alfredson

When Kirsty's father, Larry, and stepmother, Julia, move into Larry's childhood home, Kirsty and her boyfriend take a room nearby. Unfortunately for a

1987 horror film directed by Clive Barker

Bury Your Gays: Queer Horror

Kyle Turner

A drug dealer introduces one of his customers, a 'speed freak', to the man who runs the meth lab. A crazy three-day adventure ensues.

2002 crime film directed by Jonas Åkerlund

When May was a child, she was a lonely girl with a lazy eye and without any friends except a strange, homemade doll kept in a glass case given by her 

Manipulative high school sophomore Kimberly Joyce leads her friends Brittany Wells and Randa Azzouni in bringing charges of sexual assault against Per

Astrid Magnussen (Alison Lohman) is a fifteen-year-old girl, living in California. Her mother, Ingrid (Michelle Pfeiffer), is a beautiful, free-spirit

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MICKIE GEE

Feel like this is pretty self-explanatory 

It is the height of the war in Vietnam, and U.S. Army Captain Willard is sent by Colonel Lucas and a General to carry out a mission that, officially, 'does not exist - nor will it ever exist'. The mission: To seek out a mysterious Green Beret Colonel, Walter Kurtz, whose army has crossed the border into Cambodia and is conducting hit-and-run missions against the Viet Cong and NVA. The army believes Kurtz has gone completely insane and Willard's job is to eliminate him. Willard, sent up the Nung River on a U.S. Navy patrol boat, discovers that his target is one of the most decorated officers in the U.S. Army. His crew meets up with surfer-type Lt-Colonel Kilgore, head of a U.S Army helicopter cavalry group which eliminates a Viet Cong outpost to provide an entry point into the Nung River. After some hair-raising encounters, in which some of his crew are killed, Willard, Lance and Chef reach Colonel Kurtz's outpost, beyond the Do Lung Bridge. Now, after becoming prisoners of Kurtz, will Willard & the others be able to fulfill their mission?

1979 American war film directed by Francis Ford Coppola

It's the late 1980s. Twenty-seven year old Wall Streeter Patrick Bateman travels among a closed network of the proverbial beautiful people, that closed network in only they able to allow others like themselves in in a feeling of superiority. Patrick has a routinized morning regimen to maintain his appearance of attractiveness and fitness. He, like those in his network, are vain, narcissistic, egomaniacal and competitive, always having to one up everyone else in that presentation of oneself, but he, unlike the others, realizes that, for himself, all of these are masks to hide what is truly underneath, someone/something inhuman in nature. In other words, he is comprised of a shell resembling a human that contains only greed and disgust, greed in wanting what others may have, and disgust for those who do not meet his expectations and for himself in not being the first or the best. That disgust ends up manifesting itself in wanting to rid the world of those people, he not seeing them as people but only of those characteristics he wants to rid.

Nerdy, reserved bookworm Needy Lesnicki, and arrogant, conceited cheerleader Jennifer Check are best friends, though they share little in common. They share even less in common when Jennifer mysteriously gains an appetite for human blood after a disastrous fire at a local bar. As Needy's male classmates are steadily killed in gruesome attacks, the young girl must uncover the truth behind her friend's transformation and find a way to stop the bloodthirsty rampage before it reaches her own boyfriend Chip.

Sara Goldfarb (Ellen Burstyn) is a retired widow, living in a small apartment. She spends most of her time watching TV, especially a particular self-help show. She has delusions of rising above her current dull existence by being a guest on that show. Her son, Harry (Jared Leto) is a junkie but along with his friend Tyrone (Marlon Wayans) has visions of making it big by becoming a drug dealer. Harry's girlfriend Marion (Jennifer Connelly) could be fashion designer or artist but is swept along in Harry's drug-centric world. Meanwhile Sara has developed an addiction of her own. She desperately wants to lose weight and so goes on a crash course involving popping pills, pills which turn out to be very addictive and harmful to her mental state.

movies I haven't watched yet

Can't promise they're all actually good, but I enjoy them

Donnie Darko doesn't get along too well with his family, his teachers, and his classmates; but he does manage to find a sympathetic friend in Gretchen, who agrees to date him. He has a compassionate psychiatrist, who discovers hypnosis is the means to unlock hidden secrets. His other companion may not be a true ally. Donnie has a friend named Frank, a large bunny which only Donnie can see. When an engine falls off a plane and destroys his bedroom, Donnie is not there. Both the event, and Donnie's escape, seem to have been caused by supernatural events.

When high school Spanish teacher Will Schuester (Matthew Morrison) becomes the director of the school's failing Glee club, New Directions, he hopes to be able to rejuvenate it. The club competes in the choir competition circuit. It's been called "a High School Musical for adults", the series follows the club and its mixture of oddball members as they try and restore it to its former glory. It is a musical comedy in which the eager and ambitious students not only compete to win the Nationals, but also have to deal with the tough and cruel realities of their school, McKinley High. At the same time, Will is trying to rejuvenate his failing love life while preventing the school's cheer leading coach Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch) from sabotaging the choir.

American musical comedy-drama television series

He's smart, he's good looking, and he's got a great sense of humor. He's Dexter Morgan, everyone's favorite serial killer. As a Miami forensics expert, he spends his days solving crimes, and nights committing them. But Dexter lives by a strict code of honor that is both his saving grace and lifelong burden. Torn between his deadly compulsion and his desire for true happiness, Dexter is a man in profound conflict with the world and himself. Golden Globe winner Michael C. Hall stars in the hit SHOWTIME Original Series.

Told from the perspective of an unseen documentary filmmaker, the series offers an honest, often-hilarious perspective of family life. Parents Phil and Claire yearn for an honest, open relationship with their three kids, but a daughter who is trying to grow up too fast, another who is too smart for her own good, and a rambunctious young son make it challenging. Claire's dad Jay and his Latina wife Gloria are raising two sons together, but people sometimes believe Jay to be Gloria's father. Jay's gay son Mitchell and his partner Cameron have adopted a little Asian girl, completing one big -- straight, gay, multicultural, traditional -- happy family.

My favorites 

tv show

Favorite bands (can you tell I have an individuality complex)

music artist

Captain Malcolm 'Mal' Reynolds is a former galactic war veteran who is the captain of the transport ship "Serenity". Mal and his crew, ensign Zoe Alleyne Washburne; Zoe's husband, pilot Hoban 'Wash' Washburne; muscular mercenary Jayne Cobb; young mechanic Kaylee Frye; former Alliance medical officer Simon Tam; his disturbed teenage sister River (both on the run from the interplanetary government "The Alliance"); the beautiful courtesan Inara Serra; and preacher Shepherd Book do any jobs, legal or illegal, they can find as the Serenity crew travels across the outskirts of outer space.

A middle-aged Mary Ann returns to San Francisco and reunites with the eccentric friends she left behind. "Tales of the City" focuses primarily on the people who live in a boardinghouse turned apartment complex owned by Anna Madrigal at 28 Barbary Lane, all of whom quickly become part of what Maupin coined a "logical family". It's no longer a secret that Mrs. Madrigal is transgender. Instead, she is haunted by something from her past that has long been too painful to share.

American LGBT drama television miniseries

When Montego Air Flight 828 landed safely after a turbulent but routine flight, the crew and passengers were relieved. But in the span of those few hours, the world had aged five years - and their friends, families and colleagues, after mourning their loss, had given up hope and moved on. Now, faced with the impossible, they're all given a second chance. But as their new realities become clear, a deeper mystery unfolds and some of the returned passengers soon realize they may be meant for something greater than they ever thought possible.

A police investigator named Arnar travels from Norway to assist in the investigation surrounding Iceland's first serial killer. He works with Kata, the officer in charge of the case, and together they must race against the clock to find the murderer before it's too late. While the victims initially seem unrelated, the trail leads them to an abandoned boys' home named Valhalla, where some horrifying events occurred 35 years earlier.

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Coming Of Age Films

Mental illness in movies

Bury Your Gays: Queer Horror

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