Zardoz Speaks To You, His Chosen People

 

“I am Arthur Frayn, and I am Zardoz.  I have lived 300 years, and long to die.”

 So begins one of the strangest, and yet most compelling, sci-fi movies ever made.  Sean Connery’s first film after retiring as Bond, and John Boorman’s first film after Deliverance meant high expectations for this (shot entirely in scenic County Wicklow, Ireland).  They were not met.

Who cares.

Too many miss the point behind the weird futuretalk, immortals wearing strange hats, inflatable buildings, green bread, random psychedelia, mutant exterminators and of course the Flying Stone Head.  Heavy issues of mortality, power, deception, arrogance and existence itself are explored, leaving images that will scar you for a lifetime, like this:

and this….

and this…..

 

Check our catalog, see if its in.

Zardoz in imdb

What might have been

Hi, I’m Cindy Maxey. I’m one of the Adult Services / Reference Librarians at ALPL. Besides helping patrons find all kinds of information and choose good books, I do book talks, lead book discussions, teach patrons to use the catalog and our electronic databases, choose lots of the nonfiction books and plan programs for adults.

Just for a change of pace, let me tell you about one of the new movies in our collection.  Bobby is written and directed by Emilio Estevez who also has a small role in the movie. The story follows the day of 22 different people in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles on the day Robert Kennedy was assassinated.  From a wealthy couple on vacation trying to reconnect to one another, to two Latino kitchen workers trying to make their way against racism, from an African-American campaign worker whose last hope is Bobby Kennedy to the young woman about to marry a man to keep him out of Vietnam all the stories come together when Kennedy is shot.

Estevez’s use of archival news footage from 1968 blends seamlessly with his 2006 movie footage. One moment we’re looking at his all-star cast and the next we’re looking at Kennedy himself. Estevez handles his story well. Despite the huge cast, we never become confused between the characters or lose the individual threads. Through most of the movie it’s not clear what most of these people have to do with Kennedy other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but by the end of the movie the theme is clear.

 In one scene, a wise chef (Laurence Fishburne) counsels a young kitchen worker (Freddy Rodriguez) that he is the “once and future king.” And by the end of the movie, we are left musing: what once might have been and might it yet be again?

Gerry’s Favorite Space Operas Part I

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Hello, and welcome to our blog.  Library Staff will be using this to share ideas, good reads, and tidbits about things going on here and in the world we live in, the library world, that is.  Most of it intersects with yours at one time or another.

 My name is Gerry, and I am the assistant director, and the manager of Reference and Young Adult Services.  I have been here for almost a year now.  Previously, I worked for Dayton Metro Library (2001-2006) and Sandusky Library (1998-2001).   

To the point: I am a science fiction nut.  I love alternate histories, time travel, far future worlds, space voyages, alien artifacts, fascinating and dangerous new technologies, big questions — and the awe of looking at everything from a really different perspective. 

What makes me even nuttier is that I like to read some of my favorite books and series OVER and OVER again. 

These ones might be worth recommending, so I am.

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Right now I am reacquainting myself with Peter F. Hamilton’s epic “Night’s Dawn” trilogy — a misnomer since there are actually six (or five) books, too big to fit onto separate volumes. 

Set in the 27th century Confederation, over 600 far-flung human colonies are about to encounter something so completely alien and awful, most other species that encounter it never survive.