Meryl Streep
Author
Language
English
Description
Here are twelve magnificent stories in which John Cheever celebrates—with unequaled grace and tenderness—the deepest feelings we have.
As Cheever writes in his preface, "These stories seem at times to be stories of a long-lost world when the city of New York was still filled with a river light, when you heard the Benny Goodman quartets from a radio in the corner stationery store, and when almost everybody wore
...63) Theater of war
Language
English
Description
An examination of Bertolt Brecht's "Mother Courage and her children", and the political philosophies the play represents. Preparing for The Public Theater's 2006 production of Brecht's anti-war play, Meryl Streep allows a camera crew to document her rehearsal process and interest in the work. Moreover, the life and times of Brecht himself are followed, most notably the playwrites' escape from Nazi Germany, subsequent exile, testimony to the House...
65) The bottom line
Language
English
Description
Tells how the 1983 report "Nation at Risk" damaged public confidence in America's school system and spurred attempts at educational reform. Looks at such things as vouchers, charter schools, and privatization as challenges to the historical concept of a common school.
66) Equality
Language
English
Description
Describes the inequalities in American public education in the 1950s, issues raised by equal rights proponents, and changes made.
Language
English
Description
Describes how massive immigration, child labor laws, and the growth of cities increased school attendance and changed public education in America during the first half of the twentieth century. Looks at the ideas of John Dewey, the effects of IQ tests, the "life adjustment" curriculum, and Cold War politics on students.
Language
English
Description
Describes the development of a common system of tax-supported schools in America following the Revolution in order to mix people of different backgrounds and strengthen democracy. Tells of the influence of Thomas Jefferson, Noah Webster, Horace Mann, and others in this effort.
69) Hemingway
Language
English
Description
Examine the visionary work and turbulent life of one of the greatest and most influential American writers: Ernest Hemingway. Intimate and insightful, the series weaves together Hemingway's biography with excerpts from his work. The film penetrates the myth of Hemingway to reveal a deeply troubled and ultimately tragic figure.
70) She-devil
Language
English
Description
Ruth Patchett is a wife and a mother who tries to please her husband Bob. When he has an affair with Mary Fisher, a romance novelist, Ruth wants revenge.
Language
English
Description
Set in 1985. Revolves around two very different men with AIDS, one fictional, one fictionalized. Roy Cohn, personifies all the hypocrisy, delusion and callousness of the official response to the plague. Nothing shakes Roy's lack of empathy: even on his death bed, he's fighting with his gay nurse and taunting the woman he helped put to death, Ethel Rosenberg. The other patient is Prior Walter, who is visited by an angel and deserted by his self-pitying...
72) Holocaust
Language
English
Description
Follows the tragedy and triumph of the Weiss family of Berlin and intertwines their fate as European Jews with the story of a German family, the Dorfs, whose members include a high-ranking Nazi officer. Kristallnacht, the "night of broken glass" occurs and the Weiss family suffer a series of unspeakable tragedies in the aftermath.
Author
Language
English
Description
From Lance Bangs and Spike Jonze, acclaimed director of Where the Wild Things Are, comes A Portrait of Maurice Sendak, a loving look at one of the most cherished and controversial figures in children's literature. Featuring Tell Them Anything You Want, this is a deeply moving tribute to Sendak, a seminal talent whose conflicts with success and lifelong obsession with death have subtly influenced his work. Now 81, Sendak is best known for his book,...
75) The Hours
Language
English
Description
Three women (Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman, Julianne Moore) in different times are related by a parallel in their personal lives. One throwing a party for a friend suffering from AIDS. Another in 1949, suffering as a young wife. The last, Virginia Woolf, writing "Mrs. Dalloway". Winner of Best Actress (Nicole Kidman) at the **Academy Awards,** the **BAFTA Awards** and the **Golden Globes.** Winner of a Silver Berlin Bear at the **Berlin International...
76) Julie & Julia
Language
English
Description
Julie Powell is a frustrated insurance worker who wants to be a writer. Trying to find a challenge in her life, she decides to cook her way through Julia Child's 'Mastering the Art of French Cooking' in one year, and to blog about it. As Julie begins to find her groove as a cook, and her voice as a writer, the project takes on a life of its own. The project provides the struggling young woman with her life's purpose, to her very pleasant surprise....