Media Madness

“Scary” Movies

OK, we all know October is Halloween. The stores and costume shops are gearing up for that all important night of fun and ghoulish behavior.  The Henrietta Public Library has many frightening feature films on DVD for every horror and fear each of us possesses, including Jaws, The Exorcist, The Ring, Psycho, 28 Days Later, Nightmare on Elm Street, The Omen, or The Birds.  But the library also has many documentaries on DVD that show us how life can be more terrifying than an infamous shower scene.

The following titles represent a small part of the library’s documentaries:

• American Farm (call # 630.973 AME) Beautifully filmed in Upstate New York, this film shows an eleven generation farm family as it struggles to hold on to their family farm. Many family farms and their products are taken for granted by many of us. But what happens to our national food supply if our farms continue to be made into paved parking lots and huge subdivisions?
• Maxed Out: Hard Times, Easy Credit, and the Era of Predatory Lenders. (Call# 332.743 MAX) The subtitle on this film says it all. Considering our current financial crisis, many people may be agreeing with the adage “hindsight is foresight”.
• In Debt We Trust: America Before the Bubble Bursts (Call # 332.765 IND).  This 2006 documentary warns of an impending fiscal disaster brought on by our dependence on credit, a huge national debt, and the “corrupt practices of financial and government institutions.”  Again, “hindsight is foresight”.
• Finally, Spike Lee has shown the inept and disorganized government response to Hurricane Katrina’s devastating blow to New Orleans in his film When the Levees Broke: a Requiem in Four Acts (Call# 363.34 WHE) Heartbreaking scenes and personal narratives tell the story of the ordeal but Lee’s portrayal is of tragedy and triumph.

As always, come on in to the library and “check us out”!

Nancy Maxwell
Audio-Visual Librarian