MIDDLETOWN: MONUMENTAL MOVIE MONDAYS
John Goodman, Matt Damon, George Clooney, Bob Balaban and Bill Murray ARE The Expen…check that, THE MONUMENTS MEN, as Middletown Township Public Library hosts a month-of-Mondays worth of recent Hollywood releases.
They don’t have the five-dollar bottled waters or nine-dollar popcorns of the mega-mall multiplex. You won’t have the option of paying almost twenty bucks for the privilege of wearing someone else’s greasy, used 3D glasses. Chances are you won’t even be seated near someone doing the play-by-play on their phone. But for everything you’ll miss about the blockbuster movie house experience, you’ll congratulate yourself for waiting to catch those movies you always meant to see — when they come to the climate-controlled screening space at the Middletown Township Public Library.
The weekly series of free matinee Monday Movies continues in August, with a selection of very recent films that’s keynoted by The Monuments Men, the fact-inspired World War Two tale from producer-director-screenwriter-costar George Clooney. Matt Damon, Bill Murray, Cate Blanchett and John Goodman are featured in the ensemble piece about an elite Army unit charged with recovering and preserving stolen or endangered art treasures during the Nazi occupation, with the film unspooling at 2:30 pm on August 4.
Another real-life scenario gets the Hollywood treatment on August 11, when Tom Hanks and Emma Thompson star in Saving Mr. Banks, the 2013 original about Walt Disney’s efforts to convince the author of Mary Poppins to let him adapt her book to the screen. On August 18, Vince Vaughn stars as a Delivery Man whose life takes a wildly unexpected turn, when he discovers that a mixup at the sperm bank has resulted in his being biological father to more than 500 adult offspring. And, as Labor Day approaches on August 25, Kate Winslet stars as a lonely single mother who becomes emotionally attached to a wanted fugitive (Josh Brolin) who forces himself into her life. All screenings are at 2:30 pm; check the MTPL website for additional free movie events in August, including a teen series and a monthly SciFi book/film discussion.