[Minnesota-Talk] May Events 4 All

[Steve Cook]

Hi All, 

Feel free to share this message with everyone! 

Everyone is invited to the below events in May. Below you will find the
audio described movies and trivia for this month. Below the Zoom information
to join us, you will find a summary for each movie! All events take place at
8:00 PM eastern. 

Friday, May 3, 2024
Audio described movie Poor Things (2023)

Friday, May 10, 2024
Audio described movie Anatomy Of A Fall (2023)

Friday, May 17, 2024
Audio described movie Carrie (1976)

Friday, May 31, 2024
Trivia Night

To make suggestions for upcoming movies or to request a weekly reminder
message, send a message to movies at nfbofsc.org

I have created a list serve for the discussion of audio description on all
platforms! Places to obtain audio described content including Audio Vault,
Blind Mice Mart and any other place you know of. Feel free to announce
upcoming events that pertain to audio description content for everyone to
attend or in certain areas. To subscribe, send a message to the following
Email address with subscribe in the subject line.
AudioDescriptionDiscussion+subscribe at googlegroups.com


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Meeting ID: 803 254 3777
Passcode: 124578
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Poor Things

In Victorian London,[n 1] the medical student Max McCandles becomes an
assistant to the eccentric surgeon Godwin Baxter. Max falls in love with
Godwin's ward, Bella, a childlike young woman. Godwin reveals that Bella's
body is that of a woman who was pregnant and killed herself by leaping off a
bridge. Godwin then replaced the woman's brain with that of her fetus,
giving her an infant's mind, and named her Bella Baxter.

With Godwin's encouragement, Max asks for Bella's hand in marriage. Bella
accepts, but as her intelligence rapidly develops, she becomes curious about
the outside world and herself. She soon discovers masturbation and sexual
pleasure. She runs off with Duncan Wedderburn, a debauched lawyer whom
Godwin hired to overhaul the nuptial contract. Deciding to let her go,
Godwin begins a new experiment with a young woman, Felicity, who matures
more slowly than Bella.

Bella and Duncan embark on a grand journey, beginning in Lisbon, where they
have frequent intercourse. Bella is mistakenly addressed as "Victoria
Blessington" by a fellow hotel guest. When Bella becomes difficult for him
to control, Duncan smuggles her onto a cruise ship. Bella befriends two
passengers who open her mind to philosophy. Duncan attempts to stunt her
growth to no avail. He becomes exasperated and indulges in drinking and
gambling. During a stop at Alexandria, Bella witnesses the suffering of the
poor and becomes distraught. Wishing to help them, she entrusts Duncan's
winnings to unscrupulous members of the crew, who falsely promise to give it
to them. Unable to afford the rest of the trip, Bella and Duncan are dropped
off at Marseilles and make their way to Paris. Seeking money and
accommodation, Bella begins working at a brothel. Enraged, Duncan breaks
down and Bella abandons him. At the brothel, she comes under the tutelage of
Madame Swiney and begins a relationship with a prostitute, Toinette, who
introduces her to socialism.

Now terminally ill, Godwin asks Max to bring Bella to him. Max finds her
after tracking down Duncan, who has been institutionalized. Back in London,
Bella reconciles with Godwin and renews her plans to marry Max. The wedding
is interrupted by Duncan and General Alfie Blessington. The latter,
addressing Bella as Victoria, declares that they were married before her
disappearance and that he has come to reclaim her. Bella abandons Max to
learn of her past life, but discovers Alfie's violent and sadistic nature
and realizes Victoria committed suicide to escape him.

Alfie confines Bella to his mansion. He threatens her at gunpoint to submit
to genital mutilation and a subsequent rape, demanding she drink a sedative.
She tosses the sedative in his face, and after a struggle, Alfie
accidentally shoots himself in the foot before passing out. Godwin dies
peacefully with Bella and Max at his side. Bella follows in Godwin's
footsteps by becoming a surgeon with the help of Max and Toinette and
transplants a goat's brain into Alfie's head.

Cast
The film stars Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, Willem Dafoe, Ramy Youssef,
Christopher Abbott and Jerrod Carmichael.
Emma Stone as Bella Baxter
Mark Ruffalo as Duncan Wedderburn
Willem Dafoe as Dr. Godwin Baxter
Ramy Youssef as Max McCandles
Christopher Abbott as Alfie Blessington
Suzy Bemba as Toinette
Jerrod Carmichael as Harry Astley
Kathryn Hunter as Swiney
Vicki Pepperdine as Mrs. Prim
Margaret Qualley as Felicity
Hanna Schygulla as Martha von Kurtzroc
Keeley Forsyth as Allison the maid
John Locke as David the butler
Kate Handford as Kitty
Owen Good as Gerald
Damien Bonnard as Father
Tom Stourton as Steward
Raphaël Thiéry as Saveur the butcher
Wayne Brett as Priest
Carminho as Fado singing woman
Jerskin Fendrix as Lisbon restaurant musician

Anatomy Of A Fall

In an isolated mountain chalet near Grenoble, novelist Sandra Voyter decides
to reschedule her interview with a female student because her husband,
university lecturer Samuel Maleski, plays music loudly in their attic,
disrupting the interview. After the student drives away from the chalet,
Samuel and Sandra's visually impaired son, Daniel, takes a walk outside with
his guide dog Snoop. When they return home, Daniel finds Samuel dead from an
apparent fall.

Sandra insists that the fall must have been accidental. Her old friend and
lawyer, Vincent, suggests the possibility of suicide, while Sandra recalls
her husband's attempt to overdose on aspirin six months earlier, after going
off antidepressants. After an investigation, Daniel's conflicting accounts
of what happened shortly before his father's death, combined with the
revelation that Samuel sustained a head wound before his body hit the ground
and an audio recording of a fight by Samuel and Sandra the previous day,
Sandra is indicted on charges of homicide.

During the trial, Sandra's defense team claims Samuel fell from the attic
window and hit his head on a shed below, while the prosecution posits that
Sandra hit him with a blunt object and pushed him from the second-floor
balcony. During a courtroom argument with Samuel's psychiatrist, Sandra
admits her resentment towards her husband due to his partial responsibility
for the accident that led to Daniel's impaired vision.

In the recorded fight, Samuel accuses Sandra of plagiarism, infidelity and
exerting control over his life, before their protracted argument turns
physically violent. The prosecution claims that all the violence came from
Sandra. She counters that while she had slapped Samuel, the rest of the
violence heard was her husband beating on himself. After Sandra admits to an
affair with a woman the year before Samuel's death, the prosecution argues
that Samuel's loud music indicated jealousy over Sandra's flirting with the
interviewer, leading to the physical confrontation later. The prosecutor
also notes Sandra's pattern of writing personal conflicts into her stories,
and how murdering her husband mirrors a minor character's thoughts from her
most recent novel. In turn, Sandra protests that one recording does not
represent the nature of their relationship, nor do the words of a character
in a novel reflect her own inclinations.

A distraught Daniel insists on testifying before closing arguments the
following Monday. The judge lays strict ground rules to prevent anyone from
influencing his testimony and brings in a court monitor, Marge. Daniel then
asks that Sandra leave their house for the weekend so he can be alone with
Marge and Snoop. He recalls that when Samuel overdosed, Snoop also fell
sick, possibly due to having eaten Samuel's vomit. He then deliberately
feeds Snoop aspirin and finds it has the same effect, which aligns with
Sandra's testimony. Daniel confides to Marge his anguish, and she advises
him that if he doesn't know what is really true, he can instead decide
what's true for him.

On the witness stand, Daniel says he can comprehend his father taking his
own life but not the murder scenario. He says that when he and Samuel were
driving Snoop to the veterinarian, Samuel spoke about the need to be
prepared that those he loves will die and to know that his life will go on,
which Daniel now interprets as his father's own suicidal thoughts. Sandra is
acquitted after Daniel's testimony. When she returns home, Daniel tells her
he was afraid of her homecoming and she says that she was too; the two
embrace. As Sandra heads to bed, she lingers at a photo of her and Samuel
before falling asleep with Snoop.

Cast






>From left to right: Sandra Hüller, Swann Arlaud, Antoine Reinartz, Samuel
Theis, Jehnny Beth, and Messi.
Sandra Hüller as Sandra Voyter[5]
Swann Arlaud as Vincent Renzi[11]
Milo Machado-Graner as Daniel Maleski[11]
Antoine Reinartz as the prosecutor[11]
Samuel Theis as Samuel Maleski[11]
Jehnny Beth as Marge Berger[11]
Saadia Bentaieb as Nour[11]
Camille Rutherford as Zoé Solidor[11]
Anne Rotger as the President[11]
Sophie Fillières as Monica[11]
Messi as Snoop[11]

Carrie

Sixteen-year-old Carrie White is a shy teenage girl who lives with her
fanatically religious and unstable mother, Margaret, and is a loner and
bullied by her peers. When Carrie experiences her first period while in
school, she panics, having never been told about menstruation. Her
classmates laugh at her, as well as throwing tampons and sanitary pads at
her, until the gym teacher, Miss Collins, intervenes. Margaret tells Carrie
that her period was caused by sin, and locks Carrie in a "prayer closet" to
pray to God for forgiveness. At school, Miss Collins reprimands Carrie's
tormentors, punishing them with exercise detention, threatening to suspend
them and stop them going to prom if they refuse. Carrie's longtime bully,
Christine "Chris" Hargensen, eventually refuses and gets banned from the
prom.

Plotting vengeance against Carrie, Chris and her boyfriend Billy Nolan break
into a farm and kill pigs to drain their blood into a bucket, which they
place above the school's stage in the gym. Meanwhile, another girl named Sue
Snell, a remorseful classmate, asks her handsome and popular boyfriend,
Tommy Ross, to invite Carrie to prom. Carrie believes the proposition is a
prank, but he insists that it is genuine. Carrie discovers she has
telekinesis. Despite Margaret's protests, she prepares for prom. Margaret
sees Carrie's telekinetic powers and denounces her as a witch.

During prom, Chris and Billy hide under the stage while the other
conspirators switch the ballots to ensure that Carrie wins the Prom Queen
title. As Carrie stands onstage with Tommy, finally beginning to feel
accepted by her peers, Sue realizes Chris and Billy's plan, and tries to
intervene. Miss Collins spots Sue and, thinking that she is up to no good,
throws her out of the prom. Chris and Billy douse Carrie in the pigs' blood
before sneaking out of the school. The empty bucket hits Tommy in the head,
and he faints. The crowd is left shocked, speechless, and sympathetic to
Carrie's distress, but Carrie hallucinates that everyone is mocking her,
believing it was their plan all along. She telekinetically seals the exits
and the students are attacked by a fire house, injuring several, including
Norma. Miss Collins is crushed by a falling basketball backboard, and Carrie
electrocutes her principal and teacher, one of the two bursting into flames,
setting the gym on fire. She exits the burning school and seals the doors
behind her, trapping staff and classmates. As Carrie walks home, Chris
attempts to run her over, but Carrie causes the car to swerve; it rolls and
Carrie ruptures the gas tank, the explosion killing Chris and Billy.

After Carrie bathes herself at home, Margaret reveals that Carrie was
conceived when her drunk husband and Carrie's father, Ralph, raped her, an
act that Margaret shamefully admits she enjoyed. She then stabs Carrie in
the back with a kitchen knife. Carrie sends knives flying toward her,
killing her; then, she destroys the house and perishes.

Some time later, Sue, who was the sole survivor of that night, has a
nightmare in which she goes to lay flowers on the charred remains of
Carrie's home. Upon the remains stands a "For Sale" sign, vandalized in
black paint with the words: "Carrie White burns in Hell!" Suddenly, Carrie's
bloody arm reaches from beneath the rubble and grabs Sue, who wakes up
screaming as her mother tries to comfort her.

Cast
Sissy Spacek as Carrie White
Amy Irving as Sue Snell
William Katt as Tommy Ross
Nancy Allen as Chris Hargensen
John Travolta as Billy Nolan
Betty Buckley as Miss Collins
P. J. Soles as Norma
Sydney Lassick as Mr. Fromm
Stefan Gierasch as Mr. Morton
Priscilla Pointer as Mrs. Snell
Piper Laurie as Margaret White
Edie McClurg as Helen Shyres