3 Kanopy Recommendations For The Weekend From BPL Librarian Weston Flippo

Between the weather, holiday season stresses, and disappointing college football seasons, throwing up your hands and staying in this weekend is entirely understandable. To better drown out the hollowing cold winds and cries of despair from football fans, here are three movies you can watch on Kanopy. All you need to access Kanopy is a JCLC library card!

1. The Decline of Western Civilization: Part Ⅱ The Metal Years

For me, this is one of the best music documentaries ever made. Spanning from 1987 to 1988, director Penelope Spheeris digs deep into the live fast and die young world of the Los Angeles heavy metal community. The documentary features Ozzy Osbourne (cooking breakfast), Lemmy (Motorhead), Paul Stanley (KISS), members of Poison, Odin, and most notoriously, Chris Holmes of WASP. Seen by many as the death knell to the glam metal scene of the late 1980s, Decline of Western Civilization Part Ⅱ is an excellent but very sobering look at excess and the quest for frame.

2. His Girl Friday

When Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell are on screen together in this 1940 Howard Hawks film, their chemistry is practically hitting you in the face with a bat. Grant and Russell play a newspaper editor and star reporter, respectively, that despite their divorce and Russell's upcoming wedding, are thrust back together to cover the execution of a prisoner. Through hijinks, gunplay, corrupt politicians, and police officers, you will find yourself rooting for Russell and Grant to get the scope and maybe each other. 

3. Rock N' Roll High School

I remember being told by a college friend that I should be wary of people who do not like the Ramones. While this guidance hasn't always been true, I do side-eye a person's musical opinion if they disparage the great works of the Ramones. Rock N' Roll High School starts P.J. Soles as Riff Randell, a rebellious Ramones-loving high school student at Vince Lombardi High School. Riff and the diabolical Principal Togar wage battle over the soul of the school that eventually drags the Ramones into the fray. While some of the jokes have not aged well, and the budget is far from breaking the bank, watching people dance to the Ramones while a school-wide dance party breaks out makes it all worth it.

By Weston Flippo | Librarian Ⅰ, Central Library