The Reel Monday films have been a fan fave for years now and you can almost hear the cheers as organizers have announced the slate for the next screenings set to start in September.
“It isn’t easy to pick movies that will satisfy everyone in our audience,” said Valerie Spink, the president of the Friends of St. Albert Public Library, the hosts of the series.
The Greatest Showman, screening on Sept. 24, stars Hugh Jackman as P.T. Barnum, circus leader and entertainer extraordinaire in this biopic-slash-musical directed by Michael Gracey.
“I have a friend who has seen it five times so I am assuming it is good,” Spink admitted.
The screening set for Oct. 22 will either be Meditation Park or Finding Your Feet. The first is a Canadian-made drama by acclaimed director Mina Shum. Starring Cheng Pei Pei, Sandra Oh and Don McKellar, it studies relationship difficulties as two generations of women from the same family discover their respective partner’s infidelities and regain their independence in interesting ways. The second is a light British comedy with some great character actors including greats Imelda Staunton, Joanna Lumley and Timothy Spall. Spink said that it has been described as “comfort food.”
Rounding out the series on Nov. 5 is Book Club, featuring Jane Fonda, Diane Keaton, Candice Bergen and Mary Steenburgen. It’s about four women, longstanding participants in a monthly book club, who all discover their personal discontent in their relationships after reading Fifty Shades of Grey. Now in their 70s, they get back into the swing of things through online dating and rekindling old flings, while retirement and nagging families throw a kink into their plans.
Reel Mondays, which includes a spring and fall series, serves as a major fundraiser for the St. Albert Readers’ Festival, better known as STARFest.
“This fundraiser is important to STARFest because the reading community looks forward to meeting and hearing the authors the library brings in and this costs the library money, so our contribution is a good help,” Spink said.
Tickets for individual movies are $15 each, while a season ticket for all three movies is $40.They can be purchased from the customer service desk at the library. Call 780-459-1530 or visit www.sapl.ca for more information.
All movies will be shown at the Arden Theatre at 7 p.m. All proceeds will go to benefit STARFest, presented by St. Albert Public Library.
