Well, not mine, though oftentimes the nearer I get to that magic age, the more fascinated I become with never again having to set an alarm clock. No, as editor of Library Journal’s Video Reviews section, I have more recently been confronted with the retirement of my reviewers.

Having adopted the section in 1981, I was certainly the new “kid” on the video block. The reviewers who came with the job were wonderful at making it an easy transition. Some of them are still with LJ. A number of these hard-working contributors stop by LJ’s New York office on occasion or the LJ booth at the various conferences we both attend. Others I am yet to meet.

Those of you fast on your mathematical feet will calculate that it is 26 years since I took on Video Reviews. As my reviewers mention their retirement or its approach, one thought that speeds across my brain is, “Great, now they will have more time to review. I can send multiple programs at once as their schedules are free and unencumbered.”

Wait, what did you say in that email? You are forgoing reviewing now that you are no longer working? How did that happen? I expected their retirement to make my life easier; now I will have to recruit more reviewers, break them in, deal with a whole new crew. This is not what I bargained for at this stage of my career. I had hoped we might all go out together in a blaze of glory—but a number of years down the line. In truth, I can’t begrudge these folks their hard-won rest from the reviewer routine. They have done more than their fair share.

Speaking of shares, my own stock portfolio might not be deep enough at this time to support my retirement. Instead, I will have to invest in my reviewer portfolio. Any librarians and academics out there interested in reviewing video/DVDs, please let me know. And retirees are always welcome.

A French-language film adaptation of Harlan Coben’s nail-biting thriller Tell No One was named best picture of 2006 at the Lumiere awards (the French equivalent of the Golden Globes) in Paris Feb. 5. The picture, which was released in France Nov. 1 and has been nominated for nine Cesar awards (French Oscars), also won the audience prize, for which French filmgoers were invited to vote. Directed by Guilliaume Canet, Ne Le Dis a Personne stars Kristin Scott Thomas (The English Patient), Francois Cluzet, and Nathalie Baye and features a brief walk-on by Coben himself. Until the film is released in the United States, Coben fans will have to satisfy their curiosity at the film’s website  Ne Le Dis A Personne but they’ll have to brush up on their high-school francais!

After a balmy 70s in NYC today, temperatures are predicted to drop to the 40s over the weekend. So Sunday evening I plan to sip hot chocolate and watch Noah Wyle star as our favorite librarian/action hero in The LIbrarian: Return to King Solomon’s Mines, the sequel to TNT’s “inexplicably successful” 2004 TNT movie: The Librarian:  Quest for the Spear. Yes, the first movie was cheesy and silly, and the New York Times critic didn’t like the new one either. Still how often do you get to watch a librarian as a sexy hero, rather than as a repressed, bun-wearing shushing harridan?. (By the way, Wyle in an interview  noted he got gratifying mail from librarians who were pleased “that we’re trying to rewrite the paradigm of what an action hero is supposed to be — that it’s not just might that makes right, that sometimes the biggest brain can win you out in the end.” And to see Bob Newhart, playing the library curator, chastise Wyle for wiping his sweaty face on the Shroud of Turin is worth the two hours of wasted TV watching. 

My old friend Judy Quinn and I have a phrase that we say  whenever we see libraries and librarians portrayed in movies or on television. We call them “Library Journal moments”. The two TNT Librarian movies are ultimate LIbrary Journal moments but some other favorites include David O. Russell’s Spanking the Monkey in which the incestuous mother, who is a librarian, is lying in bed with a broken leg reading LIbrary Journal, and Whit Stillman’s Metropolitan in which one of the WASPY Park Avenue characters quotes a line from a LJ book review. What’s your favorite Library Journal moment?

It’s the eve of the big Turkey Day, and I am making my annual plans to do some binge eating and film watching. Friday I am checking out the new blond Bond at an early screening of Casino Royale, based on Ian Fleming’s classic 1953 novel.  Saturday I am hitting the art houses for the film adaptation of Tom Perotta’s marvelous novel, Little Children. What to see on Sunday? How about a little-reviewed comedy called Let’s Go To Prison starring Arrested Development’s Will Arnett. What intrigues me is this movie is an “adaptation” of Jim Hogshire’s underground  You are Going to Prison. Published in 1994 by alternative publisher Loompanics Unlimited, which also issued John Hoffman’s classic The Art and Science of Dumpster Diving, this cult favorite was a self-help guide for the newly convicted on what to expect in prison.   At the time, I debated whether to send this book out for review. Would someone going to prison buy this book in a bookstore, borrow from a library, or just steal it from both? In the end, I passed on this title, to my regret. Because now it is a big Hollywood movie! Still, ten dollars is a lot of money to spend on a film that got a mixed review so maybe I’ll just Netflix it or….ahem…borrow from my local public library when it comes out on DVD. Happy Thanksgiving!

Five years after 9/11, I’m experiencing a sea change. Books and movies on the topic became a no-no when, in 2003, I stupidly took home a photography book chronicling Twin Tower carnage. For a few nights, I had trouble sleeping—the image of a severed human leg had been burned into my brain. Then along came Oliver Stone’s movie, World Trade Center. A co-worker and I who were in New York on 9/11 confessed we both were eager to see it. Soon after, that same colleague remembered a passing comment I’d made at BEA about Sid Jacobsen and Ernie Colon’s The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation (Hill & Wang; review forthcoming) and left a spare copy on my desk. I let it sit and stare at me for a day, daring the book to scare me off. It didn’t. Although I’m only 20 pages in, I must say I’m riveted to the marrow, completely and utterly astounded by America’s innocence and naivite. The comic-book treatment does not, in my opinion, demean or sensationalize. Much like it did in Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis, it seems to cut through the cloud of confusion surrounding historical events, and I’m grateful more than anything.

On a related note, readers this time of year may be experiencing heightened anxiety and/or depression and looking to psychology books for help. Here are some relevant titles: Richard F. Mollica’s Healing Invisible Wounds: Paths to Hope and Recovery in a Violent World (Harcourt; review forthcoming), Boris Cyrulnik’s The Whispering of Ghosts: Trauma and Resilience (Other Press), On the Ground After September 11: Mental Health Responses and Practical Knowledge Gained (Haworth), Patricia Carrington and others’ Love You, Mean It (Hyperion, review forthcoming), and John S. Dacey and Lisa B. Fiore’s The Safe Child Handbook (Wiley, review forthcoming).

You can call it pandering, or you can call it marketing genius, but I’ve heard rumors of libraries holding viewings of classic summer blockbusters. And why not? Many a mega flick has sprung from a book—take Peter Benchley’s Jaws, Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park, and Winston Groom’s Forrest Gump. Of course, more probably have nothing to do with a novel, but plenty of literature bears the Star Wars imprimatur, for instance. These days, books and movies just need each other—Hollywood execs heat-seek “built-in” audiences, and publishers want that big-screen exposure to beef up a backlist. I’m convinced that libraries should publicize that connection to draw in patrons. Movies and books are luxuries for a large chunk of the population, and by making them free (essentially), you’ll be doing your community a double service: You may turn a connoisseur of one medium on to the other and enrich their worldview. In the meantime, I’m going to watch Pirates of the Caribbean: A Dead Man’s Chest. And who knows? Maybe I’ll whip out Treasure Island.